This briefing introduces a range of approaches and specifications for recording and exchanging data generated by the interactions of users with resources.

Such data is a form of Activity Data, which can be defined as “the record of [...]]]> Link: Activity Data and Paradata (pdf)
Link: Activity Data and Paradata (MS Word .docx)

This briefing introduces a range of approaches and specifications for recording and exchanging data generated by the interactions of users with resources.

Such data is a form of Activity Data, which can be defined as “the record of any user action that can be logged on a computer”. Meaning can be derived from Activity Data by querying it to reveal patterns and context, this is often referred to as Analytics. Activity Data can be shared as an Activity Stream, a list of recent activities performed by an individual. Initiatives such as OpenSocial, ActivityStreams and TinCan API have produced specifications and APIs to share Activity Data across platforms and applications.

While Activity Streams record the actions of individual users and their interactions with multiple resources and services, other specifications have been developed to record the actions of multiple users on individual resources. This data about how and in what context resources are used is often referred to as Paradata. A specification for recording and exchanging paradata has been developed by the Learning Registry, an open source content-distribution network for storing and sharing information about learning resources.

Over the past five years, as part of its overall developments in teaching and learning, The University of Huddersfield has been active in developing new [...]]]> Link: CETIS Analytics Series Vol 2, No 2. Acting on Assessment Analytics (pdf)
Link: CETIS Analytics Series Vol 2, No 2. Acting on Assessment Analytics (MS Word docx)

Over the past five years, as part of its overall developments in teaching and learning, The University of Huddersfield has been active in developing new approaches to assessment and feedback methodologies. This has included the implementation of related technologies such as e-submission and marking tools.

In this case study Dr Cath Ellis shares with us how her interest in learning analytics began and how she and colleagues are making practical use of assessment data both for student feedback and overall course design processes.

Preview

Outlines a novel approach taken by Jisc and Cetis to synthesise and disseminate the technical outputs and findings of three years of HEFCE funded UKOER Programmes. Rather than employing a consultant to produce [...]]]> Link: Writing in Book Sprints (OER13 Conference Paper) (PDF)
Link: Writing in Book Sprints (OER13 Conference Paper) (MS Word .doc)

Outlines a novel approach taken by Jisc and Cetis to synthesise and disseminate the technical outputs and findings of three years of HEFCE funded UKOER Programmes. Rather than employing a consultant to produce a final synthesis report, the authors decided to undertake the task themselves by participating in a three-day book sprint facilitated by Adam Hyde of BookSprints.net. Over the course of the three days the authors wrote and edited a complete draft of a 21,000 word book titled “Technology for Open Educational Resources: Into the Wild – Reflections of three years of the UKOER programmes”.

While the authors all had considerable experience of the technical issues and challenges surfaced by the UKOER programmes, and had blogged extensively about these topics, it was a challenge to write a large coherent volume of text in such a short period. By employing the book
sprint methodology and the BookType open source book authoring platform the editorial team were able to rise to this challenge. Although BookType allows authors to restrict access to their works in progress, the team decide to produce the OER technical synthesis book as an open draft. This meant that colleagues who were not participating in the book sprint were able to monitor progress, and read and comment on the draft as it grew.

Book sprints are essentially short intense facilitated writing retreats, which bring together a group of four to twelve people along with a facilitator to produce a book in three to five days.The model involves little or no pre-production, and the aim is to have a published book (in ebook and print-on-demand formats) by the end of the sprint. Book sprints are not primarily an exercise in collating content from existing sources, the majority of the text is original material written during the sprint, however in the case of “Into the Wild”, some material was incorporated from relevant blog posts. Although the book sprint methodology was originally designed for producing open source software manuals, particularly FLOSS Manuals, the technique has now been adopted by other non-technical domains, including academic disciplines. For example, a group of Finnish high school teachers recently wrote a maths textbook during three-day book sprint (Harmon, 2012).

We believe that the facilitated book sprint approach and the open source BookType software
will be of relevance to colleagues who are interested in developing books for or about open
educational resources, particularly where they have the necessary background knowledge and
access to content that can be adapted and reused, but lack the time or support to marshal these resources into a coherent, professional product.

In this paper we outline and reflect on our experience of employing the book sprint
methodology and explore its applicability to the creation of open educational resources.

Preview

This paper reflects on Cetis’ involvement with the Learning Registry and Jisc’s Learning Registry Node Experiment at Mimas (The JLeRN Experiment), and their application to UKOER [...]]]> The Learning Registry: social networking for open educational resources? (OER13 Conference paper) (PDF)
The Learning Registry: social networking for open educational resources? (OER13 Conference paper) (MS Word .doc)

This paper reflects on Cetis’ involvement with the Learning Registry and Jisc’s Learning Registry Node Experiment at Mimas (The JLeRN Experiment), and their application to UKOER initiatives. Initially funded by the US Departments of Education and Defense, the Learning Registry (LR) is an open source network for storing and distributing metadata and curriculum, activity and social usage data about learning resources across diverse educational systems.

The LR’s innovative technical methodology applies a new approach to the perennial problems of describing and managing OERs. Rather than mandating specific standards, the LR is metadata agnostic; it ingests all kinds of resource descriptions and data into a document-oriented, schema-free database. Described as “social networking for metadata”, the LR should make it possible to mine networks to build useful services based on the context in which educational resources are used, and the conversations users have around them.

Since its inception, there has been sustained interest in the LR from a number of innovative technologists and developers within the UKOER community. Part of Cetis’ and JLeRN’s brief was to engage this group to explore the applicability of the LR approach to UKOER initiatives, and to scope the type of services that could usefully be built on top of an open LR node. As a result, a small number of projects and developers have engaged with JLeRN and the LR and have established the technical feasibility of implementing the LR architecture and ingesting and extracting data, and have also demonstrated a range of innovative services that can be built on top of an LR node. However, the network effect currently remains unproven, as there are only a handful of nodes in existence.

In exploring the benefits and drawbacks of the LR approach, JLeRN and CETIS surfaced a number of issues. These include managing expectations of the LR’s promise in light of its early stage of development; examining the technical skills and capacity available in the sector; identifying the benefits of adopting the LR versus other technologies (e.g. basic schema-free noSQL databases, RDF triple stores); and exploring the value of the LR approach to subject areas with clearly defined curricula and learning outcomes.

The problem of sharing the educational context and value of resources is one that the sector has struggled with for many years. The LR may not conclusively solve this messy problem, but by taking a new approach to the challenge, it certainly merits further attention.

This paper reports and reflects on the innovative technical approaches adopted by UKOER projects to resource description, search engine optimisation and resource discovery. The [...]]]> Link: New Approaches to Describing and Discovering Open Educational Resources (OER13 Conference paper)(PDF)
Link: New Approaches to Describing and Discovering Open Educational Resources (OER13 Conference paper) (MS Word .doc)

This paper reports and reflects on the innovative technical approaches adopted by UKOER projects to resource description, search engine optimisation and resource discovery. The HEFCE UKOER programmes ran for three years from 2009 to 2012 and funded a large number and variety of projects focused on releasing open educational resources (OERs) and embedding open practice. The Cetis Innovation Support Centre was tasked by JISC with providing strategic advice, technical support and direction throughout the programme. One constant across the diverse UKOER projects was their desire to ensure the resources they released could be discovered by people who might benefit from them; if no one can find an OER no one will use it. This paper will focus on three specific approaches with potential to achieve this aim: search engine optimisation, embedding metadata in the form of schema.org microdata, and sharing “paradata” information about how resources are used.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of resources in search engine results in order to make the resource more discoverable. Discoverability also relates to the ability to find resources in appropriate places, for example, in curated collections, institutional repositories and through web services. In terms of open educational resources, SEO interventions can be made at the level of the individual OER, e.g. as described by projects such as OpenSpires and SCOOTER; or at the collection management level, e.g. Triton’s use of WordPress to optimise SEO.

While SEO focuses on human readable, textual descriptions of resources, presented in a structured or semi-structured format; an alternative approach to resource description is structured, machine-readable metadata. The two can be combined in approaches such as microformats, RDFa, and microdata which bridge the gap between human-oriented resource description and machine readable metadata. This paper will report on activities undertaken throughout the UKOER programmes to identify what metadata is really required for OERs, challenges in formalising metadata to describe educational characteristics of OERs, and efforts to address some of these issues through the Learning Resource Metadata Initiative (LRMI).

It has long been acknowledged that publisher-created resource descriptions and formal metadata records are not the only useful sources of information about learning resources, particularly OERs. Often more useful, contextually sensitive and extensive information can be created by users, both incidentally as they interact with resources, and through the conscious actions of reviewing, tagging, discussing and recommending OERs. “Paradata” offers a new approach to gathering, surfacing and sharing this information, which may offer potential solutions to some of the more intractable problems around describing the educational characteristics of resources. We will report briefly on the activities of the Learning Registry and other projects that are exploring the use of “paradata”.

We hope this paper will highlight the importance of effective resource description to the discoverability of OERs, explore innovative approaches to old problems and provide pointers to where future efforts might be directed to maximise the benefits of open educational resources.

Preview:

Jean Mutton, Student Experience Project Manager, University of Derby, shares with us some approaches she has been spearheading in terms of using data [...]]]> Link: CETIS Analytics Series Vol 2, No 1. Case Study, Engaging with Analytics
Link: CETIS Analytics Series Vol 2, No 1. Case Study, Engaging with Analytics (MS Word .docx)

Jean Mutton, Student Experience Project Manager, University of Derby, shares with us some approaches she has been spearheading in terms of using data and analytics to help improve the student experience. Through their participation in Jisc development programmes, Jean and her team (including paid student interns) have taken a service design approach that focuses on the needs of end user first.

This case study explores the wider issues around using data to inform decision making, and the strategies the University of Derby are developing to improve their student enhancement processes by addressing key questions such as:

• What is actually happening to students, how can we find out?
• What are the touch points with between students and the institution?
• What are the institutional “digital footprints” of our students?
• What really matters to our students?

Preview

This report sets out to help decision makers in higher education institutions gain a better understanding of the phenomenon of Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) and trends towards greater openness in [...]]]> Link: MOOCs and Open Education: Implications for Higher Education (pdf)
Link: MOOCs and Open Education: Implications for Higher Education (MS Word docx)

This report sets out to help decision makers in higher education institutions gain a better understanding of the phenomenon of Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) and trends towards greater openness in higher education and to think about the implications for their institutions. The phenomena of MOOCs are described, placing them in the wider context of open education, online learning and the changes that are currently taking place in higher education at a time of globalisation of education and constrained budgets. The report is written from a UK higher education perspective, but is largely informed by the developments in MOOCs from the USA and Canada. A literature review was undertaken focussing on the extensive reporting of MOOCs through blogs, press releases as well as openly available reports. This identified current debates about new course provision, the impact of changes in funding and the implications for greater openness in higher education. The theory of disruptive innovation is used to help form the questions of policy and strategy that higher education institutions need to address.

Preview

Analytics is notable in that it is a headline grabbing trend in many domains, but has also been around for a long time under various [...]]]> Link: CETIS Analytics Series Vol 1, No 11. Analytics Tools and Infrastructure (pdf)
Link: CETIS Analytics Series Vol 1, No 11. Analytics Tools and Infrastructure (MS Word .docx)

Analytics is notable in that it is a headline grabbing trend in many domains, but has also been around for a long time under various other labels. One consequence of that longevity is that there is a bewildering array of tools available that can support an analytics process in some way.

An exhaustive overview of all such tools is near impossible, and probably out of date the moment it’s finished. What is possible, however, is to provide a map of the major categories of tools, and highlight some landmark tools that are available now.

Because of the diverse history and practice of analytics, many different categorisations are possible, but we choose to group them by tradition, or established approach. One reason is that such an approach makes tools more easily comparable, because they have been developed to meet the needs and expectations of their communities over time. The other reason is that it tallies closely with other papers in the CETIS Analytics Series of which this briefing is a part.

Between 2009 and 2012 the Higher Education Funding Council funded a series of programmes to encourage higher education institutions in the UK to release existing educational content as Open Educational Resources. The HEFCE funded UK OER Programme was run and managed by the JISC and [...]]]> Reflections on three years of the UK OER Programmes.

Between 2009 and 2012 the Higher Education Funding Council funded a series of programmes to encourage higher education institutions in the UK to release existing educational content as Open Educational Resources. The HEFCE funded UK OER Programme was run and managed by the JISC and the Higher Education Academy. The JISC CETIS “OER Technology Support Project” provided support for technical innovation across this programme. This book synthesises and reflects on the approaches taken and lessons learnt across the Programme and by the Support Project.

This book is not intended as a beginners guide or a technical manual, instead it is an expert synthesis of the key technical issues arising from a national publicly-funded programme. It is intended for people working with technology to support the creation, management, dissemination and tracking of open educational resources, and particularly those who design digital infrastructure and services at institutional and national level.

Availability

Published by University of Bolton, Deane Road, Bolton, BL3 5AB

ISBN: 978-0-907311-35-5 (print on demand: book (£3.36) printed by Lulu; or free pdf to print yourself)
ISBN: 978-0-907311-36-2 (ebook, Kindle: free download; or from Amazon (77p))
ISBN: 978-0-907311-37-9 (ebook, ePub: free download)
ISBN: 978-0-907311-38-6 (ebook, pdf: free download)
(All prices are the minimum for the distribution channel)

Licence and source

Into the wild – Technology for open educational resources by Amber Thomas, Lorna M. Campbell, Phil Barker and Martin Hawksey (Eds) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

You are free to share (to copy, distribute and transmit the work) to remix (to adapt the work) and to make commercial use of the work under the proviso that you attribute the origin of the work (if possible please include the title, the names of the editors / authors and a link to this page).

To help you re-use this work editable formats are available. We originally wrote the book using the BookType, an online collaborative authoring and publishing platform. Booktype will allow you to clone our source, contact Phil Barker if you would like to do so. There is also a Word .docx file that we used for the final published versions.

Errors and bugs?

There are some minor bugs in some versions: bullet points don’t display well on the kindle version, reference links are erratic on the ePub version (more for some readers than others), the images on the print pdf have white lines on them. We hope none of these are serious problems for you. If you do find a serious problem please contact Phil Barker.

Many strong claims have been made for Learning Analytics and the potential which it has to transform the education system, which deserve to be treated with caution, [...]]]> CETIS Analytics Series Vol 1, No 10. Analytics for Teaching Practice (pdf)
CETIS Analytics Series Vol 1, No 10. Analytics for Teaching Practice (MS Word .docx)

Many strong claims have been made for Learning Analytics and the potential which it has to transform the education system, which deserve to be treated with caution, particularly as they regard teaching practice.

The introduction of these techniques cannot be understood in isolation from the methods of educational management as they have grown up over the past two centuries. These methods are conditioned by the fact that educational managers are limited in their capability to monitor and act upon the range of states which are taken up by teachers and learners in their learning activities. Strategies for simplification have been developed which classify the range of knowledge as a number of subjects, reduce the subjects to courses, and assign students to cohorts which carry out the same activities. Teachers, meanwhile, deal as best they can with the full variety of learners’ needs in their practice. Over the years, an accommodation has developed between regulatory authorities, management and teaching professionals: educational managers indicate the goals which teachers and learners should work towards, provide a framework for them to act within, and ensure that the results of their activity meet some minimum standards. The rest is left up to the professional skills of teachers and the ethical integrity of both teachers and learners.

This accommodation has been eroded by the efforts of successive governments to increase their control over the education received by both school and higher education students. Learning Analytics radically reduces the effort involved in gathering information on the way in which lecturers deliver the curriculum, and also to automate the work of analysing this information. An alliance of these two trends has the potential to constrain teaching practice, and therefore it is necessary to take a systemic view when assessing the impact of analytics on teaching practice.

Three types of analytics intervention are discussed, in terms of their impact on practice.

• efficiency in the wider functioning of the institution, which has few implications for teaching practice,
• enhanced regulation of the teaching and learning environment, which has potentially negative impact on teaching practice,
• methods and tools intended to help lecturers carry out their tasks more effectively, which have the potential to be a useful tool in teaching practice.

It is concluded that Learning Analytics should not be seen as a short cut to providing teaching professionals with universal advice on ‘what works’, and that its use to increase the accountability of teachers to management may have unintended negative consequences. Rather, the most promising area for enhancing teaching practice is the creation of applications which help teachers identify which of the many interventions open to them are most worthy of their attention, as part of an on-going collaborative inquiry into effective practice.

The potential of analytics according to this definition is to help us to evaluate past actions and to estimate the potential of future [...]]]> Link: CETIS Analytics Series vol 1, No 9. A Brief History of Analytics (pdf)
Link: CETIS Analytics Series vol 1, No 9. A Brief History of Analytics (MS Word .docx)

The potential of analytics according to this definition is to help us to evaluate past actions and to estimate the potential of future actions, so to make better decisions and adopt more effective strategies as organisations or individuals. Analytics allows us to increase the degree to which our choices are based on evidence rather than myth, prejudice or anecdote.

Several factors are coming together at the moment to stimulate interest in making more use of analytics. One of these is the increased availability, detail, volume and variety of data from the near-ubiquitous use of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) throughout almost all facets of our lives. This aspect tends to be the focus of the news media but data alone is not enough to realise benefits from analytics. A less popularised factor driving effective exploitation of analytics is the rich array and maturity of techniques for data analysis; a skilled analyst now has many disciplines to draw inspiration from and many tools in their toolbox. Finally, the increased pressure on business and educational organisations to be more efficient and better at what they do adds the third leg to the stool: data, techniques, need.

This paper, one of the CETIS Analytics Series, is aimed at readers who wish to be introduced to the range of techniques that are being pieced together and labelled as Analytics. It does this by outlining some of the most important communities – each with their own origins, techniques, areas of limitation and typical question types – and suggests how they are contributing to the future, with special reference to the context of post-compulsory education.

The diversity and flexibility of some of the techniques lined up under the analytics flag is evidenced by the numerous different applications of analytics: financial markets, sports analytics, econometrics, product pricing and yield maximisation, fraud, crime detection, spam email filters, marketing, customer segmentation, organisational efficiency and even tracking the spread of infectious disease from web searches i. Behind these applications we can find the roots of analytics in the birth of statistics in the eighteenth century but since then different applications of statistics and IT have led to different communities of practice that now seem to be merging together. We see that Web Analytics pioneers are now expl oiting data from the “social web” by using Social Network Analysis and that the techniques of Information Visualisation are supporting interactive and exploratory forms of analysis rather than just the graphs in management reports. Subjects that some see a s old-hat such as Operational Research and others that are often perceived as futuristic such as Artificial Intelligence are each making contributions in surprising ways. Meanwhile, the education community has made its own contributions; Social Network Analysis and Artificial Intelligence have both emerged from academic research and we are now beginning to see sector – specific variants of analytics being put to work in the form of Educational Data Mining, Learning Analytics and bibliometrics.

This briefing paper is written for managers and early adopters in further and higher education who are thinking about how they can build capability in their institution [...]]]> Link: CETIS Analytics Series Vol 1, No 8. Institutional Readiness for Analytics (pdf)
Link: CETIS Analytics Series Vol 1, No 8. Institutional Readiness for Analytics (docx)

This briefing paper is written for managers and early adopters in further and higher education who are thinking about how they can build capability in their institution to make better use of data that is held on their IT systems about the organisation and provision of the student experience. It will be of interest to institutions developing plans, those charged with the provision of analytical data, and administrators or academics who wish to use data to inform their decision making. The document identifies the capabilities that individuals and institutions need to initiate, execute, and act upon analytical intelligence.

For the purpose of this paper, the term Learning Analytics (LA) is used to cover these activities using the definition of:

Analytics is the process of developing actionable insights through problem definition and the application of statistical models and analysis against existing and/or simulated future data. (CETIS, 2012)

The proposition behind learning analytics is not new. In the school sector particularly, good teaching practice has long involved record keeping with pen and paper and the analysis and reflection on this data to inform courses of action, and more recently using technology. Similarly, in different ways, all higher education (HE) and further education (FE) institutions use data to inform their decision making in assessment boards and course committees. However, as institutions increasingly use technology to mediate, monitor, and describe teaching, learning and assessment through Virtual Learning Evironments (VLEs) and other systems, it becomes possible to develop ‘second generation’ learning analytics. The large data sets being acquired are increasingly amenable to new techniques and tools that lower the technical and cost barrier of undertaking analytics. This allows institutions to experiment with data to gain insight, to improve the student learning experience and student outcomes, and identify improvements in efficiencies and effectiveness of provision.

This paper, the seventh in the CETIS Analytics Series, considers one way to explore similarities, differences, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, etc of [...]]]> Link: CETIS Analytics Series Vol 1, No 7. A Framework of Characteristics for Analytics (pdf)
Link: CETIS Analytics Series Vol 1, No 7. A Framework of Characteristics for Analytics (MS Word docx)

This paper, the seventh in the CETIS Analytics Series, considers one way to explore similarities, differences, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, etc of actual or proposed applications of analytics. It is a framework for asking questions about the high level decisions embedded within a given application of analytics and assessing the match to real world concerns. The Framework of Characteristics is not a technical framework.

This is not an introduction to analytics; rather it is aimed at strategists and innovators in post-compulsory education sector who have appreciated the potential for analytics in their organisation and who are considering commissioning or procuring an analytics service or system that is fit for their own context.

The framework is conceived for two kinds of use:

1. Exploring the underlying features and generally-implicit assumptions in existing applications of analytics. In this case, the aim might be to better comprehend the state of the art in analytics and the relevance of analytics methods from other industries, or to inspect candidates for procurement with greater rigour.
2. Considering how to make the transition from a desire to target an issue in a more analytical way to a high level description of a pilot to reach the target. In this case, the framework provides a starting-point template for the production of a design rationale in an analytics project, whether in-house or commissioned. Alternatively it might lead to a conclusion that significant problems might arise in targeting the issue with analytics.

In both of these cases, the framework is an aid to clarify or expose assumptions and so to help its user challenge or confirm them.

Analytics seeks to expose meaningful patterns in data. In this paper, we are concerned with analytics as applied to the process and outputs of research. [...]]]> Link: CETIS Analytics Series Vol 1. No 4. Analytics for Understanding Research (pdf)
Link: CETIS Analytics Series Vol 1. No 4. Analytics for Understanding Research (MS Word .docx)

Analytics seeks to expose meaningful patterns in data. In this paper, we are concerned with analytics as applied to the process and outputs of research. The general aim is to help optimise research processes and deliver improved research results.

Analytics is the use of mathematical and algorithmic methods to describe part of the real world, reducing real-world complexity to a more easily understandable form. The users of analytics seek to use the outputs of analytics to better understand that part of the world; often to inform planning and decision-making processes. Applied to research, the aim of analytics is to aid in understanding research in order to better undertake processes of planning, development, support, enactment, assessment and management of research.

Analytics has had a relatively a long history in relation to research: the landmark development of citation-based analytics was approximately fifty years ago. Since then the field has developed considerably, both as a result of the development of new forms of analytics, and, recently, in response to new opportunities for analytics offered by the Web.

Exciting new forms of analytics are in development. These include methods to visualise research for comparison and planning purposes, new methods – altmetrics – that exploit information about the dissemination of research that may be extracted from the Web, and social network and semantic analysis. These methods offer to markedly broaden the application areas of analytics.

The view here is that the use of analytics to understand research is a given part of contemporaneous research, at researcher, research group, institution, national and international levels. Given the fundamental importance of assessment of research and the role that analytics may play, it is of paramount importance for the future of research to construct institutional and national assessment frameworks that use analytics appropriately.

Evidence-based impact agendas are increasingly permeating research, and adding extra impetus to the development and adoption of analytics. Analytics that are used for the assessment of impact are of concern to individual researchers, research groups, universities (and other institutions), cross-institutional groups, funding bodies and governments. UK universities are likely to increase their adoption of Current Research Information Systems (CRIS) that track and summarise data describing research within a university. At the same time, there is also discussion of increased ‘professionalisation’ of research management at an institutional level, which in part refers to increasing standardisation of the profession and its practices across institutions.

The impetus to assess research is, for these and other social, economic and organisational reasons, inevitable. In such a situation, reduction of research to ‘easily understandable’ numbers is attractive, and there is a consequent danger of over-reliance on analytic results without seeing the larger picture.

With an increased impetus to assess research, it seems likely that individual researchers, research groups, departments and universities will start to adopt practices of research reputation management. However, the use of analytics to understand research is an area fraught with difficulties that include questions about the adequacy of proxies, validity of statistical methods, understanding of indicators and metrics obtained by analytics, and the practical use of those indicators and metrics in helping to develop, support, assess and manage research.

To use analytics effectively, one must at least understand some of these aspects of analytics, and certainly understand the limitations of different analytic approaches. Researchers, research managers and senior staff might benefit from analytics awareness and training events.

Various opportunities and attendant risks are discussed in section 5. The busy reader might care to read that section before (or instead of) any others.

There is currently a growing interest in better exploiting data from various sources to help organisations to be more effective and a growing number of [...]]]> Link: CETIS Analytics Series Vol 1, No 5. What is Analytics (pdf)
Link: CETIS Analytics Series Vol 1, No 5. What is Analytics (MS Word .docx)

There is currently a growing interest in better exploiting data from various sources to help organisations to be more effective and a growing number of strategies for doing this are being developed across different industries. The term “analytics” is frequently being applied to these efforts but often without clarity as to what the word is intended to mean. This makes it difficult to make sense of what is happening or to decide what to appropriate from other industries or research and hinders creative leaps forward in exploring how to adopt analytics.

This paper, part of the CETIS Analytics Series, is aimed at strategists and innovators in post-compulsory education sector who are grappling with these questions in the context of a single institution or the sector at large. It does so by:

• considering a definition of “analytics”; and
• outlining analytics in relation to research management, teaching and learning or whole-institution strategy and operational concerns.

The collection, processing and retention of data for analytical purposes has become commonplace [...]]]> Link: CETIS Analytics Series Vol 1 No 6. Legal, Risk and Ethical Aspects of Analytics in Higher Education (pdf)
Link: CETIS Analytics Series Vol 1 No 6. Legal, Risk and Ethical Aspects of Analytics in Higher Education (MS Word .docx)

The collection, processing and retention of data for analytical purposes has become commonplace in modern business, and consequently the associated legal considerations and ethical implications have also grown in importance. Who really owns this information? Who is ultimately responsible for maintaining it? What are the privacy issues and obligations? What practices pose ethical challenges?

This paper in the CETIS Analytics series covers legal, ethical and related management issues surrounding analytics in the context of teaching, learning and research and their underlying business processes. It is based on current UK law, set in the context of publicly funded Further and Higher Education and their mission. With a primary focus on personal data, it considers the rights and expectations of the data subjects (students, researchers, employees) and the responsibilities of institutions, above campus services, suppliers and funders.

A broad view is taken of analytics for Learning and Teaching applications in Higher Education. In this we discriminate between learning analytics and [...]]]> Link: CETIS Analytics Series Vol 1, No 3. Analytics for Learning and Teaching (pdf)
Link: CETIS Analytics Series Vol 1, No 3. Analytics for Learning and Teaching (MS Word .docx)

A broad view is taken of analytics for Learning and Teaching applications in Higher Education. In this we discriminate between learning analytics and academic analytics: uses for learning analytics are concerned with the optimisation of learning and teaching per se, while uses of educational analytics are concerned with optimisation of activities around learning and teaching, for example, student recruitment.

Some exemplars of the use of analytics for Learning and Teaching are to:

• Identify students at risk so as to provide positive interventions designed to improve retention.
• Provide recommendations to students in relation to reading material and learning activities.
• Detect the need for, and measure the results of, pedagogic improvements.
  Tailor course offerings.
• Identify teachers who are performing well, and teachers who need assistance with teaching methods.
• Assist in the student recruitment process.

Conclusions drawn in this paper include:

• Learning and academic analytics are underutilised in UK Higher Education.
• There are risks to adoption of analytics, including that measures that are not useful are revealed through analytics, and that staff and students lack the knowledge to use analytics. However, there are visualisation techniques that help significantly in non-specialist adoption.
• There is also a risk for institutions that delayed introduction of analytics may lead to missed opportunities and lack of competitiveness in the UK Higher Education market. Our judgment is that this is the most compelling risk to amortise.
• Institutions vary in analytics readiness and maturity, and may to a greater or lesser extent be ready for the introduction of analytics or increases in the use of analytics.
• We stress that there are different scales of analytics projects, from small projects that can be undertaken under a limited budget and time frame, to large projects that may involve, say, creating a data warehouse and employing experienced analytics staff to build complex models.
• A good way of starting is to undertake small limited-scope analytics projects. These enable institutions to develop staff skills and/or raise the profile of analytics in the institution.
• Large-scale analytics may involve the activities of staff who may variously be characterized as analysts, modellers or data scientists. These staff are often in short supply, but reference to local departments of statistics may provide expert help.
• There are commercial solutions that work in conjunction with commonly adopted Virtual Learning Environments and student information systems. Some of these are ‘plug-and-play’ and do not require analyst input. However, before purchase, they should be evaluated for suitability, particularly with respect to intuitional pedagogic approaches and concerns.

The benefits afforded by the longitudinal collection and analysis of key institutional data are not [...]]]> Link: CETIS Analytics Series Vol 1, No 2. Analytics for the Whole Institution: Balancing Strategy and Tactics (pdf)
Link: CETIS Analytics Series Vol 1, No 2. Analytics for the Whole Institution: Balancing Strategy and Tactics (MS Word .docx)

The benefits afforded by the longitudinal collection and analysis of key institutional data are not new to enterprise IT managers nor to senior management more generally. Data warehousing and Business Intelligence (BI) dashboards are integral to the modern management mindset and part of the ‘enterprise IT’ architecture of many Higher Education Institutions and Further Education Colleges.

However some things are changing that pose questions about how business intelligence and the science of analytics should be put to use in customer facing enterprises:

• The demonstration by online services ranging from commodity sales to social networks of what can be done in near-real time with well-connected data.
• The emphasis brought by the web to the detection, collection and analysis of user activity data as part of the BI mix, ranging from clicks to transactions.
• The consequent changes in expectations among web users of how services should work, what businesses could do for them, accompanied by shifts in legal and ethical assumptions.
• The availability of new types of tools for managing, retrieving and visualizing very large data that are cheap, powerful and (not insignificantly) accessible to grass roots IT users.

Set against that backdrop, this paper aims to;

• Characterise the educational data ecosystem, taking account of both institutional and individual needs.
• Recognise the range of stakeholders and actors – institutions, services (including shared above-campus and contracted out), agencies and vendors.
• Balance strategic policy approaches with tactical advances.
• Highlight data that may or may not be collected.
• Identify opportunities, issues and concerns arising.

Our focus is therefore not on technology but rather on high value gains in terms of business objectives, the potential for analytics and opportunities for new thinking across the organisation.

This paper provides a high level overview to the CETIS Analytics Series. The series explores a number of key issues around the potential strategic advantages and insights which the increased attention on, and use of, analytics [...]]]> Link: CETIS Analytics Series Vol 1, No 1. Analytics; What is Changing and Why Does it Matter? (pdf)

This paper provides a high level overview to the CETIS Analytics Series. The series explores a number of key issues around the potential strategic advantages and insights which the increased attention on, and use of, analytics is bringing to the education sector. It is aimed primarily at managers and early adopters in Further and Higher Education who have a strategic role in developing the use of analytics in the following areas:

• Whole Institutional Issues,
• Ethical and Legal Issues,
• Learning and Teaching,
• Research Management,
• Technology and Infrastructure.

Preview:

Link: Executive Summary (pdf)

Executive Summary This report contains the findings of a study carried out by the Centre for Academic Practice & Learning Enhancement [...]]]> Link: The roles of libraries and information professionals in Open Educational Resources (OER) initiatives (pdf)

Link: Executive Summary (pdf)

Executive Summary
This report contains the findings of a study carried out by the Centre for Academic Practice & Learning Enhancement (CAPLE) and Centre for Educational Technology and Interoperability Standards (CETIS), at the University of Strathclyde. The study focuses on the involvement of the Library as an organizational unit, and of individual librarians and other information science specialists, in open educational resources (OER) initiatives. This research study contributes to the current Open Educational Resources (OER) Programme [http://www.jisc.ac.uk/oer], an initiative by JISC and the HEA whose objective is to promote the creation, dissemination, access and use of OER. This programme represents a firm commitment by UK Higher Education (HE) institutions to the OER movement.

This study is based on a survey targeted to OER projects worldwide, partially based on preliminary work done by CETIS Research Fellow John Robertson (2010b). The current survey incorporates 15 questions, which make use of scaled, multiple choice, structured, and open questions. It was implemented online using SurveyGizmo, and responses were gathered during October and November 2011.

Disregarding partial, empty, duplicated, and problematic responses, the total number of usable participants was 57. However, as all of the survey questions were optional, the number of useful answers varied between different sections, questions and options. Nine of the participants (15.8%) only answered the first section providing some basic information about their OER Initiative and its objectives. These contributions were not excluded as they provide significant insights into the aims of current OER initiatives around the world.

The geographical distribution of survey participants is quite heterogeneous with contributions coming from all continents. The countries with most contributors are, in descending order, the United Kingdom, USA, Spain, South Africa, India, and Nigeria. The majority of contributions came from HE institutions (81.3%), with fewer contributions coming from research centres, publishers, international organizations, NGO, and even an e-learning private centre and a high school. The majority of respondents participate in UKOER and Open Course Ware projects.

The main objectives of these OER initiatives are: to implement a repository or a content management/publishing system for OER release (57.9%); to release existing institutional content as OER (56.1%); and, to raise awareness of OER and encourage the use of open educational content within the local academic community (52.6%).
The analysis of those survey questions regarding the involvement and roles of the library and librarians at OER initiatives shows a considerable heterogeneity of situations. Their involvement of librarians is significant: three out of four projects teams count on at least one librarian, and most of them are based on the institutional library. In half of the projects accounted for, the library is leading or a partner of the initiative. The main areas of library’s involvement are: description and classification, management, preservation, dissemination, and promotion of OER. In order to support these activities, librarians provided expertise in information science areas, especially: metadata standards, vocabularies, indexing and classification, information retrieval, information literacy, and repository technology and management. It was also found, however, that librarians needed to develop expertise in different areas, including SEO and IPR and licensing options, but mainly about e-learning and OER knowledge, technologies and standards.

OER initiatives participating in this study positively valued the libraries’ and librarians’ involvement. Most respondents considered the contributions made to be absolutely indispensable (36%) or very valuable (25%). However, a small, but significant percentage of projects felt that the involvement of libraries and librarians had no influence (11%) or that their impact had been insufficient (5%) to date.

The final conclusions of this study indicate that even if the library and/or librarians are well valued by projects where they are already engaged with, the participation of the library is still not widespread, and a significant lack of awareness exists both from OER initiatives with regards to library activities and from the libraries about the resources released by OER initiatives. However, most of the objectives of content-focused OER initiatives are strongly related to library and information science activities and skills and we consider that their involvement would be of great benefit to those projects not yet engaged with them.

We found a clear need to promote the role that libraries and librarians can play in OER initiatives, highlighting the expertise and competencies which libraries and librarians can offer. This active promotion is needed to build awareness among stakeholders about libraries and librarians potential contribution to the OER movement, but also, among libraries and librarians about their key role as OER advocates within and out-with their institutions.

We suggest that a further analysis of the practices of OER initiatives regarding their strategies for storing and dissemination of content, the creation and management of OER collections, and the OER lifecycle is required to effectively promote the role of libraries and information professionals. This analysis, together with an accurate identification of objectives and needs of OER initiatives, would allow for better development of best practice guidelines and recommendations, where librarians have an important role to play.

We conclude that libraries, libraries associations, and LIS education institutions should take on the development of the skills that librarians need to better support OER initiatives, designing and offering training programs and improving syllabus.

Preview

The IMS Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) specification provides a standard mechanism for seamlessly connecting Interoperability learning applications and remote content to virtual learning environments (VLEs) and enterprise portals.

It is increasing in popularity as a method for providing integrations which are not dependent upon a particular VLE.

This briefing paper [...]]]> Link: http://publications.cetis.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/LTI-Briefing-Paper.pdf (pdf)

The IMS Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) specification provides a standard mechanism for seamlessly connecting Interoperability learning applications and remote content to virtual learning environments (VLEs) and enterprise portals.

It is increasing in popularity as a method for providing integrations which are not dependent upon a particular VLE.

This briefing paper provides an overview of the LTI specification and illustrates the benefits for developers, VLE administrators, teachers and learners.

Preview:

The use of mobile devices for the consumption and use of Web [...]]]> Link: Delivering Web to Mobile. Main link, please link to this page when citing the report.
Link: Delivering Web to Mobile (pdf). Direct access to report.

The use of mobile devices for the consumption and use of Web content and services has grown steadily over the last few years and continues to do so, with analysts predicting that mobile will soon exceed the traditional desktop PC as the most common means users interact with the Web and other Internet services.

This report looks at the growth of mobile, the state of the Web and gives an overview of approaches to delivering content and services optimised for the mobile context. This includes approaches to Web design for responsive sites, leveraging access to device functions and capabilities and the use of Web technologies to build mobile applications.

Preview:

Abstract: In areas where competence can be greater or lesser, a level [...]]]> Link: Full text on author’s website.
Published as: Simon Grant and Cleo Sgouropoulou (2011) What is a level of competence? In: Christian M. Stracke (ed.) Competence Modelling for Human Resources Development and European Policies: Bridging Business, Education and Training. ISBN: 9783942183536

Abstract: In areas where competence can be greater or lesser, a level of competence defines a reference point that someone may have, or may not yet have, attained. Levels may be specific to an area or, often, generic, in which case they are assessed for specific areas of ability. Levels must first be defined in frameworks, and then competence concepts can be assigned levels following those frameworks. The eCOTOOL competence model offers information structures both for defining levels and for assigning them. This is intended to contribute to effective interoperability specifications. Examples of defined levels stretch back in history to craft guilds, and today they come in many forms. Examples are here presented, which the eCOTOOL model covers well. The eCOTOOL competence model offers a good way of understanding what a level of competence is.

Keywords: level, ability, skill, competence, framework, level definition, level assignment, information model.

This paper was presented at the 5th European Conference: “Competence Modelling for European HR and Policies: Bridging Business, Education, and Training” (COME-HR) – Brussels, Belgium 2011.

Summary: The term “Cloud Computing” refers to any “computing capability that is delivered as a service over the Internet. While there is no authoritatively accredited definition of the concept, one of the most frequently used definitions is the one given by Gartner, who describe cloud computing as “a [...]]]> Link: Cloud Computing in Institutions (pdf).

Summary: The term “Cloud Computing” refers to any “computing capability that is delivered as a service over the Internet. While there is no authoritatively accredited definition of the concept, one of the most frequently used definitions is the one given by Gartner, who describe cloud computing as “a style of computing where massively scalable IT-related capabilities are provided ‘as a service’ across the Internet to multiple external
customers.”

This briefing paper will explain some of the key characteristics and delivery levels of current development and implementations that provide a basis for understanding cloud computing and the ongoing discussion about it.

Published in International Open Forum Proceedings. 24th ISO/IEC JTC1 SC36 Plenary and WG meetings, International Open Forum. Shanghai, China: Ministry of Education Information Technology Standards Committee China e-Learning Technology Standardization Committee (CELTSC), pp. 180-194.

Abstract: A desire to customise and personalise learning experiences, combined with [...]]]> Link: Using ArchiMate to design learning environment architectures.

Published in International Open Forum Proceedings. 24th ISO/IEC JTC1 SC36 Plenary and WG meetings, International Open Forum. Shanghai, China: Ministry of Education Information Technology Standards Committee China e-Learning Technology Standardization Committee (CELTSC), pp. 180-194.

Abstract: A desire to customise and personalise learning experiences, combined with the rise of a number of new tool integration technologies has led to a move away from monolithic Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs, also known as Learning Management Systems ‘LMSs’) towards more open and Distributed Learning Environments (DLEs). The various DLE architectures can have very different properties, however, and choosing between them can be difficult.

The Open Group’s ArchiMate standard may help in that regard. It was designed to facilitate communication about architectures between all stakeholders in an organisation. It is a visual language that aims to help conversations about IT systems, business processes, organisational structure and strategy. This paper will present a number of DLE patterns that illustrate the range of possible architectures. Both the potential of these patterns as well as the utility of the ArchiMate language in explicating them will be evaluated.

Keywords：Enterprise Architecture; VLE; DLE; LMS; learning technology

Providing a decade of interoperable assessment, IMS Question and Test Interoperability is a widely used specification for managing and sharing assessment material. Now that we are near the release of the final version of QTI v2.1 this paper provides an overview of the specification, outlining some [...]]]> Link: IMS Question and Test Interoperability v2.1 (pdf).

Providing a decade of interoperable assessment, IMS Question and Test Interoperability is a widely used specification for managing and sharing assessment material. Now that we are near the release of the final version of QTI v2.1 this paper provides an overview of the specification, outlining some of the key features of QTI v2.1 and its value for developers and educators. The intended audience for this paper is managers, learning technologists and developers interested in online and electronic assessment and new to QTI.

This report outlines some technology trends and issues of interest and relevance to CETIS. It should be seen as a set of un-processed perceptions rather than the product of a formal process; a great deal of ground is not scanned in this paper and it should [...]]]> Link: JISC CETIS 2011 Informal Horizon Scan (pdf).

This report outlines some technology trends and issues of interest and relevance to CETIS. It should be seen as a set of un-processed perceptions rather than the product of a formal process; a great deal of ground is not scanned in this paper and it should be understood that no formal prioritisation process was undertaken. The CETIS Horizon Scan should be seen as a set of potentially-idiosyncratic “takes”, material on which discourse and disputation may occur to make possible futures more clear.

The trends identified are

1. Mobile as web first citizen
2. Devices: form factors proliferating, capabilities converging
3. Motion capture controllers for gestural interfaces
4. Cross-platform applications
5. Machine learning on the web
6. Educational informatics
7. Content management and application framework convergence
8. Development of better tools for using, embedding and discovering open licences
9. Public sector data
10. Mobile applications
11. eTextbooks

This report is a summary of technology themes extracted from the major technology forecasting publications from business and other sectors that could conceivably be relevant to the UK higher education system. We do not attempt to make evaluative comments concerning these trends, and specifically we do [...]]]> Link: JISC Observatory technology forecast literature review (doc).

This report is a summary of technology themes extracted from the major technology forecasting publications from business and other sectors that could conceivably be relevant to the UK higher education system. We do not attempt to make evaluative comments concerning these trends, and specifically we do not attempt to speculate on the importance of the technologies identified for education.

The work leading to publication comprised three stages: selection of sources, scanning these sources to extract specific emerging technologies and grouping these technologies into themes.

Around thirty “horizon scanning” publications describing emerging technologies predicted to be important to domains other than education, were suggested by members of JISC’s two Innovation Support Centres, CETIS and UKOLN. These are listed on the delicious website. These were read and technologies they identify summarised in a Google Doc. These technologies were then grouped into themes for discussion in this report.

For each theme, we provide a brief introductory definition, a short snapshot of relevant technologies and applications in business and the wider world, and its implications to an organisation’s IT and business strategies. We have used ‘Google Insights for Search’ to visualise the trend of interest on each theme or relevant technologies over time (2004 – present); this is for illustrative purposes only. The themes are presented in no particular order.

With today’s students carrying a vast array of mobile devices that operate across a massively fragmented and shifting market, institutions can find themselves wondering how to deliver content and services specifically designed for mobile use most effectively. Apple’s App Store? Android? Blackberry or Microsoft Phone? Each has created [...]]]> Link: Mobile Web Apps (pdf).

With today’s students carrying a vast array of mobile devices that operate across a massively fragmented and shifting market, institutions can find themselves wondering how to deliver content and services specifically designed for mobile use most effectively. Apple’s App Store? Android? Blackberry or Microsoft Phone? Each has created their own app ecosystems.

The aim of this briefing paper is to give institutions an overview of the mobile web space and an understanding of why developing hosted, mobile web applications can offer an attractive and viable solution that can overcome the fragmentation and deliver crossplatform services.

Summary: This paper reviews terminology, motivation, history and current work in areas relating to skill or competence. Many useful services, clarifying pathways within and from education to employment, self-assessment, and selection would be facilitated by better standardization of the format in which related definitions [...]]]> Link: Concepts and standardization in areas relating to competence (pdf)

Summary: This paper reviews terminology, motivation, history and current work in areas relating to skill or competence. Many useful services, clarifying pathways within and from education to employment, self-assessment, and selection would be facilitated by better standardization of the format in which related definitions are represented, and also by a standard approach to representing the structured sets often called frameworks. To be effective, information models underlying interoperability specifications must be based on common conceptual models; the authors propose one such model as a work in progress. The authors see the way forward as reaching greater consensus about the components of competence, including intended learning outcomes, agreement on a model for frameworks allowing reuse of and comparison between components in and between frameworks, and investigation of how requirements and claims for skill and competence can be coordinated in the light of common practice in recruitment.

Copyright © 2010 IGI Global
This paper appears in the International Journal of IT Standards and Standardization Research Vol. 8, No. 2, edited by Tore Hoel, Paul A. Hollins and Jan M. Pawlowski, editor-in-chief Kai Jakobs. Copyright 2010, IGI Global, www.igi-global.com. Posted by permission of the publisher.

Abstract: Employers seek people matching particular qualifications and graduates seek jobs matching their qualifications. [...]]]> Link: Reformatted text on author’s website.
Published in the International Journal of IT Standards and Standardization Research Vol. 8, No. 2, edited by Tore Hoel, Paul A. Hollins and Jan M. Pawlowski, editor-in-chief Kai Jakobs. Copyright 2010, IGI Global, www.igi-global.com.

Abstract: Employers seek people matching particular qualifications and graduates seek jobs matching their qualifications. This market is currently managed primarily using paper certificates and heterogeneous university management systems that capture achieved learning outcomes as well as corporate information systems that capture required qualifications. In the light of current trends towards increased student mobility, employability and lifelong learning, this situation is less than satisfactory. Therefore, we propose a schema in this paper that facilitates interoperable storage and management of Personal Achieved Learning Outcomes (PALO) based on a common data model. We present use case scenarios and implementations addressing these challenges and demonstrating the added value of using such a common model.

Keywords: Competences, Learner Achievements, Learning Outcomes, Outcome-Based Learning, Skills, Standards

Summary: This guide is an introduction to service design and improvement methodology and its application in Higher and Further Education. It introduces a key technique service blueprinting – which has been used successfully at the University of Derby in the Development and Review of Business [...]]]> Link: Service design in Higher and Further Education (pdf).

Summary: This guide is an introduction to service design and improvement methodology and its application in Higher and Further Education. It introduces a key technique service blueprinting – which has been used successfully at the University of Derby in the Development and Review of Business Interfaces (DERBI) project to improve the transition stage from applicant to registered student, with a specific focus on the university enrolment process. Together with a theoretical introduction to service design, the guide provides illustrative examples (coloured boxes) of how service blueprinting can be applied.

In January 2010, JISC CETIS organised a working meeting to bring together participants across a range of standards organisations and communities to look at the future of interoperability standards in the education sector. This paper summarises the views expressed by delegates [...]]]> Link: The future of interoperability standards in education – system and process (pdf).

In January 2010, JISC CETIS organised a working meeting to bring together participants across a range of standards organisations and communities to look at the future of interoperability standards in the education sector. This paper summarises the views expressed by delegates at the meeting and presents relevant background information on present and future models for collaboration between open and informal communities and the formal standardisation system with particular reference to the current issues and barriers in specification and standard development and adoption processes. This summary also presents a series of suggestions on the possible directions of future interoperability standards in education.

Summary: This briefing paper provides a high level overview of key concepts relating to the Semantic Web, semantic technologies, linked and open data; along with references to relevant examples and standards. The briefing is intended to provide a starting point for those within the teaching and learning community who may have [...]]]> Link: Download PDF

Summary: This briefing paper provides a high level overview of key concepts relating to the Semantic Web, semantic technologies, linked and open data; along with references to relevant examples and standards. The briefing is intended to provide a starting point for those within the teaching and learning community who may have come across the concept of semantic technologies and the Semantic Web but who do not regard themselves as experts and wish to learn more. The examples and links are intended as starting points for further exploration.

Summary: The CETIS OER Technical Support Project was funded by JISC to provide support to the JISC HEA Open Educational Resources Pilot programme. Additional support was provided to the programme through CETIS core. Support provided to the programme include advising JISC on the technical direction, setting technical guidelines for [...]]]> Link: Download MS Word doc

Summary: The CETIS OER Technical Support Project was funded by JISC to provide support to the JISC HEA Open Educational Resources Pilot programme. Additional support was provided to the programme through CETIS core. Support provided to the programme include advising JISC on the technical direction, setting technical guidelines for the programme, reviewing and advising on projects technical choices, liaising with other programme support elements, particularly JourmOpen. The project conducted technical review calls with all 29 projects and recorded the outcome of these interviews using the CETIS PROD directory. Over the duration of the programme CETIS facilitated a number of programme support events including a technical round table at the annual CETIS conference, and two 2nd Tuesday online seminars in addition to participating in all three JISC programme level events. All output of the CETIS Technical Support Project have been synthesised and published in a series of posts on the CETIS blogs and pages on the CETIS wiki. These outputs were also disseminated through more formal channels including position papers, journal papers and presentations at a number of national and international conferences. The support project surfaced a number of technical issues worthy of further investigation these include; the use of RSS for depositing resources into repositories, technical approaches to aggregating resources and methods of tracking resources. These issues are now being taken forward through an additionally funded project.

Summary: The transcoder project set out to develop and trial a cloud based service that can change one type of educational content package into another (i.e. transcode). Such a capability would help overcome the current proliferation of incompatible content packaging formats, which can be an obstacle to the dissemination and re-use [...]]]> Link: Download PDF

Summary: The transcoder project set out to develop and trial a cloud based service that can change one type of educational content package into another (i.e. transcode). Such a capability would help overcome the current proliferation of incompatible content packaging formats, which can be an obstacle to the dissemination and re-use of packaged learning content.

The aim was to both test the technical feasibility of such a transcoder, as well as explore the business case for deploying it as cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS). In that regard, both the initial set-up phase as well as potential future business models were explored. Possible further developments of the service were also considered.

The transcoder software was developed after a pattern established by a similar, advertising supported service for other kinds of file formats. The pattern is centred around a manual upload and download of packages, in order to facilitate maximal transcoding capacity without bottlenecks. The software itself was developed to be hosted on Amazon web services, for a variety of reasons that include flexibility of deployment, price and sustainability.

In the event, demand for the service turned out to be low, which may have something to do with limited usage of packaged content in the JISC community, exacerbated by limitations of the design of the transcoder’s interface, and possibly also the range of conversions that were developed and are currently available. As a consequence, the low start-up investment costs as well as the scalable exploitation costs of cloud computing offered clear advantages for this type of service. Also, at this, or even much higher levels of usage the ongoing costs required to keep the service going are low. Finally, feedback from stakeholders indicate that a few simple extensions to the software could make the service more useful.

This report outlines some technology trends and issues of interest and relevance to CETIS. It should be seen as a set of un-processed perceptions rather than the product of a formal process; a great deal of ground is not scanned in this paper and it should [...]]]> Link: JISC CETIS 2010 Informal Horizon Scan (pdf).

This report outlines some technology trends and issues of interest and relevance to CETIS. It should be seen as a set of un-processed perceptions rather than the product of a formal process; a great deal of ground is not scanned in this paper and it should be understood that no formal prioritisation process was undertaken. We hope it will stimulate discussion and recognise that this kind of material is by its nature contestable.

The trends identified are:

1. Current Trends and the Here-and-Now
1. Linked Data and the Low -fibre Semantic Web
2. Learning Platform Architectures
3. Competence and learning outcomes
4. Mobile Platforms Converging
5. Augmented Reality Going Mobile and Mainstream
6. Sharepoint
7. e-Textbooks
8. Image Analysis and Semantic Query
9. Rising interest in “Business Intelligence”
2. Almost here
1. HTML 5 and next-gen browsers
2. Open Data and the need for a new information literacy
3. More Speculative Developments and Interesting Outliers
1. Non-relational Databases
2. Real-time services
3. Declarative Workflow
4. Dynamical Modelling of the Enterprise

Summary: This paper provides an overview of specifications and standards for metadata relating to learning materials. It is structured to present first the currently established metadata schemas in use today (specifically the IEEE LOM and Dublin Core metadata), then to examine current [...]]]> Link: From Journal website (subscription required; Authors’ final version (open access)

Summary: This paper provides an overview of specifications and standards for metadata relating to learning materials. It is structured to present first the currently established metadata schemas in use today (specifically the IEEE LOM and Dublin Core metadata), then to examine current developments and activities before looking at what might be the future challenges. The examination of current developments and activities highlights the increasingly recognized importance of metadata schema that describe what have in the past been thought of as secondary aspects of learning materials (for example who uses them and what for), and the importance of alternative approaches to structured metadata for resource description.

Published in Technology, Instruction, Cognition and Learning vol 7 (3-4) 2010, pp 225-243.

Leap2A is an open specification for transferring learner-owned information between different systems. e-Portfolio tools and systems are now widely used by learners to present evidence of learning, achievements and abilities for many purposes, [...]]]> Link: Enabling e-portfolio portability (Leap2A) (html).
Link: Enabling e-portfolio portability (Leap2A) (pdf).

Leap2A is an open specification for transferring learner-owned information between different systems. e-Portfolio tools and systems are now widely used by learners to present evidence of learning, achievements and abilities for many purposes, including application for a job or university, assessment or professional accreditation. During their studies, these learners may invest significant time and effort in collecting, selecting, reflecting on and presenting the information included in their e-portfolios, so it is vital that their work doesn’t disappear or become unusable as learners move to another college, university or into the workplace.

Summary: After a period of relative stability and deeper embedding, the debate about the role and function of the VLE (virtual learning environment) within the institution is gathering pace again. Many institutions in the UK are in the process of reviewing their current VLE provision in the light of [...]]]> Link: Distributed Learning Environments (pdf).

Summary: After a period of relative stability and deeper embedding, the debate about the role and function of the VLE (virtual learning environment)
within the institution is gathering pace again. Many institutions in the UK
are in the process of reviewing their current VLE provision in the light of
changing pedagogical requirements, more administrative integration and the emergence of new classes of social media on the wider web.

In the past, the requirement for deeper integration with other (administrative) systems gave rise to the MLE (managed learning environment) concept. Later, the demand for greater personalisation and the availability of new web tools gave birth to the PLE (personal learning
environment) debate, in which people radically re- conceptualised the notion of a learning environment. During these phases, however, the VLE still remained a dominant force within institutions. This has resulted in a tension between the role of the VLE as a common tool for the institutional community, the desire to make it permeable to the institutional network and the wider web and to allow greater levels of personalization / customization for individuals and institutions.

A number of working solutions are now emerging to address these tensions. This briefing paper will explore five emerging models, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each and link to working examples and further sources of information.

Summary: Position papers and discussion explored the relationship between relatively informal and formal specs/standards activities and how a more effective system might work.

Making a business case for interoperability and standards is a challenging task for those involved in the strategic planning of IT systems in educational [...]]]> Link: Assessing the business case for standards: Introduction for strategy planning and resourcing committees.
Link: Assessing the business case for standards: Introduction for strategy planning and resourcing committees (pdf).

Making a business case for interoperability and standards is a challenging task for those involved in the strategic planning of IT systems in educational institutions. This briefing with its accompanying references is intended to provide advice and supporting materials to help people to incorporate standards in their ICT-related business cases. It assumes some familiarity with the way IT systems are presently deployed and maintained in educational institutions, and will be of interest to Information Services managers and senior managers for strategy planning and resourcing.

YSJ DigiRep is a newly established digital archive at York St. John. Established to help manage learning resources and research outputs from a diverse range of subjects across the institution, YSJ DigiRep has now come to the end of its [...]]]> Link: York St. John Digital Repository: an ecological view of interactions and systems (pdf).

YSJ DigiRep is a newly established digital archive at York St. John. Established to help manage learning resources and research outputs from a diverse range of subjects across the institution, YSJ DigiRep has now come to the end of its project funding. This case study examines its context, seeks to identify why it has integrated so successfully into institutional processes, and highlight potential tensions as it transitions to being an institutional service. The study draws on an ecologically influenced approach developed by the Repositories Research Team.

The Digital Repositories Programme Support Project (DRPSP) and the Repository Research Team (RRT) were two phases of a project that supported the JISC’s repository related programmes from [...]]]> Link: Digital Repository Programme Support Project and Repository Research Team, final report (pdf).
Link: Digital Repository Programme Support Project and Repository Research Team, Final Report (doc).

The Digital Repositories Programme Support Project (DRPSP) and the Repository Research Team (RRT) were two phases of a project that supported the JISC’s repository related programmes from 2005 to 2009. The project comprised staff from two JISC services (now Innovation Support Centres): two from UKOLN and 0.5 FTE (rising to 1 for the final year) at CETIS; it was initially managed by Rachel Heery of UKOLN, and in its final year by Lorna Campbell and Phil Barker of CETIS.

In its original DRPSP phase the project focussed primarily on support for individual projects in the JISC programme, provided by team members engaging with projects through several thematic clusters. This allowed the team to become familiar with project activities, giving them a detailed overview of the programme as a whole and enabling them to provide advice to projects about relevant related work. During this period, DRSP ran a number of support workshops aimed at increasing the sector’s understanding of issues such as describing and managing complex/aggregate objects, using UML, writing scenarios and use cases and developing service usage models for the eFramework. The team also played a significant role in incubating a number of high profile technical developments, most notably the Scholarly Works Application Profile (SWAP) and the Simple Web-service Offering Repository Deposit (SWORD) protocol.

When the duration of the project was extended to support the 2007-2009 Repository and Preservation Programme, its remit was also changed to focus on providing JISC with strategic support by contributing to the understanding of what the programme achieved and what barriers had been faced; contributing to and reporting on relevant interoperability initiatives; exploring relevant new developments in understanding and promoting the interoperability of repositories. This was in part due to the changing requirements of the JISC and the projects funded, and in part due to the establishing of the Repository Support Project, which took over the remit for direct project support and institutional advocacy. To reflect the change in emphasis the project name was changed to the Repository Research Team (RRT).

During this phase the project undertook work aimed at modelling and understanding the repository environment. For example, the project investigated the use of metaphors drawn from the biological science of ecology to represent repository and service interaction; considering the strengths and limitations of different approaches to articulating or modelling relationships between repositories and other services and factors in the information environment. The RRT also supported the planned synthesis and evaluation of the Repository and Preservation Programme by innovative use of a blogging platform which they used to post information about relevant evidence found by trawling project outputs. These posts were tagged by evaluation or synthesis theme, effectively creating a public annotated index of project outputs.

Despite the challenges of managing such a long running cross service support project we believe that funding dedicated staff in existing services and innovation support centres and bringing them together to form a coherent project is generally a good model for programme support. This enables the support team to leverage the resources and expertise of the host service or centre. In addition the services and innovation support centres are also in a good position to synthesise issues arising from the programme, relate them to broader strategic issues and feed them back to JISC.

Summary: Leap2A is a specification for information portability and interoperability between electronic portfolio tools and related systems. It has been developed through close collaboration between e-portfolio system developers, to ensure immediate applicability and [...]]]> Link: Leap2A: A specification for e-portfolio portability and interoperability (Reformatted for author’s website).
Originally published in ALT-N issue 16 [2009].

Summary: Leap2A is a specification for information portability and interoperability between electronic portfolio tools and related systems. It has been developed through close collaboration between e-portfolio system developers, to ensure immediate applicability and relative ease of implementation. It covers learner-owned or learner-focused artefacts, information and reflections that people are likely to want to use themselves or present to others, in the context of educational, personal, professional or career development, including personal abilities, achievements, activities, plans and resources. The development projects are supported by the JISC, and managed through JISC CETIS.

This report looks at some of the key technology trends and issues we perceive as being of interest and relevance to CETIS. It forms a logical bridge between the question, from the point of view of CETIS staff, “what are the issues at hand” and “what [...]]]> Link: JISC CETIS 2010 Informal Horizon Scan (doc).

This report looks at some of the key technology trends and issues we perceive as being of interest and relevance to CETIS. It forms a logical bridge between the question, from the point of view of CETIS staff, “what are the issues at hand” and “what should we do about them”. A great deal of ground is not scanned in this paper and it should be understood that no formal prioritisation process was undertaken.

A summary of a report made to CETIS Board in March 2009 on standards bodies in the educational technology arena. The bodies covered are IMS Global Learning Consortium, Centre for European Normalisation (CEN), British Standard Institute (BSI) Committee IST/43, the Education Schools and Children’s Services [...]]]> Link: Educational Technology Standards Bodies Review Mar 2009 (doc).

A summary of a report made to CETIS Board in March 2009 on standards bodies in the educational technology arena. The bodies covered are IMS Global Learning Consortium, Centre for European Normalisation (CEN), British Standard Institute (BSI) Committee IST/43, the Education Schools and Children’s Services Information Standards Board (ISB), HR-XML, International Standards Organisation (ISO) – IEC JTC1 SC36, Systems Interoperability Framework (SIF), IEEE LTSC, Learning Education and Training Systems Interoperability (LETSI), Suppliers Association for Learning Technology Interoperability in Schools (LETSI), W3C, Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI).

It is an update relative to the October 2008 Review. The reader is assumed to be broadly familiar with the work of the various specifications/standards bodies mentioned; this is not a primer.

An online publication for those involved in strategic planning, deployment, and implementation of IT systems in educational institutions. It takes a socio-technical perspective and the structure of the materials is based on the life-cycle model based on Enid Mumford’s work. The [...]]]> Link: Technology change in higher and further education- a service oriented approach (html).

An online publication for those involved in strategic planning, deployment, and implementation of IT systems in educational institutions. It takes a socio-technical perspective and the structure of the materials is based on the life-cycle model based on Enid Mumford’s work. The sections consider why you might want to move in this direction, your state of readiness, approaches you might take, and the technological options available. The authors provide information and insights from the extensive experience they collectively bring from senior management, through to strategic and technical development in education.

This report details the findings of a scoping study carried out for the JISC to investigate a potential metadata application profile for learning materials. The objective of the study was to synthesize and analyse the advice that is currently available to managers of [...]]]> Link; Learning Material Application Profile scoping study – final report (pdf).

This report details the findings of a scoping study carried out for the JISC to investigate a potential metadata application profile for learning materials. The objective of the study was to synthesize and analyse the advice that is currently available to managers of repositories containing educational materials who need to define a metadata element set to describe those materials. The hope was that this would help define the scope of a potential Learning Materials Application Profile. There was no intention to produce an application profile as part of this work, nor was the work limited to any particular metadata schema.

This report is a summary of a report made to CETIS Board in October 2008. It is in the form of an update on changes since the previous (March 2008) Board meeting. The reader is assumed to be broadly familiar with the work of the various [...]]]> Link: Eductional Technology Standards Review October 2008 (doc).

This report is a summary of a report made to CETIS Board in October 2008. It is in the form of an update on changes since the previous (March 2008) Board meeting. The reader is assumed to be broadly familiar with the work of the various specifications/standards bodies mentioned; this is not a primer.

The bodies reviewed are: IMS Global Learning Consortium, the Centre for European Normalisation (CEN), British Standards Institute (BSI) – Committee IST/43, Education Schools and Children’s Services Information Standards Board (ISB), HR-XML, International Standards Organisation (ISO) – IEC JTC1 SC36, Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF), IEEE LTSC, Learning Education and Training Systems Interoperability (LETSI), Suppliers Association for Learning Technology Interoperability in Schools (SALTIS), and the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI).

A report detailing how the use of ecological metaphors can help us understand better the interactions that take place between digital repositories and related services.

This work began in response to a perceived need to express something of how and why digital repositories and [...]]]> Link: An ecological approach to repository and service interactions (pdf).

A report detailing how the use of ecological metaphors can help us understand better the interactions that take place between digital repositories and related services.

This work began in response to a perceived need to express something of how and why digital repositories and services interact. As a community of implementers and developers we have well understood technical models and architectures that provide conceptual mechanisms to promote interoperability. Articulating the details and challenges of actual interactions that occur, however, is not so widely understood and knowledge about them is not often shared. This is, in part at least, because we tend to share in the abstract through architectures and use cases and in these we focus on the technical. Articulating interactions or connections requires an engagement with and presentation of specific local details. Beginning to consider why particular interactions succeed or fail over time requires us to factor in more than the technical.

Higher education institutions around the world have been using the Internet and other digital technologies to develop and distribute teaching and learning for decades. Recently, Open Educational Resources (OER) have gained increased attention for their potential and promise to obviate demographic, economic, [...]]]> Link: Open Educational Resources – Opportunities and Challenges for Higher Education (pdf)

Higher education institutions around the world have been using the Internet and other digital technologies to develop and distribute teaching and learning for decades. Recently, Open Educational Resources (OER) have gained increased attention for their potential and promise to obviate demographic, economic, and geographic educational boundaries and to promote life-long learning and personalised learning. The rapid growth of OER provides new opportunities for teaching and learning, at the same time, they challenge established views about teaching and learning practices in higher education.
This briefing provides the background to the current development of and future trends around OER aimed at adding to our understanding, stimulating ongoing debate among the JISC community and developing a research agenda. The briefing is structured in three sections:

• Discussion on the conceptual and contextual issues of Open Educational Resources.
• A review of current OER initiatives: their scale, approaches, main issues and challenges.
• Discussion on trends emerging in Open Educational Resources, with respect to future research and activities.

This report is a summary of a report made to CETIS Board in March 2008. The bodies covered are IMS Global Learning Consortium, Centre for European Normalisation (CEN), British Standard Institute (BSI) Committee IST/43, the Education Schools and Children’s Services Information Standards Board (ISB), HR-XML, International [...]]]> Link: Eductional Technology Standards Review March 2008 (doc).

This report is a summary of a report made to CETIS Board in March 2008. The bodies covered are IMS Global Learning Consortium, Centre for European Normalisation (CEN), British Standard Institute (BSI) Committee IST/43, the Education Schools and Children’s Services Information Standards Board (ISB), HR-XML, International Standards Organisation (ISO) – IEC JTC1 SC36, Systems Interoperability Framework (SIF), IEEE LTSC, Learning Education and Training Systems Interoperability (LETSI), Suppliers Association for Learning Technology Interoperability in Schools (LETSI), Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI).

The reader is assumed to be broadly familiar with the work of the various specifications/standards bodies mentioned; this is not a primer.

No longer current.

A CETIS Briefing paper on item banks, collections of assessment items and associated software to enable the storing of content to support the assessment of student learning. An assessment item is a complex object, consisting of a question together with [...]]]> Link: What is assessment item banking? (html).
What is assessment item banking? (pdf).

A CETIS Briefing paper on item banks, collections of assessment items and associated software to enable the storing of content to support the assessment of student learning. An assessment item is a complex object, consisting of a question together with its associated data such as score, feedback and either any media files required or links to those files. Item banking software enables items to be deposited, discovered and retrieved. In order to support the discovery and delivery of items, each item needs to be described with metadata, and may also be related to usage data.

A CETIS Briefing Paper on the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH), which offers a simple technical option for catalogue and repository services to make their metadata available to other services.

This paper aims to inform those with an interest in repositories in general, and those with an interest in assessment item banks, about the similarities and differences between these two technologies, [...]]]> Link: Assessment item banks and repositories (html).
Link: Assessment item banks and repositories (doc).
Link: Assessment item banks and repositories (pdf).

This paper aims to inform those with an interest in repositories in general, and those with an interest in assessment item banks, about the similarities and differences between these two technologies, in order to enhance the potential for future interoperability. Specifically, it asks the question: to what extent may an assessment item bank be considered as a kind of repository, and following from this, to what extent can interoperability and minimisation of effort and resource be achieved in a manner beneficial to the related communities of interest around these technologies?

Link: IMS AccessForAll Metadata Specification (pdf).

CETIS briefing paper on the IMS AccessForAll Metadata Specification, which defines the meta-data that can be used to describe a learning resource’s accessibility and its ability to match a learner’s preferences. It works in conjunction with the IMS ACCLIP (Accessibility for [...]]]> Link: IMS AccessForAll Metadata Specification (html).

Link: IMS AccessForAll Metadata Specification (pdf).

CETIS briefing paper on the IMS AccessForAll Metadata Specification, which defines the meta-data that can be used to describe a learning resource’s accessibility and its ability to match a learner’s preferences. It works in conjunction with the IMS ACCLIP (Accessibility for Learner Information Package) Specification, and provides guidance on how to make the two specifications work together.

No longer current.

Link: IMS Accessibility for Learner Information Package (ACCLIP) Specification

A CETIS Briefing on the IMS Accessibility for Learner Information Package (ACCLIP) Specification, which provides a means of describing preferences so that learners can interact with an e-learning system regardless of disability, hardware or [...]]]> Link: IMS Accessibility for Learner Information Package (ACCLIP) Specification (html).

Link: IMS Accessibility for Learner Information Package (ACCLIP) Specification

A CETIS Briefing on the IMS Accessibility for Learner Information Package
(ACCLIP) Specification, which provides a means of describing preferences so that learners can interact with an e-learning system regardless of disability, hardware or environment. These preferences are based on those parts of a computer system (hardware and software) that can be adjusted to improve accessibility, rather than on type of disability.

No longer current.

This paper discusses assessment item bank that can be used by academics to share assessment content within or across a range of institutions. The concept is not new, [...]]]> Link: Assessment item banks: an academic perspective (html).
Link: Assessment item banks: an academic perspective (doc).
Link: Assessment item banks: an academic perspective (pdf).

This paper discusses assessment item bank that can be used by academics to share assessment content within or across a range of institutions. The concept is not new, but technical developments now render such a resource far more attractive and realisable than ever before. The paper considers the rationale of electronic assessment systems and assessment item banks used in HE. Some aspects of interoperability technology, including IMS QTI (the specification for Question and Test Interoperability), are described and discussed. The main assessment systems being used in HE are described with some details of the question types supported and how well they interoperate with other systems.

Link: IMS Guidelines for Developing Accessible Learning Applications (doc).

A CETIS Briefing on the IMS Guidelines for Developing Accessible Learning Applications which provide a set of accessibility resources and recommendations for the e-learning community, so that online learning can be made accessible to everyone.

A CETIS Briefing on the IMS AccLIP Specification, which provides a means of describing preferences so that learners can interact with an e-learning system regardless of disability, hardware or environment.

No longer current.

A CETIS briefing on IMS Learning Design, which is a specification used to describe learning scenarios. IMS Learning Design allows these scenarios to be presented to learners online, and enables them to be shared between systems. It can describe a wide variety of pedagogical models, or approaches [...]]]> Link: What is IMS Learning Design? (pdf).

A CETIS briefing on IMS Learning Design, which is a specification used to describe learning scenarios. IMS Learning Design allows these scenarios to be presented to learners online, and enables them to be shared between systems. It can describe a wide variety of pedagogical models, or approaches to learning, including group work and collaborative learning. It does not define individual pedagogical models; instead it provides a high level language, or meta-model, that can describe many different models. The language describes how people perform activities using resources (including materials and services), and how these three things are coordinated into a learning flow.

No longer current

A CETIS briefing on IMS Content Packaging, a specification for sending learning resources (or learning objects) from one program to another, facilitating easier delivery, reuse and sharing of materials. IMS Packages enable you to export content from one virtual learning environment (VLE), content management system or digital [...]]]> Link: What is IMS Content Packaging? (pdf).

A CETIS briefing on IMS Content Packaging, a specification for sending learning resources (or learning objects) from one program to another, facilitating easier delivery, reuse and sharing of materials. IMS Packages enable you to export content from one virtual learning environment (VLE), content management system or digital repository, and import it into another while retaining information describing the media in the IMS Package, and how it is structured, such as a table of contents or the HTML page to show first.

No longer current.

A CETIS Briefing Paper on the ADL Shareable Content Object Reference Model. Shareable content objects (SCOs) are individual, electronic units of learning that may be combined to create a course of study.

No longer current

A briefing on IMS Simple Sequencing (IMS SS) which is a specification used to describe paths through a collection of learning activities.

No longer current

A briefing paper about IMS Question and Test Interoperability (QTI), which is a specification for a standard way of sharing assessment data.

No longer current.

A CETIS briefing paper on the IEEE 1484.12.1 – 2002 Standard for Learning Object Metadata, a standard for the description of “learning objects”. IEEE 1484.12.1 is the first part of a multipart standard, and describes the LOM data model. The LOM data model specifies which aspects [...]]]> Link: What is IEEE Learning Object Metadata (pdf).

A CETIS briefing paper on the IEEE 1484.12.1 – 2002 Standard for Learning Object Metadata, a standard for the description of “learning objects”. IEEE 1484.12.1 is the first part of a multipart standard, and describes the LOM data model. The LOM data model specifies which aspects of a learning object should be described and what vocabularies may be used for these descriptions; it also defines how this data model can be amended by additions or constraints.

A CETIS briefing paper about IMS Enterprise, a specification for transferring data about people and groups (for example, students on a course) between systems such as Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs), Portals, Student Record Systems (SRSs), and Management Information Systems (MISs).

No longer current.

A CETIS briefing paper about the IMS Learner Information Package (LIP), a specification for a standard means of recording information about learners. LIP is designed to allow information about learners, including their progress to date and awards received, to be transferred between different software applications.

No [...]]]> Link: What is IMS Learner Information Packaging? (pdf).

A CETIS briefing paper about the IMS Learner Information Package (LIP), a specification for a standard means of recording information about learners. LIP is designed to allow information about learners, including their progress to date and awards received, to be transferred between different software applications.

No longer current.

Summary: A listing of tools, projects and resources relevant to assessment