The open access idea can also be extended to the learning objects and resources provided in e-learning.

Early on, the company demonstrated a library of re-usable learning objects and server-side web based course authoring applications.

Kursnavet (Swedish), is a repository containing around 11 000 (2007) unique learning objects, free of use non-commersial.

Agrega is Spain's national learning object repository network.

The learning objects must have an external structure of information to facilitate their identification, storage and retrieval: the metadata.

The following is a list of some of the types of information that may be included in a learning object and its metadata:

The most important pieces of metadata typically associated with a learning object include:

If a learning object is reusable in many contexts, it isn't particularly useful in any.

Instruction librarians teach information literacy skills in face-to-face classes and/or through the creation of online learning objects.

Some of these tools treat each slide as a learning object and allow to add tests and online activities between the slides.