Joint Information Systems Committee 12/04/23 | XCRI Briefing | Slide 1

IdeaLab 2006Melbourne, Australia

XCRI | eXchanging Course-Related Information

Dr Mark Stubbs

Project ManagerManchester Metropolitan University

m.stubbs@mmu.ac.uk

http://www.elframework.org/projects/xcri

Scott Wilson

Technical AdvisorUniversity of BoltonScott.bradley.wilson@gmail.com

Joint Information Systems Committee 12/04/23 | XCRI Briefing | Slide 2

CourseAdvertising

Acquired/RequiredCompetence

EntryRequirements

EntryProfiles

PathwaysAdvice

Portfolio

CourseApproval

Evidence ofAchievement

TranscriptsPersonalDevelopmentPlanning

LearnerTrails

E-Admission

PersonalStatements

CurriculumManagement

CourseModification

E-Application

StudentRecords

AssessmentResults

References

ApplicantFeedback

LearnerGoals

AdmissionStats

CourseSearch

CourseDetails

Joint Information Systems Committee 12/04/23 | XCRI Briefing | Slide 3

xcri | what

XCRI Course Advertising Profile:

– A candidate XML specification for describing courses

– A [service expression] for a ‘Courses‘(?) [service genre] in the e-framework (there are others related to XCRI in curriculum development)

– Derived from the XCRI reference model, which describes the components of curriculum documents used in the curriculum development workflow and the [service expressions] needed (see also COVARM)

Joint Information Systems Committee 12/04/23 | XCRI Briefing | Slide 4

xcri | why

National agenda of ‘informed choice’ about learning opportunities.

Standards exist for exchanging information about people, groups and membership but

no standard way to exchange information about courses.

Institutions developing ways to populate their prospectus from definitive data but

resorting to primitive data entry to populate aggregator sites, regional portals, ... etc.

Genuine interest from the community in a standard for exchanging course information.

Joint Information Systems Committee 12/04/23 | XCRI Briefing | Slide 5

xcri | history

Q1 2005 XCRI project devised by CETIS Enterprise SIG spin-off + UCAS

Q2 2005 Existing standards reviewed (Norway’s CDM closest)

Q3 2005 UK prospectus websites reviewed (161!)Case studies of existing practice produced from site visits

Q4 2005 R1.0 XML schema developed through prototyping & critique

Q1 2006 R1.0 XML schema tested with Plymouth-UCAS, Oxford Uni CPD, Reid Kerr Prospectus & Liverpool Learning Matrix Regional PortalSearchable curriculum repository demonstrated

Q2 2006 XML used at Adam Smith College to generate PDF course brochuresReport produced on competence modelling and XCRI

Q3 2006 Existing XCRI deployments & authoring options reviewedOptimised Course Advertising Profile XML schema released

Q4 2006 JISC to fund trials of the XCRI CAP + demonstration aggregator

Joint Information Systems Committee 12/04/23 | XCRI Briefing | Slide 6

xcri | contributors

Virtual organisation, PM = Mark Stubbs | m.stubbs@mmu.ac.uk

Michael Aherne, Reid Kerr

Scott Wilson, CETIS

Alan Paull, UCAS consultant

Adam Marshall, Oxford

Paul Walk, ex London Metnow UKOLN

Ben Ryan, Kainao

Vashti Zarach, CETIS

Julie Hardman, MMU

Simon Grant, CETISAnthony Beal, LLMXRoger Clark, LLMX

Mark Leyland, MOVE

Tavis Reddick, Adam Smith

Selwyn Lloyd, Phosphorix

www.elframework.org/projects/xcri

Joint Information Systems Committee 12/04/23 | XCRI Briefing | Slide 7

xcri | cap structure

provider+ identifier+ name+ description[]+ address[]+ street+ town+ postcode+ phone+ fax+ email+ url+ image

course+ identifier+ title+ description[]+ url+ image+ dc:any[]+ qualification[]

Vocab for typed description Aim Asssessment Strategy Career Outcome Entry Profile Indicative Resource Learning Outcome Policy Provided Resource Regulations Required Resource Special Feature Support Structure Syllabus Teaching Strategy

presentation+ identifier+ description[]+ start+ end+ duration+ studyMode+ languageOfInstruction[]+ languageOfAssessment[]+ placesAvailable+ cost+ entryRequirements+ applyFrom+ applyUntil+ applyTo

Vocab for typed description Application Procedure Contact Hours Contact Pattern Study Hours

venue+ identifier+ name+ description[]+ address[]+ street+ town+ postcode+ phone+ fax+ email+ url+ image

* * *

www.elframework.org/projects/xcri/cap.xsd

(This largely maps into IETF Atom and DCES)

Joint Information Systems Committee 12/04/23 | XCRI Briefing | Slide 8

xcri | cap service expression

www.elframework.org/projects/xcri/cap.xsd

Level 1: Pure aggregation, RSS/Atom style - “course info feeds”

Level 2: OAI-PMH protocol carrying XCRI-CAP metadata

Binding options of format:

– Complete XCRI-CAP schema (current)

– IETF Atom extensions

– Microformat approach

– Attribute set for SRU/W+CQL search service?

Joint Information Systems Committee 12/04/23 | XCRI Briefing | Slide 9

xcri | example implementation

Joint Information Systems Committee 12/04/23 | XCRI Briefing | Slide 10

xcri | example implementation

Joint Information Systems Committee 12/04/23 | XCRI Briefing | Slide 11

xcri | example implementation

LearnersSearch theAggregator

Institutions PublishXCRI XML

Joint Information Systems Committee 12/04/23 | XCRI Briefing | Slide 12

xcri | current projects

GMSA

Learning Matrix Liverpool

SURF (not the Dutch one)

UCAS

Oxford

Assisted take-up funding from JISC

JISC E-Admissions process improvement programme

Joint Information Systems Committee 12/04/23 | XCRI Briefing | Slide 13

xcri | future work

Submit CAP to standardization process (TBD)

Do the whole e-framework SUM thing…

Support workflow of developing authoritative curriculum definitions (hard to do)

Pathway analysis (really hard to do)

Acquired/required competencies (don’t go there)

Joint Information Systems Committee 12/04/23 | XCRI Briefing | Slide 14

xcri | find out more

FAQs

Project Manager’s blog

Outputs

– Review of Norway’s CDM

– Content-harvesting case studies

– 160+ prospectus sites survey

– Business case for adoption

– R1.0 schema & XML & case studies

– Web service demonstrator

– Sample XSL Transforms

– Presentations & Papers

– XCRI & Competence Report

– CAP schema & sample XML

www.elframework.org/projects/xcri

Joint Information Systems Committee 12/04/23 | XCRI Briefing | Slide 15

XCRI | eXchanging Course-Related Informationthanks for listening: any questions?

http://www.elframework.org/projects/xcri