1. CHEF, inter alia MITC March 1, 2003
Joseph Hardin
University of Michigan

2. Bit of Background
CourseTools – a first-generation course management system
WorkTools – part of a series of efforts in building systems for support of scientific research teams
These two paths have a lot in common, as instances of collaboration support systems, and have led to:
CHEF – A framework for building the next generation of both systems

3. UM.CourseTools Built on tests UM-AA, Dearborn, Ford/UAW
Released Fall, over 6,000 users
Growth exceeds expectations – 11,000 in Winter 2000
Then over 16,000 users – Fall, 2000
Currently, over 30,000 users – Winter 2002
Rapid adoption continuing, and deepening

4. UM.CT – Current Sites

5. UM.CT
Custom
course
page
presented to
each
student

6. UM.CT
Current
System

7. UM.CT Course Schedule Link items to a description,
assignment, or resource like lecture notes.

8. UM.CT Course Schedule User-configured choices for Course
Schedule presentation

9. UM.CT Discussions Used for assignments
Use discussion topics to present assignments when you want students to view
each other’s work.
Work originally submitted as an assignment can later be uploaded to the Discussions area for general review.

10. UM.CT Using CourseTools doesn’t mean giving up current web presence.
CourseTools is designed to maximize flexibility while maintaining continuity within University divisions.
Here, each Resource links to a
web page outside of CourseTools,
creating a portable
bookmark page.

11. UM.CT Resources And Discussions A resource document
can be attached to a
discussion topic to
Stimulate responses.
While new CourseTools users often limit resources to text files and links…
…more advanced user often include a variety of visual and audio files to support and enhance student learning.

12. UM.CT
Resources
Only a
Browser
Needed

13. UM.CT Help for Remote Users Students working off campus
often run into difficulty because
their browser or dial-in service
is not correctly configured.

14. UM.CT Business School Effort - Results
Over 80% of UM Business Courses
online after first year

15. Support for
Work Groups
UM.Worktools
Scientific
Research
Groups
Science
Review
Teams
Technology
Design
Currently over
5500 users
worktools.si.umich.edu

16. An advanced users view of SPARC; lots of information in multiple SPARC pages!
The typical SPARC collaboration features down the left hand side, page information, resource list, active user list, and chat
Streaming video in the lower left.
Lots of data and model views throughout the rest of the screen shot.

17. Great Lakes Regional CFAR
The first geographically-distributed Center for AIDS Research funded by the National Institutes of Health (NCI & NIAID)
Participants include Northwestern, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota
A “virtual center” for AIDS research

18. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation

19. Adoption of CT/WT Over 5500 Over 35,000 WT Users – Accelerating
CT Users - Saturating
We see these as foundation efforts in understanding and building “Knowledge Work Support Systems” for UMich faculty, students and staff, and remote collaborators.
CT Use - Deepening

20. So, CHEF as Next Step(s)

21. Leveraging Education/Research Complementarities
CourseTools:
Assignments
Quizzes …
Worktools:
ToDo list
Data Access
Teleobservation – NEES
Informatics/MetaData - CMCS
Shared
Core Features:
Logon
File upload
Announcements
Discussion
Chat
Schedule
Mail archive
Gradebook
CAPA Quizzes
DissertationTool
OKI APIs
CHEF Technology
Leveraging Education/Research Complementarities

22. Coursetools.NextGeneration

23. User Configurable

24. MyWorkspace area in CHEF
Synopses of
an individual’s
online activities -
Classes and
Research
Provides
collaboration
tools for
students, users
Home for many
types of
E-Portfolios

25. CHEF and the Grid – Access to Globally Distributed Computing Resources
CHEF node
CoG
XML
Grid
Moving to GRID services model (OGSA) as it develops. And it did last Wednesday…

26. Portlet-Based Educational Apps
…plus CHEF framework (groups, awareness, etc.)…
So, we
have a
team
portal …
Portlet-Based Educational Apps
Net-Based
Services
(Grid)
OKI/API’s
… plus OKI APIs to services…
CHEF
… with CHEF/Jetspeed portlets/teamlets for education and collaboration…
Jetspeed
Velocity
Turbine
Tomcat
… Connected to GRID network services …
To support learning and research in emerging, evolving environments
Apache

27. IU GridFTP Client in CHEF

28. IU
MyProxy
Portlet In
CHEF

29. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation

31. Home

34. Resources

38. Testbed Status

40. ANL’s E-Notebook in CHEF

43. DOE CMCS Project Funded under DOE Collaboration Software grants
Collaboratory for Multiscale Chemistry Simulation
Jim Myers et al at PNNL, LANL, etc
Participated in Workshop
Shown at SC

44. CMCS Explorer is a data management tool for accessing data across DAV resources.
The default address in CMCS Explorer for My Workspace is the path to your personal data folder. In a team workspace, the default address points to the team’s data folder.
CMCS Explorer shows tree and file views, can spawn viewers and tools for specific files, and has search, notification and pedigree capabilities.

45. Calendar in My Workspace is only visible to you
Calendar in My Workspace is only visible to you. In a team workspace, Calendar is visible to the whole team. Documents can be attached to scheduled activities.

46. Team Management allows you to create a team and add members
Team Management allows you to create a team and add members. Members will see a tab for the new team on their portal pages after the team is created.
Create new group

47. New team created
Members added

48. Chat allows for real time, persistent message exchange among team members.
Users Present lists other team members present in the team workspace.

49. First Developer’s Workshop
Over 20 attendees
DoEnergy/CMCS
NSF/NEESGrid
ArgonneNL/GRID
Indiana University
University of Minnesotta
UMichigan Med School, ITCS, …
Second Workshop in planning

50. First CHEF Developers’ Workshop

51. CHEF Summary
CourseTools.NG – online support for learning; in pilot, fall rollout
WorkTools.NG – online support for research, workgroups; in development for NEES, CMCS, rollout late Summer
Goals – enhance online tools; make it easy to move from teaching to research; build standards efforts, consortium so market of components develops

52. CHEF Info Site

53. Why Open Source CMS?
University should not outsource a core competence – teaching
It fits University value structures, we are an open community
It can build theextended academic community through collaboration and shared effort
It is a grand experiment, worthy of the University’s participation

54. … one of my greatest concerns is that, either inadvertently or by design, universities will be so bemused by market opportunities that they will lose sight of, or downplay, their most essential purposes…
-- William G. Bowen, At a Slight Angle to The Universe (Romanes Lecture, 2000)

55. Different ‘Open’ Efforts OCW, OKI, CHEF
Open Courseware – placing content of classes on the web
Open Knowledge Initiative - Open APIs – implementations of standards for development of CMS’s
CHEF – open source software development effort – uses OKI, pushes other open standards – IMS, SCORM, JCP-168 portal, web services, OGSA

56. MIT President’s report, Fall 2001
Question: How is the Internet going to be used in education, and what is your university going to do about it?
An answer from the MIT Faculty is this: Use it to provide free access to the primary materials for virtually all our courses. We are going to make our educational material available to students, faculty, and other learners, anywhere in the world, at any time, for free.
Charles Vest,
MIT President’s report, Fall 2001

57. MIT OpenCourseware Goals
Demonstrate a model for university dissemination of knowledge in the Internet age
Contribute to improving the quality and standard of education at all levels nationally and worldwide
Set an example for other leading educational institutions worldwide
Create a major, shared campus-wide intellectual resource
Initial two years funded by an $11M grant from the Mellon and Hewlett foundations

58. MIT OpenCourseware Alignment with MIT’s core values and educational mission:
Digital distribution increasingly commoditizes content, which helps sharpen our focus on the substantive values of residential education: personal attention from faculty and participation in learning and research communities.
“Giving it away” helps defuse complex intellectual property issues of ownership and control that can otherwise distract the university from its mission to disseminate knowledge.

59. OKI – Standards for LMS APIs
Users
Content
OKI “Core”
Reference Architecture
Component
Specification
Quiz
White Board
Virtual Lab
Portfolio Management
Content Outline
User Interface
List Management
Enterprise Data Exchange Specification
Digital
Asset Exchange Specification
Enterprise
Information --
Student
Systems
Asset
Management
Library
Initiatives
Authentication
Services
Modular Authentication
Process

60. Component Interoperability
Michigan,MIT,Stanford,Indiana
Goal is real tool, module interoperability
CHEF is integrating framework
On the way to standards
Consortium under construction

61. CHEF Architecture Services Persistent System-wide
Multiple implementations of services
Configurable as to what implementation provides what service
Services API
Teamlets:
Written in JAVA
Responsible for GUI
Operate in the context of a session.
Rely on services for any persistent or “cross-user” information.
Portal
Engine:
Jetspeed
Velocity
CHEF
Web
Server:
Tomcat
Turbine
This applies several places in the document that this is needed – it can be placed near
Inside the CHEF web application is a Portal engine, a set of tools, a set of services, and site configuration.
Servlets: Access services outside of the portal engine: AccessServlet and WebDavServlet
Non-HTTP Components (i.e. )

62. CHEF/OKI Relationship
Services
Persistent
System-wide
Multiple implementations of services
Configurable as to what implementation provides what service
Services API
Teamlets:
Written in JAVA
Responsible for GUI
Operate in the context of a session.
Rely on services for any persistent or “cross-user” information.
Portal:
Tomcat
Turbine
Jetspeed +
CHEF
extensions to O K I …. ….

63. OKI APIs – CHEF Implementation
Authentication
Authorization
Local ID
Logging
DBC
Shared Objects (Agent, Group, AgentIterator)
Filing (*)
Hierarchy (*)
UserMessaging (*)
WorkFlow (**)
Scheduling (**)
As OKI APIs become available we either swap out CHEF APIs or build OKI translators – ‘Innovate and Normalize’
* unpublished but well enough along that we can do something
** unpublished, unspecified
localid and locallyuniqueidentifier

64. OKI Current Status

65. CHEF as ‘OKI UI’ CHEF UI can cut across tool ‘engines’
Can ingest/display XML/XSLT, HTML, VM, RSS, …
CHEF can thus provide integration at both OKI API level, and display level
We are pushing on this idea, pushing on real tool – component - sharing
Working with Stanford CourseWorks, MIT Stellar, Indiana OnCourse, as well as Worktools.NG partners, eg, NEES, CMCS, GRID…maybe also CAPA, U-Portal,…

66. Teamlet Implementation Choices
HTML
Adapter
Portal
Engine
And
Web
Server
Jetspeed
CHEF
Tomcat
Turbine
CHEF/OKI
Services
Velocity
Teamlet
XML/
XSLT
XML
RSS
I-Frame
Portlet… Perl,
C++, CGI…
Each tool is java code that runs in the CHEF server that follows the Portlet
API…..

67. Dimensions of Interoperability
Data Definitions
Technology Choices
UI/Application Frameworks
Service Definitions

68. Dimensions of Interoperability
Service
Data UI
Tech
Gov.
Corp HE
School

69. Open Knowledge Initiative
Service
Data UI
Tech
Gov.
Corp.
H.E.
School J
CHEF as ‘reference implementation’

70. UI CHEF OKI Service ARTS SCI HE Data IMS Tech Java, Perl, C++
Content representation, markup
choices
html, xml, rss, …
Content UI
Formatting/style
Formatting choices
Xslt, vm, css…
CHEF

71. Component Interoperability
Michigan,MIT,Stanford,Indiana
Goal is real tool, module interoperability
CHEF is integrating framework
On the way to standards
Consortium under construction

72. CHEF Consortium (Under Construction)
Goals –
Further development of core software platform
Support adherence to, and development of, existing and emerging standards
Develop broad base of user input and participation
Encourage and support scalable model of adoption and support
Enable large community of tool innovators
Learn what should be part of the consortium; what is this open source model really like, capable of?

73. CHEF Consortium Participation possibilities
Collaborating on standards efforts, eg, OKI, JCP-Portal, GRID, RDF, IMS
Providing extensive testbeds, eg campus-wide, and associated support
Building significant tools, eg CMCS
Supporting project through funding
Helping to build adoption/support models

74. CHEF Consortium What would be benefits…(in progress)
Participation in requirements development
Invitation to workshops
Early notification of developments
Access to survey and study results from testbeds
Support for local implementations
Collaboration in resource development efforts, eg, public and private foundations

75. Consortium Models/Goals
We need control of the source code development process; this boils down to the CVS tree commitment process
Code itself always open and available
We want a large community who sees this as their own effort, committed to and guiding it
We want a commitment to continue as open source effort; not sell/commercialize; this is “open source framework” idea
We can have tool development as non-profit, with commercial participation of interoperable components
This is a ‘classic’ open source development and economic model – see Jabber.org/Jabber.com

76. Open Source/Open Support
What can schools/partners contribute to open source efforts?
Core development
Individual tool development
Navigo
Notebook
Support
Training
Distributed help desk
Ideas

77. Research, Teaching and Public Service
Alliance for Community Technology
African AIDs Project
AIHEC – American Indian Higher Education Consortium
How do open source, collaborative efforts contribute to and help us understand the new information dynamics in all our domains of interest?

78. Universities, as institutions, pre-date the "information economy" by many centuries and are not for-profit cultural entities, whose reason for existence (purportedly) is to discover truth, codify it through techniques of scholarship, and then teach it.
Universities are meant to pass the torch of civilization, not just download data into student skulls, and the values of the academic community are strongly at odds with those of all would-be information empires.
Bruce Sterling, The Hacker Crackdown (1992)

79. stop