FREMA: eLearning Framework Reference Model for Assessment

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FREMA e-Learning Framework Reference Model for
Assessment

• David Millard
• Yvonne Howard
• IAM, DSSE, LTG
• University of Southampton, UK

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Introduction

• What is FREMA?
• JISC funded Project between Southampton,
  Strathclyde and Hull
• Part of the e-Learning Framework (ELF) effort
• What is the ELF?
• Service Oriented Architecture for e-learning
  systems
• Layered (Domain services over Common Services)
• Dynamic and evolving
• FREMA will develop a Reference Model for the
  Assessment domain
• What is a Reference Model?
• A description of how services behave within a
  particular domain
• A community resource

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E-Learning

• In this context the term should be interpreted
  broadly
• A Common view
• Using computers to deliver course material
• Making (adaptive) content available
• Automatic assessment
• The Broader View
• Using computers to support all aspects of
  teaching and learning
• Organising learning
• Designing (scheduling, timetabling, etc)
• Run-time (workflow, communication, etc)
• Supporting virtual community (study groups,
  classes, etc)
• Virtual organisations (UoM)
• Facilitating Quality Assurance

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The Assessment Domain

• Fundamental part of learning
• Formative
• Summative
• Supporting design-time activities
• Locate assessment items for courses
• Supporting run-time activities
• Marking
• Reporting to learners
• Plagiarism detection
• Virtual organisations and lifelong learning
• Information may need to be kept for a long time
• Learner portfolios
• A degree from one institution, courses from
  another
• Trust and integrity issues

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E-Learning Framework (ELF)

• Part of the JISC e-learning programme
• A Service-Oriented Architecture for e-learning
• Based on Web Services
• Needs to bring in existing standards and systems
• Evolutionary not designed
• JISC strategy is to fund overlapping projects and
  see what sticks!
• The Services are multi-layered
• User Agents sit on
• Learning Domain Services sit on
• Common Services

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The ELF Wall
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Identifying Domains

• JISC are building the services of the framework
  (bricks of the wall) by focusing on domains
• Assessment
• Learning content
• Enterprise
• Personal Development Planning
• Personal Learning Environment
• Resource Repositories
• The objective is to identify services that should
  work together within the domain

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Assessment and ELF

• Not enough to describe and define these services
• Need a proper audit trail of decision making
• Start by defining the domain
• Work up through the services to a reference
  implementation
• This is an ELF Reference Model

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Anatomy of a Reference Model

• Domain Definition
• Overview of the domain, and how projects and
  standards fit within it

• Identifying Common Usage Patterns
• Scoping the FREMA Project

• Developing Use Cases
• Formal descriptions of usage patterns

• Gap Analysis
• Mapping of Use Cases to the Services in ELF

Reference Impl

• Service Profiles
• Formal descriptions of those services

Service Profiles

• Reference Implementation
• Of key/core services
• Examples
• Validation
• Resource

Assessment Domain Definition
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What does it look like?

• An evolving, cross-referenced, searchable web
  site
• Indexed resources and narrative descriptions of
  the domain
• UML Use Cases and Scenario documents
• Service descriptions, narrative and WSDL
• Service implementations to download (Java/.NET)
• Different gateways into the model
• according to how you want to use it

Reference Impl
Service Profiles
Assessment Domain Definition
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How might you use it?

• Use the Reference Implementation
• Build on some or all of the developed services
• Use the Service Profiles
• To develop your own services that will fit into
  the framework
• Use the Use Cases
• To help understand usage patterns within the
  domain
• Develop new Service Profiles and thus Services
• Use the Domain Definition
• To develop a context for your own work
• Understand how existing work fits together
• Identify standards
• Locate experts

Reference Impl
Service Profiles
Assessment Domain Definition
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Road Map to a Reference Model

• Incremental
• Evolutionary
• Agile
• Community Open Source
• Components
• Using existing open source infrastructures and
  web services, e.g.
• Web servers, authentication services

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4 work packages, 11 deliverables, 1 year

• Work Package 1
• Domain Definition
• Define our footprint in the domain
• Work package 2
• Use cases and scenarios
• Web Service profiles
• Reference implementation of a core model
• Work package 3
• Review And evolve use cases from wp2
• Extend the core use cases
• Evolve and extend the web service profiles
• Evolve and extend the reference implementation

July 05
October 05
April 06
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WP4 Engagement and Dissemination

• Working with our Domain Experts
• CETIS Assessment Sig
• Research Projects
• TOIA Technologies for Interoperable assessment
• ASSIS Assessment Sequencing
• APIS assessment Provision through
  Interoperability
• and many others
• Standards Bodies
• In Assessment IMS, OSIDs
• In Web Services - SOAP, WSDL, WSRF, W3C
• Working with the e-learning community to
  disseminate and evolve the web service framework
• Toolkit developers - ASAP
• Application developers

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ELF Bricks
We can start to identify a set of infrastructure
services that are already available in the
distributed services world
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Using the OMII stack
Application
Application
Application
Application
service
service
service
service
service
service
PBAC (Process based Access Control)
authorisation
service
Ws-Sec
authentication
Tomcat and Axis
web server and SOAP message handler
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Software Engineering Research Questions for
e-learning

• Reliability of long running, distributed
  transactions
• Using modelling and simulation for orchestrations
  of distributed web services
• Compensation models for long running transactions

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Conclusions

• E-learning is
• Distributed systems
• Information management
• Workflow and Communication
• Service oriented framework (ELF)
• Reference models
• Define the domain services
• But also rely on common services
• Successful e-learning services should be
  underpinned by good software engineering
  practises
• Ensure the reliability, security and integrity of
  the resources and services