JISC

Start date: 1 April 2006

End date: 1 October 2006

Funding programme: e-Learning Frameworks and Tools programme

Project website: http://www2.caret.cam.ac.uk/flowtalkwiki

JISC theme(s): e-Learning

The overall aim of the project is to create a standards-compliant discussion service for use in an academic context within the e-Learning framework. The project will establish interoperability between discussion tools and their consumers as operated over web services, and consensus amongst users and developers on the requirements placed on discussion services. The project will document any solution to the problem and exhibit a reference implementation.

The specific objectives are to:

• Implement a service provider for the ELF "conference service"
• Demonstrate consumption of the service in a variety of hosting/client situations
• Promote debate and consensus on requirements on ELF conference services
• Establish and maintain an open source community infrastructure surrounding the toolkit (public issue tracking, source repository and discussion/support)

Project Methodology

The CARET approach to delivering software projects starts from a modelling perspective. The core use cases are extracted and expressed in both words and UML diagrams, from which we derive Entity Diagrams, Component Specifications and Interaction Diagrams. A rapid iteration of implementation cycles lasting no longer than 2 weeks and an automatic nightly build of both the demonstration server and project web site ensure emerging requirements and problems can be identified and responded to rapidly and flexibly. The overall project methodology centres around maximum adherence to publically specified and widely adopted standards (e.g. Unicode, XML, HTTP, Java) and an emphasis on practical and functional implementations over specifications and standards not based on practice.

Implications/Deliverables/Stakeholders

The deliberations of the consensus process will be held in public view (via wiki and discussion fora) and will be maintained in public archive for continued reference. The process will aim to arrive at a selection of suitable standards, and the resulting protocol specifications will be disseminated more broadly to users through rigorous documentation as well as seminars and talks. The project will address the needs of learners, researchers and educators by taking into account a broad set of use cases, from sporadic, long-lived discussions held amongst specialised research groups, to small-scale, highly structured teaching exercises organised amongst a short-lived study group by a single teacher, as well as the more paradigmatic "public discussion forum" use cases that are traditionally the most exposed to public implementation by the open source community. The project will truly focus on the role that discussion services may play and the value they may hold specifically in the academic community.

Project Partners
SLeD Learning Design Demonstrator
The Sakai Project