Marc Alier Forment

Adapting LMS Architecture to the SOA: An Architectural Approach

Service oriented approaches (SOA) are currently used to develop new software-as-a-service applications, but they can also be used in the reengineering of existing legacy systems, such as Learning Management Systems (LMS). The introduction of a SOA to reengineer current LMS can provide LMS with the ability to deliver internal functions as services as well as the ability to integrate external applications as services. This paper presents an architectural approach to adapt the Moodle LMS to the SOA and some important issues involved in the adaptation are analyzed. Taking into account interoperability specifications, all SOA to LMS adaptation drawbacks are solved by the application of the new architecture.

SOA Initiatives for eLearning: A Moodle Case

Mobile learning applications introduce a new degree of ubiquitousness in the learning process. There is a new generation of ICT-powered mobile learning experiences that exist in isolated contexts: experiences limited to small learning communities. These rising mobile learning experiences appear while web-based learning, specially Learning Management Systems (LMS), are consolidated and widely adopted by learning institutions, teachers and learners. The innovation techniques breeding in the experimental world of mobile learning need to be translated into the mainstream echosystems. Mobile learning is not intended to replace e-learning or web based learning, but to extend it. So, mobile learning applications need to be integrated somehow in the web-based LMS. To do so is needed to address interoperability issues on both ends: the LMS and the mobile application. Web Services and Service Oriented Architecture offer a standarized and effective way to achieve interoperability between systems. This paper presents an architecture that allows a two-way interoperability between LMS and Mobile Applications: access LMS contents from the mobile device, and to be able to embed part of the mobile applications inside the LMS framework. This architecture incorporates elements from famous interoperability standards (IMS LTI and OKI) and has been validated with two projects related to the Open Source LMS Moodle.

Google analytics for time behavior measurement in Moodle

The shift to e-learning and online education requires new and different approaches for tracking student performance and behavior. Moodle is currently the leading virtual learning environment in Spain, and a lot of different plugins have appeared to complement the lack of native tools to track the learning process in all its aspects. However, none of these take the temporal dimension as a possible behavior measurement into consideration. In this case study, a new technical and statistical approach to time tracking of students in Moodle will be discussed, so that time as a behavioral aspect can be considered in further assessments. Furthermore, this approach could not only be applied to Moodle, but to all other online virtual learning environments.

Clustering Projects for eLearning Interoperability

Since the beginning of the discipline, eLearning has been about innovation. New software, systems, contents and tools are being created and experimented with and in constant evolution. But when systems, contents and tools become successful and part of the regular infrastructure of educational institutions, interoperability becomes an issue. Systems that are consolidated and regularly used need to be able to interoperate with new ones. And the new tendencies need to fit within the current infrastructure. This paper states how several research and development projects with heterogeneous funding sources and locations worldwide, gathered together to find a solution to this common problem, providing open specifications and standards, plus Free/Libre, Open Source reference implementations.

Interoperability for LMS: The Missing Piece to Become the Common Place for Elearning Innovation

This paper speculates about the future of LMSs considering the upcoming new learning applications and technologies, and the different attitudes of learners and teachers, given their technological background described using the digital natives and immigrants metaphor. Interoperability is not just a nice to have feature, but a must have features for LMS if these systems are going to be the common place where the ICT empowered learning innovation happens. After analyzing some standards and initiatives related to interoperability on LMS, the authors present an overview of the architecture for interoperability they propose. This architecture is being implemented for the well known Open Source LMS Moodle.

Requirements for Successful Wikis in Collaborative Educational Scenarios

What are the requirements for the Wiki engines to be used collaborative learning activities? Can any general-purpose engine be used? Or is there a niche for an educationally oriented crop of wiki engines? Do these educational wikis need to be integrated within the LMS to frame the collaborative activity within the walls of the virtual classroom, or is it preferable to have an external engine? These questions arise to every teacher who is about to plan a wiki-based collaborative learning activity. In this paper, the authors examine the use of wikis in college courses at three universities. The findings of this research are introduced and adopted as new features in two major open source wiki engines used for education: the Wiki module for Moodle 2.0 (as a Wiki engine embedded inside a LMS) and Tiki as independent full-featured Wiki CMS/Groupware engine.

Learning management system: evolving from silos to structures

Our understanding of the teaching and learning process is continuously evolving. This evolution is always related to context and sometimes is influenced by technological, pedagogical, or sociological trends. One of the most common tools used in eLearning is the learning management system (LMS); 100% of Universities have at least one LMS and 79.5% of large companies use these systems in their eLearning initiatives (Wexler et al., 2007). From an institutional perspective, a LMS has proved necessary for eLearning by providing a nexus for learning activities and a set of tools that support and permit the management, within a closed environment, of teaching and learning processes. But today there is a need for emerging innovations to be taken into account in the design and use of a LMS. Web 2.0 tools, social networks, and cloud services are increasingly used to improve learning in both formal and informal contexts, but usually outside the institutional LMS. The increasing presence of these tools is something that should be taken into account and incorporated into the concept of the LMS (García-Peñalvo, Conde, Alier, & Casany, 2011). Otherwise these tools will increasingly become walled gardens (Mott, 2010), distanced from the kinds of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) uses and behaviours that are prevalent among learners. There is a need to open up the LMS concept (Conde, García, Casany, & Alier, 2010) so that instead of constituting a closed set of predefined tools for management, it becomes an adaptable and flexible framework for supporting the learning process. Moreover, LMS are usually centred around one specific institution or course, and though they provide very useful tools for teachers, course designers, and human resource managers in companies they cater more to these needs than to the needs of the learners. The institutional investment in an LMS, particularly the resources employed to adapt them to the needs of the institution makes it unlikely that they will be discarded. There is therefore a need to address ways in which they can be adapted, so that they evolve to meet the emerging needs of the learners, the key actors in the learning process, and thus ensure their continued educational relevance (and that of the institution). Learners increasingly use a wide range of tools and resources to learn, and do so in a wide range of contexts. Although this has arguably always been the case, the emergence of a diversity of ICT tools that support learning outside formal contexts has made these processes more salient. This implies that, if they are to meet the needs of the learner, in an increasingly competitive context, LMS need to be restructured to make them capable of adapting to, and at times incorporating, new tools and purposes. They should be capable of supporting learners beyond the institutional context, throughout life, and guarantee the learner’s mobility between contexts, while at the same time continuing to meet an institution’s needs. This implies that first it is necessary to look at how students use institutionally provided LMS and how this use relates to their use of other tools, in other words how

Personal Learning Environments and the Integration with Learning Management Systems

eLearning is continuously evolving and must be ready to integrate new paradigms and consider the student as the centre of the process. This shift will mean changing the tools currently used, giving way to other tools that take into account the customization. These changes are expensive and should not think only of replacing all previously existing but should seek to integrate new initiatives with those of success. This will ensure learning environments really powerful and effective. In this paper integration initiatives will be review and a new one will be proposed.

Social network analysis approaches for social learning support

Considered as a branch of learning analytics, social network analysis is the actual procedure allowing us to study interactions and relations between individuals in a social network. Given that educational roles need reliable methods to understand and optimize their social learning environment, it seems clear that social network analysis is the best suited approximation. Despite the abovementioned, very few learning management systems integrate these kinds of tools to help teachers and students enhance their social learning processes. The aim of this paper is to encourage learning management systems engineers to integrate (as default) tools for social network analysis. This way, social network analysis is presented in its fundamentals and applicability to different social learning situations. Moreover, researchers are also encouraged to work on easy models of use for both teachers and learning management system engineers.

Integration of Google Docs as a Collaborative Activity within the LMS Using IMS BasicLTI

Google Docs is a well-known suite of online collaborative tools for document processing, spreadsheets, online presentations, drawing and even quizzes. Google Docs has the potential to become a powerful tool within and LMS course, primarily due to its collaborative qualities. This paper presents an integration that using the IMS BLTI standard turns Google Docs into an engine that powers collaborative learning activities within the Moodle LMS platform.