An Instructional Computing Framework Jim Farley Harvard University May 11, 2019 Copyright © 2003 President and Fellows of Harvard College

History Born of two parents: iCommons and the Provost’ Innovation Fund Generalize tools developed by the College, Business, and others for use across the university, in a central ASP model (to start) Provost’ Innovation Fund grants: Foster forward-thinking efforts in instructional computing and distance learning tools (tools, experiments, courses, etc.) Lessons learned Improve the process Define the ground rules Lower the barriers => Sustainable, pragmatic collaboration is key May 11, 2019 Copyright © 2003 President and Fellows of Harvard College

Motivations Frictionless technology IP Shift focus to the Good Stuff “Appropriate” defined by pedagogy and learning experience, not architecture issues Configuration instead of porting Core theme of the iCommons effort: leverage Shift focus to the Good Stuff “The best plumbing is the plumbing that you never see” Innovation, not logistics and infrastructure Improve development process (and sense of community) Faster tool development, higher quality code, etc., etc. Eliminate wheel patent disputes Shared framework => collaborative environment May 11, 2019 Copyright © 2003 President and Fellows of Harvard College

Requirements and Constraints No incremental funding for the Framework Built on the backs of internal Harvard resources and projects Focus on immediate needs of Harvard programs Implies strategy and prioritization of services, utils …with an eye towards external/industry standards and collaboration Support “critical mass” of technical hosting environments at Harvard Too many => loss of focus and effectiveness Too few => loss of critical constituents For Harvard, the right formula was Java and Perl …with an eye towards external collaboration May 11, 2019 Copyright © 2003 President and Fellows of Harvard College

Cross-Platform Design Process Shared, conceptual design Semi-independent implementations May 11, 2019 Copyright © 2003 President and Fellows of Harvard College

R&D Framework Manifest Business services Infrastructure services May 11, 2019 Copyright © 2003 President and Fellows of Harvard College

R&D Framework Management May 11, 2019 Copyright © 2003 President and Fellows of Harvard College

Status of Services May 11, 2019 Copyright © 2003 President and Fellows of Harvard College

Futures (Near and Far) Step up to business layer Content services People, courses, content, assessment, etc., etc. Content services Integration with repositories (formal and informal) Local, loosely-managed “collections” in files, local RDBMS, WebDAV access Institutional, archive-quality collections Content metadata standards (SCORM, etc.) Library content, process and systems Evolve the community Integrate “framework thinking” into development process Continuous re-drawing of the line between “pragmatic” and “cosmetic” Performance issues with reference implementations => hard design decisions Keeping the faith on the benefits in the face of real deadlines May 11, 2019 Copyright © 2003 President and Fellows of Harvard College