Drupal for Virtual LearningAnd Higher Education

Next generation virtual learning

Most Virtual Learning solutions include at least the following:

- a repository of learning objects: various resources used to build a course or a training

- an infrastructure for communication: email, chat, videoconferencing

Next generation virtual learning

Usually we get fast and scalable solution for these reqs: - from proprietary platforms - $$$$$- building up our own meshup solutions using open source technologies

The challenge

● A typical modern university VLE:● Must accomodate tens of thousands of users● Must store hundreds of thousands, maybe millions

of objects (not necessarily documents) together with semantic metadata

● Must deliver content over the net – distance learning, online courses

● Must integrate with academic regulations, has special workflows

● Must have excellent community features

Drupal

● Drupal is a solution already implemented in many universities

● Stands out as a higly flexible framework

● Is a platform for social web applications

● Semantic web ready

Next generation virtual learning

Recent solutions: Open Source, well financed, large support communities

Some examples:

Fedora Commons: http://www.fedora-commons.org/ An application providing the infrastructure to create huge repositories – Cornell University, DuraSpace Foundation

BigBlueButton: http://bigbluebutton.org/ A university oriented videoconferencing server based on several open source technologies (Flex, Asterisk, Red5 etc.)

Here comes the juice

● Fedora Commons and Drupal● Islandora: a set of Drupal modules developed at

Robertson Library at the University of Prince Edward Island: http://islandora.ca

● Fedora REST Api: a module developed by Don Gourley at Digital Humanities Observatory

● BigBlueButton and Drupal: http://drupal.org/project/bbb - sanduhrs from erdfisch.de. Still in development, but doing the job

What can we do with them?

Develop a Drupal based virtual leaning application for higher education or corporate training.

FEDORA COMMONS:Create huge repositories with thematic and semantically organized collections of resources:

- we're talking about millions of objects: documents, images, complex objects (several pdfs + images + xls files + whatever you need to store)

- store metadata, develop controlled vocabularies for your collections

- index and search with Apache Solr- get objects from the repostory into Drupal and do

whatever you want with them

What can we do with them?

Develop a Drupal based virtual leaning application for higher education or corporate training.

BigBlueButton

- Get 100 people together and do a videoconference delivering a training with full duplex communication and high quality VOIP- Broadcast whatever course materials you have and share desktops- Have user roles in the events: moderators, participants etc.- in the near future: record conferences

● A platform for creating large archives (repositories)

● We can store, access (with access policies) and manage any kind of resources

● It is extensible, it provides a set of APIs for developing tools, ingesting and retrieving data

● It is open source and has a big and growing community

http://encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org

http://dho.ie/drapier/ - Drupal and FC

Some technical details● FC is implemented by using Java services

(Tomcat)● Everything is a data object● Each data object can have datastreams● A datastream holds digital content or

metadata about the data object● Each data object may implement various

relationships to any number of other objects

Some technical details● Each data object is represented by a XML file● FC manages the XML: stores data about

● How to find components of the object (datastreams)

● The history of object's alterations● Access and use policies, checksums

● The whole deployment can be restored from a backup of these XML files

Digital objects - basic components

● PID: A persistent, unique identifier for the object.

● Object Properties: A set of system-defined descriptive properties that are necessary to manage and track the object in the repository.

● Datastream(s): The element in a Fedora digital object that represents a content item:

eg. Dublin Core metadata, high-res image, low-res image etc.

FOXML: a simple XML format that directly expresses the Fedora Digital Object Model

● Each data object is represented by a FOXML file

● FOXML files are also used to ingest or export objects

● The schema reflects the basic structure of a digital object

<digitalObject PID="uniqueID">

<!-- there are a set of core object properties --> <objectProperties> <property/> <property/> ... </objectProperties>

<!-- there can be zero or more datastreams --> <datastream> <datastreamVersion/> <datastreamVersion/> ... </datastream>

</digitalObject>

Fedora Commons has a steap learning curve, just like Drupal

Detailed documentation on:http://www.fedora-commons.org

● FC is a toolkit for building repositories● Needs some serious development effort to

build the data models● It is easier to work with it by using some of the

front-ends● Islandora: a front end based on Drupal● Fedora REST Api: an implementation of FC API's

allowing for custom development of FC front-ends and data consuming applications based on Drupal

Islandora

● Provides a basic front end to FC (there is still a lot of work to be done at FC level to create a new repository)

● Provides authentication and roles based on Drupal user tables

● Allows the creation of views from FC collections (no UI, just XSLT templates)

● Allows the ingestion of new objects into collection

● Integrates Apache SOLR search

Islandora

● Demo using Islandora VirtualBox appliance● Download it from: http://islandora.ca

● Local IP: 192.168.56.101● OpenSolaris: root/opensolaris● Islandora: admin/demo

Islandora● Pros

● Almost out of the box solution● It is pretty versatile for searching, browsing and

ingesting new objects● It is a very good starting point for developing FC

based applications with Drupal● Cons

● Does not store anything in Drupal tables, it just links to records.

● There is not so much integration with other Drupal modules like CCK, Taxonomy, Views

● Does not fully implement FC APIs, so extenting is an issue

Fedora REST API module

● More Drupal like approach contributed a few weeks ago

● Developed by Don Gourley – Digital Humanities Observatory, Ireland

● Still as CVS project application, I hope it will get on: http://drupal.org/node/793616

● Provides a full implementation of FC APIs, unlike a similar Drupal CVS application: http://drupal.org/node/771670

Fedora REST API module● What it does:

● Provides an interface to access all FC REST methods (more details in a moment)

● Implements a content type “fedora object”for representing a digital object from FC

● Hook implementations for mapping any digital object to Drupal nodes

● Admin interface for mass importing of objects from FC collections

● Basic tools for developing a fully integrated interface to DC:– Workflows– User access– Taxonomies, CCK etc

Fedora REST API module

● Two main Fedora Commons APIs● API-A: Fedora Access

– “fulfill a client's request for dissemination”– Methods for repository access, object access (find, get

history, get profile), datastream (retrieve actual content or metadata) etc.

● API-M: Fedora Manage– Create, modify, delete objects or components of digital

objects– Manage datastreams, relationships and objects

● Fedora REST API exposes a subset of API-A and API-M as a RESTful Web Service

Fedora REST API module

● A live implementation: http://dho.ie/drapier/ ● A local demo with FC demo collection – some

basic functions● Check Don's Git workspace:

http://github.com/dongourley/fedora_rest

Delivering training● BigBlueButton

BigBlueButton

● http://drupal.org/project/bbb● Content type to hold session/conference schedule● Implements BBB API: meeting intiation, status,

joining, reports

Solutions for a large scale app

● Repository: Fedora Commons● Repository front end: Drupal based front end

for Fedora Commons – Islandora/Fedora REST API

● Indexing and search: Apache Solr● Video conferencing: Big Blue Button● Virtual Learning Platform: Drupal