XCRI

1. XCRI Judith DavisonASIS DIrector

2. Session Outline • Introductions • What is XCRI? • Where did it come from? • The technical bits! • Benefits • Hud-XCRI project • Questions

3. What is XCRi? • EXchanging Course Related Information • Community-based standards organisation • Maintains an XML specification for distributing and advertising information about courses • Works with FE and HE institutions across the UK and Europe to define the format of the specification • Information model NOT a commercial product or package

4. A brief XCRI History (1) April 2005: • JISC funded study into curriculum management and potential for new approaches to interoperability • One output from this is creation of an XML schema for course management

5. A brief XCRI History (2) March 2007: • JISC fund second project for 2 years • Aim: ‘to develop a lightweight specification to allow universities and colleges to syndicate their course information to aggregators etc’ • Result from the project to be output to the open standards process - XCRI-CAP was born • Specification only concerns the Course Advertising Profile aspects of course information

6. A brief XCRI History (3) • Mandated by UK national Information Standards Board as UK’s e-Prospecti standard in January 2009 • DCSF recommended that all 14 – 19 Area Prospectuses adopt the standard from 2010 • UCAS exploring full implementation • European adoption anticipated later in 2010

7. XCRI-CAP Basic principle: Provider offers Courses which have Presentations (occurrences), Credits and/or Qualifications

8. XCRI-CAP: Layout Provider Credit Course Qualification Venue Presentation Venue Presentation Credit Course Qualification Presentation

9. XCRI-CAP: XML <catalog> <provider> <title>Farm College</title> <url>www.farmcollege.ac.uk</title> <street>Farm Road</street> <town>Farmville</town> <postcode>FM1</postcode> <email>admissions@farmcollege.ac.uk</email> <course> <identifier>1234</identifier> <title>Horse Grooming 101</title> <description type=”xcri:aim”>The aim of this course is to provide the learner with all the skills necessary to groom a horse.</description> <description type=”xcri:providedResource”>We will provide a horse for the grooming practical.</description> <description type=”careerOutcomes”>Many students who complete this horse go on to successful careers in horse grooming. Some end up in glue factories.</description> <credit> <scheme>Horse Grooming Scheme</scheme> <value>30 Points</value> </credit> <presentation> <start>03-Jan-2010</start> <end>31-Mar-2010</end> <duration>3 Months</duration> <studyMode>Full Time</studyMode> <attendanceMode>Campus</attendanceMode> <attendancePattern>Evening</attendancePattern> … </presentation> </course> </provider> </catalog>

10. Benefits for Learners Problem: Learners comparing courses between 2 institutions will find information of varying quality in different formats for the same subjects

11. ART HISTORY FRENCH GEOGRAPHY GEOGRAPHY ART HISTORY FRENCH A B

12. Solution: XCRI-CAP ensures that the same fields are available, making searching for course information easier

13. Art Geography History French Art Geography History French A B

14. Benefits for HE Problem: Institutions locked into an endless cycle of preparing information for prospectus and other publications, re-keying the same content into different formats

15. Course Database Data Extract Edited for Web Service Data Managers Data Extract Edited for Prospectus School Data Managers Data Extract Edited for UCAS

16. Solution: XCRI-CAP can be used as the basis for multiple outputs without modification

17. Publish to Web Course Database Service Data Managers Data Extract Transform To XCRI-CAP Publish to Prospectus School Data Managers Export to UCAS

18. Learner Institution Aggregator Learner Learner Institution Aggregator Learner Institution Learner

19. Hud-XCRI: Project aims (1) • JISC bid for 6 month project April 2008 – March 2009 • Implement and test XCRI-CAP course specification to evaluate its usability and contribute to refinement • Provide insight into changes required to business processes and IT systems in order to develop automatically generated course catalogues • Review institutional benefits of adopting this approach

20. Hud-XCRI: Project aims (2) • Through WYLLN, establish precedence amongst HE providers in the region for storing and sharing course related information • Work towards creation of an HE directory for West Yorkshire learners and employers • Work with Hotcourses and UCAS to provide an automated feed of course advertising information for inclusion in LearnDirect National Learning Directory

21. Hud-XCRI: Phase 1 • External consultant engaged to investigate state of readiness for XCRI-CAP implementation • Reviewed and documented courses information storage and processing methods • Produced report identifying matches/gaps • Review meeting to discuss action plan

22. Hud-XCRI: Readiness

23. Hud-XCRI: Action Plan (1) • Engaging schools • Briefing document for senior managers and ASIS managers • Presentation at ASIS Managers meeting • Considered approach to Business School • Data Extract • Create data specification of data required for XCRI • Set up ‘production level’ feed • Implement and populate XCRI repository

24. Hud-XCRI: Action Plan (2) • Outside agencies • Identify provision on National Learning Directory and compare with what XCRI feed could provide • Identify gaps between what they currently hold on Huddersfield and what we want them to have • Identify provision on UCAS and provide XCRI feed for their testing

25. Hud-XCRI: Phase 2 Proposals • Include ‘last updated’ dates in SITS to provide audit trail • Investigate collection of additional data from schools eg Module information, CPD data • Identify other gaps in information and decide how to plug • Widen to other colleges within LLN • Investigate possibilities for internal usage of XCRI feed • Investigate other uses within LLN eg SHA

26. So what happened next? • ‘Proof of concept’ and XCRI ‘readiness’ established at end of project in April 2009 • WYLLN dissemination event April 2009 • Project report and action plan discussed at Senior management team and approved June 2009 • Steering Group (chaired by PVC) established August 2009 • Two year project plan agreed August 2009 • Appointment of Projects Officer September 2009

27. And now? • Addressing data quality issues • Reviewing data consistency issues • Setting minimum XCRI output requirements • Building sql ‘database’ • Providing XCRI web feed • Take-up within WYLLN • Successful bid for JISC funding to run a mini XCRI project focusing on CPD / short courses

28. Future of XCRI? • XCRI-CAP is on version 1.1. • Version 2 is currently being developed. • This will bring the UK Standard into line with the European equivalent – MLO (Metadata for Learning Opportunities). • Universities and Colleges in the UK continue to adopt the XCRI standard • Other organisations on board eg UCAS

29. Questions?

30. XCRI Resources XCRI Website: www.xcri.org Case Study: East Midlands Implementation - http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/xcri/index.shtml University of Bolton – http://www2.bolton.ac.uk/coursefinder/

31. We offer a lively environment for study with excellent and distinctive degrees Over 22,000 students study with us, on over 400 courses www.hud.ac.uk