forge: bringing fire and the e-learning spheres together
TRANSCRIPT
FORGE: BRINGING FIRE AND THE E-LEARNING SPHERES TOGETHER
John Domingue Knowledge Media Ins4tute The Open University, UK
Connec4ng European Innovators to ICT Test Facili4es, 27th June, 2014, Paris
Agenda • Basic Facts • Motivation and Objectives • Concepts and Approach • Interfacing with FIRE Facilities • Use of Linked Open Data • Courses • Summary
BASIC FACTS
Project Fiche • Name: Forging Online Education through FIRE • Dates: 1st October, 2013 – 30th September, 2016 • Duration (Months): 36 • Project Coordinator: John Domingue, OU • Technical Project Manager: Christos Tranoris, UoP • Project website: http://ict-forge.eu/
Consor4um
MOTIVATION AND OBJECTIVES
Mo4va4on (1/2)
Mo4va4on (2/2)
Mooc Illustration: Adam Simpson
http://about.futurelearn.com/blog/
Launched September 2013
29 partners – 26 universities
Nearly 400,000 course sign-ups
Over 200,000 registered users
Up to 30,000 learners joining courses this year
FutureLearn Student Types
Overall Goal
FORGE Objectives • Study and develop new processes and approaches to
online learning based on the integration of FIRE facilities and eLearning technologies.
• Inject into the higher education learning sphere the FIRE portfolio of facilities and tools.
• Introduce the learning community to the concepts of Experimentally Driven Research.
• Increase the overall usability and take-up of FIRE facilities through the layering of how-to-use resources over the FIRE platforms.
• “Empower every person to get involved and take control” – increasing the accessibility of FIRE to disadvantaged users
CONCEPTS AND APPROACH
FORGE Approach
Self Regulated Learning
Flipped Classroom Paradigm
iTunes U
OU iTunes U Stats • Open University on iTunes U was launched on
3rd June 2008 • Now 58 iTunes U Courses • 65,138,000 downloads • Over 9,015,700 visitors downloaded files • Currently averaging 87,500 downloads a week • 449 collections containing 3,485 tracks (1,638
audio, 1,847 video) • 423 OpenLearn study units as eBooks (ePub),
representing over 5,000 hours of study • Currently delivering an average of 0.3 TB of
data a week
iBook Interactive Demo (ict-forge.eu)
INTERFACING WITH FIRE FACILITIES
FORGE Core Architectural Entities
FIRE Courses Widgets FIRE Adapters
FORGEBox and FORGEStore • Identified major challenges associated with courses • Need for
• A middleware solution to support the hosting of widgets • FIRE adapters
• Identified actors and their support usage scenarios • The need for a sharing repository
FORGEB x FORGESt re A middleware solution enabling FIRE courses
A marketplace for a FORGEBox installation
www.forgebox.eu www.forgestore.eu
FORGEBox
FORGEBox
Fed4FIRE Portal LMS
eBook
Provide Interactive content (i.e. widgets)
Interface via FIRE APIs
FIRE Testbed FIRE Testbed FIRE Testbed
FORGE Widgets, Adapters and FIRE Resources
Lab Course, (LMS, iBook)
(3) Interactive Content (JSON/XML)
Resource FIRE Testbed
Control via specific FIRE
tools and APIS, e.g.
FRCP/SFA/SSH Adapter
Adapter Adapter
(Implements specific API, eg OMF, OML, SFA/ RSpec, FRCP)
(2) Request Content (JSON/
XML)
web container
Widget
(1) Get widget Content (HTML5/JS)
Widget Widget
Web browser
Example: Secure Shell/Logging
Remote machine
FORGEBox
Jetty JavaWebApp
Web resource
Java class
proxy
ssh widget (html/js)
Logviewer widget
(html/js)
Content / web sockets
• Hosted currently as prototype under www.forgestore.eu
• The central point to share FORGE artifacts: • Widgets • FIRE adapters / FORGEBox Services • Interactive courses
• Manages FORGE artifacts • Provides a single point for FORGEBox
developers • Provides an API for easy access by
FORGEBox installations
FORGESt re
FORGEStore
USE OF LINKED OPEN DATA
• Vision: well connected graph of open Web data
• W3C standards (RDF, SPARQL) to expose data, URIs to interlink datasets
⇒ vast cloud of interconnected datasets
• Crossing all sorts of domains
Domain Number of datasets Triples % (Out-)Links %
Media 25 1,841,852,061 5.82 % 50,440,705 10.01 %
Geographic 31 6,145,532,484 19.43 % 35,812,328 7.11 %
Government 49 13,315,009,400 42.09 % 19,343,519 3.84 %
Publications 87 2,950,720,693 9.33 % 139,925,218 27.76 %
Cross-domain 41 4,184,635,715 13.23 % 63,183,065 12.54 %
Life sciences 41 3,036,336,004 9.60 % 191,844,090 38.06 %
User-generated content
20 134,127,413 0.42 % 3,449,143 0.68 %
295 31,634,213,770 503,998,829 Source: h[p://lod-‐cloud.net/state, September 2011
Linked Open Data
Uses for Linked Data in FORGE • Courses and course components • Widgets • Experiments • Experimental results • Learning Analytics
Linked Open Data and Courses • The FORGE courses are described using Linked Data. • The courses are described with the Resource Description
Framework (RDF) language and exposed via a SPARQL Query Language endpoint, allowing users to formulate and run custom SPARQL queries on the FORGE course descriptions.
• The main vocabulary used is the MLO (Metadata for Learning Opportunities).
Learning Analytics
COURSES
First Deployment at Univ of Patras www.forgebox.eu/demo/courses/tcp_congestion.html
Cisco Networking Academy
Summary (1/2) • FORGE aims to connect the
communities associated with FIRE and eLearning
• Approach is based upon • New learning paradigms • Rich multimedia interactive eBooks • Widget Store • FORGEBox architecture • Linked Open Data
Summary (2/2) • Benefits to FIRE include:
• Higher take-up of FIRE facilities by learners
• Sustainability through the use of educational (vs. research) budgets
• Increasing the usability of FIRE through extensive how-to learning resources
• Challenges • New learning paradigms require
‘always on’ infrastructure • Potentially new levels of demand
• The right combination of FIRE and eLearning technologies could prove revolutionary to both spheres