Linking research & learning technologies through standards 1 Lyle Winton lylejw AT unimelb.edu.au

Linking research & learning technologies through standards What is Link Affiliates? Brands the DEST developed (now DEEWR lead) technical standards and interoperability capability LINK : what we do - linking people, projects, technologies AFFILIATES : the way we work - our team, our clients, our partners, other projects, standards organisations … Distributed Team – based at USQ, partnerships with Melbourne, Monash

Linking research & learning technologies through standards What is Link Affiliates? Agenda: strategic and effective use of IT through promoting/enabling –Standards –Community Practice (cross sectoral) –Enabling Shared Infrastructure Principles: –Cross sectoral expertise and knowledge transfer –Australian Capability – maintaining, supporting and providing opportunities to ~ –Standards bringing people together

Linking research & learning technologies through standards 22 October What is the e-Framework? (view from 40,000 ft)

Linking research & learning technologies through standards 22 October What is it? Background –Enabling meaningful conversations & collaboration across boundaries –DEST / JISC e-Framework for Education and Research –Now DEEWR (Australia), JISC (UK), MoE (NZ), SURF (NL) –e-Framework is a tool used by Link Affiliates to model, build and communicate our outputs

Linking research & learning technologies through standards 22 October “Sharing service-oriented approaches to interoperability”

Linking research & learning technologies through standards 22 October What is it? Goal: –technical interoperability –in education and research –by improving strategic planning implementation processes Principles: –service oriented approach (soa) –open standards –community involvement –incremental development

Linking research & learning technologies through standards 22 October Service oriented approach (soa) Traditional approach –spec -> buy/build -> test -> deploy -> hope for no change –Large scale project implementation Service Orientation approach (little “soa”) –is a business oriented approach –applying Services to meet Business Needs (our “business” is research and education) –designing systems for change and reuse build services for integration, interoperability, and loose coupling

Linking research & learning technologies through standards 22 October Interoperability? Interoperable Development (Standards and Services) –Standards encourage Interoperability & Service encourage Integration –But Standards and Services are not enough! –Addresses interoperability at the pain points At the business policy/process level At an application and implementation level At the service-oriented level (service interfaces and contracts) At the semantic level In a specific context

Diagram courtesy of Peter Croger Interoperability requires Compatibility (AICTEC - Interoperability Standards Report) Business Processes Information Resources Application Systems Technical Infrastructure Organisational Policies ORGANISATION B Business Processes Information Resources Application Systems Technical Infrastructure Organisational Policies ORGANISATION A Collaboration Compatibility Certain amount of Compatibility required How much standardisation? At what levels? What are the pain points?

e-Framework Components A Service Usage Model (SUM) describes how the various Service (Expression or Genres) and data sources are organised Service Genres are technology-neutral abstract capabilities, bound to specific technologies by Service Expressions. Expression can have more than one Service Implementations and are deployed as Service Instances. Service Genre Service Expression Service Implementation Service Instance Standards

Linking research & learning technologies through standards 22 October What can it do? Summary In summary, we provide to the community… –Consistent documentation –Catalogue of technologies & standards –Tool for communities to make informed choices

Linking research & learning technologies through standards 22 October What can it do? Summary But the e-Framework –is not intended to be prescriptive –is not meant to be implemented all at once –is not an architecture

Linking research & learning technologies through standards 22 October The e-Framework at work (view from the ground)

Linking research & learning technologies through standards What do we actually do? The e-Framework outputs … a knowledge base … Describing interfaces between applications technology independent genres, technology dependent expressions, descriptions of standards Service Usage Models service oriented blueprints how to combine services to meet business requirements reusable patterns, good practice, capability/service maps Collaboration framework common vocabulary templates for developing documentation information on technologies, projects, practice

LORN (Learning Object Repository Network)

Harvest –OAI PMH (FRED)OAI PMH (FRED) –OAI PMH + LOM + Web services Search –Service view of SRWService view of SRW –SRW + LOM Context set Obtain –OpenURL (interface)OpenURL (interface) –OpenURL + Handle (SUM) Standards-based Implementable –heavily profiled

LORN (Learning Object Repository Network)

PILIN Persistent Identifier Linking Infrastructure Technology- independent map of a complex space –Developed in parallel with an identifier information model Compare identifier implementations –URLs –Purls –Handles –SRB GUIDs … Implement an abstract identifier API?

22 October

National Library Labs

Linking research & learning technologies through standards What’s happening Constantly updating website: – – Knowledge base, Getting Started, Success Stories, Technical Walkthrough Lots of SUMs and Service Expressions in development –See the wiki (linked from website) –Contribution and community involvement through projects such as MAMS, FRED, PILIN, ARCHER (locally) and overseas Domain mapping of service architectures –Repositories (FRED/AU, US), Geospatial (UK lead), Libraries (NLA/AU, US), Mapping Security (UK, AU, NZ), ePortfolio starting (AU, UK) –International collaboration happening around these

Linking research & learning technologies through standards 22 October SOA – What’s the big deal?

Linking research & learning technologies through standards SOA adoption What are your core/high-value service? How are they governed and change? How do I use them? (stakeholders, SLAs, contracts) Where do I go to get the “big picture”?

Implies Mature

Start at the start… Semantic Model Data Model Business Models Service Models Create a Governance Framework

Linking research & learning technologies through standards Recordkeeping? Record –“Anything providing permanent evidence of or information about past events” (dictionary def.) Metadata –“Metadata is fundamentally about interoperability: how we work together. In situations where metadata is useful we are effectively making the statement that the “data” itself is not enough, we need more information. Within the scope of data and interoperable the fundamental activities are communities (more than one person) sharing and discovering data. The greater the distance over which interoperability is required (eg. space, culture, time, scale of activity, organisation boundaries) the more important metadata becomes.” (my 2 cents) e-Framework –Goal is interoperability –Facilitated by communication and standards –Consistent documentation across boundaries