Interoperability and API Open, standards based architecture Bruno Van Haetsdaele Chief Architect

© 2008 Wimba – Proprietary and Confidential The following is intended to outline our general product direction. It is intended for information purposes only, and may not be incorporated into any contract. It is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality. The development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described for Wimba’s products remains at the sole discretion of Wimba.

© 2008 Wimba – Proprietary and Confidential What is interoperability? ISO/IEC definition: What is interoperability ? “The capability to communicate, execute programs, or transfer data among various functional units in a manner that requires the user to have little or no knowledge of the unique characteristics of those units.”

© 2008 Wimba – Proprietary and Confidential What does it mean for Wimba and our users ?

© 2008 Wimba – Proprietary and Confidential Impact: User experience Flexibility Lower costs Innovation Enablers: Protocols File formats Standards APIs Open source Obstacles: Patents Trade secrets Coordination failures How to achieve interoperability ?

© 2008 Wimba – Proprietary and Confidential Outline Education Rich Media Collaboration Web 2.0 Outline

© 2008 Wimba – Proprietary and Confidential Wimba Voice into Wimba Create documents Post a Wimba Classroom archive in the Podcaster Associate a Voice Board to each Live Classroom Education Share Unified management Kiwi: a platform for the suite Greater interoperability inside the Wimba suite

© 2008 Wimba – Proprietary and Confidential Kiwi Platform architecture Open and scalable Users Courses Member. Messaging Services (XMPP) Media Services (iax/vnc) Pronto Services DatabaseFile System AdminARCMpronto Assess Services Classroom Services Voice Services assessclassroomvoice

© 2008 Wimba – Proprietary and Confidential XMPP Asterisk / IAX / SIP Xiph Speex, Theora MP3 audio for Voice, Classroom VNC Rich Media Collaboration Built using proven standards and projects

© 2008 Wimba – Proprietary and Confidential XMPP is gaining momentum: –XMPP IETF approved standard since 2004 –GoogleTalk native protocol –AOL is experimenting with XMPP –Apple iChat supports XMPP Wimba is extending XMPP for Pronto and Classroom XMPP Federation Leveraging the XMPP standards

© 2008 Wimba – Proprietary and Confidential IMS Standards –LTI: Learning Tools Interoperability –QTI: Question and Test Interoperability –Enterprise –Common Cartridge –IA: Information Analytics Advanced Distributed Learning: SCORM Schools Interoperability Framework Associations Education standards

© 2008 Wimba – Proprietary and Confidential Instructors and students: –Easy navigation from the CMS to external applications –Single sign on –Deep integration in the course System Administrators –Easy deployment and configuration –Robust integrations Software developers –More time spent in innovations, less in proprietary integrations IMS Learning Tools Interoperability What is the user need ?

© 2008 Wimba – Proprietary and Confidential Are these needs met today ? Wimba CMS Integrations… Wimba APIs.NET Portal components C and Java Powerlinks Java Building Blocks Java Sakai portlets PHP Moodle modules

© 2008 Wimba – Proprietary and Confidential IMS LTI defines: Tool Producer contract Tool Consumer contract Web Services communication XML configuration Common CSS As easy as Facebook or Google Apps Learning Tools Interoperability

© 2008 Wimba – Proprietary and Confidential Faster time to market Easier to upgrade integration functionality Increased robustness across versions of tool / cms Less effort in developing integrations, more in innovation Integration API for other CMS and more… IMS Learning Tools Interoperability What is the impact ?

© 2008 Wimba – Proprietary and Confidential Capture: –Usage / Adoption –Course Context usage –Instructor/Student interactions Measure –Social network inside the course / school –Collaboration index –Student engagement Improve –Student retention –Learning Outcome Collaboration Reporting APIs for Information analytics

© 2008 Wimba – Proprietary and Confidential Web 2.0 APIs for 21st century teaching and learning ?

© 2008 Wimba – Proprietary and Confidential Mashup example Geo location of Pronto users connected Friday, February 29th at 11am ET, based on IP addresses, using Google Maps and ip2location.com

Bruno Van Haetsdaele - Q & A