1. 27 March 2009, Leeds, UK Alan Paull, alan@alanpaull.co.uk Information Management Consultant, APS Ltd More information: http://www.xcri.co.uk/ And thanks to Professor Mark Stubbs at MMU for some of the slides . XCRI - Save time and money promoting your courses University of Greenwich, 6 April 2011
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6. The Benefits of eXchanging Course Related Information Training Access Points ECCTIS UCAS Course Search National Learning Directory Next Steps Course Directory Aimhigher Ortelius Ploteus Lifelong Learning Networks 14-19 Area Prospectuses Pickup unistats learndirect EducationUK
7. 2005 JISC fund XCRI “Reference Model” project. Team review international standards, e-prospectus websites (161+) & site visits; R1.0 XCRI schema. 2006 XCRI tools prototyped: XCRI>PDF brochures & ReST Xpath search. Existing deployment reviewed & optimised XCRI CAP 1.0 released. JISC fund XCRI CAP 1.0 trials, demo aggregator & xcri.org support 2007 DfES and Becta briefed. XCRI adopted as ‘preferred approach’ by LSC. Bolton, OU, Oxford, MMU & Staffs CAP feeds read by demo aggregator. CEN WS-LT & vendor meetings for European MLO harmonization begin. 2008 JISC funds CAP 1.1 pilots. XCRI champion elected to DIUS/DCSF ISB. GMSA, Edge Hill, W Cheshire, Kent XCRI feeds. CEN WS-LT Agreement on MLO => European Norm; E Mid, Huddersfield, Teesside, Worcester start XCRI projects. 2009 DCSF’s Action Plan for 14-19 Prospectus recommends adoption in 14-19 sector by 2010. ISB approves XCRI-CAP 1.1 as national eProspectus standard. E Mids 14-19 Pilot; non-JISC-funded work continues. 2010 Recommendations to DCSF. Dev’t of XCRI-CAP 1.2. Mini-projects: Bolton, Cardiff (UWIC), Hull, Huddersfield, Newcastle, Nottingham. MLO European Norm expected to be ratified. XCRI Benefits Realisation project (August 2010).
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9. … the UK standard for describing course marketing information … a way of describing information about learning opportunities … about eXchanging Course Related Information .
10. structure definitions names specification providers advertise courses courses are presented for enrolment any number of times through presentations presentations instantiate courses A presentation is a particular instance of the course offered at a particular time and place and is the entity to which learners apply. Alternative names for this type of structure include course offering and course instance .
12. Learning Provider’s system Information in XCRI-CAP format Course information system(s) Collect once ... ... use many times
13. Learning Provider Web Prospectus Provider re-keys & pushes for each aggregator UCAS LLN Course Directory Learning Provider UCAS LLN Web Prospectus XML Aggregators Poll & Harvest from Providers Provider publishes XCRI prospectus as well as web prospectus Course Directory
14. Informed choice Standards Interoperability Learners Learning provider community Government departments Information Standards Board JISC XCRI-enabled services Jobs Careers Qualifications Key Information Set HEFCE
15. Reid Kerr C Bolton Uni UCAS Oxford Uni Middlesex Uni WYLLN (Huddersfield) MMU E Mids, incl Leap Ahead LLN, SSC LLN, Uni of Nottingham Liverpool CCLiP Linking London LLN Adam Smith C Plymouth Uni Open University GMSA HW LLN (Uni of Worcester) Edge Hill Uni West Cheshire C Higher York LLN Staffordshire Uni Uni of Kent Hull Uni Cardiff, UWIC Newcastle Uni Bristol, UWE
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19. 27 March 2009, Leeds, UK Alan Paull, alan@alanpaull.co.uk Information Management Consultant, APS Ltd More information: http://www.xcri.co.uk/ XCRI: eXchanging Course Related Information CAP: Course Advertising Profile
Introduce myself, my involvement with XCRI development and support project, Xcri Implementation Models, OU
Coverage of this presentation To say what XCRI is, what it’s for, why you would use it, who is using it.
The XCRI domain. A map of XCRI cf. Middle Earth! This shows the pervasive extent of information about courses in higher and further education. All of these areas are linked together somehow within learning providers.
Today we’re concentrating on the low lands of Course Advertising, which reaches out into the foothills of eAdmissions and eApplication, but avoids the chasm of competencies and the rapids of curriculum management. Some work has been done in JISC projects on linking course marketing information to ePortfolios via UCAS Entry Profiles, but we won’t deal with that difficult terrain today. When I talk about XCRI today, I’ll be meaning the Course Advertising Profile or XCRI-CAP version. This is the version currently being implemented widely in HE, FE and 14-19.
Current government agenda illustrated by several relevant publications. Please consult these at your leisure. Key Information Set (KIS) is probably the most significant at the moment.
I’m not going into all the detail here, but some of you may be interested in this background. Important highlights are: it’s based on extensive research, both uk and international information model has been tested and developed by the HE and FE community, both for technical usefulness and to test the business case there have been many many pilots, approx 5 or 6 per year since 2005, so there is a large pool of expertise bottom up and top down accepted and endorsed by UK government and European standards are soon to be promulgated
The purpose of XCRI is to enable information about courses and other kinds of learning opportunity to be shared efficiently between the computerised information systems used by learning providers and organisations collecting, aggregating and publishing information about courses. It is recommended by the UK government and is generally applicable across all sectors of UK education and training.
It shows how to structure the information, defines and names the data components and specifies the types of data permitted within each component.
Overall structure Repeated elements in the main structures Multiples Optional / mandatory Reference to other standards yet to be developed – quals, credit, levels Vocabularies
This is an example of what it actually does.
The old method versus the new method And the web prospectus could also come from XCRI-CAP if desired.
National agenda of ‘informed choice’ about learning opportunities but feeling that education lags behind other sectors in making its ‘products’ easy to discover and compare. Standards exist for exchanging information about people, groups, membership and learning objects but no standard way to exchange information about courses. Institutions developing ways to populate their prospectus from definitive data but resorting to primitive data entry to populate aggregator sites, regional portals, area prospectuses… Now: genuine interest from the community in a standard for exchanging course information that facilitates joined-up thinking.
Extensive and growing work across the UK Also in the Netherlands!
Introduce myself, my involvement with XCRI development and support project, Xcri Implementation Models, OU
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