1. IdeaLab 2006 Melbourne, Australia
XCRI | eXchanging Course-Related Information
Scott Wilson
Technical Advisor
University of Bolton
Dr Mark Stubbs
Project Manager
Manchester Metropolitan University

2. E-Admission Course Advertising E-Application Portfolio Curriculum
Stats
Learner
Trails
E-Admission
Pathways
Advice
Applicant
Feedback
Course
Details
Course
Search
Entry
Requirements
Course
Advertising
Learner
Goals
E-Application
Entry
Profiles
Personal
Statements
References
Evidence of
Achievement
Portfolio
Acquired/Required
Competence
Curriculum
Management
Transcripts
Personal
Development
Planning
Course
Approval
Course
Modification
Student
Records
Assessment
Results

3. XCRI Course Advertising Profile:
xcri | what
XCRI Course Advertising Profile:
A candidate XML specification for describing courses
A [service expression] for a ‘Courses‘(?) [service genre] in the e-framework (there are others related to XCRI in curriculum development)
Derived from the XCRI reference model, which describes the components of curriculum documents used in the curriculum development workflow and the [service expressions] needed (see also COVARM)

4. National agenda of ‘informed choice’ about learning opportunities.
xcri | why
National agenda of ‘informed choice’ about learning opportunities.
Standards exist for exchanging information about people, groups and membership but
no standard way to exchange information about courses.
Institutions developing ways to populate their prospectus from definitive data but
resorting to primitive data entry to populate aggregator sites, regional portals, ... etc.
Genuine interest from the community in a standard for exchanging course information.

5. xcri | history
Q1 2005
XCRI project devised by CETIS Enterprise SIG spin-off + UCAS
Q2 2005
Existing standards reviewed (Norway’s CDM closest)
Q3 2005
UK prospectus websites reviewed (161!) Case studies of existing practice produced from site visits
Q4 2005
R1.0 XML schema developed through prototyping & critique
Q1 2006
R1.0 XML schema tested with Plymouth-UCAS, Oxford Uni CPD, Reid Kerr Prospectus & Liverpool Learning Matrix Regional Portal Searchable curriculum repository demonstrated
Q2 2006
XML used at Adam Smith College to generate PDF course brochures Report produced on competence modelling and XCRI
Q3 2006
Existing XCRI deployments & authoring options reviewed Optimised Course Advertising Profile XML schema released
Q4 2006
JISC to fund trials of the XCRI CAP + demonstration aggregator

6. xcri | contributors
Virtual organisation, PM = Mark Stubbs |
Michael Aherne, Reid Kerr
Tavis Reddick, Adam Smith
Scott Wilson, CETIS
Ben Ryan, Kainao
Julie Hardman, MMU
Anthony Beal, LLMX Roger Clark, LLMX
Simon Grant, CETIS
Mark Leyland, MOVE
Vashti Zarach, CETIS
Alan Paull, UCAS consultant
Paul Walk, ex London Met
now UKOLN
Selwyn Lloyd, Phosphorix
Adam Marshall, Oxford

7. xcri | cap structure * * * provider course presentation venue
+ identifier
+ name
+ description[]
+ address[]
+ street
+ town
+ postcode
+ phone
+ fax +
+ url
+ image
+ identifier
+ title
+ description[]
+ url
+ image
+ dc:any[]
+ qualification[]
Vocab for typed description
Aim
Asssessment Strategy
Career Outcome
Entry Profile
Indicative Resource
Learning Outcome
Policy
Provided Resource
Regulations
Required Resource
Special Feature
Support
Structure
Syllabus
Teaching Strategy
+ identifier
+ description[]
+ start
+ end
+ duration
+ studyMode
+ languageOfInstruction[]
+ languageOfAssessment[]
+ placesAvailable
+ cost
+ entryRequirements
+ applyFrom
+ applyUntil
+ applyTo
Vocab for typed description
Application Procedure
Contact Hours
Contact Pattern
Study Hours
+ identifier
+ name
+ description[]
+ address[]
+ street
+ town
+ postcode
+ phone
+ fax +
+ url
+ image * * *
(This largely maps into IETF Atom and DCES)

8. xcri | cap service expression
Level 1: Pure aggregation, RSS/Atom style - “course info feeds”
Level 2: OAI-PMH protocol carrying XCRI-CAP metadata
Binding options of format:
Complete XCRI-CAP schema (current)
IETF Atom extensions
Microformat approach
Attribute set for SRU/W+CQL search service?

9. xcri | example implementation

10. xcri | example implementation

11. xcri | example implementation
Institutions Publish
XCRI XML
Learners
Search the
Aggregator

12. xcri | current projects
GMSA
Learning Matrix Liverpool
SURF (not the Dutch one)
UCAS
Oxford
Assisted take-up funding from JISC
JISC E-Admissions process improvement programme

13. Submit CAP to standardization process (TBD)
xcri | future work
Submit CAP to standardization process (TBD)
Do the whole e-framework SUM thing…
Support workflow of developing authoritative curriculum definitions (hard to do)
Pathway analysis (really hard to do)
Acquired/required competencies (don’t go there)

14. xcri | find out more www.elframework.org/projects/xcri FAQs
Project Manager’s blog
Outputs
Review of Norway’s CDM
Content-harvesting case studies
160+ prospectus sites survey
Business case for adoption
R1.0 schema & XML & case studies
Web service demonstrator
Sample XSL Transforms
Presentations & Papers
XCRI & Competence Report
CAP schema & sample XML

15. XCRI | eXchanging Course-Related Information thanks for listening: any questions?