Toward an Enterprise Moodle MoodleMoot 2008 San Francisco, California USA | 10 June 2008 Jim Farmer instructional media + magic, inc. with materials from Randy Timmons, Sigma Systems Inc. i n s t r u c t i o n a l m e d i a + m a g i c, i n c.

Trends Focus: from technology to the use of technology. From campus-based to hosted services. Toward Student as learner (from student as customer) Student-focused services Interoperability as a way to improve cost/benefit Deconstruction of administrative systems 5 th Annual Technology and Standards Conference Portal 2008, Gettysburg College

instructional media + magic, inc. Priorities: Portal 2008, Gettyburg Authentication Authorization – “roles” Portlets Events – consolidated calendar Grades – Last and current Student/Learning system integration (e.g. final grades) Student progress (goal of retention and completion; implies reorganization of student services)

instructional media + magic, inc. On the learning system “As interaction [with learning content] increases, there may be more than one [enterprise] ‘learning system.’” Michael Korcuska, Sakai Foundation

In the beginning

instructional media + magic, inc. Context for the Learning Environment MIS General Logistics Support VLE/LMS Library Portal WSRP Enrollment Results Scott Wilson, Joint Information Systems Council, 18 Nov 2002

instructional media + magic, inc. Background A meeting: October 2005 Bryan Williams Jim Farmer Justin Tilton Jon Allen Randy Timmons Customers are asking for a administrative solution

instructional media + magic, inc. The portal view

instructional media + magic, inc. The “eCollege” view Provisioning Final “grade” Mark Resmer, 2002

instructional media + magic, inc. The emerging environment Transcripts, Bologna documents External systems Publishers, repositories, libraries

Issues

instructional media + magic, inc. Real-time or batch data exchange? RS3G (Rome Student Systems and Specifications Group) – Bologna process administration will be real-time. Service oriented architecture (e.g. Kauli Rice and Kauli Student) Used by the U.S. financial aid community since Transitive trust coming

instructional media + magic, inc. Web services or other? Web services – XML documents, SOAP messaging, W3C signing and encryption, and WS-* - used by both RS3G, U.S. financial aid, and likely Kuali Rice (in addition to Java APIs). Web services widely supported in industry. Web services common to most used languages. Web services has appropriate security.

instructional media + magic, inc. Messaging Based on Apache Software Foundation’s Axis implementation in Java and Web Services implementation in PHP 5 (University of Wisconsin experience) Incorporating levels of security depending upon Whether all modules are installed in a secure network Whether federation is required because of consortia or contractual requirements for access to services

instructional media + magic, inc. Open Source Administrative Initiatives Financial systems – Kuali, Indiana University, University of Hawaii, Michigan State University Electronic portfolios – OSP, Indiana University Student Services System – Indiana University, University of British Columbia, University of California Berkeley, San Joaquin Delta Community College (California) Interoperability – University of Hull (UK)

instructional media + magic, inc. Standards efforts (1 of 2) U.S. Postsecondary Electronic Standards Council Transcripts, U.S. financial aid (including U.S. Department of Education), test results, admissions IMS Global Learning Consortium Inc. Learning content (Common cartridge, packaging, QTI) Schools Interoperability Framework Association (BECTA recommended) K-12 in the U.S., U.K. implementations

instructional media + magic, inc. Standards efforts (2 or 2) Rome Student Systems and Specifications Group Bologna process “administration” eFramework initiative U.K., Australia, New Zealand, Netherlands W3C Worldwide Web Consortium OASIS Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Systems Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Cisco Kuali Foundation U.K.’s JISC/CETIS

And now

instructional media + magic, inc. Enterprise information services DirectoryAuthenticationAuthorization Administration (ERP) Learning System(Virtual Learning Environment) Library Portal Interface

instructional media + magic, inc. Enterprise information standards DirectoryAuthenticationAuthorization Administration (ERP) Virtual Learning Environment(Learning Management System) Library Portal Interface EduPerson, HR-XML SAML,Shibboleth XACML HR-XML,PESC NISO IMS WSRP,RSS

instructional media + magic, inc. The new enterprise architecture Chief Business Officer Chief Academic Officer Chief Information Officer ERP Finance Human Resources Facilities Learning Systems Virtual Research Environment Library IT Infrastructure Chief Marketing Officer CRM Core

instructional media + magic, inc. The enterprise portal Enterprise Portal (aggregation and presentation) Enterprise Integration Bus Finance Learning and Research Environment Student Workflow Security

instructional media + magic, inc. Objective: Moodle integration Provide administrative services to support Moodle as an enterprise learning system. (Moodle partner Bryan Williams, 2005) Enable Moodle to also interoperate with library systems and information services, and other commercial software. And, through open standards, reduce enterprise software maintenance costs. And facilitate the ability to use remote services—”Software as a service”—for any combination of remote and local services. Mark Resmer, eCollege 2002

Learning system presentation in the portal “as Jon Allen sees it”

instructional media + magic, inc. Student view of grades

instructional media + magic, inc. Teacher view of grades

instructional media + magic, inc. Parent view of grades In the U.S. for students under 18 or with student permission

Enterprise portals

instructional media + magic, inc. Denison University

instructional media + magic, inc. Jon’s Sakai-like layout

Available portlets

instructional media + magic, inc. RSS version 1.0 channel In-line HTML Streaming Audio and Video

instructional media + magic, inc. Library search portlets – Roles The interface changes according to the ‘role’ of the current account. StudentAdministrator

instructional media + magic, inc. uPortal and MIT Open Courseware

instructional media + magic, inc. uPortal and MIT Open Courseware

instructional media + magic, inc. eTranscript

instructional media + magic, inc. The Meteor channel

instructional media + magic, inc. Lessons from Meteor Using SOAP messaging over the Internet, the average transaction—query, database lookup, response—is from 20 to 80 milliseconds. Using Shibboleth and encryption, there has been no security breach since it began. Traffic has been growing since 2001 implementation to several hundred thousands of transactions a day. Meteor is in use at hundreds of installations each day, most not knowing how it works. im+m developed the prototype.

instructional media + magic, inc. eBusiness Web services architecture XML “tagged” data content eXtensible Markup Language SOAP data transport Simple Object Access Protocol XSL transformations for presentation eXtensible stylesheet language XML Digital Signature for Server Authentication UDDI/WSDL directory services Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration,and Web Services Description Language

instructional media + magic, inc. Why uPortal? Differentiation for higher education Industry and higher education (JISC), services Multimedia-rich portlets Internationalization of portal and content Distributed, aggregated layout (with priorities) Definition and implementation of portlet “context” Cost/performance

The End Jim Farmer immagic.com georgetown.edu

instructional media + magic, inc. A Web service is An exchange of XML business messages using SOAP compliant data transport, described by WSDL, listed in a UDDI directory of services, for a remotely authenticated user (using WS-Security and SAML), and, for most, presented using XSL transformations (XSLT)

instructional media + magic, inc. Request, response model Application M Service 1 Application E Service 1 Application M Service 2 Request Response Alternative response using WS-Addressing (e.g. errors requiring special handling)

instructional media + magic, inc. Select Transcript View

instructional media + magic, inc. eTranscript

instructional media + magic, inc. Or Build Custom View

instructional media + magic, inc. Get Transcript

instructional media + magic, inc. Prototype protocol Request transcript using descriptive information List of students or error Request transcript using identifier Transcript (XML message + local XSLT) Request printable transcript using identifier PDF file + (official only) digital signature Data Provider School staff or authorized student

instructional media + magic, inc. SOAP message format WS-Routing WS-Reliability WS-Security SAML Assertions XML Encryption XML Transcript With California extension XML Encryption WS-Security SAML Assertions XML Transcript With California extension Header Body As proposed HTTPSWith SMTP

instructional media + magic, inc. Directory standards EDUCAUSE EduPerson Objects + “Best practices” representations Explicit in OASIS xNAL, xAL, xCIL, xCRL Implicit in Common Record, SEVIS, Meteor, and CommonLine; PESC transcript and admissions Explicit in HR-XML (implementation confirmed by key ERP vendors) Implicit in IMS Enterprise Implicit in SIF (K-12)

instructional media + magic, inc. Use of SAML Assertions Internet 2 Shibboleth (journal access) Meteor (student loan data) eTranscript (student records) Liberty Alliance (federated authentication) Shouldn’t the assertions be standardized for higher education?

instructional media + magic, inc. SAML Assertion