Final Report: Learning Content Discovery & Exchange

This is the final report of the Learning Content Discovery & Exchange activity within the Technical Standards for Digital Education project. The broad aim of the activity was to

identify schools sector requirements for discovery and exchange of content and provide standards advice based on those requirements

This final report summarises progress toward meeting that aim. It outlines the activity context and scope, the methodology employed, challenges encountered and outcomes for the project.

Table of Contents

© Copyright 2010 University of Southern Queensland

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Background

The Digital Education Revolution (DER) aims to contribute sustainable and meaningful change to teaching and learning in Australian schools that will prepare students for further education, training and to live and work in a digital world.

The Technical Standards for Digital Education project was a program of work to support the DER. It was funded by the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) and guided by advice from DEEWR and advisory groups set up under the auspices of Australian Information and Communications Technology in Education Committee (AICTEC) to support the DER. The project ran from January 2009 to June 2010.

The project aimed to enhance information technology system support for the range of teaching and learning possible in the digital world by improving the ability of information technology systems in the schools sector to:

• operate: support new aspects of teaching, learning and administration made possible in the digital world
• interoperate: work together seamlessly to support teaching, learning and administration

Technical standards work is critical to efficient operation and interoperation of systems. Technical standards aim to document community agreements about how systems work and communicate. For that reason, the project worked with the Australian school education community to create technical standards relevant to the Australian schools digital environment. The project also provided mechanisms for the Australian school education community to influence the development of global technical standards.

The detailed standards work was split into seven themed activities, each supported by a focus group of experts from the schools sector and beyond:

• 21st Century Curriculum Content
• Engage with W3C Accessibility Guidelines
• Curriculum description
• Lesson Plans
• Learning Content Discovery and Exchange
• e-Portfolios technology
• Integrated Learning Environments and 21st Century Learning

This is the final report for the Learning Content Discovery & Exchange activity.

Activity scope

Curriculum content comes from multiple sources (the web, publishers, jurisdiction content development projects, cultural agencies), is hosted in multiple places (the web, jurisdiction repositories, classroom file systems) and is exchanged both within jurisdictions and between jurisdictions.

The challenge is to produce repositories and other mechanisms that allow teachers to discover content using the language of the classroom, to use that content in their learning environments, and access content across jurisdiction and learning system boundaries

The Learning Content Discovery & Exchange activity was scoped to:

• Provide advice to the schools sector on standards for discovery and exchange of content
  The aim was to identify priority technical requirements for discovering and exchanging across school repositories and portals and provide advice on how standards can support those requirements.
• Provide an opportunity for school sector input into standards for discovery and exchange of content
  Where appropriate, the technical requirements and possible solutions identified by the project were to be contributed to relevant discovery & exchange standards currently under development.
• Support implementation projects based on focus group advice
  Depending on advice from the focus group, this activity was scoped to provide standards support to selected Australian discovery and exchange implementation projects.

Methodology

Approach

The broad approach taken within the activity was to:

• Identify sector requirements through consultation with key stakeholders and the focus group.
• Analyse current practice on learning content discovery & exchange based on consultation with key stakeholders and the focus group.
• Write a progress report capturing key findings in December 2009 to use as the basis for refining discussions with the focus group.
• Analyse standards for learning content discovery & exchange based on engagement with standards bodies.
• Provide input and feedback to relevant standards activities, representing Australian requirements and informed by sector consultation
• Communicate findings on benefits of standards approaches to learning content discovery & exchange
• As advised by the focus group, provide support to selected Australian content & discovery projects
• Write closure report (this report)

Focus group

The focus group provided advice on the requirements of the schools sector and current practice on learning content discovery & exchange. Inclusion of key non-schools sector members provided linkages to related work in other education sectors. As well as providing advice, the focus group was a key mechanism for the Australian school education community to influence the development of global technical standards.

The following individuals participated in the focus group:

Communications

Communication with the focus group was via face to face meetings and teleconferences, and an EdNA groups forum and wiki.

Communication to the broader education sector generally was mainly via the briefing paper developed with the focus group and a series of posts on the Link Affiliates blog (details in Outcomes section below).

Challenges

From the outset, the Technical Standards project was intended to support other projects that funded under the DER. The one success here was input into the SIF AU data standards working group funded under the DER. This activity provided feedback on the applicability and analysis of the SIF Instructional Services for content discovery. It was, however, difficult to support other projects in the sector due to a lack of communication, possibly even confusion, as to DER projects that may emerge from NIDAAG, the e-learning business model work and merging ministerial companies. Apart from SIF AU, no other technical infrastructure projects were funded under the DER. Fortunately some members of the focus group were involved in the e-learning business model and the existing ministerial companies and were able to share some limited progress updates with the focus group.

The activity included a software development component that tested the emerging IMS LODE specifications. This testing was successful at proof of concept level, and validated the specification as required. However taking the software development further (e.g. as a demonstrator) was hampered by lack of access to real learning content hosted within jurisdictional repositories, and lack of clarity around the emerging business model for sharing schools sector learning content.

Outcomes

Advice to the schools sector

The main aim of the activity was to identify priority technical requirements for discovering and exchanging content across school repositories and portals, and provide advice on how standards can support those requirements.

Technical requirements were identified through consultation with a focus group. Advice on standards supporting the requirements was based on analysis of existing and planned national and international solutions.

Focus group discussions

Conversations during meetings of the focus group were the primary avenue for collecting requirements, analysing current practice and discussing relevant standards. Each meeting usually involved a discussion of the briefing paper being co-developed by the group, followed by short presentations on relevant projects or standards and then general discussion.

First meeting: 17 September 2009 (face to face and teleconference)

The meeting set the scene for the activity. The group discussed the initial briefing paper, the activity plan, and the deliverables for the project.

Andrew Dalgliesh (DET, QLD) led a discussion on his organisation’s business requirements and use of metadata. He motivated the discussion by providing an update on Queensland’s Smart Classroom Strategy and the current development of the 3rd generation of the Learning Place portal.

Jerry Leeson (education.au limited) then led a discussion of the VET sector’s Learning Object Repository Network (LORN) from a functional and technical perspective. The group discussed the relevance of the LORN approach to the schools sector.

Second meeting: 11 December 2009 (teleconference)

The group discussed updates to the briefing paper, based on feedback from the first meeting. More suggestions for improving the paper were also offered.

The group agreed to use the Australian Metadata for Education EdNA group as a place to collate metadata application profiles and vocabularies being used by Australian education communities.

Jon Mason, chair of Standards Australia IT-019-01 committee on Learning, Education and Training (ITLET) provided an update on the Metadata for Learning Resources (MLR) work happening within ISO/IEC JTC1 SC36. The group discussed how this emerging standard related to other metadata activities and how it may affect current metadata approaches in Australia.

Third meeting: 24 February 2010 (teleconference)

Nigel Ward (Link Affiliates) and Irvin Flack (NSW CLI) gave an update on a special Standards Australia meeting on 5 February to discuss the Metadata for Learning Resources standards being developed in ISO/IEC JTC1 SC36. The meeting was convened by Jon Mason & Liddy Neville who represent Australia at SC36 meetings. The aim was to collate Australian input into MLR, as it is at a critical stage.

Nick Nicholas (Link Affiliates) gave a presentation on the SRU search standard and the emerging OASIS Search Web Services specification, which aims to creating a search protocol that can adapt to the different search fields used in different domains.

Nigel Ward (Link Affiliates) presented on the IMS Learning Object Discovery & Exchange (LODE) specification, and how it relates to the discovery and exchange requirements that have been discussed by the focus group.

The group discussed difficulties of exchanging content across cross-sectoral and learning system boundaries and how the e-Learning Business model being considered by AESOC might influence our discussions.

The group discussed a presentation for the upcoming face to face meeting with other Technical Standards focus groups.

Fourth meeting: 10 March 2010 (face to face meeting with other focus groups)

This was a combined meeting open to all members of focus groups supporting the Technical Standards for Digital Education project. The purpose of the meeting was to share activities across the groups and to plan further work up to the end of the project and beyond. The meeting was scheduled in response to requests for more discussion and cross-fertilisation across focus group activities.

The Learning Content Discovery & Exchange group presented progress to date. Dan Ingvarson from Systems Interoperability Framework Australia (SIF AU) gave a briefing on SIF specifications being developed to support content discovery and sharing.

Fifth meeting: 22 April 2010 (teleconference)

Nick Nicholas reported on his participation in a SIF AU working group looking at use cases for content sharing.

Nick Nicholas gave a briefing on the European Union ASPECT project which aims to improve adoption of technical standards and specifications by building tools and exchanging content. They are implementing infrastructure, not just specifying it; driving feedback to standards; and using a critical mass of content to ensure it is scalable. The group discussed the underlying business model for such a federated approach.

Nigel Ward led a discussion on the Creative Commons "Global Infrastructure for Sharing Learning Resources" project. The approach covers many of the same standards that LCDE has been discussing and is representative of the Open Educational Resources (OER) approach to sharing learning resources. The group then discussed the OER approach and how it should be addressed in the briefing paper.

Briefing paper

The major lasting deliverable from the activity is a briefing paper that captures and summarises the focus group discussions and research of the Link Affiliates team. It outlines key requirements and technical challenges for discovering and sharing learning content between Australian schools. It also summarises relevant projects and technologies as identified by the focus group.

The briefing paper has been published on the Link Affiliates website.

Contribution to standards development

Where appropriate, the technical requirements and possible solutions identified by the activity were contributed to relevant discovery & exchange standards currently under development.

IMS Learning Object Discovery & Exchange

Nigel Ward is co-chair of the IMS LODE working group. Both he and Nick Nicholas contributed to the development of the LODE specification. LODE is relevant to the Learning Content Discovery & Exchange activity because it aims to facilitate discovery and retrieval of learning content in repositories by adapting existing specifications rather than create new specifications.

The following Australian schools sector requirements were fed into the development of LODE over the course of the activity:

• federated discovery across multiple repositories
• dealing with content that may be in multiple locations and have multiple formats
• understanding the relationships between derivative works
• licence-aware discovery

The focus group discussed the following aspects of LODE:

• focus on services for search in repository (SRU & SQI), harvest out of repository for a local index (OAI-PMH), obtain (use of content)
• registry data model that allows collection & service description. The LODE data model is a profile of ISO2146 that describes collections and services, and enabled auto-configuration of discovery applications
• information for learning object exchange (ILOX): a format for search results that recognises that content objects have versions and formats and copies, and represents these relationships for search outputs.
• search data model is a CQL context set specific to the learning environment.

Based on focus group discussions and their experience with the relevant technologies, Nick Nicholas and Nigel Ward authored significant components of the first “base document” version of the IMS LODE specification, focussing on functionality to support Australian school sector requirements for federated discovery across multiple repositories, dealing with content that in multiple locations and have multiple formats, and licence-aware discovery. The base document version of the specification was released in 1st quarter 2010 under a Creative Commons licence.

The software development team at the Australian Digital Futures Institute worked with Link Affiliates to test the emerging LODE specifications. They modified open source tools to test search queries, search result clustering, harvesting from repositories and discovering repositories. Issues arising from the testing were fed back into the specification development process.

Participation also gave Nigel Ward and Nick Nicholas access to members of the European Union ASPECT project for deploying standards for educational content, which participated in LODE working group. As a result, Nick was able to give a presentation on ASPECT to the focus group.

The activity’s engagement with IMS LODE is documented as a series of blog articles explaining the specification and its relevance to the Australian schools sector.

OASIS Search Web Services

Nick Nicholas and Nigel Ward contributed to development of the OASIS Search Web Services (SWS). Search Web Services is relevant to the Learning Content Discovery & Exchange activity because it is aimed at creating a search protocol that can adapt to the different search fields used in different domains, and can therefore be used by a range of users and contexts.

SWS development was influenced by Australian schools sector requirements for:

• federated discovery across multiple repositories
• discovering content based on its relationship to the curriculum

The focus group discussed the following aspects of SWS, and its predecessor SRU:

• SRU is URL based search protocol that allows domain specific search fields and responses
• Contextual Query Language (CQL) is key to SRU flexibility. Domains choose a common "context set" of indexes to search over, as an abstract model. It is up to each repository to map these common indexes to their underlying database structure
• SWS take things a step further by abstracting the protocol as well as the search and results. SRU version 2.0 and Open Search both being defined in SWS

Based on focus group discussions and his experience with the relevant technologies, Nick Nicholas and Nigel Ward contributed education sector requirements, as well as reviewing and contributing to the authoring of the specification for SWS itself (including the specification support of facets), and of the profile of SRU search as a binding of SWS.

The activity’s engagement with IMS LODE is documented as a series of blog articles explaining the specification and its relevance to the Australian schools sector.

SIF AU data standards working group

Nick Nicholas is a member of the SIF AU data standards working group that has been discussing localising the SIF specification to Australia. As part of this engagement, Link Affiliates contributed learning content discovery & exchange requirements to conversations about adopting the SIF Content Catalog object. This is a new object in the SIF data model, intended to aid discovery of learning objects across multiple repositories and sources. Nick recorded some of his thoughts on this in a blog article on the new SIF specification

ISO Metadata for Learning Resources

The focus group discussed the Metadata for Learning Resources (MLR) work happening within ISO/IEC JTC1 SC36, focussing on how emerging standard related to other metadata activities and how it may affect current metadata approaches in Australia.

Following this discussion, a subset of the focus group participated in a special Standards Australia meeting to collate Australian input into MLR.

ADL

Nick Nicholas and Nigel Ward authored a position paper for the ADL Learning Content Registries and Repositories Summit, held in Washington DC on April 13-14 2010, which was quite well received. Although their participation in the summit was funded from another source, some of the thinking in the paper was influenced by schools sector requirements identified by the focus group.

Support implementation projects based on focus group advice

The scope of this part of the activity was: “Depending on advice from the focus group, this activity was scoped to provide standards support to selected Australian discovery and exchange implementation projects.”

No such implementation projects were identified for support by the focus group, perhaps due to the incomplete discussions around the e-learning business model and NIDAAG priorities.

Conclusions

The Learning Content Discovery & Exchange activity was effective in identifying technical requirements for discovering and exchanging content across school repositories and portals. It also provided advice on how standards and technology can support those requirements.

The focus group was instrumental in achieving success. The participants created a forum for discussing requirements and examining relevant technical approaches and standards. These focus group discussions in turn formed the basis for the documented outputs of the activity: a briefing paper and a series of blog articles explaining sector requirements, relevant technologies and relevant standards. These outputs should prove to be useful reference documents for any future learning content discovery and exchange activities in the schools sector.

Focus group discussions were also contributed to relevant discovery & exchange standards currently under development. Significant functionality was added to the IMS Learning Object Discovery & Exchange specification to support Australian school sector requirements for federated discovery across multiple repositories, dealing with content that in multiple locations and have multiple formats, and licence-aware discovery. Contributions were also made to the OASIS Search Web Services specification. The activity provided input into the SIF data standards working group discussion on the SIF Content Catalog object, and on ADL workshop on the future of registry based solutions.

The technical requirements and possible solutions identified by the project were to be contributed to relevant discovery & exchange standards currently under development. However, no such projects were identified due to a lack of communication as to directions emerging from NIDAAG, the e-learning business model work and merging ministerial companies.

In summary, the activity has laid significant technical groundwork for the Australian schools sector to move forward on learning content discovery and exchange once the governance and policy structures have been resolved.

The Technical Standards for Digital Education project is funded by the Australian Government's Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR).