Creating a Repository of Training Materials: The Canadian Experience

Over the past nine years, many presentations, demonstrations, and workshops have been given at the four annual training sessions for the Data Liberation Initiative (DLI) across Canada. These sessions are rich in content and remain useful long after the initial presentation. However, if one were looking for a certain item, there was often a difficulty finding it because the material was stored in an ad hoc fashion and not archived in a central location. This became increasingly problematic for the trainers as the number of sessions grew. The Education Committee of the DLI was examining this issue and the idea of a Training Repository (TR) was born. The enthusiastic responses given at the latest training sessions, which introduced the TR, reaffirmed the need for it. And everyone was pleased to see the ease of retrieving a session. Currently there are over 150 presentations in the TR. This presentation examines the history of the Training Repository, the criteria used to choose the program that houses it, and the processes used to populate it.