International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, Volume 4, Issue 12, December-2013 1381
ISSN 2229-5518
A Framework of Service Architecture of a
University Consortium Information System
Wasefer Zaman, Pramatha Nath Basu
Abstract – In this paper, a design of service architecture of an information system for a University Consortium is discussed. It foresees a situation where a consortium is to be formed by a number of universities from diverse geographical locations. The consortium will thrive for the conservation of resources by avoiding unnecessary duplication and by allowing healthy competition among member institutions. The information system is a conglomeration of service architecture and functional model.
During design of the functional model e-learning standards have been taken into consideration. Service architecture of university consortium information system has been designed using web services. Functional model consists of SCORM compliant LMS for tracking students’ activity and LCMS for managing the process of assembling and delivery of learning content and credit calculation and credit transfer. In the service architecture, web services have been incorporated for the communication between consortium and member universities to maintain the interoperability of the systems. In the proposed framework of University Consortium Information System both quality of education and quality of the system functioning are taken into consideration.
Index Terms – W eb services, e-learning, SOA, LMS, LCMS, SCO, SCORM.
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1 INTRODUCTION
ith the growing needs of the adult learners and demands for the customi zed and anytime-anywhere learning, there is a
onl y those courses and modules offered through the consortium. The proposed functi onal model of the University Consortium Information
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need to devel op a formalized academic cooperation between
providers. This will help cross validation and cooperative improvement of the quality of education. The need of the hour is the formation of consortium of a number of institutions offering courses in Digital Distance Education format [1].
University Consortium would offer courses by providi ng common portal. According to this approach all consortium members contribute to the management and administration. All member universities act as local learning centers and attend to students’ face to face whenever required.
The suggested consortium will work with due considerations of
institutions of dissimilar academic structure, dissimilar culture and practiced technicalities.
The institutions under the umbrella of a consortium, must determine the academic framework to resol ve the issues like which institution will be the administering institution, what happens if two institutes offer courses by the same name, which institute gives the degree/dipl oma if there are cross modules opted by the student across the institutions. This would also answer the basis of eligi bility qualification criteria, the process of counseling, admission, academic inputs, distribution and evaluation of assignments, conduction of examinations, evaluations, credit transfer, publication of result, award of certi fi cates etc. [2].
To keep the autonomous nature of institutions academic coordination norm should be devel oped and would be applicable to
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• Pramatha Nath Basu is currently a professor in the School of Education
Technology, JupiterBuilding, Jadavpur University, Kolkata 700 032, West
Bengal, India. Email: basupn@yahoo.co.in
System is developed keeping in mind the current existing standards
of the e-l earning [7] and a proposed service architecture of the University Consortium Informati on System. The service architecture has been designed to maintain the interoperability of the systems, using web services. To implement the quality of education and quality of the University Consortium Information System [6] , the framework has incorporated certain criteria.
Learning through University Consortium is suggested as the next generation e-learning system [2]. It is an online learning environment where the students are getting customize learning content based on pedagogical input and learners’ background / prior knowledge on that particular subject. The student group is heterogeneous. To be able to individualize and differentiate e-learning to a heterogeneous student group, it is necessary to find and describe the heterogeneity factors of the student group based on the learner’s prior knowledge [3]. A holistic approach has been taken into consideration when describing the heterogeneous student group, avoiding that smaller parts not are viewed as more important than necessary. I n the learning environment, students who come from di fferent ethnic groups require di fferent support.
There is a shift in which l earning technology applications such as
learning management system (LMS) or l earning content management system (LCMS) move away from being a monolithic application towards more flexibl e components that expose services accessible to other applications via a loosel y coupled standards- based interface. The adopti on of servi ce ori ented approaches should enable these applications to integrate with an enterprise wi de e- Learning solution.
Our aim is to investigate and design A Framework of Servi ce Architecture of a University Consortium Information System using Web Servi ces.
A University Consortium e-learning system should fulfill certain
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International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, Volume 4, Issue 12, December-2013 1382
ISSN 2229-5518
needs and requirements in a field of increasing demand for effective, fast and pedagogically correct learning experiences. U niversity C onsortium creates, operates and administers on-line learning activities. T hey also create and deliver questions and tests for learner assessments. T hey support collaboration between users. A ll e- learning systems administer virtual, distributed learning experiences where learners are geographically scattered and communicate via the I nternet. A n e-learning system is considered to be adaptive if it is capable of: monitoring the activities of its users. A daptive e-learning system can be described as personalized system, which beside contents discovery and assembly, is able to provide adaptive course delivery, adaptive interaction, and adaptive collaboration support.
Personalized E -learning S ystem (PE S) is suggested as the next generation e-learning system. I t is an online learning environment where the students are able to customize their learning environment based on pedagogical and personal choices. T he student group is heterogeneous. To be able to individualize and differentiate e- learning to a heterogeneous student group, it is necessary to find and describe the heterogeneity factors of the student group. A holistic approach is necessary when describing the heterogeneous student group, avoiding that smaller parts not are viewed as more important than necessary. I n the learning environment, students who come
from different ethnic groups require different support [8].
which facilitates effecti ve e-l earning content/servi ce discovery for the consumption or composition [12].
A Web Service is a software system designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interacti on over a network. Web Services expose onl y thei r interfaces to the public. Such an interface can be completel y described using a Web Servi ce Descri ption Language (WSDL) document that characterizes the Web Servi ce interface in terms of operations that the Web Service provides, messages that are exchanged to do so and data types that are used to construct those messages. An important characteristic of Web Services is that implementation details of the systems are hi dden behind the interface. The consumer is aware that certain functi onality is provided, but the internals on how this is done are abstracted behind the Web Servi ce interface. Consequentl y, this invol ves that the actual functionality could be impl emented in an arbitrary programming language and running on arbitrary platform. SOAP is an application-level protocol based on XML used for data exchange and remote procedure call in distributed applications, usually for accessing Web Services. Due to its XML- based design, SOAP is platform and programming language independent. SOAP messages are transmitted embedded into or on top of other application-level protocols such as HTTP, SMTP or JMS.
The Web Servi ce Descripti on Language (WSDL) provides the
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E lectronic L earning technology offers the opportunity to integrate
and optimize the global teaching learning and distribution of learning resources. T he computers of the various I nstitutions, located throughout the world, will communicate with each other to determine the availability of components, to place and confirm the related knowledge centers, and to negotiate delivery timescales. T here is a need for effective and efficient communication among components in a multidisciplinary, cross-organizational architecture. T he most recent, and quite network-based services, referred to as Web Service [9].
A n interface acts as a crossing point for the back end web services and the learning software component model. U sing the interface, the student can interact with the tutors regarding the course which they want to join. Based on students’ requirements, the interface will provide an e-l earning system with interactive materials. Thus online tutoring framework for e-l earning system using web service technol ogy is experimented to estimate the performance improvement compared to the works in terms of scalability, communication effi ciency, speed of message transfer
[11].
E-learning content can technicall y be combined with the recent standardization efforts that aim at content exchangeability and effi cient reuse. A repository for l earning object publication and search is proposed that essentially adapts the UDDI framework used in commercial Web Servi ces to the e-l earning context. To adopt Web Services technol ogy towards the reusability and aggregation of e- learning services, the conceptual Web Servi ces architecture and its building blocks need to be augmented. The objecti ve of this research is to design broker based registry architecture for e- Web services
possibility to completel y describe a Web Service interface through
the use of an XML document that conforms to an XML Schema as defined by the WSDL speci fi cation of the W3C. WSDL provides machine-processable information on how to interact with a given Web Service to a Web Service consumer application. Since the Web Service is full y described by the WSDL document, it is possible to generate client code for interacti on with a given Web Servi ce by using the definiti ons given in the WSDL document. The Uni versal Description Discovery & Integrati on (UDDI) specifi cation defi nes a Web Service registry that allows possible Web Service consumers to dynamicall y discover Web Services that provide a certain service. While WSDL describes the Web Servi ce interface, UDDI allows the discovery of the Web Service interface by cli ents. The UDDI registry is actually a Web Service itsel f and makes use of WSDL to describe its interface. The main purpose of the UDDI registry is to allow client applications to dynamicall y discover Web Servi ces that provide a required service. The use of UDDI allows the client applications to discover a replacement for failed Web Services. Web Service Noti fications (WSN) is to all ow Web Servi ces to noti fy other interested entities of events that have occurred inside the Web Service. In the basic form of the publish subscribe interaction pattern, a Web Service publishes a topic of events to which other interested entiti es may subscribe.
Occurrence of an event inside the publishing Web Servi ce then triggers the Notifi cation of subscribed entities. Additional to this basic form, Web Servi ce Noti ficati ons may also involve an intermediary Web Servi ce, called a Notifi cation broker that may introduce additional features and enhanced scalability to the Web Service Noti fi cation architecture.
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International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, Volume 4, Issue 12, December-2013 1383
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distributed. Standard compliant learning information presented by X M L that is wrapped with the SOA P specification is exchanged between the requester and provider. T he provider publishes a W SDL file that contains a description of the message and endpoint
Find / publish
Interact
Learner service discovery
Find / publish
Content service requester
Learner service requester/ provider
Learning
User service
requester/
provider
agencies
service provider
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Content service requester/ provider
Find / publish
Content service discovery agencies
Find
Interact
Publish
Interact
Find
Interact
Content service requester/ provider
Learner service
requester
Figure 2. Service architecture of University Consortium Information System
The above (Figure 2) architecture defines how University C onsortium information system and information system of the participating universities exchange messages through the interaction of Web Service agents.
I n Web services Discovery A gency is a searchable set of service
descriptions where service providers publish their service descriptions. T he service discovery agency can be centralized or
information to allow the requester to generate the SOA P message and send it to the correct destination.
E ffective infrastructure is required to support web services in terms of three roles – service provider, service requester and service registry and describing the interaction between them: publish, find, and interact. ‘ I nteract’ is the step that allows an application to connect to a web service at a particular web location and start interaction with it.
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A service description is the metadata describing the servi ce. This metadata must include sufficient information for a service requester to access the service it describes including its interface and location.
A service provider publishes a service description to a service registry. A service requester then finds the service description of the service registry.
C ontents are improved in terms of quality and become ready to use or reach on approved state [5]. F or these it is assumed that whenever the system wants to develop and deliver a new learning resource (module), it aggregates all the required SC Os (Shareable C ontent Object) using SC OR M SC OR M (Shareable C ontent Object R eference M odel) A ggregation M odel. T he system first searches its own repository [4] and then it searches the U DDI registry using standard metadata to collect the SC Os. T he system also checks the U DDI registry for the approved SC Os for this module.
Clear and explicit teaching strategy (sequence of the learning objects) of the learners need to be designed according to the learner types, needs and context using pedagogical design principles. T he framework suggests storage of these strategies in the pedagogical repository. During delivery of the content to the learners, teaching strategy of that type of learners would be taken into consideration by taking input from pedagogical repository. T he framework supports would remain so that necessary paths for the experts to update pedagogical inputs regularly are provided in the proposed framework.
and response sent. I nformation regarding digital learning resources can be retrieved by sending a SOA P query to the U DDI R egistry which is like a remote database. To get the desired learning resource, a request is made based on the query retrieved from the U DDI R egistry to the W SDL repository. T his could be sent over a transport protocol like H T T P. T hen finally, the W SDL document containing the description of the desired learning content is retrieved and forwarded to the L M S by sending an SOA P request over H T T P. T he learner or the discoverer is able to discover the digital resources simply by sending a SOA P query over H T T P.
Service Provider is a service container, which is used to exchange messages. Service R equester is the application that is looking for and invoking or initiating an interaction with a service. Discovery A gency is a searchable set of service descriptions where service providers publish their service descriptions. T he service discovery agency can be implemented by the web service. Web Services are perfectly feasible for implementing the interoperability of information systems for the following reasons:
L OM , I M S C ontent Packaging, all have standard X M L
binding.
Web services architecture is platform and language independent.
Web services can be used in Private I ntranet as well as
Public I nternet services.
A ccording to the learnersI’ perforJmance appropSriate feedbacks ER
and suggestions are given. A fter creating a new session, taking inputs
of these two modules, the appropriate content is served to the learners. I n other words, dynamic sequencing of the SC Os is done based on the individual performance at run time.
University Consortium Communication System
Web Services technology remains a possible technology in academic business that is incorporated in the management of resources to support e-learning activities such as running courses, support students as well as background process seamlessly, between member institutions and U niversity C onsortium. Web services are a distributed middleware technology that uses a simple X M L based protocol to allow applications to send and receive data across the Web. Services are described in terms of the communication received
M any universities all around the world are offering online courses. Formation of U niversity C onsortium is to facilitate wider choice, greater flexibility to students globally and also for greater content reusability.
T he proposed U niversity C onsortium I nformation S ystem has two parts – functional model and service architecture. I n functional model, e-learning standards have been incorporated and in service architecture, web services concept has been taken into consideration. T here are many challenges for implementing such U niversity C onsortium I nformation S ystem because web services, e-learning standards and both quality of education and quality of the system functioning are all emerging and promising technologies and are undergoing rapid changes and developments.
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[2]. Wasefer Zaman, Pramatha Nath B asu, A Framework of a University C onsortium I nformation S ystem, Proceedings B est Practices in E ngineering E ducation, Pune, I ndia, 2nd and 3rd F ebruary, 2007.
[3]. Wasefer Zaman, Partha Ghosh, Kal yanKumar Datta, Pramatha Nath Basu. “ A Framework To Incorporate Domai n Knowl edge M odeli ng I n A n Education System” , Proceedi ngs I nternational Conference on Mathemati cs, Statisti cs and Computer Engineeri ng, ICMSCE 2013, Kochi, Kerala, I ndia,
09-10 August 2013.
[4]. Partha Ghosh, Wasefer Zaman, “ I mprovi ng Search And Retrieval Of Reusabl e L earni ng Resources In A Uni versity Consortium Environment By t-Concept Latti ce And Fuzzy Graph” , Proceedi ngs I nternati onal Conference
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on Mathemati cs, ICM 2013, Kochi, Kerala, India, 09-10 A ugust 2013.
[5]. Wasefer Zaman, Pramatha Nath B asu, K alyan K umar Dutta. “ A Framework to I ncorporate Quality A spects for E -C ontent in a C onsortium E nvironment” , Proceedings A nnual I nternational C onference on E ducation
& e-L earning E eL 2011, H otel F ort C anning, Singapore, November 7 – 8,
2011.
[6]. Wasefer Zaman, Partha G hosh, K alyanK umar Datta, Pramatha Nath B asu. “ A Framework to I ncorporate Quality A spects for E -L earning System in a C onsortium E nvironment” , Proceedings I nternational C onference on I nformation and E ducation T echnology, I C I E T 2012, H otel Suba I nternational, M umbai, I ndia, 14-15 January 2012.
[7]. Wasefer Zaman, Pramatha Nath B asu, “ A Framework of Functional M odel of a U niversity C onsortium I nformation S ystem” , I nternational Journal of A dvanced R esearch in C omputer S cience and Software E ngineering, Volume 3, I ssue 10, October, 2013.
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[10]. Pradeep G urunathanl, S eethalakshmi Pandian, B alamohan S omasundaram, Design and C omposition of e-L earning and R esearch R esources using Service Oriented A rchitecture, I nternational Journal of C omputer A pplications (0975 – 8887) Volume 12– No.5, D ecember 2010.
[11]. M . B alakrishnan, K . Duraiswamy, Web Service C omponent I nterface for E fficient E -L earning Services, E uropean Journal of S cientific R esearch, Vol.80 No.3 (2012), pp.342-350, 2012.
[12]. Demian A ntony D 'M ello, Pramod Prabhu, Naveen B aliga, Nikhil M isquith, Flexon F ernandes, A R egistry B ased Discovery M echanism for E -L earning Web Services, Proceedings, T he F ourth I nternational Work shop on C omputer N etwork s & C ommunications(C oN eC o 2012), Oct 26 ~ 28, 2012, C oimbatore, I ndia,
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