CHEF, inter alia MITC March 1, 2003 Joseph Hardin University of Michigan

Bit of Background CourseTools – a first-generation course management system WorkTools – part of a series of efforts in building systems for support of scientific research teams These two paths have a lot in common, as instances of collaboration support systems, and have led to: CHEF – A framework for building the next generation of both systems

UM.CourseTools Built on tests UM-AA, Dearborn, Ford/UAW Released Fall, 1999 - over 6,000 users Growth exceeds expectations – 11,000 in Winter 2000 Then over 16,000 users – Fall, 2000 Currently, over 30,000 users – Winter 2002 Rapid adoption continuing, and deepening

UM.CT – Current Sites

UM.CT Custom course page presented to each student

UM.CT Current System

UM.CT Course Schedule Link items to a description, assignment, or resource like lecture notes.

UM.CT Course Schedule User-configured choices for Course Schedule presentation

UM.CT Discussions Used for assignments Use discussion topics to present assignments when you want students to view each other’s work. Work originally submitted as an assignment can later be uploaded to the Discussions area for general review.

UM.CT Using CourseTools doesn’t mean giving up current web presence. CourseTools is designed to maximize flexibility while maintaining continuity within University divisions. Here, each Resource links to a web page outside of CourseTools, creating a portable bookmark page.

UM.CT Resources And Discussions A resource document can be attached to a discussion topic to Stimulate responses. While new CourseTools users often limit resources to text files and links… …more advanced user often include a variety of visual and audio files to support and enhance student learning.

UM.CT Resources Only a Browser Needed

UM.CT Help for Remote Users Students working off campus often run into difficulty because their browser or dial-in service is not correctly configured.

UM.CT Business School Effort - Results Over 80% of UM Business Courses online after first year

Support for Work Groups UM.Worktools Scientific Research Groups Science Review Teams Technology Design Currently over 5500 users worktools.si.umich.edu

An advanced users view of SPARC; lots of information in multiple SPARC pages! The typical SPARC collaboration features down the left hand side, page information, resource list, active user list, and chat Streaming video in the lower left. Lots of data and model views throughout the rest of the screen shot.

Great Lakes Regional CFAR The first geographically-distributed Center for AIDS Research funded by the National Institutes of Health (NCI & NIAID) Participants include Northwestern, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota A “virtual center” for AIDS research

Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation

Adoption of CT/WT Over 5500 Over 35,000 WT Users – Accelerating CT Users - Saturating We see these as foundation efforts in understanding and building “Knowledge Work Support Systems” for UMich faculty, students and staff, and remote collaborators. CT Use - Deepening

So, CHEF as Next Step(s) http://chefproject.org

Leveraging Education/Research Complementarities CourseTools: Assignments Quizzes … Worktools: ToDo list Data Access Teleobservation – NEES Informatics/MetaData - CMCS Shared Core Features: Logon File upload Announcements Discussion Chat Schedule Mail archive Gradebook CAPA Quizzes DissertationTool OKI APIs CHEF Technology Leveraging Education/Research Complementarities

Coursetools.NextGeneration

User Configurable

MyWorkspace area in CHEF Synopses of an individual’s online activities - Classes and Research Provides collaboration tools for students, users Home for many types of E-Portfolios

CHEF and the Grid – Access to Globally Distributed Computing Resources CHEF node CoG XML Grid Moving to GRID services model (OGSA) as it develops. And it did last Wednesday…

Portlet-Based Educational Apps …plus CHEF framework (groups, awareness, etc.)… So, we have a team portal … Portlet-Based Educational Apps Net-Based Services (Grid) OKI/API’s … plus OKI APIs to services… CHEF … with CHEF/Jetspeed portlets/teamlets for education and collaboration… Jetspeed Velocity Turbine Tomcat … Connected to GRID network services … To support learning and research in emerging, evolving environments Apache

IU GridFTP Client in CHEF

IU MyProxy Portlet In CHEF

Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation

Home

Resources

Testbed Status

ANL’s E-Notebook in CHEF

DOE CMCS Project Funded under DOE Collaboration Software grants Collaboratory for Multiscale Chemistry Simulation Jim Myers et al at PNNL, LANL, etc Participated in Workshop Shown at SC

CMCS Explorer is a data management tool for accessing data across DAV resources. The default address in CMCS Explorer for My Workspace is the path to your personal data folder. In a team workspace, the default address points to the team’s data folder. CMCS Explorer shows tree and file views, can spawn viewers and tools for specific files, and has search, notification and pedigree capabilities.

Calendar in My Workspace is only visible to you Calendar in My Workspace is only visible to you. In a team workspace, Calendar is visible to the whole team. Documents can be attached to scheduled activities.

Team Management allows you to create a team and add members Team Management allows you to create a team and add members. Members will see a tab for the new team on their portal pages after the team is created. Create new group

New team created Members added

Chat allows for real time, persistent message exchange among team members. Users Present lists other team members present in the team workspace.

First Developer’s Workshop Over 20 attendees DoEnergy/CMCS NSF/NEESGrid ArgonneNL/GRID Indiana University University of Minnesotta UMichigan Med School, ITCS, … Second Workshop in planning

First CHEF Developers’ Workshop

CHEF Summary CourseTools.NG – online support for learning; in pilot, fall rollout WorkTools.NG – online support for research, workgroups; in development for NEES, CMCS, rollout late Summer Goals – enhance online tools; make it easy to move from teaching to research; build standards efforts, consortium so market of components develops

CHEF Info Site http://chefproject.org

Why Open Source CMS? University should not outsource a core competence – teaching It fits University value structures, we are an open community It can build theextended academic community through collaboration and shared effort It is a grand experiment, worthy of the University’s participation

… one of my greatest concerns is that, either inadvertently or by design, universities will be so bemused by market opportunities that they will lose sight of, or downplay, their most essential purposes… -- William G. Bowen, At a Slight Angle to The Universe (Romanes Lecture, 2000)

Different ‘Open’ Efforts OCW, OKI, CHEF Open Courseware – placing content of classes on the web Open Knowledge Initiative - Open APIs – implementations of standards for development of CMS’s CHEF – open source software development effort – uses OKI, pushes other open standards – IMS, SCORM, JCP-168 portal, web services, OGSA

MIT President’s report, Fall 2001 Question: How is the Internet going to be used in education, and what is your university going to do about it? An answer from the MIT Faculty is this: Use it to provide free access to the primary materials for virtually all our courses. We are going to make our educational material available to students, faculty, and other learners, anywhere in the world, at any time, for free. Charles Vest, MIT President’s report, Fall 2001

MIT OpenCourseware Goals Demonstrate a model for university dissemination of knowledge in the Internet age Contribute to improving the quality and standard of education at all levels nationally and worldwide Set an example for other leading educational institutions worldwide Create a major, shared campus-wide intellectual resource Initial two years funded by an $11M grant from the Mellon and Hewlett foundations

MIT OpenCourseware Alignment with MIT’s core values and educational mission: Digital distribution increasingly commoditizes content, which helps sharpen our focus on the substantive values of residential education: personal attention from faculty and participation in learning and research communities. “Giving it away” helps defuse complex intellectual property issues of ownership and control that can otherwise distract the university from its mission to disseminate knowledge.

OKI – Standards for LMS APIs Users Content OKI “Core” Reference Architecture Component Specification Quiz White Board Virtual Lab Portfolio Management Content Outline User Interface List Management Enterprise Data Exchange Specification Digital Asset Exchange Specification Enterprise Information -- Student Systems Asset Management Library Initiatives Authentication Services Modular Authentication Process

Component Interoperability Michigan,MIT,Stanford,Indiana Goal is real tool, module interoperability CHEF is integrating framework On the way to standards Consortium under construction

CHEF Architecture Services Persistent System-wide Multiple implementations of services Configurable as to what implementation provides what service Services API Teamlets: Written in JAVA Responsible for GUI Operate in the context of a session. Rely on services for any persistent or “cross-user” information. Portal Engine: Jetspeed Velocity CHEF Web Server: Tomcat Turbine This applies several places in the document that this is needed – it can be placed near Inside the CHEF web application is a Portal engine, a set of tools, a set of services, and site configuration. Servlets: Access services outside of the portal engine: AccessServlet and WebDavServlet Non-HTTP Components (i.e. E-Mail)

CHEF/OKI Relationship Services Persistent System-wide Multiple implementations of services Configurable as to what implementation provides what service Services API Teamlets: Written in JAVA Responsible for GUI Operate in the context of a session. Rely on services for any persistent or “cross-user” information. Portal: Tomcat Turbine Jetspeed + CHEF extensions to O K I …. ….

OKI APIs – CHEF Implementation Authentication Authorization Local ID Logging DBC Shared Objects (Agent, Group, AgentIterator) Filing (*) Hierarchy (*) UserMessaging (*) WorkFlow (**) Scheduling (**) As OKI APIs become available we either swap out CHEF APIs or build OKI translators – ‘Innovate and Normalize’ * unpublished but well enough along that we can do something ** unpublished, unspecified localid and locallyuniqueidentifier

OKI Current Status http://web.mit.edu/oki/specs/index.html

CHEF as ‘OKI UI’ CHEF UI can cut across tool ‘engines’ Can ingest/display XML/XSLT, HTML, VM, RSS, … CHEF can thus provide integration at both OKI API level, and display level We are pushing on this idea, pushing on real tool – component - sharing Working with Stanford CourseWorks, MIT Stellar, Indiana OnCourse, as well as Worktools.NG partners, eg, NEES, CMCS, GRID…maybe also CAPA, U-Portal,…

Teamlet Implementation Choices HTML Adapter Portal Engine And Web Server Jetspeed CHEF Tomcat Turbine CHEF/OKI Services Velocity Teamlet XML/ XSLT XML RSS I-Frame Portlet… Perl, C++, CGI… Each tool is java code that runs in the CHEF server that follows the Portlet API…..

Dimensions of Interoperability Data Definitions Technology Choices UI/Application Frameworks Service Definitions

Dimensions of Interoperability Service Data UI Tech Gov. Corp HE School

Open Knowledge Initiative Service Data UI Tech Gov. Corp. H.E. School J CHEF as ‘reference implementation’

UI CHEF OKI Service ARTS SCI HE Data IMS Tech Java, Perl, C++ Content representation, markup choices html, xml, rss, … Content UI Formatting/style Formatting choices Xslt, vm, css… CHEF

Component Interoperability Michigan,MIT,Stanford,Indiana Goal is real tool, module interoperability CHEF is integrating framework On the way to standards Consortium under construction

CHEF Consortium (Under Construction) Goals – Further development of core software platform Support adherence to, and development of, existing and emerging standards Develop broad base of user input and participation Encourage and support scalable model of adoption and support Enable large community of tool innovators Learn what should be part of the consortium; what is this open source model really like, capable of?

CHEF Consortium Participation possibilities Collaborating on standards efforts, eg, OKI, JCP-Portal, GRID, RDF, IMS Providing extensive testbeds, eg campus-wide, and associated support Building significant tools, eg CMCS Supporting project through funding Helping to build adoption/support models

CHEF Consortium What would be benefits…(in progress) Participation in requirements development Invitation to workshops Early notification of developments Access to survey and study results from testbeds Support for local implementations Collaboration in resource development efforts, eg, public and private foundations

Consortium Models/Goals We need control of the source code development process; this boils down to the CVS tree commitment process Code itself always open and available We want a large community who sees this as their own effort, committed to and guiding it We want a commitment to continue as open source effort; not sell/commercialize; this is “open source framework” idea We can have tool development as non-profit, with commercial participation of interoperable components This is a ‘classic’ open source development and economic model – see Jabber.org/Jabber.com

Open Source/Open Support What can schools/partners contribute to open source efforts? Core development Individual tool development Navigo Notebook Support Training Distributed help desk Ideas

Research, Teaching and Public Service Alliance for Community Technology African AIDs Project AIHEC – American Indian Higher Education Consortium How do open source, collaborative efforts contribute to and help us understand the new information dynamics in all our domains of interest?

Universities, as institutions, pre-date the "information economy" by many centuries and are not for-profit cultural entities, whose reason for existence (purportedly) is to discover truth, codify it through techniques of scholarship, and then teach it. Universities are meant to pass the torch of civilization, not just download data into student skulls, and the values of the academic community are strongly at odds with those of all would-be information empires. Bruce Sterling, The Hacker Crackdown (1992)

stop hardin@umich.edu