Searching Heterogenous E Learning Resources

INFSO-RI-508833

Enabling Grids for E-sciencE

www.eu-egee.org

Searching Heterogeneous e-Learning Resources

Boon Low, EGEE Training, National e-Science Centre, UK

John MacColl, Digital Library Division, University of Edinburgh

Searching heterogeneous e-learning resources 9th DELOS workshop 2005, Crete


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Outline

• e-Learning Framework (ELF) and d+ project

• Common services and interoperability– d+ search services and toolkit– Interoperability: metadata, repository & service interfaces

• Use scenarios



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e-Learning framework (ELF)

• A service-oriented approach to provide e-learning infrastructure

• A collaborative initiative involving:– Carnegie-Mellon Learning Systems Architecture Lab, U.S.A.– Department of Education, Science and Training, Australia– Industry Canada– Joint Information Systems Committee, U.K.– Emerging interests, e.g. EGEE

• Not an architecture blueprint, but a formative framework– providing high level and common abstractions of e-learning– underpins reference model, system design and artifacts

• Define common services (behaviour) and data (object) models with shared vocabulary, service description (WSDL) and interoperability standards



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Personal Developm’t

SequencingLearning Flow

Tracking

MarkingActivity Authoring

Assessment

Resource ListCourse Management

Curriculum

Quality Assurance

Course Validation

Reporting

Chat

AuthenticationAnnotation / Review

Content Management

Archiving

Calendaring

AV Conferencing

Authorisation

Format ConversionEmail Federated Search Filing

Alert / Notification

Content Adaptation

Resolver

Forum

Mapping Metadata ManagementMessaging

Personalisation

Harvesting

Packaging

WhiteboardTracking Service Registry User Management

Scheduling Search / Browse

….

….

Learner Management

Identifier

e-Learning framework services

Sources: • e-Learning Framework (ELF)

http://www.elframework.org



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Authorisation

Federated Search

Authentication

Content Management

Example: d+ search service



Tracking


Assessment


Curriculum

Quality Assurance

Course Validation

Reporting

Chat

Annotation / Review Archiving

Calendaring

AV Conferencing

Format ConversionEmail Filing


Content Adaptation

Resolver

Forum


Personalisation

Harvesting

Packaging


Scheduling

….

….

Learner Management

Identifier

Search / Browse

• Search / browse, federated search• Persistent linking mechanism (resolver) - OpenURL



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Federated Search

Authorisation

Authentication

Content Management

Example: EGEE DL services



Tracking


Assessment


Curriculum

Quality Assurance

Course Validation

Reporting

Chat

Annotation / Review Archiving

Calendaring

AV Conferencing



Content Adaptation

Resolver

Forum


Personalisation

Harvesting

Packaging


Scheduling

….

….

Learner Management

Identifier

Search / Browse

EGEE Digital Library core services:

• Content management services based on Fedora

– deposit/update/download materials, versioning, metadata management

• Search / browse, federated search

• Persistent linking mechanism (resolver) - OpenURL



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Annotation / Review

Federated Search

Authorisation

Authentication

Content Management

Example: EGEE DL services



Tracking


Assessment


Curriculum

Quality Assurance

Course Validation

Reporting

Chat

Archiving

Calendaring

AV Conferencing



Content Adaptation

Resolver

Forum


Personalisation

Harvesting

Packaging


Scheduling

….

….

Learner Management

Identifier

Search / Browse

EGEE Digital Library personalisation services:

• Resources annotation / review services

• Personal (EGEE partners & learners) resources list services (d+ phase 2)

– Create, read, update, delete personal resource (reading) lists and customised courses

• Export resources to other e-learning environment



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d+ project

• d+ = “discovery+: brokerage for deep & distributed e-learning resources discovery”

• Funded by JISC e-Learning Programme, Technical Framework & Tools - 1st phase completed, 2nd phase about to begin

• Main objective:– Piloting search services and a toolkit for resource discovery among

heterogeneous repositories, focusing on “intra-functional” interoperability

• Partners: – University of Edinburgh: Library and Medical College– University of Southampton, University of Oxford, University of Wales

Swansea– Edina, Intrallect, WebCT– EGEE?



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e-Learning resources plethora

• Presentation materials• Audio-visual content - SMIL-based• Software code samples, “cook books”• Research and scientific data • Reference objects including websites, technical reports, books,

journal, articles• Resource lists (aggregation), annotation, reviews• Hands on tutorials• Assessment objects quiz and exam• Students portfolios• Wiki, weblog and forum• ….

• Web-based, i.e. searchable via Google AND resources resided in distributed & autonomous repository systems



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d+ toolkit

d+ framework

OpenURLResolver

reference servicesconsumer

VLEELF LDservices

Tools /AppsPortal

Common search service

Common search services

d+ is based on:

OCLC Reference System for SRW/U

JAFER Toolkit for accessing Z39.50

repositories



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Common service interfaces

• Unifying disparate repositories interfaces with:– LOC Search & Retrieve URL (SRU) interface:– OpenURL for persistent linking

• SRU uses Common Query Language (CQL) for specifying search strategy– query=title exact “grid computing” (title search)– query=“grid computing” and date exact 2004 (boolean)

• CQL also provides context querying– Dublin core context, e.g. dc.title exact xxx – LOM context, e.g. lom.general.title exact xxx



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Interoperability stacks

Interoperability stack

Metadata

Metadata container

Repository access Interfaces

d+ toolkit

d+ framework

OpenURLResolver

reference servicesconsumer

VLEELF LDservices

Tools /AppsPortal



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Repositories access interfaces

• Any Z39.50 bibliographic, e.g. ePrints UK, RDN, COPAC, Ovid Cochrane Library, Xgrain

• Application programming interface (API): DSpace, Google

• Web services - REST (URL): Amazon, PubMed, O’Reilly Safari e-Reference Library, Health Board Scotland

• Web services - SOAP: IntraLibrary (underlying repository for Jorum), National e-Library for Health, Health Protection Scotland



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searchRetrieveResponse XML

recordsrecordData

resource metadata

recordData

resource metadata

recordData

resource metadata

Map native metadata to

LOM, DC, RLI

Metadata interoperability

• Mapping native metadata to a specific schema is required so that the search results are consistent (for service consumption)

• In addition to reusing native metadata schemas of the repositories, mapping services piloted:– MARC, GRS to LOM, DC, RLI – DC to LOM, RLI– Amazon, Google, Safari,

Xgrain to LOM, DC



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M’data container interoperability

• Mapping SRW/U results to different containers (“wrappers”): IMS Content Packaging and Resource List Spec.

searchRetrieveResponse XML

recordsrecordData

resource metadata

recordData

resource metadata

recordData

resource metadata

IMS Content Package XML

resources

resource

metadata/lom

resource

metadata/lom

resource

metadata/lom

IMS Resource List XML

resourceListresource

resourceMetadata

resource

resourceMetadata

resource

resourceMetadata



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M’data container interoperability

• Action: to map SRW/U to IMS CP/RLI:– Using the metadata mapping mechanisms, retrieve the appropriate

SRU results containing the corresponding metadata schema of the container, I.e. CP->LOM, RLI ->RLI (metadata)

– Map the SRU(LOM/RLI metadata) results with XSLT stylesheets, to IMSCP/LOM, or IMSRLI/RLI

• More elegant action:– Modify SRW/U web services to return different containers in

addition of the current “hard-wired” SRU response wrapper

• Needs the separation of SRW/U service from its data binding– “lom.title” query gets IMSCP/LOM records by default– “rli.title” query gets IMSRLI/RLI records by default– “dc.title” query gets SRW/DC records by default



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Use scenario - VLE

• Search library and web resources from within virtual learning environments (VLE)



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Use scenario - VLE

• Re-purposing library metadata as reading lists with annotations



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Use scenario - VLE

• Another VLE



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Use scenario - mobile devices

• Personal digital assistants (PDA) & mobile devices



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Scenario - metadata enrichment

• Integrating metadata from multiple sources

bibliographic

holding

graphics

external annotations



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Use scenario - federated search

• As underlying engine for federated searching

d+



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Further work

• d+ evaluation– JISC ELF demonstrator projects for deploying d+ toolkit and

services among institutional settings

• d+ phase 2 – A toolkit for resource list services based on IMS Resource List

Interoperability Specification– Demonstrator application for creating, reading, updating and

deleting resource list

• Fedora as a platform for d+– Caching– Annotation services– Embedded repository (shipped with the toolkit)



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Thank you

• Further Information:– JISC E-Learning Framework

http://www.elframework.org/– d+ project

http://devil.lib.ed.ac.uk– EGEE digital library & e-learning:

http://wiki.nesc.ac.uk/read/egee-elearning/

• Email– [email protected]– [email protected]