Xpert vs Jorum?
October 1, 2010 17 Comments
Xpert – http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/xpert/ - at Nottingham University is a “distributed repository of e-learning resources” and contains metadata and resources for almost 70,000 learning objects from over 3000 providers. Recently the project has released some interesting tools in the form of Xpert labs including APIs to return CC licensed OER in a variety of data formats and a basic SDK (Software Development Kit). There is also a code snippet to add Xpert search to your site like this – http://www.leedsmet.ac.uk/inn/repository/xpert.html.
As a manager of an OER repository I am chiefly interested in assembling and preserving a collection of high quality assessment, learning and teaching material from my institution that can be discovered and reused effectively by teachers/lecturers in UK HE (and globally) and have been able to work with @Xpert_project to ensure that an OAI-PMH feed from our repository is harvested by the service – this took a little bit of code-tinkering (thanks to @patlockley) as our metadata incorporates multiple <dc:identifier> fields the first of which holds the OAI ID with the second holding the location URL – the end result from Xpert is a nice record of our ukoer including a properly formatted description, the URL for the CC license and, as I’ve just noticed, related resources – for instance, the search below returns 4 component parts of a SCORM package that I added yesterday (that, in its complete state, would not run in our VLE – a SCORM 1.2 LMS – as the large number of JavaScript variables exceeds what is possible under version 1.2 resulting in an error after slide 6 – it plays fine in intraLibrary though). I also used this opportunity to experiment with intraLibrary’s “linked resources” functionality which Xpert can display from the XML return:
What is missing, however, is any indication that this resource emanates from Leeds Met – think I’ll need to add a <dc:publisher> field to fix this – currently we only provide <dc:creator> which Xpert maps to author; this also means that our institution does not appear in Advanced Search under Institution…
It’s probably too much to ask Pat to add the link URLs using <lom:identifier></lom:identifier> as I hope to do from Open Search (and Xpert labs does include an API specifically to return related objects using the base url http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/xpert/related/ adding a list of comma separated keywords, then a number of results you’d like to return to the end of this URL e.g. http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/xpert/related/ukoer,5.)
<package:packageType>scorm</package:packageType>
<package:packageTypeVersion>1.2</package:packageTypeVersion>
<package:packageDownloadLocator>http://repository-intralibrary.leedsmet.ac.uk/IntraLibrary?command=open-package-download&learning_object_key=i06n105033t.zip</package:packageDownloadLocator>
These resources then, made live yesterday afternoon, are already available from Xpert; they will also, eventually, find their way into Jorum Open but this requires further intervention from me – we’re not using the Jorum RSS harvest for technical reasons but I don’t *think* that facility could perform a daily update harvest in the same way as OAI-PMH. I’m still working on the workflow for regularly packaging my IMSCPs and publishing them as a .zip for the kindly folk at Jorum to harvest from Open Search (there has, in any case, not been much new added since the end of the Unicycle project – http://repository.leedsmet.ac.uk/main/view_record.php?identifier=2845&SearchGroup=Open+Educational+Resources). When our processes are fully embedded in institutional practice I anticipate putting up an archive say every month; of course this will have the “advantage” of preserving the full IMSCP in JorumOpen rather than just the metadata and the link which is all that is harvested by Xpert but I don’t think this is a particular concern for *me* as I am responsible for my own preservation via our own formal repository platform (this building on the discussion from my last post.)
Xpert grew out of JISC Rapid Innovation funding last year which perhaps goes some way to explaining the (arguably) more agile development compared to Jorum (who I really don’t wish to be disparaging towards – I think the @jorumteam have done a fantastic job in the past 12 months and the national service is really taking shape; they obviously have a more formal remit than Xpert and have responded very positively to a wide array of stakeholders as evidenced in their recently published Road-map – they have also been very helpful to me and Unicycle on a personal/project level and this post is more about bigging-up the small guy than doing down the big-guy!)
JorumOpen currently holds an impressive 10 and a half thousand OERs catalogued as HE – still a fraction of the size of Xpert (is sheer size actually likely to become an issue when searching for suitable OERs in either service?) In addition, a large proportion of these records (how many?) are likely to be metadata/link only as they have been harvested by RSS which presents potential issues for preservation (see last post)…in any case, all credit to Xpert who have developed a responsive service that goes a long way to it’s stated aim of “delivering and supporting a distributed repository of e-learning resources” and providing real value to the (global) HE community to boot!
Explain this to me?
Which bit? All of it!?
The LOM bit that sounds like you giving me work
In the OAI I have – I see no sign of zips to download?
Oh – I reckoned to look at the OAI_PMH return – no sign of this URL?
http://repository-intralibrary.leedsmet.ac.uk/IntraLibrary?command=open-package-download&learning_object_key=i06n105033t.zip
Wasn’t really expecting you to do more work – just thinking about mods to our Open Search really – want direct link to display SCORM in browser (as now) PLUS link to download IMSCP so it can be uploaded to an LMS. URL above definitely in our SRU return…and then Xpert might pick it up anyway?
No…course it wouldn’t…just harvesting OAI
I am interested in the notion of download links? Especially a format to support it in XML.
If you can send it, or LOM data, I am more than happy to add more strings to xpert’s bow.
Is this the helpdesk?
The help(less)desk
Just checked and <package:packageDownloadLocator> is just returned by SRU, not OAI so not sure how you could harvest…SRU query below returns 8 numeracy resources:
http://repository-intralibrary.leedsmet.ac.uk/IntraLibrary-SRU?recordSchema=lom&operation=searchRetrieve&version=1.1&maximumRecords=10&startRecord=1&query=numeracy&x-info-2-auth1.0-authenticationToken=oer
Forgot to add that I can apparently force the packageDownloadLocator to come out via OAI_PMH by using a macro in the metadata template in intraLibrary.
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Hi Nick,
I tried to post a question on this list a couple of weeks ago, but nothing seems to have appeared – so I’ll have another try.
I am interested in the interface between what you are doing and SCORM packages. Through SALTIS (www.saltis.org), I have been working on a content packaging project and we hope to be creating packaging-related metadata profiles in the near future.
1. You refer to a search “returning 4 component parts of a SCORM package”. I agree with the implication here, that packaging should be regarded as ephemeral – and so you may wish to reference (and discover) individual learning objects within a package. But in the schools sector and in the wider SCORM community, we have found issues about disaggregation which is technically reliable and ensures proper control to the original content owner. How do you distinguish the component parts of the package – do you take these to be the nodes for example?
2. SCORM packages use LOM metadata and OAI-PMH uses Dublin Core as its primary format. Do you have a standard cross-walk between the two?
3. I do not understand the problem you refer to about “the large number of JavaScript variables exceeds what is possible under version 1.2”. I am not aware of any limit to the number of JavaScript variables imposed by SCORM 1.2. Maybe it is an LMS-specific or JavaScript-version-specific problem?
4. You want to fetch a link to the SCORM package, from which the package can be imported into your VLE. Better (particularly from the point of view of non-technical teachers/instructors/lecturers) would be an automatic import in which the VLE talks directly to repository. Do you see any scope for this type of direct link between VLE and repository?
5. I am also confused by the reference to the example quiz not returning any final statistics “as none of the modules store any of the result scores as global variables”. Surely any SCO should return scores using the CMI data field cmi.score.raw (or cmi.core.score.raw in SCORM 1.2)? If the module does not support that basic functionality, I would not call it a SCORM package in any meaningful sense. I do not understand the role of global variables in this.
Thanks for your thoughts and clarifications.
Best wishes,
Crispin Weston
Hi Crispin
Thanks for your interest – however, I’m not certain how much help I can be as I am still very much learning about SCORM and in the earliest stages of integrating our repository with our VLE.
The package was only split into 4 due to the technical problems experienced by my colleague (no idea of the nature of the Java issue) and I was simply experimenting with them.
Our repository software intraLibrary is indeed based on LOM – download crosswalk doc from here
Our Application Profile is very lightweight in any case so no major issues for OAI-PMH harvest though we would need to apply a macro to our metadata template if we wanted to add the package download locator to the OAI metadata for example.
An automatic import in which the VLE talks directly to repository sounds like a great idea – no idea how to achieve it though!
Thanks Nick,
I might get back to you when we come to do metadata profiling within our content packaging project.
Best, Crispin.
Hi Crispin,
I have used CourseLab to create the SCORM objects which Nick refers to, and I hope to provide some answers to your questions.
Re. your question 3: This limit which Nick mentions here may be a limitation of the SCORM editing tool “CourseLab”. It turns out that when in stand-alone mode, without being integrated into the LMS (Blackboard Vista / X-Stream) the LO runs fine and does not need to be split up. However, after being integrated into the LMS the LO stops working after “slide 6″. I identified that this has nothing to do with the content itself – replacing slide, changing the order etc. did not make any difference. What appeared to be the problem was that just after several slides “something” gets full; my quess is that this is the array which holds variables; I also read somewhere (forgot where) that in SCORM 1.2 there is a limit of internal variables of 100 – so I guessed that this is the reason. After splitting up the LO from originally 20 slides into 4 smaller LOs with each 5 slides (that is what now can be downloaded), the error did not occur anymore.
Your question 5:
When the LO was as one module with 20 slides, internally I was able to track several marking objects which carried marking for individual criteria. After breaking this up into 4 parts, these criteria were no longer overall available. The goal would here to have them as external global variables, where scores can be accumulated as the student complete the questions and solves the problems. Again, I read somewhere (forgot where) that SCORM 1.2 does not support “global” variables, whereas SCORM 2004 does, and I infered from this that I would not be able to have those global criteria across all 4 parts of the LO.
My apologies if this reply does not completely answer your questions. I must admit I have no deep knowledge of SCORM – I just use that tool CourseLab which takes care of creating – hopefully properly – the SCORM-compliant LO. I am using this now in my teaching with good success. Unfortunately only our old X-Stream/Vista 8 is set up properly for SCORM, and then only for SCORM 1.2; The new Blackboard Vista 9 (to which we will switch next academic year) is supposed to support SCORM 2004 as well, but I was not able to use it in our pilot test, with neither SCORM version – there seems still to be a setup problem.
Many regards,
Reinhold Behringer
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