A Sample of Formal Report for Students

8/3/2019 A Sample of Formal Report for Students

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JISC SWaNI Interoperability Project

Coleg Llandrillo Cymru

Teknical

FD Learning


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AUTHORS.............................. ........................................................... ............................................................ ........ 1

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................. .............................................................. ....... 1

COLLEGE BACKGROUND................................................... ........................................................... ................. 3

PROJECT BACKGROUND.............................. ................................................................ .................................. 3

THE PROJECT ............................................................ ............................................................. ........................... 4

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES ........................................................... ........................................................... ................. 5

PROJECT PROGRESS/OUTCOME ......................................................... ........................................................... ....... 6

TECHNICAL ISSUES........................................................ ........................................................... ........................... 9

PROJECT MANAGEMENT ISSUES ................................................................ ................................................ 9

CULTURAL/ORGANISATIONAL ISSUES ............................................................... .................................... 10

DISSEMINATION..................................................................... ......................................................... ................ 11

INTERNAL DISSEMINATION ..................................................... ........................................................... ............... 11

EXTERNAL DISSEMINATION .................................................... ........................................................... ............... 11

PROJECT EVALUATION................................................................ .......................................................... ...... 12

CONCLUSIONS .................................................. ....................................................... ........................................ 12

RECOMMENDATIONS/KEY MESSAGES.................................................................................................... 13

APPENDIX 1......................................................... ........................................................... ................................... 14

INTERNAL PROJECT TEAM....................................................... ........................................................... ............... 14

EXTERNAL TEAM MEMBERS ................................................... ........................................................... ............... 14

APPENDIX 2......................................................... ........................................................... ................................... 15

USEFUL LINKS .................................................... ........................................................... ................................... 15

APPENDIX 3......................................................... ........................................................... ................................... 16

GLOSSARY .......................................................... ........................................................... ................................... 16

APPENDIX 4......................................................... ........................................................... ................................... 17

APPENDIX 5......................................................... ........................................................... ................................... 18

APPENDIX 6......................................................... ........................................................... ................................... 19


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Coleg Llandrillo Cymru SWaNI Final Project Report

Authors

This report is written by the Project Manager Pamela Headon who is the Head of theVirtual Learning Centre at Coleg Llandrillo and Tony Brushett, project lead contactand VLE Manager.

Executive Summary

Coleg Llandrillo is the largest further and higher education college in North Waleswith a Learning Network which offers over 3,000 courses. It has in excess of 23,000students and approximately 50,500 enrolments. The College has invested intechnology and has a robust technological infrastructure with an extensive set ofsystems to support teaching and learning.

The College are users of the Teknical VLE, Virtual Campus and FD LearningsManagement Information System, EBS. Due to the VLE license held which restrictsthe number of users, it is not possible to import all enrolment data directly from thecollege MIS system. It was necessary to construct a utility to extract and store MISdata for active VLE users only, ready to upload to the Virtual Campus. A manualprocess was put in to effect but to be really efficient automation was desirable.

Previously a JISC English Interoperability project, run by Colchester Institute, hadundertaken trials to transfer data between the two systems. These had beensuccessful, however, data validation did not form part of the data transfer and it wasessential that this formed a part of any future transfer solution.

Following the acceptance of our bid the partner members met and agreed the timescale and processes of the project.

The Virtual Campus VLE is hosted by Teknical at their Yorkshire base; to enabledata transfer Internet access would be needed to the college MIS system. It becameclear that major security issues had to be overcome before testing could take place.It was unacceptable to carry out any form of testing which might compromise thesecurity of a mission critical system. In order to satisfy these security issues it was

agreed that Coleg Llandrillo would provide a new server and FD Learning wouldinstall the latest software.

CETIS made the proposal that the data transfer protocol SOAP be used. All vendorsagreed to this proposal; some, though, had major reservations as to the ability toimplement this solution within the time limits of the project.

While Coleg Llandrillo made ready the test server it was assumed that progress wasbeing made between the vendors with a solution using SOAP. It was not the case.When this became clear it was suggested that a private meeting of the projectpartners and the SWaNI programme manager should take place to try to resolve the

issues and move the project forward.

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In order to give the vendors time to implement a SOAP solution a project extensionwas requested. This was refused and the vendors were asked to implement anymethod of data transfer of their choosing. As previous trials with Colchester Institutehad already proved the practicality of data transfer it was felt by all parties thatrepeating the process had little value.

Separately, the partners met to discuss the future of the project and agreed it wasimportant to implement SOAP and to undertake testing in a real environment. Bothvendors agreed to work towards a solution and Coleg Llandrillo agreed to be involvedin the testing after the project end date. Results and conclusions will of course befed back and made available to all interested parties.

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College Background

Coleg Llandrillo Cymru is the largest Further and Higher Education College in NorthWales and one of the most successful in the country. The Llandrillo LearningNetwork is rapidly expanding and in addition to the Rhos site includes Community

Colleges in Denbigh, Abergele, Rhyl and the Elwy Centre at St Asaph which isdedicated to business support activity. In addition it has 27 community learningvenues across Conwy and Denbighshire and is also attracting increasing numbers ofinternational students.

The Llandrillo Learning Network, which offers over 3,000 courses at every level offurther and higher education, now has in excess of 23,000 students andapproximately 50,500 enrolments.

The College has invested in technology so that it can achieve its key strategicobjectives. The Learning Network has a robust technological infrastructure and anextensive set of systems which support the teaching and learning activity. Theseinclude MI systems, staff and student intranets, learning zone, VLE, staffdevelopment system and SIS applications.

Within the College the Virtual Learning Centre was established to develop e-learningproducts, services and support. The unit includes specialist web developers, adesigner, programmers, content researchers and writers, an ILT consultant and aVLE manager. Some members of the team come from an academic backgroundwhile others have a purely technical expertise. As well as supporting college staffand providing staff development in the area of e-learning, the unit also undertakes a

variety of commercial and funded work.

This local context meant that the college was aware of and working on some of theissues surrounding interoperability and integration of systems and processes. TheJISC call for this SWaNI programme provided the perfect opportunity to explorethese very real issues in greater depth and most importantly it provided theopportunity to do this work within a supportive framework. The peer support fromother FE colleges, expert support from JISC and CETIS made this call particularlyattractive.

Project Background

Coleg Llandrillo has been a user of the FD Learning EBS Management InformationSystem (MIS) since 1998 and this now forms a critical part of the college informationstructure.

At the beginning of 2000 the Teknical Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), VirtualCampus, was acquired and minimal use, training and staff development progressedthroughout that year while evaluating how best to facilitate its integration into thecollege environment. In the following year, use of the VLE increased but as the

college did not have an unlimited licence for the product it was not possible to linkaccess to the VLE directly from enrolment data, and as the VLE is hosted externallyon a Teknical server a direct connection to the MIS was not possible for security

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reasons. Therefore, it was necessary to construct a utility that would extract datafrom the MIS system based on a course identifier (course code), taking into accountwhether the student was active or had withdrawn from the course, and store theoutput ready for upload to the VLE. Within the VLE there is an import facility using aJava applet that allows for this simple data transfer process to take place.

While relatively straight forward in construction, this utility required two distinctmanual processes to take place and it obviously became necessary as VLE useincreased to find a way to automate them. So that the data remained reasonablycurrent, imports took place three times per week.

During 2002 we became aware of the results of the JISC English Interoperabilitytesting that was taking place and were particularly keen to observe the results of thework carried out at the Colchester Institute as it became known that they too used theEBS MIS and Teknicals Virtual Campus.

Understanding the wider needs of our institution to find ways to integrate its current

systems and consideration of the JISC initiatives on Managed LearningEnvironments were prime movers in stimulating a bid for funding. It was also hopedthat the impetus to implement systems integration across the college network wouldbe an additional benefit.

It was also timely to give consideration to data handling through the MIS given theproposals to introduce new data requirements for Wales. The introduction of theLifelong Learning Wales Record (LLWR) by the Welsh funding council (ELWA) as ameans of collecting specific Welsh data meant that preparation was needed for theintroduction of these requirements and to enhance our ability to collect and inputsuch data to the MIS. Our hopes were that we would be able to record informationconcerning the options for study and assessment through the medium of Welsh inthe VLE as well as the MIS, and pass back attainment details to the MIS from theVLE.

The benefit to the learner would be easy and assured access to the VLE and theappropriate learning materials based on enrolment status and efficient feedback ofresults to the MIS via a result validation area.

Further to reading the Colchester report and following discussions with both Teknicaland FD Learning to confirm support, Coleg Llandrillo submitted a bid for JISC funding

in the SWaNI interoperability projects.

The Project

The project team1

is made up of appropriate people from the primary affected areasincluding the Registry team, Systems Support team and the Virtual Learning Centreteam and also includes of course vendor representatives. Project roles andresponsibilities were planned as follows:

1See Appendix 1 for Project Team details

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Pamela Headon As project manager responsibilities included schedulingof meetings, setting goals and deadlines and reportingand dissemination

Tony Brushett Project lead contact, Tony assisted Pamela Headon

with project management tasks, analysed currentpractices for use cases and liaised with internal andexternal partners. Co writer of reports

System Support TeamAidan ShielJo DarbyLynne BartonSharon Millership

Provision of hardware and software support and workwith vendors to provide Internet access between MISand VLE. Ensure security of internal systems and data

Registry Team

Bob BirchSamantha Child

Advice and guidance on current registry systems andprocesses and the requirements of the LLWR

Aims and Objectives

It had already been shown by the work carried out at Colchester that the two vendorsystems could talk to each other. What became clear in consultation with thevendors was that a method of testing the integrity of any data exchange had not beenimplemented and it was felt that the continuation of work to include this issue wouldbe extremely valuable to us and the wider community. Additionally, in the light of theproposed introduction of a new data set to record specifically Welsh information byELWA, it was agreed that it would be advantageous to include Welsh data in anytransfer process. This data set is to become a requirement in the academic yearbeginning September 2003. At this point, the data to be transferred had not beenfully specified.

The main aims in the bid were:

Agree and implement a process for checking data integrity at each level

Transfer student information including course of study from MIS to VLE

Check data transferred to ensure integrity

Transfer attainment data from VLE to MIS holding area for validation

Check data transferred to ensure integrity

Include information where appropriate to record use of Welsh for assessment

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Project Progress/Outcome

The planned outcomes seemed relatively straightforward and at the first projectmeeting, it was suggested by Teknical that a different method than previously used atColchester be adopted to implement a data transfer. The method suggested was,

that when a student tried to log in to the VLE, an automatic request for informationincluding confirmation of access rights be sent to the MIS. On receipt of that request,the MIS would send appropriate information back to the VLE allowing or denyingaccess. The process would operate in real time. Data would include course codeinformation that would give visibility rights to specific learning materials. There weretwo good reasons for recommending this solution:

1. The data transferred would be current and as up to date as the MIS2. Security of the MIS data should be ensured

It was also suggested that it would be less difficult to ensure data integrity and tocreate a data validation process using this method.

At this meeting a representative of our Systems Support team was not present butwe understood from the FD Learning representative that there was a testing areaavailable on our MIS system that would allow this experiment to take place.

All then agreed that this would be our proposed plan and that the vendors wouldcollaborate on taking the process forward.

Following a visit to CETIS all projects were asked to create use cases for their

organisation which defined current and proposed processes and targeted specificdata transfer needs. The focus was to be on institutional requirements and form thebasis of any data transfers to be carried out by vendors. At this CETIS event theopinion was expressed by at least one college that this process might have beenmade an earlier requirement and should have been addressed in some form by allinstitutes prior to bidding.

After the event a further analysis of our current systems, processes and datarequirements took place in collaboration with Registry and Systems Support and theresults recorded. The information was made available to any interested parties viathe project web site

2.

We understand that this information was essential to CETIS to help identify commondata requirements across the sector and to help in creating recommendations forvendors.

At the December project meeting hosted by the JISC, a proposal was made that alldata transfers be made using the XML transport mechanism Simple Access ObjectProtocol (SOAP). Vendors were asked to commit to this methodology and indeed alldid agree to the adoption of the specification.

However, in reality for the vendors, it seems that this marked a significant departure

from their initial understanding of the requirements of the project and it became

2See http://www.llandrillo.ac.uk/JISC/SWaNI.htm

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apparent that much greater amounts of development time would be needed toimplement this solution. How significant this change was and its possible effect onthe project time scales were not immediately made clear to the college and theproject management.

In the New Year all software was installed on the new server and it was located

ready for testing. It was our understanding that at this stage SOAP would beimplemented by the Vendors.

One of the vendors was also involved in a commercial takeover which inevitableimpacted on the project and commitment to it needed to be clarified by the newvendor management.

Leading up to the next JISC hosted project meeting (Cardiff) in March it was notpossible to reach agreement with the vendors as to how best to proceed, being wellaware of the vendors own commercial imperatives and the constraints on their timeand resources. It is perhaps worth reminding ourselves that vendor commitment and

development time is given freely, and, although we are aware that some commercialadvantage may be gained by being a partner in projects of this nature, some form ofadditional incentive may be a consideration for future ventures. Additionally,participating vendors should be acknowledged as being innovators and among theleaders in their respective fields and acknowledged accordingly. At no time were thevendors, when we were able to contact them, less than sympathetic toward us andour relationship has remained excellent throughout the project. At times however,contact did prove difficult and clearly our approach to communications would need tobe modified in future projects.

In Cardiff during the first day of this event, as other project teams reported on theirprogress, it emerged that our own experience mirrored that of others and that itwould be necessary when vendors joined us on the second day that clarification ofcommitment to SOAP should be explored. Unfortunately, due to commercialcommitments, one of our partner vendors was unable to attend the event.

During day two of the Cardiff event it also became clear in discussion with our otherpartner vendor, and listening to comments of vendors in general, that the originalobjectives of the project were now in doubt and that an urgent meeting of the projectteam was necessary. The JISC programme manager asked to be included as amember of the meeting to give the opportunity of commenting on any proposals and

possibly offering alternative solutions acceptable to the JISC.

It was also clarified that the preferred initial data transfer process for our projectshould follow the peer to peer, request and respond method.

We were able to arrange a meeting with the vendors at the college in early April withthe JISC programme manager joining us by video conference. During that meetingboth vendors made it clear that while they endorsed a commitment to SOAP it wasunlikely that any vendor would commit to its implementation within the original projecttime scale. The project was due to complete and be reported on by the end of July.Vendors were keen to point out that having already undertaken a straight forward

transfer of data they were now anxious to adopt the December proposal to useSOAP as the preferred protocol and that in the circumstances, any other solution wasnot relevant. A formal request for an extension to the project was made.

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The JISC programme manager expressed the view that an extension was unlikelybut would seek clarification from line management. It did prove impossible to obtainapproval for a project extension.

After the video conference with the JISC programme manager our meeting with the

vendors continued as it was obvious to all concerned that there was a significantcommitment to achieving a satisfactory outcome to the project. It was the opinion ofall team members that we should continue to seek an outcome that would include theimplementation of SOAP.

Both vendors agreed that they would, subject to internal company discussions,commit to undertaking the work necessary and would ask Coleg Llandrillo to be apart of any testing to take place.

The project manager made it clear that while Coleg Llandrillo would be more thanpleased to be involved, the summer and early autumn months were exceptionally

busy times for Registry and Systems Support which would mean that testing couldnot take place until possibly October at the earliest.

Both vendors were of the opinion that development times would probably mean thatthey would be in an excellent position to work toward that date as a test target dateand agreed that they would meet again to agree plans and deadlines.

Since this meeting there have been requests from JISC to implement any possibleform of data transfer to test the application profiles that emerged from the use cases.However, vendors are reluctant to undertake what is felt to be unnecessary work andhave again confirmed their commitment to SOAP.

We now understand that a meeting has taken place between our partner vendorsand that they have reached an agreement to do the work necessary to start testingusing SOAP. The time scale is that the basic work for an initial test should be readyby the end of August for direct testing between themselves with any potentialproblems then worked on in time for the autumn testing using the Coleg Llandrilloserver linked to the Teknical Virtual Campus server.

Although it does not tie in with the original project plan, we feel that the outcome willbe beneficial to us as a college and that a delay of two or three months is

insignificant. At this time we hope to fully explore any security issues that may occurwhich will be a significant additional outcome for the college and its Systems Supportteam.

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Technical issues

Vendor reports on technical issues are included in the appendices3.

The proposals to transfer data from the MIS to the VLE were discussed more fullywith our Systems Support team members and issues of security were furtherconsidered. It was pointed out that as no opportunity to send data to the MIS wouldbe included in the process that security might not be compromised in any way andassuming that a test area was available on EBS then its use would be relativelysecure.

Taking in to account the fact that the Coleg Llandrillo VLE is not hosted on an internalserver, any data transfer would mean giving access to the MIS server via theInternet. Because of the mission critical nature of the MIS it was deemedunacceptable to allow any Internet connection to the MIS server.

In further discussions with FD Learning it also became apparent that softwareupdates were imminent for EBS which included the need to update our Oraclelicence. Our desire to make any outcomes relevant and timely made the update tonew software versions more important. It was also felt that for the outcomes tobenefit the whole sector the latest software versions should be used for any testing.

Further discussions took place within the college to determine the best solution givingdue consideration to future needs. It was felt that testing data transfer using theInternet through our Firewall was an important issue and that much could be learned

by this process alone. The only acceptable solution was the acquisition of a newserver to facilitate the testing and a proposal was made and accepted bymanagement that the purchase should be made.

Having agreed the purchase of a new server to be used as a substitute MIS weconsulted further with FD Learning who offered to install the latest version of EBSand to provide support for the Oracle licence needed. We also arranged for licensedsoftware which allowed remote access to the server, located at Llandrillo, to beinstalled. Teknical agreed to provide and host a server which replicated our VLE butwith some additional functionality to enable the testing process to take place.

Project Management Issues

It is fair to say that a significant amount about project collaboration and both internaland external influences has been learned.

Communication at all levels is obviously of prime importance. Specific dates forcommunication and progress reporting need to be rigidly enforced to ensure allinvolved are aware of progress issues. Methods of communication need to beagreed. Taking in to account the diversity of location of partners, face to facemeetings were difficult.

3Teknical see appendix 4 FD Learning see appendix 5

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Video conferencing was useful with the JISC Programme Manager but was notavailable to the vendors. The JISC programme manager was readily available forconsultation and maintained a steady contact throughout the life of the project.

For future projects we would be inclined to try to document more clearly all partnerscommitment to and understanding of the processes and outcomes of the project. We

would also wish to define the contact details of the individuals actually carrying outwork on the project. The named contact in a project may often be a salesrepresentative of the vendor who is not best placed to collaborate on technical issuesor be aware of the current status of developments.

Cultural/Organisational issues

Coleg Llandrillo has four assistant principals, each with responsibility for their ownsector of the college framework.

The Assistant Principal for Business and Central Services has control of the sectorthat includes Systems Support and Registry with particular responsibility for financeand funding returns and has a particular interest in linking systems which willenhance the institutes ability to provide relevant data.

The Assistant Principal for the Learning Network has responsibility for communitycolleges, widening participation and family and community learning. Ease of accessto college systems including the VLE is a major issue in this area.

It has been particularly important from inception that the plans and policies of senior

management were considered and indeed regular reporting as mentioned in thedissemination section has taken place. Both Assistant Principals have been keen tobe a part of the evaluative process and were happy to meet with Glenaffric Ltd whocarried out the external project evaluation. It has been important to combine thecolleges own strategic objectives with the possible impact of the project outcomesand the shaping of future policy.

Coleg Llandrillo is committed to an extensive e-learning policy and is at the forefrontof developments in e-learning in Wales. The Virtual Learning Centre is the first of itskind certainly in North Wales and consists of a team of technical, academic andadministrative staff who specialise in e-learning related projects.

The unit includes specialist web developers, a designer, programmers, contentresearchers and writers, an ILT consultant and a VLE manager. Some members ofthe team come from an academic background while others have a purely technicalexpertise. As well as supporting college staff and providing staff development in thearea of e-learning, the unit also undertakes a variety of commercial and funded work.In addition to JISC projects we also participate in projects funded by the KnowledgeExploitation Fund (KEF).

This project along with others supports our continued commitment to the use of ILTand e-learning and keeps the issues of managed learning environments firmly on the

college agenda. As a result of the project the VLE manager has been co-opted ontothe MI Focus group at the College.

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The experience gained from the project informed the drafting of this years IS/ITStrategy and the ILT Champion Action Plan. The operational plan for the VirtualLearning Centre will have a commitment to continuing with the work in the autumnand reporting on it.

The programme meetings which rotated throughout Northern Ireland, Scotland and

Wales were invaluable. They provided an added dimension to the work of the projectteam and provided a formal and informal opportunity to discuss issues affecting theparticipating FE Colleges across the United Kingdom. In particular the team feltthere was a greater affinity between our project and those being carried out inScotland compared to those being investigated in Wales.

We are now more aware of the role of the JISC and how projects such as SWaNIand X4L can inform and support the sector and encourage collaboration.

Dissemination

From the outset dissemination activity has been a key feature of the project bothwithin the institution and in the wider FE Community.

Internal Dissemination

Initially this focussed on awareness raising events on JISC itself, the wider MLEcontext and then the remit and scope of this particular project. This took the form of1-1 meetings, briefings, presentations and staff development sessions. Thesesessions targeted staff within Registry, System Support and the Virtual Learning

Centre, SMT, Access and HE Credit Manager, the Assistant Principal for Businessand Central Services and the Assistant Principal for the Learning Network.

As the project progressed regular information on the project was provided to keyCollege Committees. For example reports and issues relating to the project havebeen discussed at Academic Board, External Funding Group, SMT, IS StrategyGroup, IS and Central Services Group.

Peer reporting also took place with the other two JISC x4L projects underway at thecollege. This was particularly valuable as it placed work on the two JISC strands inthe wider MLE context.

Articles are planned for the autumn edition of College Knowledge (the CollegeNewsletter) the timing will mean the final outcomes of the project can be included.

External Dissemination

Within the wider FE community we have taken every opportunity to raise awarenessof the value of not only JISC as an organisation but also the benefits to be gained foran FE institution participating in JISC projects. We have also disseminatedinformation on this particular JISC programme

4and the nature of our work on the

project.

4See Appendix 6 copy leaflet

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opportunity to be a part of formulating solutions for the sector with access to supportfrom organisations such as JISC and CETIS as well as colleagues in other instituteshas been invaluable. It offers a great opportunity to evaluate or re-evaluate systemsand processes as well as keeping senior management in tune with current sectordevelopments.

The objective, implementing a system of data transfer between the FD Learning EBSManagement Information System and the Teknical Virtual Campus Virtual LearningEnvironment has not been completely achieved within the lifetime of the project but itwill be achieved in the near future. Both vendors are fully committed to theimplementation of the recommended transport mechanism SOAP and although it willnot happen within the life cycle of the project, we and the vendors are committed toworking toward this solution. It is likely that testing at Coleg Llandrillo should takeplace from October 2003 and any resulting conclusions will be disseminated to thewider community.

Recommendations/key messages

The requirements of a project should be made completely clear at the outset and anychanges to these requirements should result in flexibility of deadlines.

Parameters must be clearly set at the beginning of projects, perhaps even stated aspart of the JISC bid call. The most significant factor in the whole project was thedecision to introduce a new parameter in the form of SOAP and it is our opinion thatit is not a good idea to allow variations of this nature during the project life cycle.

It may well be worth considering, because of constantly changing technology andspecifications, different, perhaps shorter, project length.

Due regard must be paid to the commercial needs of vendors. It is unrealistic toexpect vendors to significantly change or extend their commitment during the projectlife cycle when they will of course have their own financially driven priorities.

Vendors and the JISC may wish to consider how many projects a partner should beinvolved with. While commercially important to be a part of developments, it can becounter productive to over commit.

Where possible, a clear framework of the project aims, objectives and time scalesshould be documented, agreed and signed by all partners.

A clear method of progress reporting with outcomes, positive or negative must beagreed and adhered to.

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Appendix 2

Useful Links

Project web site http://www.llandrillo.ac.uk/JISC/SWaNI.htmSWaNI site http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=programme_swaniEnglish FE pilot reports http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=mle_swaniedmeet

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http://www.llandrillo.ac.uk/JISC/SWaNI.htmhttp://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=programme_swanihttp://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=mle_swaniedmeethttp://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=mle_swaniedmeethttp://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=programme_swanihttp://www.llandrillo.ac.uk/JISC/SWaNI.htm


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Appendix 3

Glossary

VLE Virtual Learning Environment

MLE Managed Learning Environment

JISC Joint Information Systems Committee

CETIS Centre of Educational Technology Interoperability Standards

Learning Zone Portal to e-learning information and resources

SOAP Simple Object Access Protocol

xml Extensible Mark-up language

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Appendix 4

Teknicals Work on SWANI Interoperability

A service has been developed that uses Apache Axis inside an Apache Tomcatcontainer to offer web services using the Messaging Services for Managed LearningEnvironments. This service offers the client ability to make Teknicals VirtualLearning Environment process data from the Institution Enrol, UoD Enrol andQualAim Enrol use cases of the IMS Enterprise Application Profiles for the EnglishFurther Education Sector.The Apache Server accepts incoming requests and extracts the IMS profile data fromthem and passes these as an XML string onto one of a number of stored proceduresthat process these data further. This procedure unpacks the data and performs somebasic validation before the data are stored in a number of tables that mirror thestructure of the Person, Group, Membership and other entities from the IMS profiles.

In the case of the Institution Enrol operation an account for each person beingenrolled is created within the Virtual Learning Environments table of users and anattempt is made to grant appropriate rights to users based on their Roles withinMemberships.A simple client program has been developed in Java to aid testing of the server. Thisreads in the contents of a file and sends it to the server for processing as IMS profiledata. However, tests have so far been limited to the rather small amount of datacontained within the example data published by CETIS.

Work outstanding

Further testing of the functionality of this server is needed and particularly itsinteroperability with clients developed in frameworks other than Apache Axis.There is no currently no client application to send UoD Results, QualAim Results andother updates back to Student Record Systems.Work is outstanding on:

The implementation of security,

The reporting of errors to client systems,

Maintenance use-cases for IMS data

The presentation of data within the Virtual Learning Environment.

References

Messaging Services for Managed Learning Environmentshttp://www.cetis.ac.uk/profiles/mle_messaging/mle_messaging_v03p9p3.doc.IMS Enterprise Application Profiles for the English Further Education Sectorhttp://www.cetis.ac.uk/profiles/fe-imse-aps-v0p9r2.doc.Application Profile Schemas and Example Datahttp://www.cetis.ac.uk/profiles/fe_enterprise/schemas.

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http://www.cetis.ac.uk/profiles/mle_messaging/mle_messaging_v03p9p3.dochttp://www.cetis.ac.uk/profiles/fe-imse-aps-v0p9r2.dochttp://www.cetis.ac.uk/profiles/fe-imse-aps-v0p9r2.dochttp://www.cetis.ac.uk/profiles/mle_messaging/mle_messaging_v03p9p3.doc


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Appendix 5

Awaiting Copy

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Appendix 6

A Sample of Formal Report for Students

Documents

Transcript of A Sample of Formal Report for Students