Thanks for everyone's comments and feedback to NLN materials - a solution, which has now been developed into the Object activity module.
This module allows teachers to browse and preview learning objects in a repository, then add them to their courses.
The Object module was developed as a solution to making the NLN materials (learning objects free for use in Further and Adult Education in the UK) easily available for teachers to use. However, as Andy D has noted, our solution may be used with any packages that contain top-level imsmanifest files e.g. packages created using Reload.
To install the Object module, please download the attached zip file and extract to moodle/mod. This will create a folder called object in the mod folder. Install the language pack by extracting en.zip in the object folder to moodle/lang. Visit your admin page to complete the installation.To set up the repository, please copy learning objects to moodle/mod/object/repository. If an alternative location for the repository is preferred, then the file path to the new location may be set in Administration >> Configuration >> Modules >> Object.
The directory structure of the repository is used to create the navigation so it's important to set this up in a logical way to enable teachers to easily find relevant learning objects.
Future development of the Object module will include a meta-data search facility and integration into the Repository resource type in Moodle 1.6.
As always, comments or suggestions for improvement are appreciated!
PS Developing this module was lots of fun!