[Xerte] Linking to repositories

[Fred Riley]

Hi

This is a bit of a punt, not a problem but rather a speculative query. Is anyone working on building a Xerte Toolkits feature to link to resources in learning object / digital asset repositories via SRU/SRW or even RSS? I'm thinking that institutions running Xerte and central repositories (such as Nottingham, natch) might like authors to have the option to search the repository for, say, images or videos, to include in a Xerte LO.

I know that each repository resource will have a unique URI which the author could copy and paste into Xerte, but that requires the author (often very naive technically) to go off to the repo, find the resource, grab the URI, and return to Xerte. If the author could search directly from within XOT for resources that would be nice. It would have some spin-offs, such as the author knowing that resources are ok to use from an IPR viewpoint if s/he connects to a copyright-cleared collection in the repo. If the 'plugin' could also allow the author to upload a resource not just to Xerte but to the repo, that would help sharing and perhaps help build OER collections

I'm also aware of XPERT. but AFAIK there's no way of directly connecting to it from Xerte. I've not looked at the Xerte 3 beta as yet. 

Cheers

Fred
www.fredriley.org.uk