Linking research & learning technologies through standards

I recently attended the 2010 EIFEL e-portfolio conference called “Learning Forum London 2010“. Naturally, this conference was of particular relevance to the recently completed Digital Education Revolution (DER) e-portfolio activity, but also covered topics including trusted access to personal information and access and identity management. These topics are also of direct relevance to the work of two other recent activities; Century Curriculum Content and Learning Content Discovery and Exchange activities (all of these activities are part of the Technical Standards for Digital Education project).

There were numerous discussions at the conference on how to empower individuals to maintain control over their personal information. A parallel forum focused on the evolution of an “Internet of Subjects” (meaning an internet of/for people, rather than content).

I also presented a paper on privacy and e-portfolios which discussed some recent work in the Australian VET sector on this topic.

There were interesting updates on a number of European projects of relevance to Australian education including TAS3 (Trusted Architecture for Securely Shared Services) which is developing and testing an architecture and related infrastructure for faciltating trusted communication, access and exchange of information online.

Another project called ASPECT is looking at a number of learning technology standards/specifications. This includes for example evaluating software tool support for specifications such as IMS Common Cartridge and SCORM 2004. The ASPECT project is producing some really useful information about e-learning standards/specifications and has been mentioned on this blog previously.

XCRI (eXchanging Course Related Information) is a UK standard for describing University/college course information using a standardised format. It can be used to help match people to courses courses that meet their requirements (including for example study area, study mode and location), as in this project in the English Midlands.

The conference also confirmed in my mind that the leap2A specification for e-portfolios is fast becoming the de facto standard for e-portfolio interoperability. There seems to be a lot of activity around the specification at the moment and more e-portfolio software tools are starting to support it or consider supporting it.

You can find more information about the Learning Forum London 2010 on the conference website.

The Technical Standards for Digital Education project’s accessibility activity was primarily focused on investigating the potential impact of new web accessibility guidelines on schools sector e-learning content.  In December 2008, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) released a new version of the de facto international standard for web accessibility called Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0). In response, the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) in consultation with The Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) undertook a consultation process with government departments during 2009 in preparation for a transition to WCAG 2.0 as a government requirement for web content. A transition timetable was released in 2010.

The implementation of the new accessibility requirements should bring benefits for learners accessing web and e-learning content in schools. However, there will need to be support provided to web content developers, teachers and IT staff in order to facilitate the transition.

Within this context, the aim of our accessibility work was as follows:

• Build capability and assist the schools sector to understand the potential impact, challenges and opportunities WCAG 2.0 could present for the Australian schools sector
• Provide advice to DEEWR relating to AGIMO WCAG 2.0 consultations

In collaboration with a dedicated focus group, we investigated potential implications, current trends and barriers to accessibility of web content. In addition, the activity converted some existing e-learning content to comply to WCAG 2.0 requirements to gain a practical understanding of the potential challenges. All of these findings as well as recommendations for further action for Australian governments have been documented in the final report.

An activity considering “21 Century curriculum content” has recently concluded as part of the DEEWR funded Technical Standards for Digital Education project.

This work focused on two specific aspects of incorporating Web 2.0 technologies into learning and teaching; the nexus between Web 2.0 collaborative functionality and the e-learning content that is already widely used in Australian schools, and the issue of safe use of Web 2.0 functionality.

As with other Technical Standards project activities, this work was undertaken in collaboration with a focus group, which also helped to scope and define the purpose of the work. The term “safe” in particular required further elaboration, with the focus group considering this implied a reasonable level of safety, which addressed duty of care obligations and concerns around young learners online. However, variances in the interpretation of what this might mean in practice reflect the diversity of approaches to technology in schools between and within jurisdictions.

An associated piece of work resulted in the customisation of some existing schools sector focused e-learning content to more closely integrate Web 2.0 collaborative functionality. This activity investigated a relatively new IMS specification called Common Cartridge, as explained in a previous blog post. A survey was also undertaken with focus group members, and the following technical challenges were identified:

• Network and firewall barriers
• Professional development for teachers
• Assessing and selecting appropriate tools for use with learners
• Understanding and managing security and duty of care requirements
• Access and identity management.

The resulting report outlines the findings of activity, and also points to some useful resources for facilitating the integration of Web 2.0 collaborative tools with learners. A number of recommendations for further work have also been made in the report.

The Technical standards for digital education project’s e-portfolio (electronic portfolio) activity is now complete and a final report has been published. There has been a growing interest in Australian schools and beyond in the potential for e-portfolios to support learning and teaching aims. The work of this particular project was defined by these initial aims:

• Develop a clearer understanding of current e-portfolio use in Australian schools
• Identify the key technical challenges for supporting e-portfolios in the Australian schools sector
• Inform future technical support requirements and activities.

The focus group that presided over this activity comprised a number of experienced and enthusiastic people, and also included representatives from tertiary education. The group identified a range of common uses for e-portfolios in Australian schools, including reflection on achievements and planning, supporting transitioning and pathways, and assessment.

The report illustrates this usage with examples of current e-portfolio usage in jurisdictions, including the Smart Classrooms initiative (QLD), the Future SACE (South Australian Certificate of Education) and the Digital portfolio resources developed by the Victorian government. A number of technical challenges were identified based on focus group input. These challenges broadly fell into the following four categories:

• Usage: how e-portfolios are used (their purpose), and how this usage can change over time
• Portability: enabling e-portfolios to follow learners through learning pathways and transition points
• Longevity: ensuring the e-portfolio and associated content has longevity
• Access: controlling and managing appropriate access to learner information.

The report makes recommendations for further action based around these key technical challenges, including the need for national collaboration to identify solutions. Thanks to all the focus group members for the time and expertise they contributed to this work.

As part of the Technical Standards in Digital Education project, the Link Affiliates team and e-Works have recently been working on some demonstrator e-learning content (see our previous blog post for background information) using a fairly new specification called IMS Common Cartridge.

The IMS Common Cartridge (IMS CC) specification was developed by IMS Global as a way of packaging and deploying e-learning content. Rather than being a completely new specification, IMS CC actually uses a number of existing IMS specifications and provides more prescriptive information on their implementation to give more certainty to software developers and implementers of the specification. We’ve been exploring IMS CC as a way of incorporating collaborative Web 2.0 functionality and services with e-learning content.

We are now winding up our development work and are starting to reflect on what we’ve learnt from the experience. In general, this experience has been quite positive. The documentation seems quite user-friendly, and there is a collection of example IMS CC content available to “CC Alliance” members on the IMS Global website.

A big challenge for the IMS CC specification at the moment is software tool support. With a new specification, vendors often seem to hold off on implementing it until they see that there is enough market acceptance. However content creators aren’t going to use a specification if it is not widely adopted by vendors, which can result in a stand-off.

In the case of IMS CC, there are a growing number of tools that support the creation of Common Cartridges including eXe, MIR Common Cartridge System and Common Cartridge Builder. The ASPECT project is documenting information on tool support for IMS CC, and we found their information was useful. As we were working with existing SCORM content, we also used the SCORM2CC conversion tool, which was effective and easy to use. In general, although the freely available tools for creating IMS CC content are improving, our developer found it sometimes easier to edit the underlying XML code directly. If the IMS CC specification starts to get traction in Australia, a more detailed evaluation of the available tools for non-technical users will need to be undertaken.

For testing IMS CC content, IMS provides a Test System which performs a similar function to the ADL Test Suite for SCORM content. We found the Test System to be very useful, as it tests the content against the IMS schemas as well as running a number of other checks (defined as Schematron rules). The error messages do require some knowledge of the specification.

Support for playing/executing IMS CC content is still somewhat limited, but the list of Learning Management Systems (LMS) that support IMS CC is growing. Moodle 1.9+ (with a patch), Moodle 2.0 and Atutor have support for IMS CC content. Blackboard has been slower to provide support for the specification, but recently confirmed it’s commitment to supporting IMS CC.

We are currently documenting our outcomes from this project and will be publishing a report with recommendations for further work before the middle of the year.

The Link Affiliates team in collaboration with e-Works are currently working on some schools-based e-learning content to explore emerging trends and influences affecting content. This work is part of the DEEWR funded Technical Standards for Digital Education project. There are two particular aspects to this work:

• Integration and use of collaborative Web 2.0 type technologies with e-learning content appropriate for use in Australian schools
• Exploring the potential impact and challenges for the Australian schools sector from the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 specification (for more information on WCAG 2.0, refer to Kristena Gladman’s recent post).

To facilitate this work, The Learning Federation has kindly provided us with small number of e-learning resources to work with.

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0

We will be modifying the content to align it with WCAG 2.0 guidelines to gain a practical understanding of what this entails and how this might differ from current best practice. Exploring what WCAG 2.0 means in practice to different types of content including Adobe Flash, and identifying the availability of WCAG 2.0 related implementation information and how useful this is to developers.

IMS Common Cartridge

The content will be packaged using the recent IMS Common Cartridge (IMS CC) specification, which is a method for packaging and deploying e-learning content. This specification has a few features we are planning to explore to embed collaborative services/functionality, and to facilitate access control. We are also wanting to determine how much practical software support exists for the IMS CC specification and what this means to users.

Outcomes

This content will be demonstrated to the Technical Standards for Digital Education project’s focus groups at a face to face meeting to coincide with the IDEA10 conference in mid March. We are hoping to also make some or all of this content publicly available pending copyright clearance soon after this demonstration.

In the vocational education and training sector each year, a group called the E-standards Expert Group reviews and agrees on the recommended national e-standards for VET e-learning content. This group is endorsed by the National Senior Officials Committee.

The E-standards Expert Group comprises representatives from each state and territory plus a number of key VET stakeholders. In its final meeting for 2009 in Adelaide, the group reached agreement on the recommended 2010 VET e-standards, which is a minimum set of specifications for developing and testing e-learning content against. In other words, content can be optimised for other hardware and software specifications, but it must be tested and work with the agreed e-standards.

An important consideration is compatibility with existing e-learning content and systems, so usually the review process is evolutionary. New versions of software and hardware are not always compatible with older versions, however not everyone is willing or able to upgrade to the latest version, so a balance needs to be struck. The group also aims to harmonise standards and specifications with the work of other organisation such as The Learning Federation in the Schools sector as much as possible.

While discussing the 2010 standards, there was much debate over which browser versions should be supported, particularly for the Internet Explorer (IE) browser. Research based on usage statistics for a number of key VET websites showed around 20% using IE8 (the latest version), and a similar amount were still using IE6. There are major differences between IE6 and IE8 which can cause complications for developers of web content. After much deliberation, an agreement was reached that VET e-learning content produced in 2010 should be tested with IE6, 7 and 8, with IE6 being deprecated from 2011.

Another topical area of discussion was web accessibility, as the Australian Government Information Office and the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission currently evaluating the relatively new WCAG 2.0 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) specification. After some earlier research into WCAG 2.0, it was agreed that VET web accessibility guidelines for 2010 will continue to require WCAG 1.0 (the current Australian government requirement) with additional checkpoints to facilitate a smoother anticipated transition to WCAG 2.0 when it becomes endorsed by the Australian Government.

The 2010 VET e-standards will be published in early January 2010.
More information on VET e-standards and the E-standards Expert Group: E-standards for Training website

When putting together the recently released VET e-Portfolio roadmap [PDF], we used the e-Framework as a methodology to describe what types of services/functionality an e-Portfolio system may contain. During the (very long) drafting stage, we presented this view of an e-Portfolio system to a range of different audiences and interested parties in Australia, New Zealand, USA and Europe.

Needless to say it changed a lot during that time, and we went through countless refinements. The standard terminology used in the e-Framework diagram also got pared back a bit. The audience for the e-Portfolio roadmap is not necessarily technical, and we found some people had a bit of difficulty understanding terms like “service genre”. As such we ended up with the following diagram in the roadmap document:

e-portfolio system diagram

The shaded services (authenticate, authorise, annotate and validate) are services that we identified as requiring national collaborative action.

The original draft VET e-Portfolio Service Usage Model (SUM) is still on the e-Framework community wiki. I found it  interesting to look back and see how our thinking has evolved. Originally we divided the business processes into three groups; collect, manage, present. After a lot of discussion and feedback, this grew to 4; source/identify, manage, communicate and present. This is not necessarily so different from other models, however we wanted to show that a learner could identify and use content it without needing to store it in their e-Portfolio. The addition of communicate was an attempt to reflect the often collaborative nature of e-Portfolio creation and use.

Our task now is to finalise the VET e-Portfolio Service Usage Model based on our growing experience.

The IMS Global Learning Consortium recently released a white paper about Service Oriented Architecture, as announced on our news page and elsewhere. Service Oriented Architecture is an approach where IT solutions are delivered via small modules or “services”. Such IT services are designed for reuse across a wide range of different IT systems.  For example, many Education systems require information about students. This information can be shared across authorized systems by developing a dedicated service for providing student information. Through the use of services, SOA aims to better align systems with the organisation’s needs by offering more flexible, reusable and reconfigurable solutions or so the theory goes.

There has been a lot of interest in using SOA to manage and plan software systems for education organisations both here in Australia and internationally, which is why we were interested to be involved.

Much of the literature about SOA to date is aimed at the business world and doesn’t address the specific requirements or challenges of education organisations. This IMS SOA white paper is aimed at facilitating greater discussion and adoption of SOA in education by contextualising it to the needs of education organisations. It includes a number of authentic education-specific scenarios including:

• Integration of enterprise applications
• Virtual desktop shared service
• Financial aid
• Learner centred e-portfolios

IBM and Oracle have both had significant involvement in writing this paper. The Link Affiliates team was also involved in editing the document and we contributed the e-portfolio scenario chapter. Link Affiliates’ involvement aside, I would recommended it to anyone wanting to find out more about SOA or may be considering a SOA implementation.

IMS has set up a SOA community forum for people to post comments and feedback on the paper and on the use of SOA approaches in education in general. To date, there hasn’t been much discussion on the forum, but hopefully some interesting conversations can take place once people have had some time to reflect.   An updated version of the paper will be released by the IMS which will take into account comments received by the middle of July.