Use of Equella at Aston University an ‘institutional solution’

Sarah Hayes 24 March 2010

School of Languages &Social Sciences

About Equella

Aston University Institutional Learning Content repository

Contains media and learning content, such as videos, audio files, PDFs, Word Docs and the Library items e.g. scanned chapters for coursesAt first, a solution to ERA licensed content and large filesRecent update to reflect Aston University's corporate brandingNot used actively to share materials, many tutors unaware of EquellaHowever further development is intended to make use easierNew Collections being added in next few weeks:

Library collectionERA  collectionVideo collection

Equella - Blackboard integration

Equella is accessed via Blackboard only:

Advantages and disadvantagesOnly by instructors on coursesNo access for students currentlyItems contributed only via the Blackboard control panel Items may be searched and added to modules from any module page

A Blackboard module page: to add an item that is already in Equella

Go to the edit view

The edit view of the page

Choose to add an Equella object

Search Equella from the module page

Search for the item you hope to find

Select the chosen Equella item

Select the item

Edit the Blackboard details

Add any details or instructions for students to see

Tutors may find this language a bit odd?

The item is added to the page

In ‘mouse clicks’ this process takes 5 or 6, but uploading own content takes a bit longer

Uploading to Equella (only via Blackboard)

A tutor would first click on the Blackboard Control Panel

The Blackboard Control Panel

There are rather too many options here. A tutor would need to know to choose the EQUELLA Contribute option

Equella item contribution screens

It is clear to see you are now in the Learning Object Repository

The number of fields to complete on this upload screen have been considerably reduced recently, so it is now quicker to add items

The ability to add items from a module page rather than the control panel would be handy