SWITCH - LOR Digital Asset Management an Hochschulen, Wien

Rolf BruggerChristian Rohrer

© 2007 SWITCH

Current Situation

• Digital learning content production is increasing• Distribution of content

– LMS: institutional - local - private

– CMS, website: institutional - local - private generally not public, not retrievable, not persistent digital heritage of universities not preserved

• Content sharing and transfer:– Classical way: “Google”

– Web 2.0 approaches: (technology, tools, services, way-of-thinking) Social - networking Wikipedia, YouTube, Digg, delicious, ... potential copyright issues

– Repositories: Merlot, Ariadne, CAREO, LORnet, EdNA, ...

• Web2.0: easy, attractive, flexible, social

© 2007 SWITCH

Goals and Motivation

• Re-use e-learning content• Enhance collaboration (intra- and inter-institutional)• Make teaching activities visible to peers and to the public• Attract students• Long-term archiving and distribution of content with stable

URL (content lifecyle)• Make teaching activities citable and referenceable• Single point of entry for all kinds of e-learning contents -

independently from distribution platform

© 2007 SWITCH

Scenarios and Benefits of a LOR

• Personal content management: Lecturers can use their content in different LMS (i.e. as visiting lecturer) and lower migration cost in case of changes

Corporate content management: Projects or working groups can share common resources and deploy them in different LMS

• Distributed working groups can collaborate and build contents for common courses

• Institutions with one ore more LMS can manage their content independently from the LMS which is currently used

• Inter-institutional degrees (e.g. Master degrees at UAS, small institutes at universities) can use a common content platform with the LMS provided by the institutions

• I have a concept that my students frequently struggle with and need to find better ways to demonstrate it.

• I need an assignment for a new topic area I want to include in my course.

Establish a media library on faculty level of an institution

© 2007 SWITCH

LOR Criteria as defined by working groups

• Ease of use– Publish: one-click export from LMS to repository– Retrieve: full-text search, metadata search, Google search, browse– Re-use: try it online, download standardized package

• Metadata– Simple metadata model (low number of mandatory tags)– Adaptable model (extensible with optional tags)– Re-use existing metadata

• Quality assurance– Quality of metadata (editorial department)– Quality of content (peer reviews)

• Access rights– Authors control access to their contents– Control levels: individual (private), group, institution, world (public)– Authentication by AAI

© 2007 SWITCH

LOR Criteria (cont.)

• Federated architecture:– Possibility to run institutional repository that is part of a federation

• User interface– Adaptable:

simple interface with few functions or advanced, special purpose interfaces

– Support for multiple languages: en, fr, de, it

• Federation– International federation: possibility to cooperate with foreign

repositories– LOR complies with OAI-PMH standard

• Extensible architecture– Flexibility to integrate special applications, e.g. manage e-tests,

manage x-ray images, implement workflows

© 2007 SWITCH

Proposed Architecture

• Federation• Institutional integration• The user's perspective• Metadata• Technical integration• Access and usage control

© 2007 SWITCH

General decisions

• restrictions, requirements– currently, only learning objects– national level– higher education

• no restrictions or constraints– granularity: course, module, lesson, image, video clip, pdf-doc, ...– license: creative commons, commercial, ...– access rights: public, group, private– no formal quality criteria or reviewing

• national system based on open source software– Fedora– Meresco, PKP Harvester, Fez(?)

© 2007 SWITCH

Architecture: Federation

• hierachical organization• autonomous decision

about structure and organization

UniZH

Math-Nat Philosoph. Vet'medizin Medizin Wirtschaftsw. Rechtswiss. Theologie

FHO

Tech / IT / BauGesundheitsw.Planung / Wirtsch.Soziale Arbeit

St. GallenRappersw.BuchsChur

EPFL

Arch / Civil Eng. Chem / Math / Phys Engineering Inform. / Communic. Life Science Humanities Tech. Management

© 2007 SWITCH

Integration

• LMS-Integration– publish course to LOR demo

– view course in LOR demo

• Integration with existing portals

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

© 2007 SWITCH

Customizable Interface

• Simple / advanced• Adapted to content type• Adapted to corporate identity• To enforce workflows

• Web-Services interface for custom front ends

Repository Engine

Uni A

Uni B: CMS

Videoportal

Web Services

API

LMSadapter

Image Library

adapter

© 2007 SWITCH

Fedora

• Open source repository system• Evaluation at http://www.switch.ch/els/LOR/evaluation.html

• Supports federation• Flexible• Modular

© 2007 SWITCH

Metadata Model

• Simple Common Schema– Common schema within

federation

– Simple basic schema with possibility for extensions

• Extensible Model

Mandatory

• ID

• Title*

• Contributor

• Copyright*

• Cr/Mod Date

• Format

• Institution

• Location

OptionalTags

• Description

• Keywords

• Language

• Domain

• Issue Date

• Instructional Method

• Learning Resource Type

• Context

• Access Rights

► Uni Basel► Economy

► Introduction I► Introduction II

► Psychology► Life Science

► Uni Bern ► Uni Geneva

► Video► Economy► Psychology► Life Science

► PDF ► JPEG

+ ECTS

+ MPEG7

+ Dublin Core

only possible to extend schema fnm-austria

© 2007 SWITCH

Metadata Model MappingMandatory Basic Extended Dublin Core IMS Metadata self-

defined

ID ID ID ID ...

Title Title title title

Language Language language language

Contributor Contributor creator creator

Location Location (~ID) Location

Copyright Copyright rights rights

format type format

keywords subject/keywds

keywords

description description description

instructional method

coverage coverage

creation date date role

learning res type audience interactivity type

context publisher semantic density

access rights signature context

... ...

common pool of metadata schemas!

© 2007 SWITCH

Metadata: Dictionaries

• Domain / Areas / categoriesExample: SNF CategoriesHuman and Social Sciences Philosophy, Psychology, Educational science and

Religious sciences Legal and Social sciences, Economics History Archaeology, Ethnology and Visual arts Linguistics and Literature Fields for UASMathematics, Natural- and Engineering Sciences Mathematics Astronomy, Astrophysics and Spatial Sciences Chemistry Physics Engineering Sciences Environmental Sciences Earth SciencesBiology and Medicine Basic Biological Research General Biology Basic Medical Sciences Experimental Medicine Clinical Medicine Preventive Medicine (Epidemiology/Early

Diagnosis/Prevention) Social Medicine

• Categories:– not too fine: 1 or 2 categories

should describe domain of a teacher

– not too coarse: to be specific enough

• Institutions• Languages• Data formats• Access rights

• Translate dictionaries to en, fr, de, it

common pool of dictionaries!

© 2007 SWITCH

Content Model

Typical Object:• Obj ID (FOXML)• Metadata (according one schema of metadata pool)• License (FOXML) <rights><license>• Visibility, read permissions (FOXML) <rights><accessrights>• Collection (RELS-EXT)• binary datastream (optional)

© 2007 SWITCH

Access and Usage Control

• Authors control read access rights and usage policies– Creative commons: commercial use? modifications? citations?

• Control levels: private, group, institution, world• Authentication: AAI

© 2007 SWITCH

Persistent Identifiers

Uniform Resource Name (URN)• Syntax: Namespace Identifier:Namespace specific string• NSS: "ISBN", "MPEG", "SWIFT", "ISO",...• Examples:

– urn:isbn:0451450523– urn:ietf:rfc:2648

URN

Handle

DOI

URI

© 2007 SWITCH

Institutional Integration

• Support social tagging• Support peer reviews• Honor teaching• Generate reports• Teacher/teaching rewarding system

– for those who share– for those who re-use

• eLearning award or quality label

• Political support and cultural change!

© 2007 SWITCH

Pilot Project

• started in summer '07• 4 partners: UniGE, FHZ, ZHAW, USI/SUPSI• basic agreements on architecture and interfaces• test & development installations• specifications

– access & authorization – metadata management– ingest API for LMS

• set up federation• implement LMS integration• implement browse&search UI

© 2007 SWITCH

Thanks

• e-Learning Services– Vista

– LOR

– more activitieshttp://www.switch.ch/els

– els@switch.ch

• eConferencing– Collaboration: Adobe Connect

– Streaming: Play

– Video Conferencinghttp://www.switch.ch/econf/