A Revamped LMS for Coping with Service-oriented Instructional Processes

Shueh-Cheng Hu College of Computing and Informatics, Providence University Taichung, Taiwan schu@pu.edu.tw I-Ching Chen Department of Information Management, ChungChou Institute of Technology ChangHua, Taiwan jine@dragon.ccut.edu.tw
Abstract: Web-based learning management systems dominate the market due to the pervasiveness of Web applications and contents. Web service techniques are able to loosely couple functional modules of learning management systems. Currently , most of learning materials and the associated processing logics are aggregated into packages before delivery to learners. However, Web service and its derivative techniques allow instructional designers to compose learning processes through orchestrating various service-based pedagogical resources. This paper aims to identify key issues which affect the design of learning management systems for conducting instructional activities in a service-oriented approach. In addition, a revamped system architecture and corresponding design rationale for coping with these issues will be presented.

Introduction
A learning management system (LMS) plays a key role in delivering Web-based training (WBT) materials . The typical functions of a Web-based LMS include retrieval and presentation of learning materials , processing interactions with learners, tracking progress, registry, etc. Conventional Web-based LMSs are built based on a Web server, modules for generating Web contents dynamically, and a repository for storing instructional contents as well as other data. The monolithic approach for architecting a LMS was taken by most developers. With monolithic approach, components are tightly-coupled; an example was presented in (Ch. Bouras 2003). Web service (WS) techniques enable service-oriented, distributed computing paradigm. Through the platform-neutral constructs such as HTTP, XML, and SOAP, applications could be built by loosely coupling services that wrap various functional modules. There are a number of researchers (Gottfried Vossen 2003; Z. Xu 2003; N. Hussain 2005; Yasuhisa Tamura 2006) proposed solutions for architecting LMSs with service-oriented approach. In fact, the SOA (service-oriented architect), a new approach for building up software systems, has been successfully applied in building up a LMS (T.K. Shih 2003). That LMS is conformant to the SCORM (ADL 2006), a collection of standards and specifications for regulating how learning materials should be packaged and delivered. Besides architecting LMSs, Web service and its derivative techniques such as WS-BPEL (Web Service Business Process Execution Language) (OASIS 2006) and workflow engine (Twister 2006) also could be applied in composing instructional processes (Rachid Anane 2005; A. Sajjanhar 2005). As the example shown in Figure 1, a learner interacts with a series of activities during the learning process; each activity is bound to a different pedagogical resource that is wrapped with service-based interface. Instructional designers and developers use WSBPEL to program learning processes by orchestrating available instructional services, which might be spread over different sites. In contrast to the service-oriented approach, current LMSs, such as the SCORM-conformant ones, aggregate all learning materials, the associated rules for sequencing and navigation, and their metadata into packages. The learning contents aggregated in standard format are easy to share and reuse. Comparing with the aggregation approach, the service-oriented approach has advantages in multi-facet. First, when instructional resources are wrapped with service-based interfaces, it will lower down the cost for maintaining them. That is because users do not need to merge one particular piece of contents into multiple aggregations for reusing it. In other words, only one copy of a particular learning resource is maintained in its repository. Replicated copies of that particular learning resource are delivered on demand and will be discarded after completing the associated learning activity. Consequently, any update on learning contents is performed only once within its repository and service requestors always will receive the most updated learning contents . Second, more adaptive and personalized learning environments could be created because more affluent pedagogical resources are

available on demand through run-time service searching and binding, which could not be achieved with aggregation approach due to only learning contents packed in aggregations could be delivered to learners. Third, composing a learning process with service-oriented approach is able to leverage reusability of learning resources beyond the object level; one instructional process developed and verified by a particular organization could be shared and reused by others. Instructional processes that are encapsulated and deployed on individual educational organization could be choreographed together to fulfill a learning goal which would not be met with restricted resources within any single organization. That will facilitate sharing of educational experiences and collaboration between educational institutes . This paper aims to clarify issues relevant to conducting service-oriented learning processes and present corresponding des ign rationales for addressing these issues . The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: first, we introduce scenarios of service-oriented instructional processes. Then, design rationales for revamping the LMS are presented. Afterwards, a prototype under development is briefed. Concluding remarks are in the last section.

Scenarios and Problem Statements

To establish an appropriate context for discussing relevant issues, a conceptual model as shown in Figure 1 needs to be explained first. A learner starts learning process by invoking it; it is composed by orchestrating a number of instructional services. The instructional services might be local or external; local ones are deployed within the same organization as the LMS is, while external ones refer those are deployed on other organizations. Basically, those instructional services could be classified into two categories. The first one is documentcentric and synchronous; once a service is located and bound, the learning management system will receive one message synchronously, and the requested learning contents are contained in that message. The received contents might need further processing by the LMS before presenting them to learners. Another category of services is process-centric; learners go through a series of instructional activities provided by such type of services. These process-centric services could be either synchronous or asynchronous. Usually, a complete session of this type of services comprises multiple interactions between learners and service providers. An example of this category of service is that a service provider offering formative assessment for learners in a SCORM-conformant learning environments (S.C. Hu 2006). Orchestrated instructional process

learner

Service binding Instruction delivery Pre-course testing Peer assessme nt Formative assessment Other pedagogical resources

Figure 1: Learner interacted with a service-oriented instructional process Among many other potential issues in conducting service-oriented instructional processes; three key issues that affect the architecture of LMS are detailed as follows. First of all, creating a consistent learning experience is a challenge to instructional designers and developers who compose instructional processes by using a set of learning contents that come from different sources. Even within one organization, it is not effortless to produce instructional materials with consistency in style, layout, and other attributes that affect usability. Inconsistent user interfaces and learning experiences confuse learners, thus lower the usability of learning contents . Doubtlessly, how to create a consistent interface and experience within one instructional process depends on the ways people encode, package, and present learning materials. Under certain circumstances, completing an instructional activity needs a series of dialogs between learners and the peer service providers; i.e., multiple message-passing round-trips. Obviously, context management technique is necessary for keeping track of a series of interactions within one session of learning activity. Besides

multiple message-passing required for completing a learning activity, the message-passing communications span over two segments: one is between learner (Web client) and LMS (Web server), another is between LMS and service provider. The message passing across two segments further complicate the context management issue. The scenario that there are multiple message-passing across two segments is illustrated in Figure 2. The sequence diagram in Figure 2 illustrates a typical formative assessment activity. The whole activity consists of a series of messages passed between learner and service provider: submission, feedback, revised submission, grade & comments. The LMS plays the role of a mediator between learners and service providers.

Figure 2: A typical scenario of two-segment message-passing With aggregation approach, all learning materials that might be applied during a instructional process need to be packed and deployed before delivery. During the run-time, the pre -defined rules for sequencing and navigation determine which learning unit should be delivered at appropriate time. However, the service-oriented approach could unleash the boundary of learning materials source during the learning process. In other words, a LMS for coping with the service-oriented processes is expected to look up and bind available instructional resources that are registered and stored in registry/repositories. Learning contents that meet a learners profile, progress, and status would be accessed by the LMS dynamically.

Design Rationales of the Revamped LMS

Basically, the major difference between the LMSs for conducting service-oriented instructional processes and conventional LMSs is how learning contents are acquired during the learning process. Conventional LMSs access instructional contents either from file systems or databases , then deliver them to learners based on rules of sequencing and navigation. The LMS that is capable of conducting service-oriented instructional processes need to access learning contents via Web service, and the logics of delivery (sequencing and navigation) are included in specifications of instructional processes. Consequently, the planned revamping works for coping with serviceoriented instructional processes will concentrate on the relevant parts. After identifying the three issues that are incurred by conducting service-oriented instructional processes: consistent user interface, context management, and dynamic learning contents access; the design rationales of a revamped LMS for addressing them will be discussed as follows. Consistent user interface: it is almost impossible to generate consistent user-interfaces or learning experiences based on materials from different sources without conformance to any pre-defined schemas. Basically, to achieve the goal of consistency, only contents of learning materials from different sources such as structural information and their pedagogical meaning, should be encoded according to the common schemas. In other words, there should be no layout, format, or any other information regarding user-interface encoded in the learning materials . The schemas determine how the contents from different sources will be merged and presented to learners, in a consistent way. One set of standardized or widely -accepted schemas must be devised to achieve the goal of generating consistent user interfaces that harmonize learning materials from different sources. One conversion mechanism is required to parse the contents according to the schemas, wrap suitable userinterface widgets (e.g., navigation buttons) around the contents , then link them together in appropriate sequence that is specified in the orchestrated process. Wrapping with user interface widgets can be done by using a translation

policy described in XSLT (eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformations), which translates contents in XML into HTML-coded materials for presentation. Obviously, in order to simplify these conversion tasks, coarse-grained instructional contents are more appropriate for service providers to deliver. For example, a complete set of assessment questions along with their grading policy is coarse-grained while individual question content is finegrained. Context management: to facilitate the communication between learners and instructional service providers through the LMS, besides the data schemas for exchanging information from different parties, a protocol for coordinating interactions between learners and service providers is also required. This protocol needs to handle messages passed across two segments as shown in Figure 3; one for coordinating the communication between learners and LMS; i.e., the interactions between browsers and Web server over the HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol), another one for coordinating the communication between LMSs and service providers via the Web service protocols . The protocol must be capable of handling interactions in two modes: synchronous and asynchronous. The protocol between the LMS and service provider, in fact, could be a dialog protocol between a Web service requestor and a Web service broker. There are relevant works (L. Ardissono 2003; Liliana Ardissono 2004) discussed how to handle multiple message-passing via Web-service relevant techniques . Learners browser cookies, session
WS wrapper

Learning Service provider

Segment-1
Cookie, session ID

Cookie & session handler

Webbased LMS

WS wrapper

Segment-2
WS-Coordination WS-Transaction

Figure 3: context management for 2-segment interactions In order to support the two-segment communications, a Web-based LMS needs more functions than a schema converter or SOAP wrapper/un-wrapper does. In the revamped LMS, another significant role is a mediator between learner clients and service providers. The major functions of a mediator include: (1) storing and forwarding learners submissions and service providers feedbacks, this function allows both sides to work on the same context asynchronously without worrying about missing something when they leave; (2) notifying learners whenever there are new messages that need their attentions, this function can utilize asynchronous communication tool such as email to notify message recipient actively. Leaving notices in a particular place of the LMS, thus the recipient will be able to see it when she/he re-join the same session is another option; (3) keeping track of sessions and recording relevant data such as progress status. All the above functions are necessary to support the long-live learning sessions that consist of human-intervened, asynchronous interactions. Dynamic learning contents access: mechanisms for registering, looking up required services, and binding them are needed. Instructional designers and developers need to program the dynamic access logic in composed process by using the constructs of the WS-BPEL. The expressive capability of the five structured tasks (sequence, switch, pick, while, and flow) in the WS-BPEL is sufficient to program the similar rules of sequencing and navigation that are used in the SCORM -conformant packages. Standardization works about how to specify the metadata of learning resources and how to bind the found learning resources are necessary to promote interoperability and re-usability. Relevant work include the CORDRA ( Content Object Repository Discovery and Registration Architecture), which aims to facilitate searching and reusing learning content through the establishment of interoperable collections of content repositories (CORDRA 2006). The CORDRA provides valuable reference for designing dynamic contents access mechanisms . The architecture of the revamped LMS is shown in Figure 4. Besides a LMS that perform conventional functions, a workflow engine for executing orchestrated instructional processes and three extra modules for addressing the three issues are added.

Process engine repository

Dynamic content access

searcher binder

User interface harmonizer

parser wrapper schemas

Context management
mediator persistence

Fundamental LMS

Figure 4: Architecture of revamped LMS

Experimental Prototype
An experimental prototype is under construction, which is helpful to verify the design of the revamped LMS as well as discover other potential issues that were neglected before. There are four major components in the experimental prototype, they are (1) the SCORM 2004 sample run-time environment (RTE) ver.1.3.3 (SCORM 2006), which was released by the advanced distributed learning (ADL) technical team, mimics a simplified but function-sufficient LMS for our purposes ; (2) the Apache Tomcat Web server that is the platform of the mimicked LMS and is JSP/servlets enabled, a set of JSP/servlets was deployed in order to perform the functions of the sample LMS; (3) the Twister process engine that is responsible for directing instructional processes ; i.e., executing the orchestrated services in this prototype; and (4) the Microsoft Access database, which is bundled with the SCROM sample RTE, a migration to other database systems such as MySQL or Oracle is planned to achieve more platform choices and more sophisticated mechanism for persisting instructional process instances. The first phase of the experimental works concentrates on building a proof-of-concept system, which aims to justify the configuration of components organized in the revamped LMS. The feasibility of using a workflow engine to direct instructional processes and the effectiveness of using Web service techniques to bridge a LMS and an external service provider will be investigated during this phase. The planned works in the following phase include how to design schemas and mechanisms for generating consistent user interfaces that harmonize learning contents from different sources . In addition, the capability of mediating the two-segment interactions between learners and the service provider will be developed and tested.

Conclusion remarks
Service-oriented approach offer more flexibility for architecting learning management systems . Furthermore, Web service and its derivative techniques allow designers and developers to compose instructional processes by orchestrating service-based pedagogical resources; which enrich learning experiences during instructional processes. In addition, the service-oriented approach for composing instructional processes eases the maintenance of learning materials as well as leverages sharing of pedagogical experiences beyond the level of learning objects. Among issues relevant to conducting service-oriented instructional processes , three key issues are identified in this paper: consistent user interface, context management, and run-time learning content access. The design rationales of a revamped LMS for coping with service-oriented instructional processes are discussed. The development of an experimental prototype is expected to verify the design of revamped LMS as well as uncover other potential issues that hinder conducting service-oriented instruction processes.

References
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