G'day people,
Last week we were discussion (https://openacs.org/forums/message-view?message_id=189747) possible integrations between different packages and IMS specs that we are implementing within .LRN. Here's the example I promised regarding Assessment and the learning object repository (LORSm).
I've been working with Natalia from E-LANE on an integration between Assessment and LORSm. E-LANE (Alvaro and Eduardo) have been working on an Assessment package that is based around IMS Question and Test Interoperability (IMS QTI) http://www.imsglobal.org/question/index.cfm. A good brief on IMS QTI can be found here http://alto.aber.ac.uk/pastprojects/evaluation/IMSQTI.asp.
Natalia has been working on a course that was packaged using IMS CP and as the last part of the sequence of her course she wanted to include a couple of assessments/tests.
The course outline (sequence) looks something like this:
Índice
Introducción
INFORMACIÓN
Internet
¿Qué es Internet?
Seguridad en la red
Hipertexto
Qué ofrece Internet
Elementos necesarios para la conexión
La conexión a Internet
Internet Explorer
Los navegadores y las páginas web
La página de inicio
La ventana principal de Internet Explorer
Las barras de herramientas de Internet Explorer
Buscar, guardar, abrir e imprimir páginas web
Buscar páginas web
Abrir páginas web
Guardar páginas web
El panel Favoritos
El panel Historial
Imprimir páginas web
COMUNICACIÓN
Correo electrónico
Las direcciones de correo
....
Modificar el mensaje antes de responder o reenviar
Gestión del correo
Los grupos
Añadir y eliminar direcciones de la libreta de direcciones
Añadir una dirección de correo
Descargar en carpetas diferentes
Mover los mensajes de carpeta
Eliminar un mensaje
Imprimir
EVALUACIÓN
Examen 1
Examen 2
--
At the end of the course, the students can take Examen 1 and 2 (Examen = Exam in Spanish 😉. Now the issue began when the actual exames on the Content Package were a zipped file that contained an XML document describing the questions to be asked to the students (following the IMS QTI guidelines). As LORSm imports content into the OACS CR regardless of what it is, then when the student clicked on "Examen 1" he/she was getting a zipped file with all the question on XML... which of course was not what we wanted.
The Assessment package is still a work in progress. However, it does allow you to upload and import a test/assessment using IMS QTI as a zipped file.
Therefore, what we did is the following:
On the actual definition of the course (imsmanifest.xml file) we tweaked the definition of the Examen 1 resource to be of the type "ims-qti-package" instead of the usual "webcontent". So it looked like this:
<resource identifier="RES-B5..." type="ims-qti-package" href="assessment/test-1.zip" adlcp:scormtype="asset">
I added a check on LORSm to verify the actual type of the resource and if it matched "ims-qti-package" then it triggered a call to the Assessment package and passed the location of the zipped file that contained the test. The Assessment processed the XML file and added to its question/test tables and returned back to the LORSm package the URL where the questions for this test can be displayed. The URL returned is stored as href for the "Examen 1" link on LORSm.
So for the teacher that uploads the course, it is transparent of who is doing or taking care of stuff in .LRN. As far as he/she knows it takes IMS CP, MD and QTI for him. For the student, the jump between the packages is seamless as he might not even realize that it is happening.
Of course, this is just a prove of concept and still quite some work has to be done putting all this together. Some issues to be resolved include: passing results, sequencing, permissions, etc... but it is a step forward.
Comments?
Ernie
