Notes

Outline

IMS ADL IEEE LTSC Geoffrey Fox Larry Dennis CSIT

Basic Goal is Good Many agree that electronic aids to education or training and perhaps even complete web-based learning environments are of increasing importance We have a lot of choices from academic and commercial sources WebCT, Blackboard, Lotus Learning Space, WebMC … It is not clear as to “correct” approach and as to “best” implementation of this approach So broad use of web-based classes is slowed as not clear if safe to “invest” in WebCT or WebMC and what is involved in converting from one format to another So we need standards ……..

Who took up the Challenge? Educational Environment: Educause set up IMS – Instructional Management System with selection of companies and universities IMS focus was changed to drop implementation work and is now “Global Learning Consortium” Inc. Department of Defense (which has huge training needs): ADL Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative www.adlnet.org whose links section includes all other useful URL’s A lot of their results come from AICC (Airline Industry CBT Committee) CMI (Computer Managed Instruction) standard IEEE (Computing Community) set up P1484 Learning Technology Standards Committee LTSC

Is there a basic difficulty in process? We are trying to set standards for an area that is still in its infancy and we have essentially zero experience with sophisticated web-based learning environments and Certainly no agreement as to either educational or computing architecture of web-based learning Not clear if people involved in the activity understand issues and there is no very well defined academic community for many important contributions from different areas Example: Standards assume a “Client-Server” architecture but this is not used in most modern web-based systems which are 3 or 4 tier – not 2 tier

What is being done? IMS and IEEE have broad-based standard activities ADL is more focused on promoting standards compliant course development and has DoD projects producing courses and has established centers and is sponsoring meetings as “plugfests” where people demonstrate their “standards” compliant capabilities and its interoperability Main Co-Lab is part of IDA in Alexandria Va Wisconsin is Academic Co-Lab with a further DoD Co-Lab in Orlando (Navair?) Level of collaboration between 3 groups not entirely clear In 1997 I was very disappointed when ADL signed up with IMS and basically abandoned their stated goal of working with broad community Current ADL/IMS link seems weaker than at start

Basic System Model We think of web-based education as based on a set of distributed educational objects manipulated by a learning management system (LMS) This is already a little flaky as better to think of objects and services on those objects Further support for authoring of objects is critical and this does not seem to be addressed very well webMC illustrates this difficulty very well as its major contribution is to authoring However we can usefully study/use standards understanding that they are not complete

3-Tier Architecture for Education Portal There are several important Object Models: COM, CORBA, Java, Web, Oracle Database …… But it doesn’t matter what you use if you specify in XML

Structure of a Typical 3-tier System (Portal) Two XML Interfaces (portalML and resourceML) IMS and ADL SCORM take a client server view and define the objects with 1 interface ADL takes about API ’s for services but does not specify in same fashion (should also be XML)

LMS Model used by ADL

SCORM and its Scope SCORM is Sharable Courseware Object Reference Model Broad definition of “Learning Management System” (LMS) as a suite of server-side functionalities that controls the delivery and tracking of learning content to a client-side student. The SCORM does not specify functionality within the LMS. Only Course Interchange, Metadata, and Runtime Environment are “in scope” for this version of SCORM. Runtime Environment is not very useful in my opinion as very dependent on learning model – ADL is thinking of computer based instruction Note current initiatives essentially go down to page They do not address functionality of page (is it a Java Applet, Flash, HTML except for possibly misguided parts of quiz standards

Areas (Object Properties) Covered Metadata from IEEE and IMS Roughly Properties of educational objects thought of as “documents” (author, title …) Course Packaging from SCORM and IMS How to form bigger units of instruction from smaller units Called Content Packaging by IMS and Course Structure Format (CSF) by SCORM which goes in greater depth than IMS Tests and Quizzes from IMS Specialized CSF descriptors from SCORM (via CMI) Such as objectives, prerequisites, completion requirements LMS API from SCORM – I am doubtful about value Enterprise Properties from IMS Link to people and organization databases (rather incomplete at present)

ADL SCO Model

SCORM Course Information GlobalProperties XML DTD structure [no notation = one element required;“?” = zero or one (optional); “+” = one or more required; “*” = zero or more required]

Example Course Structure

Block XML DTD Structure

Assignable Unit (au) XML DTD Structure

Objectives in Detail

Some Examples of Prerequisite Syntax Example of NOT(~) in Prerequisites Element Identifier: A34 Requirement: ~A35 The student may enter unit A34 as long as unit A35 has not been completed (that is, the status of A35 must be Incomplete, Failed, or Not attempted).  If assignable unit A35 is complete, the student may not enter unit A34. Example of EQUAL(=) in Prerequisites Element Identifier: A34 Requirement: A33=Passed The student may enter unit A34 if he or she has passed unit A33. Example of NOT EQUAL (<>) in Prerequisites Element Identifier: A34 Requirement: A35<>Passed The student may enter unit A34 as long as he or she has not passed A35.  Notice the difference between this expression and the example for the not operator.  The equivalent of ~A35 is (A35<>Passed & A35<>Completed) Comes directly from CMI from AICC

Launch, API, and Data Model as they apply to the SCORM architectural view.

Metadata Example from IMS/IEEE

10 Categories of Metadata General – describes resource as a whole Lifecycle – Describes history and current state MetaMetaData – Information about Metadata Technical – Technical requirements and characteristics Educational – pedagogical information Rights – Cost, IP Relation – between this and other resources Annotations Classification such as keywords

IMS Enterprise Model

Three Data Objects in IMS Enterprise Model Person – This data object contains elements describing an individual of interest to the Learning Management environment. Group – This object contains elements describing a group of interest to the Learning Management environment. There are many types of groups that may be shared between systems. The most common is a Course Instance, but they may also include Training Programs, Academic Programs, Course sub-groups, clubs, etc. A group can also have any number of relationships with other groups. Group Membership – This data object contains elements describing the membership of a person or group in a group. Group members may be instructors, learners, content developers, members, managers, mentors, or administrators.

Extract from Person Object Specification

Omissions I Grade and other Performance data – IEEE LTSC was considering this 3 years ago Interoperable Services – Chat Room to Bulletin Board, File Manipulation Requirements of IMS gotten from small user survey and not from analysis of packages such as Web CT WebMC etc. Historically IMS was most interested in building a system No analysis (I could see) of modern Internet technology, hand-held devices etc. to see range of architectures CMI from AICC comes from the past W3C has hierarchial DOM which could describe Content – ignored by SCORM and IMS No agent (for tutoring) Interface

Omissions II Questions/Testing IMS specification seems to have too much detail on simple syntax and no way of specifying nifty new ideas such as CAP (random person specific tests) No attention to Mathematics and other specialized authoring interoperability issues More generally too much specific detail and not enough attention to range of architectures and specific requirements for interoperability However standards are very useful for doing new systems with good metadata and attention to myriad of detail Current standards “only” go down to Web Page – currently do not address structure of this page

Authoring Architectures We most importantly need to support interoperability of “content” – so faculty investment protected Typical delivered page consists of Actual Content Links to other content (Next, Previous, More Detail) “Decoration” – bunch of buttons accessing services such as “chat room”, “class resources”, “send mail to instructor”, WebTop Services (search etc.) For interoperability, we need to Preserve Content and links thereto but they will be stored and accessed in different ways in different LMS Map Services if possible Service mapping may not be necessary if each LMS has templates and model is that you extract interoperable content and insert into templates constructed separately Need to extract metadata as this is linked to specific content pages and typically not generated Authoring System

Authoring Issues II This architecture is already a little problematical in many systems E.g. if I import PowerPoint into XYZ LMS and it integrates as a lecture; adds decorations/metadata – can I edit PowerPoint and preserve “decorations/metadata”? Can I change number of pages in Presentation? Several Content Models 1) Faculty writes a set of Web Pages 2) Faculty uses an initial template to start Web Pages 3,4) Some sort of Template specifies page layout of metadata, decorations and content. Content is authored elsewhere. LMS stores all this in database or flat (XML) files 3) Actual Content generated by batch process 4) Actual Content generated by dynamic process

Message Center Interface Yahoo Messenger is an interesting model for a education portal interface Application that invokes browser Runs on PC or Palmtop and “only” contains summary information suitable for Palms Has services like file manipulation, send a message and set of custom buttons Can access News, Weather, Stocks etc. Could be access grades, curriculum etc. Here decorations are in Messenger and “content pages” are clean Can do with frames but these don’t usually work very well