OPEN-CLE: Sakai Integration with federated repositories

1. OPEN-CLE: Sakai Integration with federated repositories Angela Rabuck Mustansar Mehmood, Carlos Solis Rice University

2. Outline • Introduction • IBM SUR Grant • Federated searching • Connexions • DSpace • Building “Collections” • Next Steps • Summary

3. Project Overview • Objectives: • Develop a model for the integration of federated open source repositories • Central instructional workspace • Use existing Rice repositories and instructional collaboration systems • Base development on existing IBM technologies and infrastructures

4. SUR Grant • IBM Shared University Research (SUR) Grant • Open-standards-based • Service oriented architecture • IBM Enterprise Bus Product Suite • Loosely coupled

5. Project Goals • Help education institutions loosely tie together open source applications • Explore development of Open Standards using Bus Architecture • Allow flexibility when choosing applications • Better utilization of current shared resources

6. Federated Repositories • Sakai projects • Sakaibrary • Twin Peaks • O.K.I. Repository interfaces (OSIDs) • Want to do more than search and select • Build learning collections • Course specific • Ad-hoc • Instructor added comments

7. Currently at Rice • Sakai - production ~1.5 years • MDID - “pilot”; production Fall 2008 • DSpace - “pilot” • Connexions - since 1998 • ExTemplate - since 1999 • Etc . . .

8. ExTemplate • Developed by Rice University • Specifically designed for language instruction • Create a variety of interactive multimedia exercises and tests • Multiple choice, true/false, fill in the blank, short answer, essay questions, and speaking • Use Wimba voice recording or Flash Media Server Plug-in to assess speaking • Languages: Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Tibetan, and Spanish • http://lang.rice.edu/extemplate/index.htm

9. Current Rice Workspaces and Repositories Sakai DSpace MDID Connexions Etc . . . ExTemplate

10. Goal DSpace Connexions MDID Sakai ExTemplate Etc . . .

11. Use Case “Repository” “Repository” (Hub) “Repository” “Repository”

12. Why? • Lessons and more already built in Connexions • Other departments on campus’ work • Ex. Art History scanned in 50,000+ images • DSpace archives • Known, trusted sources • Easily find relevant course related materials • Broad base of available materials • Find things that you didn’t know existed

13. Search

14. Search Results

15. Search Results

16. Why separate? • No priority received from search results • Extremely diverse results in each area • Allows instructors to choose which types of materials they are looking for

17. Have searches, now what? • Search multiple repositories  • Integrated into Sakai  • What do we do with the results now? • Tell the students to run the search using specific keywords?  • Save information  • Tell the students why they should read it 

18. Diagram

19. Architecture IBM WebSphere Application Server Notification Integration Caching Security Use “Insert Chart…” from the Insert menu to create a chart in PowerPoint (it can import data from Excel). Otherwise, you can use a dedicated graphing or charting application, save the chart as a TIFF or PDF file, and insert the resulting image file as a Picture (Insert>Picture>From File…). Sakai Learning and Collaboration System Sakai Authentication API Sakai Authorization API Sakai Site API IBM Enterprise Service Bus Service Registry Process Choreographer Rice Open CLE Mediator Sakai Presence API Sakai Mail API Sakai Course API Sakai User API Logging Process Management Scheduler Workflow IBM WebSphere Application Server Provider for Repository ‘X’ Provider for Connexions Provider for D-Space Provider For MDID Database Internet Repository ‘X’ Connexions D-Space MDID

20. Demo Demo

21. Initial Screen

22. Create Collection

23. Search

24. Adding Content

25. Adding Content

26. Annotate

27. Student View - Initial Screen Title Release Date End Date Automata 10/11/2006 07/21/2007 Java ME 12/12/2007 04/12/2007 Search Theory 02/05/2007 03/01/2007

28. Student View Automata Description Automata are abstract mathematical models of machines that perform computations on an input by moving through a series of states or configurations. If the computation of an automaton reaches an accepting configuration it accepts that input. At each stage of the computation, a transition function determines the next configuration on the basis of a finite portion of the present configuration. Turing machines are the most general automata. They consist of a finite set of states. Since Turing machines can leave symbols on their tape at the end of the computation, they can be viewed as computing functions: the partial recursive functions. Despite the simplicity of these automata, any algorithm that can be implemented on a computer can be modeled by some Turing machine. Next Back

29. Student View Automata What is a Broadband Network? This module explains about broadband networks, an entity to be considered in future Telecommunication Networks.. Network Information Theory: Multi-Access and Broadcast Channels This is a brief summary of what has been known about network information theory. It covers multi access and broadcast channels, in an attempt to summarize about two dozen scattered papers in both subjects. What is the role of teletraffic engineering in broadband networks? In communications, a technique for transmitting a large amount of information, including voice, data, and video, over long distances. Network information theory is the study of reliable communication in a network setting, where there are many sources and users who wish to communicate with one another. Teletraffic engineers use their basic knowledge of statistics, the nature of traffic, their practical models, their measurements and simulations to make predictions and to plan telecommunication networks at minimum total cost Next Back

30. Student View Automata Next Steps In a previous work we have analyzed a family of antibody and B-cell network models (basic AB models) of the immune system. This analysis focused principally on the physiological interpretation of their parameters. Our approach consisted in building a detailed and general mathematical model (referred to as the GIB model) and then simplifying it formally to a version (named the RIB model) that belongs to the family of AB models, but which is more general than the basic AB models. From that study it was clear that some of the assumptions necessary to simplify the GIB model into the RIB one, as well as to recover the basic AB models from the RIB one, are quite unrealistic from physiological point of viewAll this raised the issue of the reliability, or even the heuristic value, of theoretical studies based on current network models for experimental immunologists. One approach to clarify this issue is to ask whether the unrealism of the assumptions implicit in the RIB and AB models entails qualitatively different behaviors between them compared to the GIB one. We initiate here such a work by performing a comparative study of a two-clone system of the AB and RIB models, and a variant of the GIB model in which the different molecular compartments were merged into a single one (labeled IGB model). Because all those models rely critically on certain B-cell activation functions, which constitute the core of an implicit model of individual B-cell reactivity or "local rules", we focused the present numerical study, to a great extent, on two parameters determining those activation functions (Hill coefficient and thresholds). Our results indicate that: (1) the RIB and IGB models display in general a much larger diversity of steady states than the AB models; (2) only under a very restricted parameter regime did all studied models behave similarly; (3) the parameter regime under which the AB and IGB models, but not the RIB one, behave similarly is still rather restricted through not as much as in (2); and (4) even relatively small quantitative changes (within reasonable values) in the postulated "local rules" can induce very large quantitative changes in the behavior of the AB and RIB models but not the IGB model. In the light of the present results, we discuss the need of postulating a set of "local rules" solidly based on experimental evidence as a necessary condition for the reliability of current network models. Back

31. Examples of Use • Instructor chosen materials for student use • Resource finder for student projects • Combined content/bibliography for collaborators • Assemble “collections”

32. ”Possible” future features • User definable repository priority weighting • Favorites • keywords • results • Personal resource repository searching in MyWorkspace • Packaging (Import/Export) • Ability to add/replace repositories easily • Link directly to known repository item • “Freeze” resources • Printable pdf • Drag and drop functionality • Cross system publishing

33. What’s next? • More databases in federated search • MDID • Library resources • eReserves • JSTOR • Shibboleth • Instructional Design Component • User friendly way to create content

34. Summary • Loosely coupling open source products • Exploring Open Standards using Bus Architecture • Sakai (CMS) - Hub • Other systems as repositories • DSpace • Connexions • Etc • Create learning “collections” with instructor annotations

35. Thanks • IBM Shared University Research (SUR) Program • IBM WebSphere Teams in Dallas and Houston, TX

36. Contact Information • Want more information, have ideas, comments, etc: • Angela Rabuck adehart@rice.edu • Mustansar Mehmood mm3@rice.edu • Carlos Solis solis@rice.edu