XCRI is a project that aims to develop an XML specification called the Course Advertising Profile (CAP) for describing courses and exchanging course information between institutions. The CAP would allow institutions to populate websites and portals with course data from a single definitive source. There is interest from the education community in a standard for sharing course information. The XCRI project has involved developing and testing the CAP schema and examples of its implementation in aggregator websites and course brochures. Future work may involve submitting the CAP to a standards body and expanding it to support additional aspects of curriculum management.

1. IdeaLab 2006 Melbourne, Australia XCRI | e X changing C ourse- R elated I nformation Dr Mark Stubbs Project Manager Manchester Metropolitan University [email_address] http://www.elframework.org/projects/xcri Scott Wilson Technical Advisor University of Bolton [email_address]

2. Course Advertising Acquired/Required Competence Entry Requirements Entry Profiles Pathways Advice Portfolio Course Approval Evidence of Achievement Transcripts Personal Development Planning Learner Trails E-Admission Personal Statements Curriculum Management Course Modification E-Application Student Records Assessment Results References Applicant Feedback Learner Goals Admission Stats Course Search Course Details

3. xcri | what XCRI C ourse A dvertising P rofile: A candidate XML specification for describing courses A [service expression] for a ‘Courses‘(?) [service genre] in the e-framework (there are others related to XCRI in curriculum development) Derived from the XCRI reference model, which describes the components of curriculum documents used in the curriculum development workflow and the [service expressions] needed (see also COVARM)

4. xcri | why National agenda of ‘informed choice’ about learning opportunities. Standards exist for exchanging information about people, groups and membership but no standard way to exchange information about courses. Institutions developing ways to populate their prospectus from definitive data but resorting to primitive data entry to populate aggregator sites, regional portals, ... etc. Genuine interest from the community in a standard for exchanging course information.

5. xcri | history XCRI project devised by CETIS Enterprise SIG spin-off + UCAS Q1 2005 JISC to fund trials of the XCRI CAP + demonstration aggregator Q4 2006 Existing XCRI deployments & authoring options reviewed Optimised Course Advertising Profile XML schema released Q3 2006 XML used at Adam Smith College to generate PDF course brochures Report produced on competence modelling and XCRI Q2 2006 R1.0 XML schema tested with Plymouth-UCAS, Oxford Uni CPD, Reid Kerr Prospectus & Liverpool Learning Matrix Regional Portal Searchable curriculum repository demonstrated Q1 2006 R1.0 XML schema developed through prototyping & critique Q4 2005 UK prospectus websites reviewed (161!) Case studies of existing practice produced from site visits Q3 2005 Existing standards reviewed (Norway’s CDM closest) Q2 2005

6. xcri | contributors Virtual organisation, PM = Mark Stubbs | [email_address] Michael Aherne, Reid Kerr Scott Wilson, CETIS Alan Paull, UCAS consultant Adam Marshall, Oxford Paul Walk, ex London Met now UKOLN Ben Ryan, Kainao Vashti Zarach, CETIS Julie Hardman, MMU Simon Grant, CETIS Anthony Beal, LLMX Roger Clark, LLMX Mark Leyland, MOVE Tavis Reddick, Adam Smith Selwyn Lloyd, Phosphorix www.elframework.org/projects/xcri

7. xcri | cap structure provider + identifier + name + description[] + address[] + street + town + postcode + phone + fax + email + url + image course + identifier + title + description[] + url + image + dc:any[] + qualification[] Vocab for typed description Aim Asssessment Strategy Career Outcome Entry Profile Indicative Resource Learning Outcome Policy Provided Resource Regulations Required Resource Special Feature Support Structure Syllabus Teaching Strategy presentation + identifier + description[] + start + end + duration + studyMode + languageOfInstruction[] + languageOfAssessment[] + placesAvailable + cost + entryRequirements + applyFrom + applyUntil + applyTo Vocab for typed description Application Procedure Contact Hours Contact Pattern Study Hours venue + identifier + name + description[] + address[] + street + town + postcode + phone + fax + email + url + image * * * www.elframework.org/projects/xcri/cap.xsd (This largely maps into IETF Atom and DCES)

8. xcri | cap service expression Level 1: Pure aggregation, RSS/Atom style - “course info feeds” Level 2: OAI-PMH protocol carrying XCRI-CAP metadata Binding options of format: Complete XCRI-CAP schema (current) IETF Atom extensions Microformat approach Attribute set for SRU/W+CQL search service? www.elframework.org/projects/xcri/cap.xsd

9. xcri | example implementation

10. xcri | example implementation

11. xcri | example implementation Learners Search the Aggregator Institutions Publish XCRI XML

12. xcri | current projects GMSA Learning Matrix Liverpool SURF (not the Dutch one) UCAS Oxford Assisted take-up funding from JISC JISC E-Admissions process improvement programme

13. xcri | future work Submit CAP to standardization process (TBD) Do the whole e-framework SUM thing… Support workflow of developing authoritative curriculum definitions (hard to do) Pathway analysis (really hard to do) Acquired/required competencies (don’t go there)

14. xcri | find out more FAQs Project Manager’s blog Outputs Review of Norway’s CDM Content-harvesting case studies 160+ prospectus sites survey Business case for adoption R1.0 schema & XML & case studies Web service demonstrator Sample XSL Transforms Presentations & Papers XCRI & Competence Report CAP schema & sample XML www.elframework.org/projects/xcri

15. XCRI | e X changing C ourse- R elated I nformation thanks for listening: any questions? http://www.elframework.org/projects/xcri