GLUE!: An architecture for theintegration of external tools in Virtual Learning Environments

UNIVERSIDAD DE VALLADOLID UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III DE

MADRID

AutorCarlos Alario Hoyos

TutoresDr. Miguel L. Bote Lorenzo

Dr. Eduardo Gómez Sánchez

Madrid, June 14th 2013

www.gsic.uva.es/glue

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7200 in Spain!7200 in Spain!

https://moodle.org/stats

Outline Introduction The integration problem Overview of GLUE! Evaluation Conclusions and further work

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Context

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VLEs and external tools

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Include a set of 10-25 Include a set of 10-25 built-in tools built-in tools [Bow11]

Top 100 Tools for Learning

Support individual/collaborative activities

Tools in the CL life cycleTools in the CL life cycle– One instance per group in

collaborative activities Creation, configuration and

assignment

Integration of external tools in VLEs

Limitations of existing integration works:– High development effortHigh development effort

• One-to-one integration (e.g. Moodle Modules)• Tight integration (e.g. IMS Learning Tool Interoperability – LTI [IMS06c])

– Strict technological restrictionsStrict technological restrictions (e.g. Apache Wookie [Wil08])

– Limited support to the instantiation and enactment of Limited support to the instantiation and enactment of collaborative activities collaborative activities (e.g. IMS Basic LTI [IMS10b])

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Outline Introduction The integration problem Overview of GLUE! Evaluation Conclusions and further work

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Main stakeholders’ requirementsStakeholder

Tag Requirement

REQ1

Enable the instantiation of individual and instantiation of individual and collaborative activities collaborative activities that require the integration of external tools with an attainable attainable effort effort for educators

REQ2

Enable the enactment of collaborative enactment of collaborative activities activities that require the integration of external tools, facilitating the collaboration among participants

REQ3

Support the integration of existing and popular existing and popular VLEs and toolsVLEs and tools

REQ4

Support the integration of many external toolsmany external tools

REQ5

Demand an attainable development effortattainable development effort for the integration of tools and VLEs

REQ6

Be built over existing VLEs and toolsbuilt over existing VLEs and tools, , rather than modifying their implementations

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Design issues and alternatives

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Design decisions

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Outline Introduction The integration problem Overview of GLUE! Evaluation Conclusions and further work

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Description of the architecture: Technical

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Tier Purpose

GLUE! core- Promote a many-to-many integration

Tier Purpose

GLUE! core- Promote a many-to-many integration- Homogenize VLE and tool contracts

Tier Purpose

GLUE! core

- Promote a many-to-many integration- Homogenize VLE and tool contracts- Assume most of the integration functionality

Tier Purpose

GLUE! core

- Promote a many-to-many integration- Homogenize VLE and tool technologies- Assume most of the integration functionality

Tool adapters- Wrap tools connecting them to the GLUE! core

VLE adapters- Wrap VLEs connecting them to the GLUE! core

Description of the architecture: Functional

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Tier Purpose

GLUE! core- Promote a many-to-many integration

Tier Purpose

GLUE! core- Promote a many-to-many integration- Homogenize VLE and tool contracts

Tier Purpose

GLUE! core

- Promote a many-to-many integration- Homogenize VLE and tool contracts- Assume most of the integration functionality

Tier Functionality

GLUE! core- Manage requests related to the tool life cycle- Manage persistent data about created instances- Manage persistent data about the available tools

Tool adapters- Translate requests from the GLUElet Manager to tool contracts- Provide and process configuration information

VLE adapters- Enable the management and use of external tools within VLEs- Map users, groups and activities to tool instances

Reference implementation

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Examples of usage (I)

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Examples of usage (II)

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Outline Introduction The integration problem Overview of GLUE! Evaluation Conclusions and further work

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Name AN-2010 AN-2011 SE-2011 ICTE-2012

ContentDevelopment of distributed systems

Development of distributed systems

Development of software projects

New technologies and media in education

Date November 2010 November 2011 May 2011 February 2012

Duration 1 week 1 week 3 hours 1 week

Kind of situation

Blended CL situation

Blended CL situation

Face-to-face CL situation

Blended CL situation

# educators2 (technological background)

2 (technological background)

1 (technological background)

1 (pedagogical background)

# students 47 51 10 25

Group settings

24 pairs (1-2 students); 7 supergroups (6-8 students)

28 pairs (1-2 students); 8 supergroups (6-8 students)

2 groups of five students

12 pairs (2-3 students); 5 supergroups (5 students)

VLE

Built-in tools

- - - Forum, mind map

External tools (instances)

DabbleboardDabbleboard (31);Google Google Documents Documents (24); Google Google Presentations Presentations (7)

DabbleboardDabbleboard (36);Google Google Documents Documents (28); Google Google Presentations Presentations (8)

Google Google Documents Documents (12); You Decide W3C You Decide W3C widget widget (40)

Google Google Presentation Presentation (5); DoodleDoodle (1)

Authentic experiments

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Compliance to REQ1 and REQ2

Approximate instantiation time– Example: AN 2011: 72 instances Great complexityGreat complexity– 82% of time saved with GLUE!82% of time saved with GLUE!

Questionnaires to students– 77% the technological support facilitated much or very 77% the technological support facilitated much or very

much the collaborationmuch the collaboration Open text questions and focus groups

– “It was very easy to see the contributions of my group partners, just by logging into Moodle.” (AN-2010)

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Stakeholder Requirement Evaluation methods Data sources

Enable the instantiation of individual and collaborative activities that require the integration of external tools with an attainable effort for educators

Multiple experiments [Dew01]; mixed method [Mar03]

Likert scales; open text questions; interviews; time and complexity measurements

Enable the enactment of collaborative activities that require the integration of external tools, facilitating the collaboration among participants

Multiple experiments; mixed method

Likert scales; open text questions; focus groups [Mor98]

Four authentic experiments– 5 external tools (Google DocumentsGoogle Documents, , PresentationsPresentations, ,

Dabbleboard, Doodle and the YouDecide widget)– 3 VLEs (Moodle, LAMS and MediaWiki)

At least 1717 external tools available (+ built-in tools)

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Compliance to REQ3 and REQ4Stakeholder

Requirement Evaluation methods Data sources

Support the integration of existing and popular VLEs and tools

Multiple experiments; feature analysis (formal experiment [Kit96b])

Existing VLE and tool adapters

Support the integration of many external tools

Multiple experiments; feature analysis (formal experiment)

Existing VLE and tool adapters

New source lines of code & time invested– Incremental effort to integrate new tools about

100 lines and 6-8 hours– More attainable than in ad hoc or tight approaches.– Similar to other loosely-coupled approaches

The 3 VLE adapters and the 9 tool adapters were developed using the interfaces provided by using the interfaces provided by VLE and tool providersVLE and tool providers

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Compliance to REQ5 and REQ6Stakeholder

Requirement Evaluation methods

Data sources

Demand an attainable development effort for the integration of tools and VLEs

Multiple experiments; new SLOC [Alb83] and time invested

Code of existing VLE and tool adapters and questionnaires

Be built over existing VLEs and tools, rather than modifying their implementations

Multiple experiments; feature analysis (screening mode [Kit96b])

Existing VLE and tool adapters

Outline Introduction The integration problem Overview of GLUE! Evaluation Conclusions and further work

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Conclusions (I)

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Restricted set of VLE built-in tools

Integration of existing external tools in existing VLEs for the support of CL situations

Defining new integration approaches requires a trade-off:– RestrictionsRestrictions imposed on VLE and tool providers– Development effort Development effort demanded to developers– Functionality offered Functionality offered to practitioners

Conclusions (II)

– Takes into account the main stakeholders’ main stakeholders’ requirementsrequirements

– Takes into account the main design issues and main design issues and alternativesalternatives

Evaluation of – Meets the stakeholders’ requirementsMeets the stakeholders’ requirements

• Reduces the instantiation time in more than 80%• Integrates at least 17 tools• Lower development effort (compared to ad hoc or tight

approaches)

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Further work Deployment of generic learning designs

– From multiple authoring tools– In multiple VLEs

Integration in other platforms (MOOCs?)

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GLUE!: An architecture for theintegration of external tools in Virtual Learning Environments

UNIVERSIDAD DE VALLADOLID UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III DE

MADRID

AutorCarlos Alario Hoyos

TutoresDr. Miguel L. Bote Lorenzo

Dr. Eduardo Gómez Sánchez

Madrid, June 14th 2013

www.gsic.uva.es/glue