edna.edu.au

edna provides a host of features including advanced searching, online spaces for education and training groups, and web services in HTML/XML/RSS format.

Services are available free. The content is designed for the Australian education and training community for educational and research purposes.

You can stay up-to-date with edna news by registering for The Networker: to join, send a blank email to: join-thenetworker@edna.edu.au.

Below is a list of the current services provided by edna.

edna - Australia's leading online resource and collaborative network for the education and training community.

• easy to use contemporary interface
• powerful search and browse for educational resources
• sector entry points for key levels of teaching and learning
• easy RSS creation button to integrate news, links and resources into your website, portal or RSS reader
• podcasts by and for Australian educators
• rsstojs feed converter tool - cut and paste RSS feeds into  your website using simple javascript code
• commitment to accessibility for all users to W3C standards 

edna repository

www.edna.edu.au/browse
The edna repository has over 30,000 quality assured web-based resources useful for education, training, teaching and learning and research. These are categorised to provide an extensive browsing interface.

Search

edna offers standard, advanced, distributed and sector search options.

Standard search
www.edna.edu.au/edna/search?SearchMode=standard
Search 30,000+ quality assured education and training resources for School Education, Early Childhood Education, Vocational Education and Training, Adult and Community Education and Higher Education from the edna repository. Access over 1.6 million resources by selecting the all repositories option.

Advanced search
www.edna.edu.au/search/search?SearchMode=advanced
The advanced search enables you to search on a combination of metadata fields. In this way you can focus your search very tightly. A number of metadata fields are available to choose from. Because not all records have all fields, for best results use title, description and subject. You can also use the edna category titles - get a full list of these from: www.edna.edu.au/edna/browsemap/0.

Distributed search
www.edna.edu.au/edna/search?SearchMode=distributed
The edna distributed search enables searching of multiple quality assured education and training collections, both Australian and international. Using the edna distributed search allows the mixing and matching of collections for tailored federated searching.

Sector searches
The search functionality within each sector's section of edna defaults to a search based on an audience facet for that sector.
For instance, the Early Childhood search defaults to resources and events of interest to Early Childhood educators
http://www.edna.edu.au/edna/go/ece/pid/422?SearchMode=standard

News

edna aggregates education news for each sector. News headlines have a particular focus on ICT in education for the Australian education and training community. News is published on the website and is available via RSS feeds.
www.edna.edu.au/edna/news

Newsletters

edna produces several newsletters for different audiences in the education and training community. The newsletters are compiled from a wide variety of sources, from within Australia and internationally; items are chosen for their interest and significance. The newsletters also refer to resources recently added to the edna repository, and highlight information about upcoming events, conferences, grants and scholarships. Newsletters are emailed to subscribers.
http://www.edna.edu.au/edna/go/news/newsletters

Podcasts

e-learning insights - an edna podcast aims to provide teachers and trainers with up-to-date news and information about e-learning for educators in mp3 audio format.
http://www.edna.edu.au/edna/go/news/podcast

Shared information services

You can receive the latest education news every day through edna shared information services.

 edna services that are available as RSS, XML or HTML options include:

• Browse (in edna topics and categories)
• News headlines (for each sector and edna)
• Recently added resources (descriptions of resources added to edna's repository, by browse category)
• Search (plus distributed search of multiple education and training repositories).

There are also a range of generators available that give users an option to copy and paste into their own website or portal.
http://www.edna.edu.au/edna/go/resources/toolkit/

• distribute a newsletter
• host a discussion
• promote an event
• communicate with colleagues.

edna Groups is a fully-featured collaborative toolset based on open source Moodle system software. Groups can be public (open to all) or private (invitation only). Each group receives a space in which it can choose from a range of tools to facilitate communication and collaboration. For example, you can set up web forums and live chats; share web links, files and images; create web pages and wikis; poll or survey members; add RSS newsfeeds. Recent features added include:

• edna instant messaging between members
• theming for individual Groups (subject to conditions)
• blog tool
• my groups view
• learning design using LAMS (Learning Activity Management System)
• database module for managing resources
• improved group management tools

edna has released an online 'sandpit' environment for educators to explore and road-test new and emerging technologies for learning.

Initial features of the new site include:

• Elgg personal learning environment/e-portfolio application integrated with edna Groups
• Web conferencing trial using Live Classroom
• Podcasting using iPodcast
• The latest Moodle releases
• 'Web 2.0 functions

www.edna.edu.au/admin
The edna repository is the foundation for delivering the edna resource discovery functions.

This metadata repository contains description of content types including websites, learning resources, documents, news and calendar events. It supports metadata formats including AGLS, Dublin Core and edna.

The edna repository is based upon the DSpace open source digital repository system.