Selection and Use of Search Mechanisms in Learning Object Repositories: the Case of Organic.Edunet

Difficulties in finding learning objects (LOs) in LO repositories (LORs) are one of the main barriers, which prevent LORs from being globally adopted. During the Organic.Edunet European research project, different search interfaces were developed with the intention of facilitating the location of LOs, considering users would tend to use different interfaces, according to the objectives and specific search context. This paper resumes the results of a usability study carried out in Organic.Edunet portal, where users were asked to complete different search tasks that were clearly oriented to the use of one of the existing interfaces, and provides a snapshot about how this knowledge was transferred to Organic.Lingua project.