XCRI

Judith DavisonASIS DIrector

Session Outline

• Introductions• What is XCRI?• Where did it come from?• The technical bits!• Benefits• Hud-XCRI project• Questions

What is XCRi?

• EXchanging Course Related Information• Community-based standards organisation• Maintains an XML specification for distributing and

advertising information about courses• Works with FE and HE institutions across the UK and

Europe to define the format of the specification• Information model NOT a commercial product or

package

A brief XCRI History (1)

April 2005:• JISC funded study into curriculum management and

potential for new approaches to interoperability• One output from this is creation of an XML schema for

course management

A brief XCRI History (2)

March 2007:• JISC fund second project for 2 years• Aim: ‘to develop a lightweight specification to allow

universities and colleges to syndicate their course information to aggregators etc’

• Result from the project to be output to the open standards process - XCRI-CAP was born

• Specification only concerns the Course Advertising Profile aspects of course information

A brief XCRI History (3)

• Mandated by UK national Information Standards Board as UK’s e-Prospecti standard in January 2009

• DCSF recommended that all 14 – 19 Area Prospectuses adopt the standard from 2010

• UCAS exploring full implementation• European adoption anticipated later in 2010

XCRI-CAP

Basic principle:

Provider offers Courses which have Presentations (occurrences), Credits and/or Qualifications

XCRI-CAP: Layout

Provider

Course

Presentation

Venue

Credit

Qualification

Presentation

Venue

Course

Presentation

Credit

Qualification

XCRI-CAP: XML

<catalog><provider>

<title>Farm College</title><url>www.farmcollege.ac.uk</title><street>Farm Road</street><town>Farmville</town><postcode>FM1</postcode><email>admissions@farmcollege.ac.uk</email>

<course><identifier>1234</identifier><title>Horse Grooming 101</title><description type=”xcri:aim”>The aim of this course is to provide the learner with

all the skills necessary to groom a horse.</description><description type=”xcri:providedResource”>We will provide a horse for the

grooming practical.</description><description type=”careerOutcomes”>Many students who complete this horse go

on to successful careers in horse grooming. Some end up in gluefactories.</description>

<credit><scheme>Horse Grooming Scheme</scheme><value>30 Points</value>

</credit><presentation>

<start>03-Jan-2010</start><end>31-Mar-2010</end><duration>3 Months</duration><studyMode>Full Time</studyMode><attendanceMode>Campus</attendanceMode><attendancePattern>Evening</attendancePattern>…

</presentation></course>

</provider></catalog>

Benefits for Learners

Problem:

Learners comparing courses between 2 institutions will find information of varying quality in different formats for the same subjects

GEOGRAPHY

HISTORYFRENCH

ART ARTHISTORY

FRENCH

GEOGRAPHY

Solution:

XCRI-CAP ensures that the same fields are available, making searching for course information easier

Art

Geography

History

French

Art

Geography

History

French

Benefits for HE

Problem:

Institutions locked into an endless cycle of preparing information for prospectus and other publications, re-keying the same content into different formats

CourseDatabase

DataExtract

DataExtract

DataExtract

Edited for Web

Edited for Prospectus

Edited for UCAS

SchoolData Managers

ServiceData Managers

Solution:

XCRI-CAP can be used as the basis for multiple outputs without modification

CourseDatabase

DataExtract

Publishto Web

Publishto Prospectus

Exportto UCAS

SchoolData Managers

ServiceData Managers

Transform To XCRI-CAP

Institution

Aggregator

Institution

Aggregator

Institution

Learner

Learner

Learner

Learner

Learner

Hud-XCRI: Project aims (1)

• JISC bid for 6 month project April 2008 – March 2009• Implement and test XCRI-CAP course specification to

evaluate its usability and contribute to refinement• Provide insight into changes required to business

processes and IT systems in order to develop automatically generated course catalogues

• Review institutional benefits of adopting this approach

Hud-XCRI: Project aims (2)

• Through WYLLN, establish precedence amongst HE providers in the region for storing and sharing course related information

• Work towards creation of an HE directory for West Yorkshire learners and employers

• Work with Hotcourses and UCAS to provide an automated feed of course advertising information for inclusion in LearnDirect National Learning Directory

Hud-XCRI: Phase 1

• External consultant engaged to investigate state of readiness for XCRI-CAP implementation

• Reviewed and documented courses information storage and processing methods

• Produced report identifying matches/gaps• Review meeting to discuss action plan

Hud-XCRI: Readiness

Attribute Start 0 1 2 3 4 End

No of courses Very large Y Very small

No of sources Multiple Y Single

Quality of authoring Poor Y Excellent

Update frequency Annually Y Continuous

Audit trail None Y Detailed

Centralisation Fragmented Y Complete

Process capability Ad hoc Y Defined

Org. context Hostile Y Benign

Resources Minimal Y Plenty

Hud-XCRI: Action Plan (1)

• Engaging schools– Briefing document for senior managers and ASIS managers– Presentation at ASIS Managers meeting– Considered approach to Business School

• Data Extract– Create data specification of data required for XCRI– Set up ‘production level’ feed– Implement and populate XCRI repository

Hud-XCRI: Action Plan (2)

• Outside agencies– Identify provision on National Learning Directory and compare

with what XCRI feed could provide– Identify gaps between what they currently hold on Huddersfield

and what we want them to have– Identify provision on UCAS and provide XCRI feed for their

testing

Hud-XCRI: Phase 2 Proposals

• Include ‘last updated’ dates in SITS to provide audit trail• Investigate collection of additional data from schools eg

Module information, CPD data• Identify other gaps in information and decide how to plug• Widen to other colleges within LLN• Investigate possibilities for internal usage of XCRI feed• Investigate other uses within LLN eg SHA

So what happened next?

• ‘Proof of concept’ and XCRI ‘readiness’ established at end of project in April 2009

• WYLLN dissemination event April 2009• Project report and action plan discussed at Senior

management team and approved June 2009• Steering Group (chaired by PVC) established August

2009• Two year project plan agreed August 2009• Appointment of Projects Officer September 2009

And now?

• Addressing data quality issues• Reviewing data consistency issues• Setting minimum XCRI output requirements• Building sql ‘database’• Providing XCRI web feed• Take-up within WYLLN• Successful bid for JISC funding to run a mini XCRI

project focusing on CPD / short courses

Future of XCRI?

• XCRI-CAP is on version 1.1.• Version 2 is currently being developed.• This will bring the UK Standard into line with the European

equivalent – MLO (Metadata for Learning Opportunities).• Universities and Colleges in the UK continue to adopt the XCRI

standard• Other organisations on board eg UCAS

Questions?

XCRI Resources

XCRI Website: www.xcri.org

Case Study: East Midlands Implementation - http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/xcri/index.shtml

University of Bolton –

http://www2.bolton.ac.uk/coursefinder/

We offer a lively environment for study with excellent and distinctive degrees

Over 22,000 students study with us, on over 400 courses

www.hud.ac.uk