Scoping eFramework Services Planning Scenario: APEL Angela Smallwood Peter Rees Jones

e-Framework e-Framework for Education and Research – partners: –UK’s Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) –Australia’s Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST) –New Zealand Ministry of Education (NZ MoE) –Netherlands' SURF Foundation (SURF) Primary goal: to facilitate technical interoperability within and across education and research through improved strategic planning and implementation processes

e-Framework Services Services are defined in terms of technical components from which applications can be built Services provide interfaces between applications enabling interoperability The e-Framework: –advocates the re-use of services to save development costs –advocates open standards based specifications –documents services in terms of capabilities –encourages stakeholders to contribute documentation –provides a means for utilising common terminology and definitions, enabling consistency

Identifying services to support implementation of policy -- scenarios Summarise key points in the policy and practice background Describe the problem to be addressed and the technology- supported process to be developed in order to address it Imagine the learner’s experience of the envisaged process as a sequence of stages; show them in a flow diagram Tell the story of each stage as it is enacted/experienced by the learner (1 st person) Narrate the inputs and experiences of further actors directly involved in the process, each in the 1 st person, using the same stages List further stakeholders and define what each wants (or should want) from the technology to be developed to support the process List further actors (people or systems) playing a role in the scenario but with no direct interest in its outcome, e.g. an administrator or an electronic filing system. This approach captures 360 o information on which the formal representations of the required service flows can be based

Planning Scenario: The problem: what the learner says Ten years ago In my first year in college my cousin said he’d pay for me to go to the Isle of Man if I tuned up his bike for the TT. I missed some exams and never quite made it back to college. But in October my uncle got me a good job that could lead on to chartered engineer. That meant bits of college / Learn Direct and union learn. But I was still mainly into bikes and that was a good way to get on with the guys at work: I built a website. Now I use MySpace because anyone can see your stuff. I started with the bikes: videos, technical stuff, chatting on IM and advice (from my uncle!). I do CAD stuff at work. I’ve got a mortgage, I’m nearly 27 and the people who stayed at college and went to uni have prospects I don’t: I’m still doing pretty much what I did 10 years ago. I got in touch with friends who went to uni (I had to sign up to FaceBook) but the links they gave me were for 19 year olds and the formal engineering web sites just gave me information, not people like me who I could talk to. Next I want to stand back to find out what I really want from life: I need a different view. And of course that includes more money and a career. A qualification in IT? Something with an HE badge on it certainly. A degree would be best, but that would have to fit into work, or get me into a new job.

Planning Scenario: What the Advisor suggests The learner seems to me a non-conformist with an excellent set of traditional and 21st century skills - including communication, creativity, collaboration and leadership – who is achieving less than students still in educational settings who have less ability. (Creating & Connecting Research and Guidelines on Online Social and educational networking the National School Boards Association.) I suggest he recovers information about his past achievement (I expect this will be better than he imagines) and uses this to make an initial assessment of how his profile matches different educational opportunities and their linked career opportunities. He can then develop more detailed profiles and identify how they can be enhanced to meet his goals. The most interesting stuff is the non-conformist stuff: can he formalise and channel the work he’s done on bikes, so that it to pays off for him?

Recovering Personal Information: data sources The MIAP QCF programme aspires to provide a service to match people’s profiles against opportunities and assist learners to identify learning options to reach their goals. ePortfolios: the Nottingham PassPortfolio for school (well used) and college (almost empty) Formal education achievement: GCSE level 2 achievement (5 GCSE a-c) No level 3 (2A2s) But mock exams & predicted grades for AS equivalent Formal contextual course & exam information HR-XML data: Application to employment Qualifications in employment + provider progress reports Job Roles Staff Review and Development records Performance Pay Informal / semi formal networks e.g. Cycle Chaos: How to formalise the really interesting bit: the motorcycle stuff? (QCA in UK and DEST in Australia wish to specify a consistent means of formalising informal achievement APEL in UK; RPL in Australia)

Planning Scenario: Recovering Information for Advice 1.Potential eF Service: Recover formal ICT data from repositories

Planning Scenario: Recovering formal Information for Advice 1.Potential eF Service: Recover formal ICT data from repositories 2.Potential eF Service: Propose categorisation 3.Further eF Services to be scoped: assisting the learner to integrate education & HR data creating knowledge

Planning Scenario: Recovering Information for Advice Repeat the process for informal / semi formal using the same eF services: 1.RECOVER 2.REFLECT 3.RE-FACTOR This is a Recover Reflect Re-factor Pattern

Planning Scenario: Locating Advice and Guidance

What do we do next? Nottingham will develop a simple semi- formal methodology to scope eFramework services, beginning with Planning Scenarios (developing existing protocols) Should we work together to try this out? The CETIS review of HR processes and HR-XML 3.0 is directly relevant