XCRI Support Project wraps up

March sees the end of the JISC funded XCRI Support Project as it signs off leaving the development of the XCRI (eXchanging Course Related Information) specification for sharing (and advertising) course information looking very healthy indeed.

The support project picked up where the original XCRI Reference Model project left off. Having identified the marketing and syndication of course descriptions as a significant opportunity for innovation – due to the general practice in this area being one of huge efforts around re-typing of information to accommodate various different systems, sites and services…then to have that information maintained separately in various places – the XCRI Reference Model project mapped out the spaces of course management, curriculum development and course marketing and provided the community with a common standard for exchanging course related information. This would streamline approaches to the syndication of such information and give us the benefits of cost savings when it comes to collecting and managing the data and opens up the opportunities for a more sustainable approach to lifelong learning services that rely on course information from learning providers.

Over the course of the next three years the XCRI Support project developed the XCRI Course Advertising Profile (XCRI-CAP), an XML specification designed to enable course offerings to be shared by providers (rather like an RSS feed) and by other services such as lifelong learning sites, course search sites and other services that support learners in trying to find the right courses for them. Through the supervision and support of several institutional implementation projects the support project – a partnership between JISC CETIS at the University of Bolton (http://bit.ly/PZdKw), Mark Stubbs of Manchester Metropolitan University (http://bit.ly/PZdKw) and Alan Paull of APS Limited (http://bit.ly/cF6Fhd) – promoted the uptake and sustainability of XCRI through engagement with the European standards process and endorsement by the UK Information Standards Board. Through this work the value of XCRI-CAP was demonstrated so successfully as to ensure it was placed on the strategic agenda of national agencies.

Hotcourses manages the National Learning Directory under contract from the Learning and Skills Council (LSC). With over 900,000 course records and 10,000 learning providers the NLD is possibly the largest source of information about learning opportunities in the UK, which learners and advisers can access through dozens of national, regional and local web portals. Working with a number of Further Education colleges Hotcourses is now developing and piloting ‘bulk upload’ facilities using XCRI to ease the burden on learning providers supplying and maintaining their information on the NLD. UCAS also continues to make progress towards XCRI adoption. Most recently, at the ISB Portfolio Learning Opportunities and Transcripts Special Interest Group on January 27, 2010, UCAS colleagues described a major data consolidation project that should pave the way for a data transfer initiative using XCRI, and cited growing demand from UK HEIs for data transfer rather than course-by-course data entry through UCAS web-link. The project is a two-phase one, with XCRI implementation in phase II, which is due to deliver sometime in 2011.

Having ensured that the specification gained traction and uptake the project has worked extensively at developing the core information used by XCRI into a European Norm with harmonisation from other standards that addressed this space developed elsewhere across Europe. It is this process which has seen the evolution of XCRI from a standalone specification to a UK application profile of a recognised international standard. This could now be transitioned to an actual British Standard through BSI IST 43 (the committee of the British Standards Institution which looks at technical standards for learning education and training). At the same time adoption of the specifications were continued to be supported through engagement with policymakers and suppliers while the technical tools developed for adopters continued to be updated and maintained.

A couple of key tools were developed by the support project to assist implementers of XCRI. An aggregator engine was setup and maintained by the project and is demonstrated at http://www.xcri.org/aggregator/. This shows how its possible to deploy an aggregator setup that pulls in courses from several providers, and offers a user interface with basic features such as searching, browsing, bookmarking, tags and so on. It also demonstrates some value-added aspects such as geocoding the course venues and displaying them on Google Maps. Once you’ve had a look at the demonstrator you can get hold of the code for it at http://bit.ly/9eViM2
The project also developed an XCRI Validator to help implementers check their data structure and content. This goes beyond structural validation to also analyse content and provide advice on common issues such as missing information. Currently the development of this is very much at a beta stage but implementers can try out this early proof-of-concept at http://bit.ly/aeLArY. Accompanying this is a blog post describing how to use the validator at http://bit.ly/aHoJtH

Up to press there have been around 15-20 “mini-projects” which were funded to pilot implementation of XCRI within institutions. These looked at developing course databases using the specification, extending existing systems and methods to map to XCRI and the general implementation of generating the information and the exporting of this via web services. Not to say that this was the only project activity around XCRI. Various other Lifelong Learning projects have had an XCRI element to them along the way and all these have contributed to forming an active community around the development and promotion of the spec.

This community’s online activity is centred around a wiki and discussion forum on the XCRI Support Project website at http://xcri.org and while the support project is now officially at an end, the website will stay around as long as there is a community using it – currently its maintained by CETIS. Some XCRI.org content may move to JISC Advance as XCRI moves from innovation into mainstream adoption. However, as long as people are trying out new things with XCRI – whether thats vocabularies and extensions or new exchange protocols – then XCRI.org provides a place to talk about it, with the LLL & WFD project at Liverpool (CCLiP – http://www.liv.ac.uk/cll/cclip/) currently looking at how to improve the site and provide more information for non-technical audiences.

More information on the XCRI projects can be found at the JISC website, specifically at http://bit.ly/awevwQ

Augmented Reality – A Game Changer in Mobile Learning?

I think we’re getting to the point where, by now, many of you will have found it hard to avoid hearing about the latest technology buzz. No, not Cloud Computing. This technology is, shall we say, more ‘tangible’. It is – quite literally – technology that you can hold in your hand.

Yes folks, by now many of you will be aware of this growing buzz around the rather snazzy and futuristic sounding ‘Augmented Reality’ (AR). The headlines are growing, the clamour is getting more excitable by the day and even though it’s only really hit the public consciousness relatively recently, I don’t think we’re far away from that glorious, early-doors hype bubble popping to the sounds of “well…there’s not many apps!”, “is it just for restaurants and tube stations?” and “it’s not a game-changer, it’s a fad!”. For that last one just look at the James Cameron’s Avatar 3D story (and nobody’s even seen it yet!)

Still. It’s an exciting technology and one that – like Cameron’s 3D in cinema – will be a game-changer (imo), not simply a fad, given the opportunities it will open up to enable and enhance the immersive delivery of rich content to mobile platforms. As with anything though, it’s not going to happen overnight. Right now the bugbear with 3D is the lack of supporting cinema screens and similar applies to AR capable devices. However, that will inevitably change.

There are 2 types of AR applications at the moment – Mobile & Desktop. Desktop uses marker-based images to create animations (both 2D & ’3D’) and – in some cases – also include interactive controls. I’ll cover this in a future post I think. For this brief post though I’m talking about Mobile AR. This is where an application uses your phone’s GPS to know where you are and its magnetometer – or more simply, the digital compass – to know which way you’re facing. Couple those together then add in the live video feed coming through your phone’s camera and bingo! We have location aware data overlayed on your image of the world around you.

At the moment I’ve got 3 AR apps on my iPhone – Robotvision (http://robotvision-ar.com/), Wikitude (http://www.wikitude.org/) & Layar (http://layar.com/). I’ll write a post in which I cover these soon but for now the obvious question is simply, “well, how could they be used in a learning activity?” – Oh and yes, I’m excluding ‘learning where the nearest Costa Coffee is’ from my criteria. Now I’m no teacher but I can see this…

Imagine, you’re studying Local History and looking at the changing architecture and layout of the town centre. You stand on a street, point your phone* at a scene and overlayed on the live image are archive photographs of the location spanning the decades. Touch the image of the Town Hall and you’re given the option of viewing a Flickr pool, visiting the town hall’s website, or going to the Wikipedia page and reading up on the history of the building. Buildings, street views, whole town layouts perhaps..

* I must point out that I use the term ‘phone’ very loosely here. What I really mean is the “smartphone”, the pocket sized computer. The gadget in my pocket that is already more powerful than the old PC I have in the back bedroom.

Or let’s say you’re on a Geology field trip, trekking around the Isle of Wight. Pointing your mobile device  (see, we’re evolving already!) at a nearby outcrop and there on top of the scene, through your camera, are some controls that will display detailed information about what you’re looking at. That it’s made of sandstone perhaps, that it’s river formed as opposed to wind. The difference between river and wind formations!

So…AR meets Social Media meets The Cloud you could say. Like I say, there’ll be further posts around this from me – where I’ll attempt to look a bit closer at the applications out there and my thoughts on them.

Cheers! M

Mobile gaming, Work based training

Hmm…a bit of a rhyme there! This is fairly old news I guess but something I have only just come across as I’ve only recently started to have look over the fence into the mobile learning garden.

I’ve been reading about staff at Hilton Garden Inns in the USA doing work-based training on Sony PSPs. They’ve had a SIMS-like game developed for the Sony handheld device which is designed to train its employees in customer services. Created especially for Hilton Garden Inn by Virtual Heroes, Inc., Ultimate Team Play puts team members in a virtual Hilton Garden Inn hotel and in various scenarios, they will have to stop and decide what their best course of action will be to make sure they are able to fulfill a guest’s request and/or complete a specific job task within a limited time. Their immediate or non-immediate actions toward guests—since guest interaction is the primary focus of the game— will directly affect the mood of the guest as well as the hotel’s SALT (Satisfaction and Loyalty Tracking) scores. Nice.

Game-based customer service training

Now this isn’t the only product that Virtual Heroes Inc. have developed. They’ve also made training simulations for the U.S. Army Special Forces and U.S. Secret Service and HumanSIM, which enables health care professionals to sharpen their assessment and decision-making skills – much better to do that virtually than on a real person I think!

Training for Healthcare

 

Now, ok…we’re talking about a company with huge resources on one side and Government training on another but still, it’s a nice example of technology enhanced learning is it not! When I think about Mobile Learning right now I think of phone handsets, best case scenario iPhone/iPod Touch Apps (for me that’s the best handheld device at the moment). But I also like to wonder what technology my sons will be using in the years to come (they are 9, 8 & 4)…and this fits the bill. They’re glued to their PSPs & NDS’s and they like wandering through virtual worlds such as Runescape and Club Penguin, carrying out tasks. It strikes me as a no-brainer that education will soon have to make strides into these worlds. 

Anyone know of similar work in this country?

Google to deliver “cloud storage” solution?

Spotted a post on Lifehacker today concerning a possible future service from Google. A reader has spotted an option in the recently released Picasa for Mac beta to “move photo to Google Web Drive”. Mmmm…interesting.

Now I’ve already taken advantage of my Gmail space, using that as an online storage container – those interested in doing the same might be interested in the Firefox extension but Google Web Drive might just be more of an ‘official’, more focused service from Google…which would make sense as it’s an area you would think Google is perfectly placed for.

Strange thing is that I can’t actually see the option in my menus on Picasa for Mac, which is – incidentally – an application that I love. I always liked using it in my Windows days and am very happy to see it finally touchdown for Mac. So I would certainly recommend it to others.

Report on Identity Management for Lifelong Learning

The JISC have just released a report on Identify Management for Lifelong Learning in the Further and Higher Education Sector.

A full copy of the report can be downloaded from http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/elearningcapital/imdfinalreport.doc

There is also a summary and consultation on the JISC e-learning blog, comments welcomed. See http://elearning.jiscinvolve.org/

E-Infrastructures and Technologies for Lifelong Learning…

…a call for Chapter Proposals.

Dr. George Magoulis of Birkbeck College, University of London & Director of the recent JISC project, MyPlan (http://www.lkl.ac.uk/research/myplan/) is about to edit a book entitled “E-Infrastructures and Technologies for Lifelong Learning: Next Generation Environments”. 

The idea is to provide a comprehensive review of state-of-the-art technologies for e-learning and lifelong learning, covering theoretical approaches, models, architectures, systems and applications. 

We think that this is an area that people involved in JISC-funded projects and in particular Lifelong Learning Networks might be interested in, so on George’s behalf I’d like to share this announcement – a call for Chapter Proposals….

 

 
CALL FOR CHAPTER PROPOSALS
Proposal Submission Deadline: February 28, 2009
Full Chapter Submission : June 20, 2009
E-Infrastructures and Technologies for Lifelong Learning: Next Generation Environments

Introduction
The emerging knowledge society places new requirements on the education sector to support the needs of individuals and organisations. In the area of lifelong learning in particular, which is one of the most important motors driving education in the 21st century, e-learning has become a collaborative and community-based process. This calls for tools to support the autonomous and dynamic creation of lifelong learning communities and new distributed e-learning services.

To this end, the integration of innovative models, methods and technologies for the creation, storage, use, and exchange of knowledge resources and user-generated content, learning activities and units of learning, competence development programs and networks for lifelong learning is being investigated world wide. Advanced technologies that employ decentralised solutions where both resources and computation can be distributed have been developed in the form of online communities created by online collaborative tools; blogs, wikis, webcasts, webinars and social networking applications. These applications facilitate the development of a technical, organisational infrastructure for lifelong learning in formal or informal learning contexts. This e-infrastructure is composed mostly of open-source, standards-based, sustainable and innovative technologies and provides easy access to facilities that enable the lifelong development of competencies and expertise in the various occupations and fields of knowledge.

The focus of advanced technologies is moving from building large monolithic systems towards defining and constructing small components which can be integrated. This method permits the development of modular and flexible distributed systems, in which components can be added, removed or replaced more easily than in traditional models of e-learning systems, allowing new applications or systems to be composed from collections of available services. Furthermore, these technologies can be seamlessly integrated with pedagogic theories in order to be adopted into the everyday practices of educational organisations and independent learners, delivering lifelong learning and engaging learners in an empowering way.

Objective of the Book
The books aims to provide a comprehensive review of state-of-the-art technologies for e-learning and lifelong learning. It will cover theoretical approaches, models, architectures, systems and applications. It will address many issues in the field, providing readers with insight on the various stages of the technological life cycle, as well as applications in real world settings. It will act as a one-stop reference by providing a holistic view of the various issues in the area of advanced technologies for lifelong learning ranging from organisational issues to lifelong learning delivery issues. In the evolving educational landscape it is important to support informed decision-making and planning by successfully matching technologies, curriculum targets, lifelong learner needs, and organisational requirements for technology integration.

Target Audience
The target audience of this book will be composed of professionals and researchers working in the field of e-learning and lifelong learning systems, e.g. educational technologists and software developers, managerial staff involved in assessing the benefits of the various technologies for e-learning and lifelong learning, researchers working on the areas of technology-enhanced learning, web-based learning environments and personalised learning, instructors and e-learning systems developers interested in learning how to embrace new lifelong learning technologies effectively. Moreover, the book will provide a source of reference and a guide for students taking courses or working on projects related to large scale information systems, distributed systems and content delivery systems for e-learning and lifelong learning.

Recommended Topics
The book will aim to cover all aspects of lifelong learning systems, including creating, managing and modelling content and information, organisational strategy and management, technologies, curriculum development, instructional design, learning delivery, open problems, research issues. It will present original work and will be useful to a wide range of audience from different backgrounds working as a one-stop reference for those interested in technologies for e-learning and lifelong learning. Recommended topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

- Creating, managing and modelling content and information for e-learning and lifelong learning
- Organisational strategy and management issues in developing and supporting lifelong learning
- Technological issues
- Curriculum development issues in lifelong learning
- Instructional design issues and impact in lifelong learning
- e-learning and lifelong learning delivery issues
- e-learning and lifelong learning research methods and approaches
- Models of distributed systems for lifelong learning
- Security, trust and privacy considerations in lifelong learning e-infrastructures
- Decentralised user modelling for lifelong learning
- Collaborative web technologies for lifelong learning
- Free and open source software in lifelong learning infrastructures
- Web 2.0 technologies and lifelong learning
- User modelling and personalisation for lifelong learning
- Networked organisations for lifelong learning
- Semantic web technologies for lifelong learning
- Service-oriented architectures for e-learning and lifelong learning
- Interoperability and standards for e-learning and lifelong learning
- Communities of practice and communities of learning.
- Approaches to integration and personalisation of educational systems for lifelong learning

Submission Procedure
Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit on or before February 28, 2009, a 2-3 page chapter proposal clearly explaining the mission and concerns of his or her proposed chapter. Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by March 31, 2009 about the status of their proposals and sent chapter guidelines. Full chapters are expected to be submitted by June 20, 2009. All submitted chapters will be reviewed on a double-blind review basis. This book is scheduled to be published by IGI Global (www.igi-global.com)

Inquiries and submissions can be forwarded electronically (Word document) or by mail to:

Dr. George D. Magoulas
London Knowledge Laboratory BIRKBECK COLLEGE, UNIVERSITYOF LONDON
Tel.: +44 20 7631 6717 
Fax: +44 20 7631 6727
E-mail: g.magoulas@dcs.bbk.ac.uk

Can we copy and move your data?

I’ve just watched an interesting presentation by Chris Adie, University of Edinburgh, at this year’s Eduserv Foundation Symposium. His topic was Web 2.0: Managing the risks

One of the risks is Data Protection and while all of the things spoken about were relevant and of interest this one particularly stood out a couple of hours later when I went to login to Yahoo (to check out the new 3rd party apps they have integrated apparently). I entered my password and was taken to the following page:

Yahoo alert page

Firstly I’m being asked if it’s ok for Yahoo to copy my information to one of their servers in .

Thanks for that…one of your servers where, exactly? If it’s mainly personal stuff I use Yahoo for (I don’t as it happens, I hardly use it at all) then do I care and should I have to care where my information is stored? What if you’re dealing with files that could possibly have institutional IPR issues attached and start to bring the issue of confidentiality onto the main stage?

Secondly the links at the bottom for Terms of Service and the Privacy Policy made me think of another point Chris raised about just how many people actually bother to click on and read these things. It has huge potential to get hugely messy doesn’t it. Of course the situation above has arisen in my personal online life, while The Cloud at institutional level would require a much tighter approach and considerations to be taken by management at various levels.

These issues will be getting looked at by the CETIS Working Group in Cloud Computing much more closely and, engaging with institutional staff currently having to face this subject we will be working toward producing a briefing paper around it and a public dissemination event toward mid ’09.

More news will appear here as we go along. Meanwhile any and all pointers to existing, relevant resources would be most welcome!