November 22, 2015Copyright © 2003 President and Fellows of Harvard College An Instructional Computing Framework Jim Farley Harvard University

November 22, 2015Copyright © 2003 President and Fellows of Harvard College History °Born of two parents: iCommons and the Provost’ Innovation Fund °iCommons: °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

November 22, 2015Copyright © 2003 President and Fellows of Harvard College Motivations °Frictionless technology IP °“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

November 22, 2015Copyright © 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

November 22, 2015Copyright © 2003 President and Fellows of Harvard College Cross-Platform Design Process Shared, conceptual design Semi-independent implementations

November 22, 2015Copyright © 2003 President and Fellows of Harvard College R&D Framework Manifest Business services Infrastructure services

November 22, 2015Copyright © 2003 President and Fellows of Harvard College R&D Framework Management

November 22, 2015Copyright © 2003 President and Fellows of Harvard College Status of Services

November 22, 2015Copyright © 2003 President and Fellows of Harvard College Futures (Near and Far) °Step up to business layer °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