Opus Learning is an online college that delivers Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) programs fully online or in a blended format. It uses a standards-based approach with XML markup to manage course content in a digital repository. Content is authored independently of any learning platform and can be automatically rendered and integrated across multiple formats, including Moodle courses, PDFs, and HTML pages. This scalable single-source publishing model allows for agile content updates and delivery to partners looking to offer SQA programs through a turnkey online college solution.

1. XML in Action:
Scalable Course Development
www.opuslearning.com/dublin.pptx
Ken Currie
Opus Learning
Dublin, Feb 2013

2. Opus Learning Ltd.
• An Approved Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) Centre
– An Online College
• Delivering high-quality, sustainable HNC and HND
programmes
– Useable for fully online delivery, or to support blended and face
to face delivery
• B2B and B2C businesses
– Own students
– Establishing partners in UK and abroad:
• Instant programme/college
• Helping to establish SQA Centres abroad
• www.opuslearning.com/partners

3. Today’s Talk
• Focus on:
– content management, production and delivery
– Styling and badging
– Moodle (2.x and 1.9)
• Themes:
– Smarter and more agile content
– All content masters based on standards (not Word,
PDF or HTML)
– Moodle is but one delivery option.
• Many screens – download the slides!

4. Demo Link
• Did anyone follow the link in the programme?
– This talk is about how that course was developed
and delivered.

5. Content and Standards
• Key goals of this talk
– A formally managed, digital repository of single-
source mastered, standards-base content
– A semantically rich content base -XML mark-up
– Engineered workflows and publishing – no hand
building
– Appropriate semantic interpretations of content
– Highly integrated and functional delivery
– “Harmonising of Courses” – not paying a quality
price

6. A Demo
• Here are the raw components of an Opus
course
– An empty Moodle (2.3)
– some master XML and other content (figures, etc)
• Totally decoupled
– Learning materials are designed for a learning
need
– Delivery is engineered from that content to the
final platform(s)
• Semantic Interpretation
• No Learning Technologists

7. Customise the Content
• All content can be (and should be?) designed
and developed independent of delivery
– Develop outside of any Learning Environment
– Deliver into Learning Environments
• We can do some customising, e.g.
– Change some text
– Alter a quiz question
– Add and link to a Forum
– Add a video (e.g. Khan Academy)

8. The Content
• In this demo we have separate XML files for
individual components
– Not an absolute requirement; any XML stream OK
– Components for the core text (BK) and quizzes
(CW)
– But also a manifest (MF) – more about this in a
minute
• Highly flexible with regard to components
– Highly structured within

9. Course Components
Hard defined Hard defined Hard defined
Learning Objectives (LO) Reference Text (BK) Unit Quiz (UQ)
Learning Outcomes (OC) Workbook (WB) eQuiz (EQ)
Competency Framework (CF) Glossary (GL) Self Assessment (SA)
Reference List (RL) Mock Exam (ME)
Past Papers & Answers (PP)
Custom defined Custom defined Custom defined
Style guide (SG) Concept Gateways (CG)
Soft defined Soft defined Soft defined
Programme Specification (PS) Course Guide (UG) Tutor Marked Assignment (TA)
Course Specification (CS) Study Plan (SP) Certificate of Achievement (AC)
Authors Guidelines (AG) Discussion Papers (DP)
Student Handbook (SH) Resource Bank (RB) VLE components
Teaching Guide (TG) Learning Activities (LA) Learner Profiles (LP)
Digital Workbook (DW)
Portfolio (PO)

10. Programme design - onion
Standardised programme design – all modules have the same feature set

11. The Manifest
• The Opus manifest is a description of how the
content is structured
– Simple designs avoid the ‘Scroll of Death’
• Though generic, there is an obvious mapping
and interpretation of the manifest …
– E.g. as a Moodle course front page
• All references are symbolically labelled
– It should be possible to link to them from
anywhere in the content base (a domain)

12. Symbolic, Dynamic Linking
• Opus has a single domain of content
– All IDs are unique, including Forums, Quizzes, etc
• Any references or links are described
symbolically
– The engineered delivery takes care of all link
management, and guarantees link resolution
– Result: a very highly integrated delivery

13. Single Source Publishing
• All Opus content is mastered in standards
– No proprietary hooks
– Prefer (but not limited to) DocBook XML
– Absolute adherence to single source masters
• Delivery is entirely batch driven
– Takes a small number of minutes to render all
outputs
– Including a reference to an output in the Manifest
(e.g. PDF) will generate that output
• All services ‘cloud’ based (or laptop!)

14. How is the Demo doing?
• Publishing takes one set of structures (the
XML) and transforms it into another (e.g. a
Moodle backup .mbz)
– We have generated this and ‘restored’ it into
Moodle 2.3

15. Single Source Advantages
• We should also have generated an alternative
package (Internet access permitting)
– Here is exactly our custom content in another
form – Moodle 1.9, along with PDFs, etc.
• Let’s look at a couple of features

16. Digital Work Book
• Note this entry in the XML
– <uqf:task id=“t01" role=“dwb”>
<uqf:title>Reflective Task 1</uqf:title>
<uqf:question id=“qt01">
<uqf:content><para>Describe ways in which …</para>
<uqf:answerTemplate> <para><blank id=“qt01_fib"
rows="10” size="100“></para>
</uqf:answerTemplate>
</uqf:content>
</uqf:question>
</uqf:task>

17. Interpreted as …

18. Integration
• Note the IDs in all XML elements
– Publishing builds a database of where these IDs
fall in Moodle and the HTML
– XQueries run to link key idrefs to ids, e.g. DWB
entries, references to Forums and Quizzes, etc.
– All content references are built and maintained by
the publishing – they are engineered
– Result: massively integrated content

19. Back to the title
• “XML in Action: Scalable Course
Development”
• What have you seen:
– Standards at work – rich content bases
– Instructional design engineered in
– Batch ID production
– Rich production interpretations
– Massively integrated, highly functional delivery
– Single source, multi-platform delivery

20. Opus XML Development

21. Are we into MOOCs?
• Key issues?
– Students learn by making connections with various
‘nodes’ of content, they aggregate content, and create
knowledge assessed by peers or self
– Online courses that adhere to a sound instructional
design plan, allow students to navigate the course as
self-directed learners
– Prepare students orienting them to the technical tools
used, guiding them to the applications (e.g. DWB),
and providing effective instruction for the tools
• Boxes ticked?

22. Integrating T&L, New Media
Technology and Sustainability.
• ‘Interactivity is a property of the technology, while
participation is a property of culture.’
Jenkins (2004)
• Opus is exploiting the technology, sound pedagogical
designs, and functional delivery
– But very much trying to use interactivity as a stepping
stone to participation
– “no HE curriculum or educational leadership paradigm can
be considered of high quality if it does not accommodate
technological and sustainability imperatives in its quality
assurance, teaching and learning strategies, management
processes, administrative procedures and pedagogic
practices” (Aston Uni).

23. Scalable Production
• An XML learning curve, but highly efficient
semantic mark-up thereafter
– All major publishers, and the OU, do this now, as
do most OERs (e.g. CNX)
• Batch driven production
– Minutes to professionally typeset a 700 page PDF,
create 000s of HTML files, render assessment sets,
and deliver to multiple platforms
• Consistent styling(s)
– No handcrafting

24. Demo Link
• You were pointed to a demo in the
programme
– The core text is a publisher text, delivered in the
client livery and style
– Integration of other XMLs into a single workflow

25. Returning to Opus
• To summarise Opus Learning
– SQA Approved Centre
– A college operating a B2B as well as a B2C model
• We have our own students
• We licence our content and platform to partner
colleges, home and abroad
– All tools and services offered to colleges to
develop additional qualifications.

26. Opus Learning Ltd.
• An Approved Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) Centre
– An Online College
• Delivering high-quality, sustainable HNC and HND
programmes
– Useable for fully online delivery, or to support blended and face
to face delivery
• B2B and B2C businesses
– Own students
– Establishing partners in UK and abroad:
• Instant programme/college
• Helping to establish SQA Centres abroad
• www.opuslearning.com/partners

27. Finally – what you saw
• No proprietary hooks – standards (XML)
• Designing Learning Materials for learning, not
VLEs
• Cloud based services, but many options
• Engineered ID and rendering
• Massive integration and platform functionality
• No ‘Scroll of Death’ - though still possible!
• Agile, smart content at work
• Absolutely scalable

28. Questions?
Ken Currie
kwc@opuslearning.com