JISC

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Our project aimed to develop a course catalogue that could export data in the eXchange of Course-Related Information - Course Advertising Profile (XCRI-CAP) specification format. The catalogue would be based on course advertising information extracted from two existing databases at the University of Worcester.

Executive Summary

We hoped to combine course advertising information from a partner college into our catalogue. The resulting XCRI-CAP feed would be published via a public url on the Herefordshire and Worcestershire Lifelong Learning Network (LLN) website Wider Horizons and include a demonstration search facility.

The project began by testing the XCRI-CAP readiness of the course advertising information at the University of Worcester. The team examined how the course advertising data at the University was currently managed, and an “XCRI Readiness” report was prepared. The University scored quite strongly on the XCRI readiness scale although there were some weaknesses.

The main sources of the data were extracted from two existing databases: the outward facing University website which was controlled by a Content Management System (CMS) Red Dot, and the SITS system that stores and manages pathway and module data. We extracted the information from these two databases and mapped it to the XCRI schema.

As a result of the implementation it was envisaged that the resulting XCRI-CAP feed would be of greater value than the current course catalogue to the student, (a test online search tool would be developed to interrogate it). We also hoped that the University, the Lifelong Learning Network and any other agencies interested in collecting it would find the service valuable as the interoperable nature of the feed would make it easy to harvest by any number of agencies.

As a result of the project users can login to Wider Horizons the Lifelong Learning Network web environment and use the search facility which interrogates the XCRI-CAP file. The XCRI-CAP feed is also available via this website.

The conclusions of the project indicate that XCRI-CAP is not difficult to implement and that the advantages of using a common standard may have many benefits for end users and agencies such as the Universities & Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) who already share this information.

The project concludes that key agencies need to work together to identify where duplication of data and lack of standards exist, and that such agencies consider adopting XCRI-CAP or a similar standard in the near future. Our research has shown that if UCAS were to become early adopters other organisations would quickly follow.

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