JISC: Tools Integration Project
Final report (draft v.1.5)
Author: Howard Noble (comments and enquiries welcome)
Last edited:
July 20, 2005
Recent updates:
31/5/2005: feedback from ExcelSoft India during implementation
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
The project would like to thank the JISC DeL eTools Programme for funding and supporting the project.
The project was a collaboration between six groups:
We would like to thank the following individuals: Ernie Ghiglione, James Dalziel, Ajay Kulkani, Tejaswi VK,
I. Prabha Haran , Robert Gilks, Katharine Lindsay, Joseph Talbot, Andrew Logue, Gustav Delias, Alex Smith, Meghadri Ghosh, Tim Torgenrud, Jalshan Sabir, Vivien Sieber, Robert Sheratt, Richard McKenna and Steve Jeyes.
Executive summary
The JISC E-Learning Framework (ELF) is a mechanism for coordinating the effort of software developers in the creation software that supports learning and teaching. The ELF provides a vocabulary for talking about technical implementations and a technical framework for supporting e-learning software developments. The framework recommends open source development and the use of interoperability specifications.
Development teams should use specifications such as those distributed by IMS, NISO and OASIS to enable the software they are creating to exchange data objects (e.g. IMS content packaging specification) and expose and consume services according to the concepts behind the web service model.
The Tools Integration Project (TIP) focused on integrating software according to this software development paradigm. Specifically the project has integrated:
- the Bodington virtual learning environment
- The Learning Activity Management [learning design] System (LAMS)
- AMSTOIA online assessment system
- using the WebAuth single sign-on mechanism.
This practical exploration to building integration points between software components has allowed the teams to better understand how to move forward with this general approach to providing and consuming services between software artefacts.
Such integrated environments will allow teachers and learners to develop coherant diversity (Scott Wilson, 2005) in their use of technology.
This integrated environment will be evaluated during the JISC eLISA project.
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Background
The project will integrate software from three existing projects: AMSTOIA, LAMS and Bodington. Each software system provides functionality that can support a broad range of learning scenarios.
By allowing practitioners to use the different systems as an integrated suite of tools we will be able to support a more diverse range of learning scenarios and teaching styles.
The authorisation environment and web services we develop will allow other institutions to use the TOIA and LAMS web applications from within their own VLE environment(s).
Here we outline some of the core services that each system provides internally, the goal of this project is to see how these systems can expose a programming interface to allow other systems to consume these services.
AMSTOIA
The free (to UK educational institutions) version of the AMSTOIA system supports the following services:
Creation of assessments according to the IMS QTI specification with 9 questions types:
- Multiple choice
- Multiple response
- Pull-down list
- Fill in the blanks
- Matrix
- Essay
- Macromedia flash (see TOIA guide on authoring)
- Java applet
- File upload
Assignment of assessments to groups of individuals for formative and summative examination (secure environment).
Schedule assessments
Grade assessments
Analyse statistics of questions after an assessment has been taken
Export an assessments as IMS QTI 1.1 compliant files
LAMS
The LAMS system currently supports the following services:
A tool box that implements a API which exposes the following faciltities:
- Submit Files:This tool allows learners to submit a file for assessment by the teacher, such as
an essay, report, etc. The monitoring area provides assistance to the teacher with managing
the marking process for submissions.
- Chat: This tool runs a live chat session (synchronous discussion) for learners.
- Noticeboard: This tool provides a way of providing simple text to learners. This text can be
content relevant to the sequence, or instructions about how the sequence operates.
- Journal: This tool provides a task for learners to record their thoughts on aspects of a
sequence. These thoughts are viewable by the teacher in the monitor area. Learners have their
own private Notebook area that is available in the learner area (bottom left).
- Grouping: This tool is different to others in that its role is to modify the behaviour of other
tools rather than conduct an activity in its own right. The addition of grouping to a sequence
allows other activities to run in small group mode (rather than just whole class mode).
- Q & A: This tool allows teachers to pose a question to learners individually, and after they
have entered their response, to see the collated responses of all learners.
- Voting: This tool allows teachers to provide learners with a list of options to vote on, and then
shows the collated learner responses.
- Forum: This tool provides an asynchronous discussion environment for learners, with
discussion threads initially created by the teacher. Forums can be “locked” as an activity,
which is available only for the period of the specific activity, or they can be “unlocked”, in
that learners can add to the Forum throughout the life of the whole sequence.
- Multiple Choice: This tool allows teachers to create simple automated assessment questions,
including multiple choice and true/false questions. These questions can be used for
summative assessment with just scores, or formative assessment with feedback.
- Share Resources: This tool allows teachers to present content to learners during the authoring
process, such as URLs, zipped websites and/or individual files (PDF, PPT, etc). The tool can
also be set to allow teachers and/or learners to add URLs or individual files at “run-time” (ie,
during this activity within a sequence, rather than during authoring).
- Chat & Scribe: This tool combines a live chat with a scribe tool for collating the chat group’s
view on questions created by the teacher. When used in small group mode, the tool creates
parallel chat and scribe areas for small groups, then shows the outcome of each group on a
whole class page (viewable by all learners).
- Survey: This tool can present a survey containing single answer, multiple answer and text
entry answer questions. Question can be mandatory or optional. Data is collated for analysis
by the teacher using tools in the monitoring area.
- Resources and Forum: Combination of the Share resources and Forum tools on one page.
- Q & A + Journal: Combination of Q & A and Journal.
- Voting + Journal: Combination of Voting and Journal.
- Chat & Scribe + Journal: Combination of Chat & Scribe and Journal.
(For more information about these tools and the rest of the LAMS system download the documentation here).
LAMS allows authors to create sequences that consume these facilities and then assign the sequences to groups of learners.
The LAMS monitoring envionment allows for the orchestration of a sequence by the teacher, this includes participation in discussions and other activities.
Bodington
The Bodington software is a secure, scalable and open secure environment that provides the following online facilities:
- Logbook: A log book has a page private to each student consisting of sections and questions. The student can make entries in the sections of the logbook. Tutors and mentors can browse through the students' pages and make entries as well. Together the students and tutors decide which entries will form the final logbook record and after this the record can be printed or saved to disk.
- Link to External Web Site: This is a page within the building that links to a web address outside of the building.
- Structured Document: This is structured document with an automatically generated contents page. Text is typed (or pasted) directly into a form on the web page and you can use plain text or HTML formatted text. The structure of the document is limited but authoring is very easy.
- Web Document: This will create an initially empty web document into which you can subsequently upload HTML pages, graphics and other media. You must have web-authoring tools on your own computer or a plain text editor and knowledge of HTML tags.
- Multiple Choice Question Paper: This interactive document will present the user with a set of multiple-choice questions. The student makes selections and is given a mark. Detailed feedback is available to the student and statistical analysis is available to the teacher.
- Questionnaire: This interactive document will present the user with a set of questions that are text entry and/or multiple-choice. The user enters responses to the questions and the author can review responses.
- Short Answer Paper: This interactive document will present the user with a set of questions. The student types responses under each question and these responses are stored. Later a teacher can assess the responses and return typed feedback and/or a mark.
- Pigeon Hole: A pigeon-hole is used by a student to upload a file, often a word processed document for assessment. A teacher can download and view the file and then enter feedback and/or a mark for return to the student.
Aims and objectives
The following summarises the list of acceptance criteria that were defined in the Quality Plan:
- Implement the WebAuth single sign-on mechanism between LAMS, AMSTOIA and Bodington
- Implementation of the RQP web service within Bodington and AMSTOIA
- Map the LAMS internal datamodel to IMS Learning Design Level-A
- Develop a resource that can support the creation of learning designs developed in LAMS (and other learning design systems)
- Facilitate a community of practice that provides feedback to the technical strand of the project
- Implement cross searching of AMSTOIA
- Expand repository functions of AMSTOIA to store any question type
The project did evolve from its inception during the proposal writing stage and we document this in the implementation section below.
Methodology
The project iterated through design and build phases generating use case and functional design documents. We developed use case and UML activity diagrams to focus discussion and arrive at technical designs.
Software was developed on a development version of the latest software builds for each solution. Each partner managed their own development environment. In the case of Oxford developments we published the Bodington code to TIP sourceforge.net periodlically, AMSTOIA have published to the TOIA web site and the LAMS foundation their site with the installers.
The key consideration was on implementing interoperability specifications (e.g. IMS LD, IMS QTI, SRW) and using the web services paradigm to allow LAMS, Bodington and AMSTOIA to provide and consume each others services.
Effective communication has been a top priority during the project because of the large network of related projects that needed to work together. We have used blogs, wikis, email, messenger/ chat, telephone and voice-over-IP (Skype) to form and share ideas. (Open source development is a highly gregarious venture!)
(The short time scales have not allowed us to do formal system testing).
Implementation
(April 26, 2005 - this section is still under development and we expect to deliver all code by end May 2005).
The project was managed according to a schedule of work packages. Here we outline what has been done by the different groups during each of these activities.
LAMS foundation
Introduction to LAMS
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Single sign-on
The goal of this work package was to abstract the authentication and authorisation mechanism away from LAMS. This means that LAMS can be configured to use systems external to itself to provide these services. During this project we implemented the open source WebAuth single sing-on (SSO) authentication mechanism and openLDAP authorisation software to provide these services.
* The code will be distributed by Oxford University.
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Integration of AMSTOIA
ExcelSoft India and the LAMS foundation staff collaborated to build a web service between AMSTOIA and LAMS.
The implementation used a generic tools API specification that the LAMS foundation are currently developing. This specification is being designed to allow more tools to be exposed within the LAMS interface toolbox.
This work has similarities with the IMS Tools Interoperability specification, the OKI OSID work and Business Process Execution Language (BPEL).
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Portfolio export
Reflection and building a portfolio of artefacts that demonstrate a learners achievements are important aspects of the overall learning experience.
This work package built the facility to export a learners contribution to a LAMS activity sequence as an HTML file.
This artefact could be used as part of a reflective exercise and the exported HTML could be stored in an ePortfolio system to provide evidence of achieving a specific skill level.
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IMS Learning Design Level A
LAMS was inspired by the Learning Design work that came from the Open University of the Netherlands (OUNL) and is now distributed as the IMS Learning Design specification.
It is important that the other Learning Design authoring and runtime environments (e.g.RELOAD and CopperCore) can inter-operate with LAMS so that they can support the practice of collaborative authoring and sharing designs.
This work package allowed the LAMS foundation to map their activity sequence XML schema onto IMS Learning Design Level A.
The LAMS team have also produced a mapping for levels B and C but further discussion is required with other Learning Design communities to agree on the interpretation of the specification.
The project has engaged with the UNFOLD project and will test how the LAMS IMS LD Level A export works with other software such as the RELOAD Learning Design editor and player.
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Oxford University
Introduction to Bodington
 |
Bodington is a secure and scalable virtual learning environment (VLE).
Staff and students can create (depending on the permissions assigned to them) multiple choice tests, documents, upload images and text and a range of other resources.
To find out more visit the Bodington web site.
|
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RQP web service
The Remote Question Protocol (RQP) consists of an interface definition and a web services client-server model SOAP 1.1 RPC binding for the remote processing of assessment items. A fully RQP compliant system must use the specified binding but the interface definition may be used with a different binding in which case the system is said to be only RQP/X compliant, where X is the alternative binding. Indeed the interface definition could also be used as an application programming language for (local) plug-ins to an application.
RQP operates at the single assessment item level but there is limited support for packages of items. The protocol aims to provide a standard item engine interface for clients such as assessment systems, authoring tools, virtual learning environments, etc. to use items in formats which they do not support natively by using the appropriate (possibly remote) item engines. It has therefore been designed to allow for many different item formats with different feature sets. Some extensibility is also provided for through the use of fields identified by URIs so that cooperating systems may use additional features not in core RQP functionality.
Support for item templates is provided and, where appropriate, the production of item clones from them.
(York University's Draft RQP specification currently here.)
This work package implemented the RQP specification in collaboration with York University. The goal was to create a facility within Bodington that allows authors to create content and embed single questions within the content.
This work has also allowed us to look at how we can abstract tools from the Bodington VLE and create a more generic application program interface (API) that can be used to plug other tools into the Bodington environment (in a similar way to the MITs OSID, LAMS toolbox and the IMS Tools Interoperability specification).
(Note: the RQP specification and assessment services that render questions are currently under development so demonstration of the RQP service is not possible as this stage - April 26, 2005).
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Integrating Bodington and LAMS
This work package made a simple integration between LAMS and Bodington. Users are able to pass from Bodington to LAMS using the WebAuth system to authenticate and a query to Bodington's user information to perform authorisation.
Authors are able to move to the LAMS authoring environment, create a sequence and get a URL hyperlink pertaining to their sequence that can be pasted into Bodington. Learners will click this link and move directly to LAMS and start the sequence.
Integrating Bodington with AMSTOIA
This work package made a simple integration between Bodington and AMSTOIA.
It exploits the WebAuth mechanism of authorisation and authentication.
Authors can pass from Bodington to AMSTOIA to create an assessment or search for an existing one. They can then copy and paste a URL pertaining to the assessment back into Bodington for the Learner to use to take the assessment.
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Community of practice
This work package was managed by the Oxford Medical department. The goal was to demonstrate the LAMS and AMSTOIA systems to learning technologists and authors to gain feedback on their design and how they could be used in different contexts.
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Designs for learning web resource
The designs for learning web resource was built to provide a registry of software tools and facilities that can be used by teachers to support learning activities.
This web resource will be used at Oxford to allow learning technologist to create a registry of tools and designs for learning that can be shared between teachers.
The tools registry allows technical experts and other registered users to collaborate in sharing intelligence on a particular type of software. The community of practice can edit the entries for a tools in the same way that a wiki works to arrive at consensus about software. Users can also create individual annotations and ratings.
The learning designs entry form is one simple mechanism for authors to represent a lesson plan. The approach taken here was to create a form that could be used to capture the detail required to create an IMS Learning Design.
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ExelSoft Pvt Ltd
Introduction to AMSTOIA
 |
The AMSTOIA software has well designed wizards for creating online questions and assessments.
AMSTOIA also allows teachers to set formative and summative assessments and to analyze the results after learners have completed the tests.
To find out more visit the TOIA web site. |
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Integration with LAMS
This work package allows LAMS to integrate with AMSTOIA. LAMS authors can drag an AMSTOIA activity from the LAMS toolbox into their sequence and then either:
- select an assessment they have already created (web service call to AMSTOIA repository)
- move directly to AMSTOIA to create a new assessment.
If the author creates a new assessment AMSTOIA will produce a unique URL to the assessment that can be copied and pasted back into LAMS.
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SRW specification
Search and Retrieve Web Service (SRW) and Search and Retrieve URL Service (SRU) are Web Services-based protocols for querying databases and returning search results. SRW and SRU requests and results are similar, their difference lies in the ways the queries and results are encapsulated and transmitted between client and server applications. (SRW site: http://www.loc.gov/z3950/agency/zing/srw/).
The ExcelSoft India team implemented the API to allow SRW queries to search and retrieve assessment/ assessment question metadata from the AMSTOIA database (repository).
| Documentation |
see here |
| Code distribution |
To be confirmed (available end May 2005) |
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RQP web service
The goal of this work package is to allow AMSTOIA users to preview question types that are not native to the AMSTOIA system. The main reason for this is that many mathematical questions cannot be described using the QTI 1.2 specification (which is native to the free to UK educational institutions AMSTOIA version).
The logical next steps to this work is to:
- Enable AMSTOIA to aggregate a range of question types (QTI 1.1, QTI 2, other math-specific formats) into an assessment.
- This cannot be done during this implementation because AMSTOIA currently does not interact with the server during an assessment for performance reasons (all rendering and scording is done on the users desk top) - RQP requires interaction across the internet.
- On a similar vein we'd need to be able to export assessments that include the full variety of question types
- Implementing IMS Content Packaging is perhaps the best way to achieve this.
- Implement the aggregation of scoring during an assessment
- There is a simple algorithm to achieve this but again as there is no interaction with servers during assessments taken with AMSTOIA then this cannot be achieved
- Away from AMSTOIA another step will be to implement the RQP servers locally. We are looking at doing this at Oxford with the APIS server software so that we can render and score IMS QTI 2.0 within the Bodington VLE
| Documentation |
RQP in TOIA |
| Code distribution |
To be confirmed (available end May 2005) |
*This work package was originally documented here (this is the York University JISC Serving Math Moodle instance). As can be seen we have had to change the scope because of the issue that AMSTOIA renders and scores questions on the local machine.
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Extension of the AMSTOIA repository
In line with the RQP work the goal of this work package was to expand the types of assessment questions that can be managed using the AMSTOIA system. In this way AMSTOIA can be used as a generic type of assessment repository.
In line with the SRW work AMSTOIA will be able to be cross-searched for any type of question thus making it possible for schools and universities to collaborate in the expensive task for creating good assessments.
| Documentation |
To be confirmed (available end May 2005) |
| Code distribution |
To be confirmed (available end May 2005) |
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Implementation of WebAuth IIS module
To be completed end May 2005.
Outputs and results
- The project has enhanced the LAMS, AMSTOIA and Bodington software all of which are available to download freely by UK educational institutions.
- These systems can be installed within a single sign-on environment using the open source WebAuth software.
- The project staff have also become accustomed to the kind of collaborative project that is necessary for these kinds of implementation to work.
- The evaluation activities have allowed us to provide information for future software developments.
- The project cataloguing tool can be used by any institution to keep a log of software that could be used to support learning activities.
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Outcomes
- Teachers and learners can benefit from this development because it provides low cost software that supports diverse educational practice.
- The project has made a practical exploration of developing a tools interoperability specification through a bottoms up approach that asks what is needed and then how this can be achieved practically. This will benefit the generation of more effective methodologies for producing interoperability specifications.
- The project has supported the development of the RQP specification again through implementing in parallel with the development of the specification. This will benefit the generation of a reference model for assessment.
- The project has begun the process of developing a community of practice for developing designs for learning statistics. This process can be continued and widened to tip the scales towards making re-use of material more acceptable in schools and universities.
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Conclusions
- Practical explorations for developing interoperability between software systems is more effective than trying to implement specifications that have been produced through more theoretical methodologies.
- Open source projects are necesarily highly gregarious and effective communication needs to be the number one priority and effective collaboration is key to the success of the JISC E-Learning Framework.
- The ELF should result in projects being funded to produce more niche developments that provide very specific services. This will pave the way towards development projects being able to produce user interfaces that are highly personalised to specific teaching and learning needs.
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Implications
- Tools integration is a generic approach to software development. LAMS, AMSTOIA and Bodington can continue this integration to provide and consume services and also implement more close integration e.g. by implementing the idea of state over the web service calls. The BEPL specification is probably the best way to achieve this.
- The project was only able to build a small community of practice around the teaching of statistics. This general approach should be adopted more widely especially where there is a tangible need and hihg potential for re-purposing and sharing of material as is the case here.
- Adopting this practical approach to specification development is the most effective and efficient methodology towards promotion and adoption of interoperability.
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Recommendations
- The LAMS team have made a considerable effort to map the LAMS XML schema to IMS Learning Design specification. LAMS can export IMS LD level-A and have produced a mapping for levels B and C. We know need to agree a process for conformance testing or a mechanism for promoting interoperability between the different learning design system e.g. CopperCore and RELOAD.
- For tools to be developed according to the JISC E-Learning Framework we need to develop a mechanism for software to call on the services of other software components. This will be achieved by allowing project teams to collaborate on developing these integration points according to the web service paradigm. The Service Maths projects managed by York University has been an excellent example of this process, the RQP specification has been developed within a development process so that not only do we have an interoperability specification but we also have working code that tests the web service definitions. The LAMS team are employing this approach too with their LAMS API and MITs OSIDS are being pushed for acceptance by a range of developer communities in the US (and supported by IMS). The IMS Tools Integration specification is also under development and will be released soon.
- The RQP web service allows clients to call rendering and scoring services on a question-by-question basis. This mechanism needs enhancing to allow clients to select which rendering service would best render and score a specific question. This would probably be best achieved using UDDI.
- Finally from the evaluation activities carried out on TIP one of the main findings is that the barrier to embedding e-learning services in teaching and learning environments is access to the software itself. One solution to this would be to invest in hosted services where practitioners can experiment with tools without having to set up and configure the software (rarely an easy task!)
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References
List any references to the work of others you have cited (e.g. articles, reports, studies, standards), and any explanatory notes. Provide URLs for any materials available on the web.
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Appendices
Include any appendixes that readers will find helpful to understand the work described or the results. For example, include a questionnaire if you conducted a survey, or technical details that support technical development carried out. A glossary of acronyms and technical terms is often helpful.
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