E-learning stuff at Oxford

Adam Marshall

Senior Bodington Developer

Learning Technologies Group

Oxford University Computing Services

Stuff?

WebLearn (Bodington)

LUSID / Skills Profiling

Guan Xi

ASK (Repository)

Bodington?

Nathan Bodington - first VC at Leeds Uni

Developed at Leeds since 1995

Can be a VLE

based on virtual campus metaphor

accessible

free and open source (Source Forge)

Can also be other things!

see later

What we like

Simple to use and navigate

Consistent customisable GUI input

‘Proper’ URLs for each item

Can move & copy resources after creation

Fine-grained access control

Devolved administration, floor managers

Open source, we ‘webauthed’ (single sign on)!

User store

Sidenote: SSO Issues

‘WebAuthing’ is fairly easy! Grab cookie.

But what about non Card holders?

Bodleian Readers?

Cont. Ed. Course attendees?

Collaborators?

Had to fudge the issue!

two ‘login’ buttons

Delmonte service to check username

What WebLearn does

Group communication room: new one coming

Structured document

Link to external web document

Web document

Multiple Choice Question paper

Questionnaire – being improved over summer

Short Answer paper

Pigeon hole

Logbooks / e-Portfolio

Timed release

RSS / Atom Display

WebLearn as e-portfolio

WebLearn can be used as basic e-portfolio

learner-owned logbook

artefact repository, office docs, video, etc

manage visibility

collation / presentation facility

peer reviewing (tutor / classmate)

group discussion rooms

Mobile Blogging

A Web log (blog): is e.g. a journal, commentary written by individual or group of people and published on the Web

can be about anything and everything

can be text, photos, video..

Mobile Blogging

’81 Osborne 1 11kg, ’05 iPaq 1940 125g

Mobile Blogging

Mobile Blogging

Future Facilities in WebLearn

Enhanced questionnaires

Reading lists – pilot next term

LAMS and TOIA integration

Internationalisation (i18n)

Localisation (i12n)

MVN forum (MyVietnam!)

IMS Enterprise Services (BEWT)

Others (SPWS / Guan Xi / ASK)

IMS Enterprise Services

IMS Enterprise:

Web Service (WSDL)

People

Groups

Membership

CRUD ops

standard system

WebLearn as SIS!

Based on CETIS toolkit.

SPWS Skills Profiling

Skills Profiling Web Service

Funded by JISC

Many aspects

Define meta skills framework

Skills framework instance (clinical skills)

Web Service call from VLE

Skills Interoperability

Student uses two e-learning systems

Student moves institutions

Lifelong learning record / Personal Development Planning (PDP)

a structured and supported process undertaken by an individual to reflect upon their own learning, performance and / or achievement and to plan for their personal, educational and career development

Representation

Need ’standardised’ definition so use open standards:

IMS RDCEO – reusable definitions of competency and educational objectives

IMS VDEX – vocabulary definition exchange

Competencies (C): conceptual aspect of competence

Educational Objectives (EO): local implementation of C. We concentrate on ‘C’.

Framework

Borrow from LUSID (see later)

Coarse-grained concept, eg, skill area:

IT, Communications, Teamwork, ..

Medium-grained shared skill’ concepts, eg, skill topics:

WP, DB, Email, ……

Shared skill concepts hierarchical:

WP: Style sheets, TOC, embed Excel tables, ...

LUSID – on its way?

Configurable framework for PDP,

Recording, Planning, Skills, Reporting

Uses a skills framework

Open Source PDP framework

write own pages

configure own skill sets per Department

Structured data goals, activities, etc

UK Leap in and out (web service)

Used at

Liverpool for Tutorial and course support

Oxford by CeTL Academic Practice – possibly!

Phosphorix ioNodes (various JISC projects)

Guan Xi - Shibboleth

Shibboleth? Internet2 authorisation!

solves username password woe

solves authorisation woe

solves accounting woe

uses SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language)

adopted by JISC (Athens gateway)

Guan Xi? Chinese business relationships!

SAMUEL toolkit (SAML for e-learning)

attribute aggregator (> 1 attribute store)

Simplified Shibb. Scenario

Student@ox wants to use VLE@cam

VLE@cam says ’not logged in’

Where are you from (WAYF)? Oxford.

Student@ox login in via WebAuth@ox

Student@ox’s group membership noted

Student@ox goes back to VLE@cam

VLE@cam says OK, are you authorised?

VLE@cam checks groups – Yes/no

Ox are Identity Provider; Cam Service Provider

Bodington and Shibboleth

v2.4.3 contains Guan Xi IdP (origin)

Deploys ‘out of the box’, supports unicode

Used by Leeds, Man U, Soton and Penn State

Integrate MVN forum

Integrate LUSID (PDP) as SP (target)?

WIKI (soon)

Bodington as SP soon

Moodle?

Recall the SSO Problem?

Two login buttons! Possible solution:

two Bodingtons

one as SP = A

other as IdP = B

Oxford students login via WebAuth

Can use A as normal

Guests go to A, get sent to B to login (WAYF)

B logs then in and sends back to A

A checks groups and logs user in if allowed

Can have many B’s – devolved admin!

Tools interoperability

Using Shibboleth (Guan Xi) – easy!!

Take tool and ‘Shibb’ it:

make Guan Xi SP filter to webapp (web.xml)

Guan Xi guards access to tool

create account in tool (on-fly / LDAP / etc)

User logs into WebLearn can use tool

Eg, MyVietnam (MVN forum)

To do: WebLearn group data in tool (BEWT)

Distributed Data Problem

Shibbed tools:

what happens to data?

stored ‘all over the place’ - how to keep track?

also PDP needs data as one lump

Blimey!

Solution?: PIADS (Personal Infromation Aggregation and Distribution Service)

a gateway to all personal data

no implementations yet – still selling idea

Distributed Data Problem

Personal Information Aggregation & Distribution Service

Personal Learning Environment

Personal Development Planning
Web
Service

Learning design & materials repository service

database

database

database

Learner

Key:

WS call

WS return

other (may be WS)

Educator

ASK – Repositories

Accessing and Sharing Knowledge (ASK)

2 year project - starting very soon

E-learning focused repository

Design led implementation

licensing, SRW, RSS, OIA, …

Shibbolised web filestore cf apple idisk

metadata management

content management

Bodington as ACL server

Use ASK repository to store Bodington content

Exciting!

Vision – Bodington the Next Generation

More facilities (internal and Shibboleth)

Personal Learning Environment (PLE)?

Sakai – OSID?

U-Portal? JetSpeed? JSR 168? WSRP?

ELF web service interfaces

Shibboleth, IMS TI?

Go forth and ……

Bodington: bodington.org/

Guan Xi: www.guanxi.uhi.ac.uk/

SPWS: www.elframework.org/projects/spws/

LUSID: lusid.liv.ac.uk/

PIADS: www.elframework.org/projects/ws4rl

RAMBLE: ramble.oucs.ox.ac.uk/

ASK: ask.oucs.ox.ac.uk/

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adamm

2004-11-17T17:44:56