Higher education funding agencies in Ireland and the UK have joined forces to further the development of e-learning in third level educational institutes. At a recent meeting in Dublin, the Higher Education Authority (HEA) and the UK’s Joint Information Services Committee signed a memorandum of co-operation that will see the agencies sharing knowledge, ideas, experience and possibly content as well. The agreement is seen to be a significant boost to the development of the recently established National Digital Repository — which draws together existing digital images, maps, pieces of film and audio, texts, simulations and other multimedia elements in one resource for use by academics and students. The repository, which is expected to be in use by the end of next year, consists of a digital learning resource repository together with a small set of tools to facilitate easy population of and retrieval from the storage area.
