International cooperation takes centre stage in Berlin

Jisc and SURF are partners in the e-Framework, an
international initiative which is developing a service-oriented approach to
the integration of IT systems, based on open standards. A joint session at
the Online Educa conference in Berlin today addressed the question of why
an international approach to such a task is both necessary and
beneficial. 

Peter Rees Jones of Jisc CETIS and Eric Kluijfhout of
the SURF Foundation spoke about the policy context for this work in the UK
and the Netherlands and in particular government lifelong learning agendas.
e-Portfolios, they suggested, which are electronic records of student
achievement, can offer a means of widening participation by allowing
students to gather evidence of their learning gained through different
episodes of their education and empower them to progress further, and
therefore answer certain aspects of these agendas.

But current commercial e-portfolio systems are often
highly specialised tools and lack flexibility, they continued. The
e-Framework, however, offers a solution to the task of making a set of
personal e-portfolio tools interoperable with institutional, national and
international systems, and enable e-portfolios to support learner
progression. Delegates heard about examples of implementation of such
systems and were shown an animation, developed by Jisc to show how
service-oriented architectures can support education and
research. 

Jisc and SURF presented together again for a session on
access management and national and international trust federations. With
both countries currently establishing access management federations, Jaap
Kuipers of SURF began by explaining that online identities need to be
established to enable us to access the content and resources we need for
education and research. Passports and bank cards are examples of
expressions of identities which are based on trust federations, he said;
they are interoperable (passports are usable in other countries, for
example, while bank cards can be used at cashpoints belonging to a variety
of banks) and are based on the principle of ease of use as well as
security.  

Federated access management is similarly based on simplicity and security,
he continued. A federation is made up of 'identity providers', such
as universities and colleges, and 'service providers', such as
publishers of online resources. It establishes a way of exchanging
information between individuals and providers of digital resources which
protects the security of both individuals and resources. 

Nicole Harris of Jisc followed and spoke about trust
federations in the UK. The access management system Athens has been in
place since 1998 and although it has worke‘By
knowing who your users are you can better support them through their
learning journey’d well, she said, institutions had a clear demand
for ‘a more encompassing system’. Wider changes in education and research,
such as increasingly complex user groups within institutions, increasing
numbers of visiting staff, shared courses and commercial collaborations,
mean that new approaches to access management are needed. There is also the
increasing need to manage identities across institutions, through
e-portfolios for example. In addition, said Nicole, international standards
and a joint understanding of possible ways forward had emerged in the last
few years.

The UK federation is, Nicole said, technology-neutral,
that is to say, it does not prescribe a particular system, although
whatever system is employed by institutions should be based on open
standards. International cooperation is a major benefit of federated access
management; working to the same standards means both countries and
institutions can work together more effectively. 

Nicole concluded by saying that access management is not
about restricting but enabling access. Federated access
management opens up new opportunities. Because a federation devolves
authentication back to the institution, the latter need to know who their
users in fact are. ‘By knowing who your users are you can better support
them through their learning journey,’ she said.

Grassroots is a Dutch development programme which aims
to develop ICT skills for staff who for whatever reason experience
difficulties in using technology in their teaching. The SURF Foundation’s
Ria Jacobi, manager of the programme, told the Online Educa conference in
Berlin today that 16,000 Euros were given to each participating institution
to support members of staff incorporate use of Powerpoint, discussion
boards, mobiles and PDAs (personal digital assistants), blogs, wikis, audio
and video, into their teaching. 

She reported that there could be tensions between the
new practices piloted under the programme and the sometimes poor
institutional infrastructure. Technical support, she said, was therefore
vital to the programme, as was the rewarding of staff who undertook the
development activities.

There was a significant impact on both teachers and
their institutions, delegates heard. ‘The teacher becomes the owner of the
idea. They experience the possibilities and the barriers of ICT. There is
then a snowball effect on other teachers, and good practice becomes passed
on beyond just the individuals undertaking the programme.’ 

The conference comes to a close tomorrow.

For further information please go to: Online Educa