Transcript FREMA PowerPoint Presentation, DSSE Seminar

FREMA: e-Learning Framework
Reference Model for Assessment
David Millard
Yvonne Howard
IAM, DSSE, LTG
University of Southampton, UK
Introduction
• What is FREMA?
– JISC funded Project between Southampton, Strathclyde and Hull
– Part of the e-Learning Framework (ELF) effort
• What is the ELF?
– Service Oriented Architecture for e-learning systems
– Layered (Domain services over Common Services)
– Dynamic and evolving
• FREMA will develop a Reference Model for the Assessment
domain
• What is a Reference Model?
– A description of how services behave within a particular domain
– A community resource
E-Learning
• In this context the term should be interpreted broadly
• A Common view:
– Using computers to deliver course material
– Making (adaptive) content available
– Automatic assessment
• The Broader View:
– Using computers to support all aspects of teaching and learning
– Organising learning
• Designing (scheduling, timetabling, etc)
• Run-time (workflow, communication, etc)
– Supporting virtual community (study groups, classes, etc)
– Virtual organisations (UoM)
– Facilitating Quality Assurance
The Assessment Domain
• Fundamental part of learning
– Formative
– Summative
• Supporting design-time activities
– Locate assessment items for courses
• Supporting run-time activities
– Marking
– Reporting to learners
– Plagiarism detection
• Virtual organisations and lifelong learning
–
–
–
–
Information may need to be kept for a long time
Learner portfolios
A degree from one institution, courses from another
Trust and integrity issues
E-Learning Framework (ELF)
• Part of the JISC e-learning programme
• A Service-Oriented Architecture for e-learning
–
–
–
–
Based on Web Services
Needs to bring in existing standards and systems
Evolutionary not designed
JISC strategy is to fund overlapping projects and see what
sticks!
• The Services are multi-layered
– User Agents sit on
– Learning Domain Services sit on
– Common Services
The ELF Wall
Identifying Domains
• JISC are building the services of the framework (bricks
of the wall) by focusing on domains
–
–
–
–
–
–
Assessment
Learning content
Enterprise
Personal Development Planning
Personal Learning Environment
Resource Repositories
• The objective is to identify services that should work
together within the domain
Assessment and ELF
•
•
•
•
Not enough to describe and define these services
Need a proper audit trail of decision making
Start by defining the domain
Work up through the services to a reference
implementation
• This is an ELF Reference Model
Anatomy of a Reference Model
• Domain Definition
– Overview of the domain, and how projects and standards fit within it
• Identifying Common Usage Patterns
– Scoping the FREMA Project
• Developing Use Cases
– Formal descriptions of usage patterns
• Gap Analysis
– Mapping of Use Cases to the Services in ELF
Reference
Impl’
• Service Profiles
Service Profiles
– Formal descriptions of those services
• Reference Implementation
–
–
–
–
Of key/core services
Examples
Validation
Resource
Gap Analysis
Use Cases
Use Cases
Use Cases
Common Usage Patterns
Assessment Domain Definition
What does it look like?
• An evolving, cross-referenced, searchable web site
•
•
•
•
Indexed resources and narrative descriptions of the domain
UML Use Cases and Scenario documents
Service descriptions, narrative and WSDL
Service implementations to download (Java/.NET)
• Different gateways into the model
according to how you want to use it
Reference
Impl’
Service Profiles
Gap Analysis
Use Cases
Use Cases
Use Cases
Common Usage Patterns
Assessment Domain Definition
How might you use it?
• Use the Reference Implementation
– Build on some or all of the developed services
• Use the Service Profiles
– To develop your own services that will fit into the framework
• Use the Use Cases
– To help understand usage patterns within the domain
– Develop new Service Profiles and thus Services
Reference
Impl’
• Use the Domain Definition
–
–
–
–
To develop a context for your own work
Understand how existing work fits together
Identify standards
Locate experts
Service Profiles
Gap Analysis
Use Cases
Use Cases
Use Cases
Common Usage Patterns
Assessment Domain Definition
Road Map to a Reference Model
•
•
•
•
•
Incremental
Evolutionary
Agile
Community Open Source
Components
– Using existing open source infrastructures and web
services, e.g.
• Web servers, authentication services
4 work packages, 11 deliverables, 1
year
• Work Package 1
– Domain Definition
– Define our ‘footprint’ in the domain
July ‘05
• Work package 2
– Use cases and scenarios
– Web Service profiles
– Reference implementation of a core model
October
‘05
• Work package 3
–
–
–
–
Review And evolve use cases from wp2
Extend the core use cases
Evolve and extend the web service profiles
Evolve and extend the reference implementation
April ‘06
WP4: Engagement and
Dissemination
• Working with our Domain Experts
– CETIS Assessment Sig
– Research Projects
•
•
•
•
TOIA – Technologies for Interoperable assessment
ASSIS – Assessment Sequencing
APIS – assessment Provision through Interoperability
… and many others
– Standards Bodies
• In Assessment – IMS, OSIDs …
• In Web Services - SOAP, WSDL, WSRF, W3C …
• Working with the e-learning community to disseminate
and evolve the web service framework
– Toolkit developers - ASAP
– Application developers
ELF Bricks
We can start to identify a set of infrastructure services that are already
available in the distributed services world
Using the OMII stack
service
service
service
service
ApplicationApplication
Application
service
service
service
Application
PBAC (Process based Access Control)
Ws-Sec
Tomcat and Axis
authorisation
authentication
web server and
SOAP message
handler
Software Engineering Research
Questions for e-learning
• Reliability of long running, distributed
transactions
• Using modelling and simulation for
orchestrations of distributed web services
• Compensation models for long running
transactions
Conclusions
• E-learning is:
– Distributed systems
– Information management
– Workflow and Communication
• Service oriented framework (ELF)
• Reference models
– Define the domain services
– But also rely on common services
• Successful e-learning services should be underpinned by good
software engineering practises
– Ensure the reliability, security and integrity of the resources and
services