staffsXCRI Peter Moss Staffordshire University

Approach Mapping Structured Interviews Internal aggregation using existing resources –Existing faculty/school systems/content –CMS (Tridion R5) –Student Records (TheSIS Plus) Production of XCRI-CAP feed Testing with aggregator

Experiences Interview were generally successful –…but difficult to arrange! Getting to ‘the big picture’ was difficult Separating perception of the process from reality was challenging!

Findings Very disjointed and inconstant process Overreliance on manual processes throughout Comprehensive QA underpins the processes, but creates complex workflows Lots of less than satisfied stakeholders! Some work underway to address these problems already

Issues CMS content not accessible to us –Unfortunately due to restructure/redesign of website the team did not have time to supply us with a ‘feed’ which we could use No other ‘repository’ of course advertising material available to the team Student records system only contains current and historic courses No ‘production’ quality feed was going to be possible 

Plan To carry out a small scale development to synthesise an XCRI-CAP feed This development would.. –Not focus on being a technically ‘brilliant’ solution (neither the time nor necessity) –Identify potentially problematic areas of the schema –Generate some suggestions/comments about the general implementation experience

Development The following code packages were produced –simpleXcriGen Simple Java model of XCRI-CAP document Great as a learning exercise and as a ‘thought provoker’ Disclaimer: Not suitable for production environment Disclaimer: No … really – don’t do it! –staffsXCRISyntheticCatalogGen Uses simpleXcriGen, JDBC + existing code Outputs XCRI-CAP for SU containing current awards – but has no real ‘consumer’ content available Shows how a simple internal aggregation could operate Resulting feeds hosted on web server

Results Got us a feed, sort of! Feed lacked any real ‘consumer’ content but was structurally valid This turned into a number of feeds –mainly performance reasons for this –aggregator did not seem to load a multi- provider document when it was tried Registered with the xcri.org/aggregator Raised a few questions and suggestions ….

Suggestions (1/2) Internal Recommendations –Adopt a more holistic approach to course data management –Existing workflow automation solutions need to be extended and adapted –Make use of HIVE repository for outputs –Actions already underway Recommending that XCRI-CAP output be considered as a requirement (alongside web, print, etc)

Suggestions (2/2) Suite of ‘reference’ documents? Identifiers –Is a resolvable ID necessary? Vocabularies/Extensions –Course description type for ‘testimonials’/personal statements –Consistency of levels, subjects, etc Distance learning courses and geolocation –Search equality? –Presentations with support for “home based” learning venue? Update models –Guidance for implementation teams on approaches to update patterns Entry requirements –Ability for ‘non-typical’ requirements (such as accredited experience) to be formally recorded, especially of interest for widening participation initiatives

Summary Project has helped to consolidate lots of internal problems, which are now starting to be addressed We have made some, hopefully, useful suggestions to the XCRI project Project team intends to continue to monitor and, where possible, participate in further development and promote production of XCRI-CAP from SU

Questions? Further Contact –