Making Sense of KM

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EdNA OnlineA Services-oriented approach to
supporting E-Learning
Geoff Hendrick, Education.au Ltd, Australia,
November 2004
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About EdNA Online

• Education Network Australia Online
• Managed by education.au, a non-profit company
  owned by the Australian Ministers of Education
  and Training
• Manages a repository of evaluated, web-based
  resources useful for teaching and learning
• Facilitates collaboration and cooperation
  throughout the Australian education and training
  sectors
• Represents all education and training sectors
  (Schools, VET/ACE, Higher Ed, International)
• Promotes standards-based interoperability

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History of EdNA Online

• Started life as a Search-able Metadata Repository
  refer-atory (manual entry and harvested) of
  online web educational resources (web pages)
• Added Collaboration Tools (mail lists, forum,
  chat)
• Metadata interoperability based on DC, RDF but
  ad-hoc harvesting methods.
• Retail web delivery model HTML to end users
• EdNA developed and maintained by outsourced
  supplier using proprietary products slow,
  difficult, costly to change

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Changing Needs

• Education institutions developing own portals
  repositories
• Need to provide access to broader range of
  repositories. Manual harvesting methods not
  sustainable
• Advent of other, richer learning resource types
  learning objects, news letters, news feeds,
  blogs, klogs
• Demand for integrated online learning communities
• Demand for re-useable and shareable e-learning
  support services accessible via open standards
• Interest in applicability of open source

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Changing our Thinking

• Our major customers are educational institutions
  not end users
• If ICT is our core business why are we
  outsourcing it?
• We are providers of educational services not
  technologies
• We provide discovery services not a digital
  repository
• Harvesting is a means to discovery not an end
• We enable online communities rather than provide
  forums, chat and mail lists
• Customers want integrated access to all types of
  learning resources and environments including
  news feeds and LOs
• Customers dont want 2,000 search results just 10
  good ones
• Customers want these services integrated into the
  environments they use most often their intranet
  web portal, their Outlook desktop

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Business Strategy

• Model the business focus on service interfaces
• Wholesaler to educational institutions
• Retailer to end users
• Aggregator to other repository custodians
• Develop a services-oriented business strategy
• Become and indispensable educational services
  provider to educational institutions
• Embed our services in institutional portals
• Become their expert in applying ICT to
  e-learning
• Expand the range of searchable repositories
• Expand the types of learning materials learning
  objects, news feeds, blogs
• Create our own syndicate able knowledge content
• Make it easy for stakeholders to create advanced
  online communities
• Shape the debate on open interoperability
  standards and open source
• Show integration with TLF and other learning
  object repositories

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Technical Strategy

• Evolve to a Services-oriented Technical
  Architecture
• Major Use Case categories
• Wholesaler XML Web Services, RSS everywhere, low
  barrier of entry
• Retailer Customisable Portal front end web site,
  built from portlets
• Aggregator DRI standards such as OAI, RDF, DC,
  LOM
• Align Technical strategy with Business Strategy
• Bring development in-house
• Re-engineer to open standards front end first
  then back-end
• Integrate best of breed components rather than
  use a single mega product
• Restrict development effort to integration, use
  off-the-shelf components
• Look for open-source as first choice
• Implement distributed/federated search
  harvesting via OAI
• Make all our content syndicate-able as RSS
• New front end myEdNA portal based on CMS, XML,
  RSS, J2EE Portal Engine
• Expose all back end functionality as XML Web
  Services

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Services Oriented Architecture

• Value-add a customers existing Portal with
  E-Learning services
• Distributed Search Service
• Knowledge Content Aggregation and Syndication
  Service
• Online Communities/Collaboration Service
• Federated Identity/Access Management Service
• Multiple APIs and channels (SOAP, simple XML via
  URIs, HTML/Javascript, email, RSS)
• Help customers to easily build/deploy new
  advanced Portals
• MyEdNA as an exemplar portal
• Virtual Portal Service for RYO portal

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Shared Services Model
Discovery
Identity
E-Portfolio
Research
KnowledgeNetworking
Discovery
LO Delivery
DRM
The Services Technical,Collaborative,Knowledge
Demonstrators
Consulting
Transactions
SingleSign on
ContentSyndication
Whos Who
CommunityBuilding
LO Authoring Tools
LOComponents
LOContent
Standards
Intermediary
The Market VET, HE, K12, Industry National,
International
End UsersTeachers, students, professionals,
Life long Learners, Employers
Edu Training Institutions,Employers
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Shared (federated) Services Model
MyFuture, TLF LEX, EdNA, VOCED etc
MERLOT, GEM, SMETE etc
Repositories
Federated Search, Identity, SSO, Content, DRM,
e-Portfolio
Federated Search, Identity, Content
Shared Services
EdNA, MyFuture etc
Web Portals
Users
Inter National
State Institution
National Infrastructure,Intermediary,Gateway,Tr
usted Provider
Role
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New Generation EdNA Online
Shared Services
Repositories
Users
Portals
Federated Search and Harvesting
EdNA
Institution Portal
Content Feeds
MERLOT,GEM,SMETE etc
CommunityTools
VOCED, ACER
Learning Communities
Single Sign On
Sibling Portal
State Territory
Virtual Portals
EdNA Online
JISC Information Environment Architecture