Portfolio interoperability progress

Portfolio interoperability progress in the UK

Shane Sutherland, Pebble Learning

Simon Grant

JISC CETIS & independent

ePortfolio & Digital Identity

Maastricht 2008-10-23

Progress on two fronts

A portfolio interoperability prototyping project focused around portfolio systems used in practice, and geared towards the needs of the developers of those systems

Coming out of this project, a developing specification for transfer of portfolio information between systems based on the Atom Syndication Format and more broadly, Semantic Web concepts

What's carried on?

Many ideas established in IMS LIP or even earlier

others from UKLeaP and IMS ePortfolio

The aim to support information transfer

between systems when transferring

(but also intended to support transfer of small pieces)

The subject of the Information, which supports

CV building

other presentations

PDP, CPD

several employer interests

but not admin processes, unless in interests of the learner

What's new for interoperability?

Emphasis on developer-friendliness from the start

Based on Semantic Web & Dublin Core

to give the simplest possible structures

to reuse established practice

to link to many current and future developments

but not imposed on developers

Uses familiar formats

LEAP2A based on Atom (as other specs have done)

but LEAP not necessarily fixed to any one XML schema

Readily merges with other information

The LEAP 2.0 vision

From CETIS Portfolio SIG meeting, December 2006

The demand was for something

relatively simple in concept

easy to implement

modular and extensible

Name reflects UK LeaP and Web 2.0

It now "... aims to provide a sound basis for practical interoperability between portfolio tools, and other tools dealing with the same kinds of information."

http://wiki.cetis.ac.uk/LEAP_2.0

A LEAP in simplicity

LEAP 2.0 uses a representation of portfolio information that is actually very simple

Semantic Web RDF blobs and arrows (triples)

A very few examples:

achievement has evidence resource (dissertation)

activity (course) supports achievement (good grade)

achievement is evidence of assertion (my statement)

assertion claims ability (learning outcome of course)

meeting attended by person

Does not build them into fixed complex structures

because the patterns are changeable

A small corner of
blobs and
arrows

course(activity)

outcome(ability)

achievement(good grade)

assertion

is evidence of

has outcome

supports

claims

personallydefined

resource(essay)

has evidence

PIOP from December 2007

Portfolio InterOperability Prototyping

Wanted something that was definitely developer-friendly

uptake means everything for a standard

developers are vital for implementation

involve developers centrally from the outset

http://wiki.cetis.ac.uk/Portfolio_interoperability_prototyping

Chose to work with the Atom Syndication Format

an XML format a bit like RSS

how you would expect to represent a blog feed

in Atom, everything is an entry

idea had and shared by several other people

Agreed LEAP2A LEAP 2 using Atom

These are the Blobs

Based on established usage within partner portfolio systems

More have been sketched out in LEAP 2.0 for future consideration

Entry is used as itself for any general pieces of writing

Graceful degradation

plan includes goal

LEAP2A types of information

entry

ability

achievement

activity

meeting

person

resource

selection

plan

LEAP2A relationships & inverses

relation

reflects on

has part

has ordered part

supports

has evidence

has agenda

has outcome

attended by

has reply

author (no inverse)

(inverse ones)

reflected on by

is part of

is ordered part of

supported by

is evidence of

is agenda of

is outcome of

attends

in reply to

more in LEAP 2.0 for future consideration

Information about entries

Entries have authors

Atom allows plain text name, e-mail, URI

in LEAP2A, URI can relate to separate person entry

but we haven't yet decided how to cover personal details

Records created, modified at certain times

Achievements each have one date of achievement

Plans each have one target date of completion

Activities, meetings have start and end dates

Things happen in locations

These things are recorded literally

rather than by a relationship to another item blob

Abilities are of great interest

(skill, competence, learning outcome, etc.)

People aim to acquire them through learning

They are assessed

People claim to have them

Qualifications relate to them

An ability itself is an impersonal definition

can be subject of goals

can be subject of claims or assertions

can be built up into skills frameworks

Ability can be represented in LEAP

ideally as an external definition, with just a link to it

also possible to define within the portfolio information itself

PIOP project achievements

3 initial partners

Newcastle University

Pebble Learning (ex Wolverhampton)

University of Nottingham

First version of LEAP2A

see http://wiki.cetis.ac.uk/LEAP2A_specification

JISC funded project now being extended to others

test and extend the specification

carefully add in whatever else is necessary for them

maintaining agreement of all who have been involved

New collaborators include Mahara and Synergetics

this round to be completed by end of March 2009

PIOP and LEAP future

Specification to be tested and working by March 2009

All portfolio and related systems are welcome to collaborate to ensure coverage of their information

Develop transform from LEAP2A to LEAP RDF

RDF and RDFa will be the higher level of interoperability

Invite other specifications to develop transforms

these to become alternatives to LEAP2A

all still included in the LEAP 2.0 vision

Find way of working with IMS eP and HR-XML

new, not current versions

Increasingly international

Credits

Shane Sutherland co-authored the paper, and was instrumental in getting the PIOP work started

LEAP2A is (and will be) the product of collaboration and agreement between the PIOP working partners

Colleagues in JISC CETIS and its Portfolio SIG and LIPSIG community have originated or developed ideas

The BSI UKLeaP work developed many ideas the LeaP name was from Mike Collett of Schemeta

Many ideas were originated or brought together by the IMS LIP and ePortfolio teams

Summary

LEAP 2.0 is a simple, powerful interoperability framework for learner-controlled portfolio information, based on Semantic Web concepts

PIOP project ensures developer interests covered

LEAP2A is the first implementation, based on Atom

Thanks for your attention

If there is time, questions and discussion?

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