1.
The JISC Information Environment and VLEs Andy Powell [email_address] UKOLN, University of Bath IE Joint Programme Meeting, Nottingham October/November 2002

2.
Contents <ul><li>summary of the technical architecture of the JISC Information Environment </li></ul><ul><li>relationship to eLearning standards (IMS) </li></ul><ul><li>snapshot of new JISC DiVLE programme </li></ul><ul><li>simple example of link between JISC IE, a Learning Management System (LMS) and a backend Learning Object (LO) repository </li></ul><ul><li>http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/distributed-systems/jisc-ie/ </li></ul>

3.
Simple scenario <ul><li>consider a lecturer searching for materials for a course module covering the development of business in China </li></ul><ul><li>the aim is to construct a ‘hybrid’ reading list that can be given to students to support their coursework </li></ul><ul><li>he or she searches for ‘business china’ using: </li></ul><ul><ul><li>the RDN, to discover Internet resources </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>ZETOC, to discover recent journal articles </li></ul></ul>

8.
Issues <ul><li>different user interfaces </li></ul><ul><ul><li>look-and-feel </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>subject classification, metadata usage </li></ul></ul><ul><li>everything is HTML – human-oriented </li></ul><ul><ul><li>difficult to merge results, e.g. combine into reading lists </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>difficult to build a reading list to pass on to students </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>need to manually copy-and-paste search results into HTML page, then upload into VLE </li></ul></ul>

9.
Issues (2) <ul><li>difficult to move from discovering journal article to having copy in hand (or on desktop) </li></ul><ul><li>users need to manually join services together </li></ul><ul><li>problem with hardwired links to books and journal articles, e.g. </li></ul><ul><ul><li>lecturer links to university library OPAC but student is distance learner and prefers to buy online at Amazon </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>lecturer links to IngentaJournals but student prefers paper copy in library </li></ul></ul>

10.
The problem space… <ul><li>from perspective of ‘data consumer’ </li></ul><ul><ul><li>need to interact with multiple collections of stuff - bibliographic, full-text, data, image, video, etc. </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>delivered thru multiple Web sites </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>few cross-collection discovery services (with exception of big search engines like Google, but lots of stuff is not available to Google, i.e. it is part of the ‘invisible Web’) </li></ul></ul><ul><li>from perspective of ‘data provider’ </li></ul><ul><ul><li>few agreed mechanisms for disclosing availability of content </li></ul></ul>

11.
UK JISC IE context… <ul><li>206 collections and counting… (Hazel Woodward, e-ICOLC, Helsinki, Nov 2001) </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Books: 10,000 + </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Journals: 5,000 + </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Images: 250,000 + </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Discovery tools: 50 + </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><ul><li>A & I databases, COPAC, RDN, … </li></ul></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>National mapping data & satellite imagery </li></ul></ul><ul><li>plus institutional content (e-prints, research data, library content, learning resources, etc.) </li></ul><ul><li>plus content made available thru projects – 5/99, FAIR, X4L, … </li></ul><ul><li>plus … </li></ul>

12.
The problem(s)… <ul><li>portal problem </li></ul><ul><ul><li>how to provide seamless discovery across multiple content providers </li></ul></ul><ul><li>appropriate-copy problem </li></ul><ul><ul><li>how to provide access to the most appropriate copy of a resource (given access rights, preferences, cost, speed of delivery, etc.) </li></ul></ul>

13.
A solution… <ul><li>an information environment </li></ul><ul><li>framework of machine-oriented services allowing the end-user to </li></ul><ul><ul><li>discover , access , use , publish resources across a range of content providers </li></ul></ul><ul><li>move away from lots of stand-alone Web sites... </li></ul><ul><li>...towards more coherent whole </li></ul><ul><li>remove need for use to interact with multiple content providers </li></ul><ul><ul><li>note: ‘remove need’ rather than ‘prevent’ </li></ul></ul>

14.
JISC Information Env. <ul><li>discover </li></ul><ul><ul><li>finding stuff across multiple content providers </li></ul></ul><ul><li>access </li></ul><ul><ul><li>streamlining access to appropriate copy </li></ul></ul><ul><li>content providers expose metadata about their content for </li></ul><ul><ul><li>searching </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>harvesting </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>alerting </li></ul></ul><ul><li>develop services that bring stuff together </li></ul><ul><ul><li>portals (subject portals, media-specific portals, geospatial portals, institutional portals, VLEs, …) </li></ul></ul>

15.
A note about ‘portals’ <ul><li>‘ portal’ word possibly slightly misleading </li></ul><ul><li>presentation layer will contain lots of user-focused services… </li></ul><ul><ul><li>subject portal </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>reading list and other tools in VLE </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>commercial ‘portals’ (ISI Web of Knowledge, ingenta, Bb Resource Center, etc.) </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>library ‘portal’ (e.g. Zportal or MetaLib) </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>SFX service component </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>personal desktop reference manager (e.g. Endnote) </li></ul></ul>

16.
Discovery <ul><li>technologies that allow providers to disclose metadata to portals </li></ul><ul><ul><li>searching - Z39.50 (Bath Profile) </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>harvesting - OAI-PMH </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>alerting - RDF Site Summary (RSS) </li></ul></ul><ul><li>fusion services may sit between provider and portal </li></ul><ul><ul><li>broker (searching) </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>aggregator (harvesting and alerting) </li></ul></ul>

17.
Access <ul><li>in the case of books, journals, journal articles, end-user wants access to the most appropriate copy </li></ul><ul><li>need to join up discovery services with access/delivery services (local library OPAC, ingentaJournals, Amazon, etc.) </li></ul><ul><li>need localised view of available services </li></ul><ul><li>discovery service uses the OpenURL to pass metadata about the resource to an ‘OpenURL resolver’ </li></ul><ul><li>the ‘OpenURL resolver’ provides pointers to the most appropriate copy of the resource, given: </li></ul><ul><ul><li>user and institutional preferences, cost, access rights, location, etc. </li></ul></ul>

18.
Shared services <ul><li>collection/service description service </li></ul><ul><ul><li>information about collections (content) and services (protocol) that make that content available </li></ul></ul><ul><li>authentication and authorisation </li></ul><ul><li>resolver services </li></ul><ul><li>user preferences and institutional profiles </li></ul><ul><li>terminology services </li></ul><ul><li>metadata registries </li></ul><ul><li>... </li></ul>

19.
JISC Information Env. Broker/Aggregator Portal Portal Content providers End-user Portal Broker/Aggregator Authentication Authorisation Collect’n Desc Service Desc Resolver Inst’n Profile Shared services Provision layer Fusion layer Presentation layer

20.
Summary <ul><li>Z39.50 (Bath Profile), OAI, RSS are key ‘discovery’ technologies... </li></ul><ul><ul><li>… and by implication, XML and simple/unqualified Dublin Core </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>IEEE LOM doesn’t feature – but anticipate delivery of rich metadata as part of content packages </li></ul></ul><ul><li>access to resources via OpenURL and resolvers where appropriate </li></ul><ul><li>Z39.50 and OAI not mutually exclusive </li></ul><ul><li>general need for all services to know what other services are available to them </li></ul>

21.
Common sense <ul><li>Z, OAI and RSS based on metadata ‘fusion’ - merging metadata records from multiple content providers </li></ul><ul><li>need shared understanding and metadata practice across DNER </li></ul><ul><li>need to agree ‘cataloguing guidelines’ and terminology </li></ul><ul><li>4 key areas </li></ul><ul><ul><li>subject classification - what is this resource about? </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>audience level - who is this resource aimed at? </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>resource type - what kind of resource is this? </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>certification - who has created this resource? </li></ul></ul>

22.
A couple of trends… <ul><li>move towards Web services </li></ul><ul><ul><li>small units of functionality </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>b2b (m2m) remote procedure call (RPC) </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>key technologies </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><ul><li>XML, HTTP, SOAP, WSDL, UDDI </li></ul></ul></ul><ul><li>increased awareness of need to manage intellectual output of institutions… </li></ul><ul><ul><li>E-print archive (JISC FAIR programme) </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>MIT Dspace project </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>LO repositories (e.g. Intrallect IntraLibrary) </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Grid and Grid services </li></ul>

23.
IBM Web services model service registry service provider service requestor Find Publish Bind WSDL UDDI WSDL SOAP WSDL UDDI

24.
WSDL, UDDI and SOAP <ul><li>Web Service Description Language </li></ul><ul><ul><li>XML descriptions of Web services </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>note: limited scope for describing content of collections </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Universal Discovery, Description and Integration </li></ul><ul><ul><li>technology for building distributed registry of Web services </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Simple Object Access Protocol </li></ul><ul><ul><li>remote procedure calls based on XML and HTTP </li></ul></ul>

25.
JISC IE - Web services service registry service provider service requestor Find Publish Bind Collection and Service description service JISC Inf. Env. Service registry Content providers, aggregators, brokers, shared services Portals, aggregators, brokers

26.
JISC Information Env. Broker/Aggregator Portal Portal Content providers End-user Portal Broker/Aggregator Authentication Authorisation Collect’n Desc Service Desc Resolver Inst’n Profile Shared services Provision layer Fusion layer Presentation layer

27.
JISC Information Env. Broker/Aggregator Portal Portal Content providers End-user Portal Broker/Aggregator Authentication Authorisation Resolver Inst’n Profile Shared services Provision layer Fusion layer Presentation layer Service provider Service requestor Service provider Service requestor Service registry

28.
Likely impact… <ul><li>increased use of SOAP as carrier protocol </li></ul><ul><li>move distributed search from Z39.50 to something based on SOAP (SRW possibly?) </li></ul><ul><li>potential use of WSDL and UDDI to provide ‘collection’ and ‘service’ discovery services </li></ul><ul><ul><li>pilot JISC IE Service Registry at MIMAS </li></ul></ul>

29.
A shared problem space <ul><li>problems faced by end-users are shared across sectors and communities </li></ul><ul><ul><li>student looking for information from variety of bibliographic sources </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>lecturer searching for e-learning resources from multiple repositories </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>researcher working across multiple data-sets and compute servers on the Grid </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>researcher looking for e-prints in multiple e-print archives </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>school child searching local museums/libraries for homework project </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>a.n.other looking to buy or sell a second-hand car… </li></ul></ul>

30.
IMS <ul><li>global consortium defining open standards for delivery of online distributed learning activities: </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Accessibility </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Competency Definitions </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Content Packaging </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Digital Repositories </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Enterprise </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Learner Information Package </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Meta-data </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Question & Test </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Simple Sequencing </li></ul></ul><ul><li>http://www.imsproject.org/ </li></ul>

31.
IMS Digital Repositories <ul><li>interoperability between VLE and repository </li></ul><ul><ul><li>repository of information objects </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>learning object repository (LOR) </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>‘metadata only’ and ‘metadata and full-content’ repositories </li></ul></ul><ul><li>integration of VLE with backend LOR </li></ul><ul><li>seamless access to information resources from within VLE </li></ul><ul><li>Note: IMS uses Learning Management System (LMS) rather than VLE </li></ul>

32.
IMS Digital Repositories Repositories Resource Utilizers Directories Vocabulary Competency Metadata Repositories Organizations Traders Access Management MANAGE RIGHTS OBLIGATIONS CONTROL ACCESS AUTHENTICATE AUTHORISE AUDIT Procurement NEGOTIATE TRADE MAKE PAYMENT SEARCH Learner Creator Infoseeker Assets Metadata DISCOVER REQUEST USE Presentation Mediation Provision People Agent RESOLVE Registries STORE STORE EXPOSE MANAGE STORE EXPOSE MANAGE DELIVER (Query, Browse, Follow Path) ACCESS GATHER PUBLISH MANAGE ALERT EXPOSE

33.
Search/Expose <ul><li>2 protocols supported… </li></ul><ul><li>XQuery over SOAP (for native Learning Object Repositories) </li></ul><ul><li>Z39.50 (for ‘legacy’ information object repositories) </li></ul><ul><li>both return IEEE LOM metadata records </li></ul><ul><li>‘ IMS’ Z39.50 profile under development </li></ul>

34.
Gather/Expose <ul><li>OAI-PMH </li></ul><ul><li>carrying simple DC records (mandated by OAI) or IEEE LOM metadata </li></ul><ul><li>need to agree details for how to carry IEE LOM records in OAI-PMH </li></ul>

35.
Alert/Expose <ul><li>no recommendations currently </li></ul><ul><li>considering use of RSS (but concerns about conflicts between versions 0.9, 1.0 and 2.0) </li></ul>

36.
Request/Deliver <ul><li>HTTP (and FTP) </li></ul><ul><li>use of DOIs and PURLs for persistent naming </li></ul><ul><li>use of OpenURLs to resolve to ‘appropriate copy’ of information (bibliographic) resources </li></ul>

37.
Publish/Store <ul><li>FTP </li></ul><ul><li>to upload IMS content packages to Learning Object Repositories </li></ul>

38.
JISC IE and eLearning <ul><li>learning technologist creating learning object containing embedded links to hybrid external resources (books, journals, Web sites) </li></ul><ul><li>lecturer searching for learning object to add to existing course material </li></ul><ul><li>learning technologist searching for complete existing course to add to their LMS </li></ul><ul><li>lecturer creating reading list containing hybrid resources (books, journals, Web sites) </li></ul><ul><li>lecturer creating EML content package with embedded links to external resources </li></ul><ul><li>student undertaking background research to support learning task </li></ul>

39.
JISC DiVLE Programme <ul><li>short projects (10 months) </li></ul><ul><li>Theme A: Practical Exploration of Linking Digital Libraries and VLEs </li></ul><ul><li>Theme B: Learning and Teaching Implementation Pilots </li></ul><ul><li>Theme C: Evaluation and Review (technical, pedagogical and organisational issues) </li></ul><ul><li>use of IE technologies within VLEs </li></ul><ul><li>involvement of commercial partners </li></ul>

40.
VLEs and Z39.50 <ul><li>Talking Systems </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Lead Partner: University of Wales College, Newport. Partners: IBM, Lancaster University, SIRSI, Percussion </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>integrating learning objects and information objects in library catalogues using Z39.50 Bath Profile </li></ul></ul><ul><li>PORTOLE </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Lead Partner: University of Leeds. Partners: University of Oxford, Resource Discovery Network </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>integrated searching of library catalogue, RDN and local Leeds gateway </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>cross-searching information and learning objects using Z39.50 </li></ul></ul>

41.
VLEs and OpenURLs <ul><li>EnCoRe - Enriching Courses with Resources </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Lead Partner: University of Derby. Partners: Openly Informatics </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>OpenURLs, 1Cate, HERON </li></ul></ul><ul><li>OLIVE - Open Linking Implementation in a Virtual Learning Environment </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Lead Partner: Royal Holloway, University of London. Partners: University of Westminster, Ex Libris, Granada Learning, Blackboard </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>OpenURLs for learning objects </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>context-sensitive linking to resources from VLEs </li></ul></ul>

42.
VLEs and OpenURLs (2) <ul><li>DELIVER - Digital Electronic Library Integration within Virtual EnviRonments </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Lead Partner: London School of Economics. Partners: De Montfort University, WebCT, Blackboard, Sirsi (UK) Ltd, Talis </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>management of links within learning objects </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>central storage, distributed maintenance </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>OpenURLs as one technology </li></ul></ul>

43.
Reading list example (1) <ul><li>lecturer creates reading list using Endnote – Z search of bibliographic services… </li></ul>RDN Resource Centre OPAC Ingenta Journals Amazon EndNote/ Reference Manager OpenURL resolver ZETOC Student Lecturer Librarian RDN Blackboard VLE

44.
Reading list example (2) <ul><li>lecturer uploads reading list thru LMS to backend learning object repository (RDN resource centre)… </li></ul>RDN Resource Centre OPAC Ingenta Journals Amazon EndNote/ Reference Manager OpenURL resolver ZETOC Student Lecturer Librarian RDN Blackboard VLE

45.
Reading list example (3) <ul><li>student accesses reading list from learning object repository through LMS… </li></ul><ul><li>links in reading list use OpenURLs </li></ul>RDN Resource Centre OPAC Ingenta Journals Amazon EndNote/ Reference Manager OpenURL resolver ZETOC Student Lecturer Librarian RDN Blackboard VLE

46.
Reading list example (4) <ul><li>clicking on OpenURL links in reading list takes student to appropriate copies of resources via OpenURL resolver (e.g. SFX)… </li></ul>RDN Resource Centre OPAC Ingenta Journals Amazon EndNote/ Reference Manager OpenURL resolver ZETOC Student Lecturer Librarian RDN Blackboard VLE

47.
Reading list example (5) <ul><li>librarian maintains OpenURL resolver configuration to provide access to appropriate copy based on University licensing arrangements… </li></ul>RDN Resource Centre OPAC Ingenta Journals Amazon EndNote/ Reference Manager OpenURL resolver ZETOC Student Lecturer Librarian RDN Blackboard VLE

48.
Questions…