JISC

Pilots to prove the concept of Interoperability within Managed Learning Environments in the Further Education sector

To:	Principals of Further Education Colleges funded by the Funding Councils
Copies:	JCIEL members MLE Steering Group Members

Guidance notes

Summary

1. The JISC Committee for Integrated Environments for Learners (JCIEL) has set up a Managed Learning Environment Steering Group (MLESG) to help Further Education Colleges with the selection and implementation of Managed Learning Environments. A document describing the components of an MLE has recently been published.

2. The MLESG wishes to conduct a number of Interoperability pilots to implement and prove the feasibility of interconnection between systems within an MLE using the international standard of IMS, with FE extensions. Pilots could for instance demonstrate:

• interoperability between a Management Information System (MIS) and a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE)
• interconnection between a VLE and learning resources (content)
• interoperability between content and test authoring tools and a VLE
• interoperability between course creation tools and an MIS or VLE
• interoperability between a profile server (or service) and an MIS or VLE

Pilots that investigate other areas of interoperability, using IMS, will be considered. Further information regarding IMS can be found at IMS Project or BANGOR.

3. Partnerships of vendor organisations and colleges are invited to submit a proposal (form attached) to undertake a pilot, through a limited tender process.

4. A total budget of £150,000 has been allocated for Interoperability Pilots and bids are invited for several projects from this allocation. The projects will provide a managed and supported test bed, with links to IMS and funding is targeted towards supporting the administration and project management of the pilots rather than the provision of hardware or software. Vendors with whom we have been able to speak, have indicated that they expect to pay for their own implementation costs.

Background

5. Recent significant developments in the FE sector include the establishment of the FEFCs ILT Committee (FEILT), charged with the development of a National Learning Network (NLN). The University for Industry (UfI) or learndirect, and National Grid for Learning (NGfL) initiatives, and the FE sector becoming a full funding partner of the JISC, are all crucial positive actions in promoting Information and Learning Technology.

6. The JISC provides UK-wide leadership and vision in the application of information and communications technologies to support learning and teaching, research and management in Higher and Further Education. JISC is committed to enabling the cost-effective exploitation of information systems and services in institutions across the sector.

7. The JCIEL was established to evaluate and pilot novel technologies of relevance to learning and teaching and encourage the integration of IT based applications to improve student support systems. JCIEL established the Managed Learning Environment Steering Group (MLESG) to oversee the definition of an MLE, which will meet the needs of the further education community. This work is expected to have applicability within the Higher Education sector as well.

8. The intention of the MLESG is to define a set of interfaces to allow the various systems to work together to form a college management environment. It is not intended to design systems of any type (learning management systems, college management systems etc). Partnerships

9. Partnerships of vendor organisations and colleges are invited to submit proposals. Partnerships can include MIS Vendors, VLE Vendors, Content Vendors and Colleges and must be constituted appropriately for the particular interoperability tasks being undertaken.

10. Partnerships are expected to consist of at least two vendors from amongst MIS, VLE, Student Information Systems and Content providers, together with at least one College.

11. Special consideration will be given to projects that involve multiple partnerships. For example three different colleges may wish to investigate how their own MIS links to a common VLE. The MLESG will encourage the creation of partnerships from separate bids where this has potential benefits to the overall programme.

12. The group also expects to run a workshop where suppliers involved in this programme (and any other interested suppliers) can test the interoperation of their systems with others with whom they have not already been working.

Roles of partners:

13. Colleges; It is anticipated that colleges will be responsible for project management and will act as the customer for the final products. Colleges will specify their needs as well as test and evaluate the interoperability of systems, where appropriate. Colleges will have control over the routing of funding and will be the main recipient of such funds; but it will be the responsibility of partnerships to agree financial arrangements within the project.

14. Vendors; Products chosen by vendors for use in the project will need to comply with IMS specifications (+FE extensions) at the end of the pilot. It is therefore anticipated that development work will require considerable expertise and effort from vendors during the period of the project. It is not seen as desirable that the JISC should be paying for this effort, as the vendor will ultimately derive substantial benefits from the developments. Bids should reflect the effort being made by vendors although not necessarily in monetary terms. (Following feedback from the meeting at FERL 2000 this should not present a problem as vendors have indicated that involvement is the key objective.)

15. Other Agencies – Nothing in this document should be seen as excluding any other partners who may be beneficial to the project from taking part in the pilots.

Anticipated Benefits

16. The expected benefits to different stakeholders might be:

17. General

• Demonstration that the FE sector will have working MLEs that meet their needs and that these can be built with components from a number of suppliers rather than having to buy all systems from a single supplier.
• IMS specifications with FE extensions can be effectively used by vendors to enable their systems to interoperate.
• Demonstration that IMS with FE extensions meets the needs of Further Education Colleges.

18. And. . .

EXPECTED BENEFITS
For Colleges		For Vendors
Support for:		Opportunity to:
*	implementing their system	*	test and get support for their IMS implementations
*	clarifying their information needs	*	get feedback and practical support for interoperability
*	influencing the FE MLE requirements	*	influence the final form of the FE Extensions
*	gaining early experience	*	demonstrate their ability to use IMS to meet sector needs
*	become a sector leader in MLE/VLE	*	gaining early experience, and being early to market
		*	open up their products to a more global market through IMS
Working systems that:		Confidence and demonstration that their systems can successfully meet the needs of sector and be able to interoperate with other vendors using:
*	meet college needs	*	IMS specifications
*	will provide colleges with the right information at the right time	*	FE extensions to IMS specs
*	are able to influence changes to IMS for future versions of specifications	*	the chance to check their interpretations of the specifications with IMS and, where differences arise, gain an interpretation direct from IMS, helping to ensure that their implementations will be consistent, not just with other vendors within the FE MLE programme, but also globally
		*	ability to propose adjustments or put forward additional FE extensions that the trials show are needed
		*	ability to propose additions that will be put forward to IMS for future versions of specifications

19. For the FE MLE programme

• Feedback for fine-tuning of the FE extensions where necessary
• Demonstration and evaluation of interoperability using IMS specifications
• Understanding of the costs involved in implementing the specifications compared to other ways of achieving interoperability
• Minimising the likely costs of repeat implementations in the future

20. For JISC

• Feedback to the larger community of the experiences and lessons learned from the programme

Anticipated Outcomes

21. The interoperability pilots are expected to demonstrate that products using the IMS standard can work together in a College environment and make information about the implementation process and the results of the pilot widely available within the FE community. This will, ultimately, assist Colleges with selecting suitable components for their own MLE.

22. The outcomes of the pilots will depend on the nature of individual projects but are likely to:

• Establish interoperability between the VLE and MIS, using the IMS Learner Information and/or Enterprise specifications + FE extensions, to at least pass all necessary data for the ISR and to return additional learner results
• Establish interoperability between systems needing to exchange metadata, content and tests between them using the appropriate IMS specifications
• Use the IMS Content Management specification (as soon as it is available in testable form - Draft specification) to achieve interoperability between Content and VLE/runtime system
• Use the IMS Question and Test Results specification (as soon as it is available in testable form - Draft specification) to achieve interoperability between Tests and VLE/runtime system
• Demonstrate the integration of off line registration into a VLE using IMS (+FE extensions) specifications

23. With the exception of the Content Management specification which will have its own browser based communication specification, we expect all those participating in trials to work towards an agreed file transfer mechanism (e.g. adopt the use of ftp) for the sector as an initial transport mechanism, and to report on any shortcomings discovered or anticipated that may need to be overcome in future.

Some specific questions the MLESG would like answered by the Pilot Trials.

24. Individual Student Record (ISR) to IMS Learner Information (LI) mapping

• Are they the right fields?
• Do they map properly?
• Should they be mapped differently?

25. FE Extensions

• Are they the right ones?
• Do they meet Colleges needs (e.g. with regard to internal and external, ISR, reporting)?
• Are Extensions needed in other areas (e.g. traditional learning activity reporting)?<

26. Transport: Stage 1 File Exchange

• For full interoperability between all vendors, we need an agreed approach to exchanging files
• Can it be made to work in the same way by all vendors?
• How should updates be handled?
• How should multiple receivers be handled?
• Reliability?
• Security?
• Any other problems?

27. It is seen as a key indicator for projects to demonstrate interoperability between different suppliers’ products using IMS (+FE extensions) specifications. Central performance indicators must be quantifiable.

The Reports

28. JISC undertakes to disseminate the results of the pilot projects. This can only be effectively achieved if open and honest reporting is undertaken by partnerships. This will require open documentation of success as well as failure.

Interim Reporting

29. Interim (journalistic style) reporting will be required during the project implementation phase to indicate progress against key milestones identified in your project plan. This reporting is designed to support all the projects during their implementation phases so avoiding duplication of effort. It will take the form of a secure website (bulletin board) to keep other projects informed of possible issues and solutions to problems encountered.

30. Where significant costs are identified that in any implementation outside the pilots would need to be passed to the customer, these should be acknowledged as soon as possible. These would not necessarily be financial; they could be in terms of human resources and or time. It is envisaged that these costs might be minimised by early identification.

31. Successful bidders must be prepared to assign publication rights of the relevant reports (including electronic publication rights) to JISC or its nominee(s). For its part, JISC will ensure that full credit will be given to authors and contributors in any resulting publication(s).

Joint Final Report

32. The joint report will be prepared and agreed by all the partners in the pilot. It should contain background details and a technical definition of the solutions employed to address the problems of interoperability between systems, including any generic technical issues resulting from the design or use of these solutions. The report should also include a comparison of all of the solutions evaluated and any resulting recommendations and or costs. This report will provide input to JCIEL’s plans for future development and services in this area. The final report will need to be submitted to the JISC Secretariat by 4th December 2001.

Individual Final Reports

33. Individual reports, written by authors from each partner, should contain details of problems encountered of any nature (e.g. problems with relationships between suppliers, vendors and or colleges) that may need addressing for future implementations. This should include any technical issues resulting from the design or use of these solutions that the parties found it difficult to agree on or failed to agree. The report should also include a comparison of the different possible solutions not employed as well as that actually implemented. It should be noted that these reports will not be made public although the JISC may produce an anonymised summary of the lessons learned for publication to the community (It should be noted that individual companies and colleges will not be identifiable in these papers). These reports will need to be submitted to the JISC Secretariat by 4th December 2001.

34. Note: Reporting does not require the internal arrangements made for the pilots to be documented but issues of interpretation of standards and how any mismatch between vendors was navigated would be useful to all.

Evaluation Criteria

35. JISC evaluates all its projects to inform its future programmes. Project evaluation forms an integral part of this activity and funded projects will be expected to take part in evaluation. Proposals must contain plans for evaluating the progress of the project while it is being run and after it has been completed. Projects will be required to undertake this formative and summative evaluation.

36. The budget submission must include an indication of the budget for this, and a brief description of plans for evaluation. Projects will be expected to demonstrate a range of relevant performance indicators on which the project should be judged including evaluation of products, project management and processes undertaken (such as collaboration).

Timeframe

37. The following key milestones are given for guidance:

Tenders received by JISC	6th February 2001
MLESG choose pilots	2nd March 2001
Contracts signed by	30th March 2001
Projects Start	2nd April 2001
Finance releases	Monthly April to November 2001
Journalistic Reports	Monthly April to November 2001
Evaluation	December 2001
Final reports	December 2001
Final payments	January 2002

Methodology

38. The tender should outline the proposed methodology for undertaking the pilot. This must include information about the design, implementation and testing phases for each of the interoperability problems that the project intends to address.

39. Bidders should also identify the outcomes that they anticipate the project will produce, from the lists provided in paragraphs 16 to 27 of this document.

Selection Criteria

40. The selection process will take place in February/March 2001. The selection criteria will include:

• Evidence of understanding of the concepts/complexities of interoperability
• The appropriateness of the proposed interoperability provision to generic college needs
• The experience of the members of the partnership
• The feasibility and detail of the work plan and timetable
• Service management (i.e. a demonstration how well the partnership will work together)
• Value for money
• The range of systems covered

41. A panel of experts who will report to the MLE steering group will consider each short-listed proposal. Particular emphasis is laid on the outcomes rather than the reporting. While both these areas are important the overall rationale of the pilots is to encourage the production of systems embracing IMS (+FE extensions) specifications that can support the FE sector in the new Learning and Skills era. This will be reflected in the weighting given in the selections marking scheme.

Submission of Bids

42. Proposals should be submitted from partnerships of:

• VLE vendors
• Content Vendors
• MIS vendors
• Colleges

to arrive by noon on Tuesday 6th February 2001. It is anticipated that bidders will be notified of the result by Friday 9th March 2001.

43. It is a condition of funding that JISC reserves the right to publish details of the partnerships.

44. Evidence of commitment of the partners included will be required. In the case of Colleges this must include evidence that the interoperability pilot fits with the College's ILT strategy.

45. Proposals should be submitted on the enclosed form, and any relevant appendices attached. The proposal, together with an electronic copy on floppy disk (in MS Word or Rich Text Format (RTF) format), should be sent to:

Lesley Hawkins
JISC Secretariat
Northavon House
Coldharbour Lane
Bristol
BS16 1QD

FAQs

46. Queries regarding this tendering exercise can be sent to:

Richard Everett
MLE Coordinator
c/o 66 Bath Hill
Keynsham
Bristol
BS31 1HH

Telephone: 0117 908 2622
Mobile: 07733 22 42 81

Email: richard.everett@bristol.ac.uk