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e-Framework Update June 2008
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News from the Initiative
e-Framework partners define eight priority activities for 2008
At
the strategy board partner meeting in May, the e-Framework partners
listed eight priority activities to be delivered in 2008. These points
of collaboration between the four international partners have formed
the basis of an exciting and comprehensive joint e-Framework workplan.
Key work packages described in the workplan include:
Enterprise Architectures and the e-Framework
This
work package addresses the requirement to explore the relationships
between Enterprise Architectures and the International e-Framework. The
Ministry of Education New Zealand has commissioned a discussion paper
which maps the e-Framework onto The Open Group Architecture Initiative
(TOGAF) and the modelling language Archimate. SURF are investigating
the possible application of TOGAF in the HE domain, and the JISC are
commissioning a paper that attempts to define the relationships between
the e-Framework and the wider discipline of Enterprise Architecture.
Vender products and SOA
The
JISC and SURF are together compiling an ICT Vendor and Products Map,
which should provide insight into the SOA enabling and integration
issues between the main vendor products that are currently in use in
HEIs, and the vendors future soa strategies. This type of knowledge is
essential to successfully develop a SOA strategy and could be made
available in the e-Framework Knowledge Base. IMS contacts and other
existing analyses will be used where possible.
Validation check
It
is paramount that the e-Framework team validates and demonstrates
real-world usage of the e-Framework concepts and processes. All
partners are exploring the best ways in which to do this. For example,
SURF are reverse engineering LOREnet as a means of validating the
e-Framework approach.
Successful meeting between Dutch Higher Education and the e-Framework Partners
The
session on architecture that took place on 20 May in Utrecht, the
Netherlands, demonstrated that there is a large potential for future
collaboration of current e-Framework activities and Dutch projects .
The SURFshare project, presented by the Platform ICT and Research
raised a lot of interest from Australia; Australia has done a lot of
work in the areas of repositories and identifiers. A workshop organised
by SURF was held in early June, which aimed to establish a global
persistent identifier with European countries and Australia. New
Zealand will also take part in trading knowledge and expertise with
SURF; the focus here is mainly on similar work being done by SURFnet on
groupware applications. Presentations of the meeting between the e-Framework and Dutch Higher Education are available.
e-Framework Editorial Group meet face-to-face
The
dedicated Editorial Group, who maintain the e-Framework website and
publish contributions to the e-Framework knowledge base, met for a 5
day workshop. The principle focus of the workshop was to:
compile a friendly description and representation of the e-Framework conceptual model
prioritize future website enhancements
improve the submission process quality assurance criteria
update the glossary to include a plain English definition for each entry.
These improvements will shortly be made available on the website.
Partner's Update
Australian’s DEEWR announces additional funding for the DER (Digital Education Revolution)
On May 16, the Australian Federal Budget was announced ensuring Government’s
Digital Education Revolution is secured into the future with $1.2
billion to be spent on Digital Education over the next five years.
$32.5 million will be spent over the next two years to support three
broad programmes aimed at enabling students and teachers to seamlessly
access, discover, manage, create and use information online.
to
develop a body of online curriculum content including material for
gifted students and for specialist subjects, such as languages for use
across the education systems aligned with the newly announced national
K-12 curriculum.
for the Australian Government to work
with all schools governance systems across all states to develop a plan
of action for further work aimed at ensuring that online information
relating to schooling is effectively managed into the future.
to
initiate a series of high priority projects to enable effective
management and delivery of the diverse types of online information used
in schooling systems across Australia in the areas of Digital
repositories, Integrated learning environment, Technical standards,
Persistent identifiers Interoperability of student data, National
approach to copyright, e-Portfolios, Schools Access Federation
Technical
standards for content and systems interoperability are a key strategic
element for each of these measures. For more information see: The Digital Education Revolution
IMS Global Learning Impact Awards – 15 May 2008 – Austin, Texas
Australia scooped some of the top prizes at the international Learning Impact Awards (LIAs) –
this is hosted annually by the IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS
GLC). The worldwide competition for high impact use of technology to
support and enhance learning saw all three Australian finalists (out of
23 entries) successful as follows:
The Online Learning Environment from the University of Wollongong was the winner of the top Platinum Award and
also picked up a number of specialist category awards. The Online
Learning Environment gives Graduate School of Medicine students a
single environment from which they can access all resources and
functionality relevant to their study.
The Schools Online Curriculum Services (SOCS) from the WA Department of Education and Training won the top Gold Award.
SOCS is a 'one stop shop' for teachers, students, administrators and
the wider community. It is being progressively made available by
Western Australia's Department of Education and Training over a seven
year period starting in 2005.
The Learning Federation learning objects and support services was voted the best Content System.
The Le@rning Federation develops free online curriculum content for all
Australian and New Zealand schools and delivers it to educational
jurisdictions. The Learning Federation has developed and licensed a
pool of over 6000 learning objects ranging from highly interactive
content to file media files associated with education metadata. The
full list of winners can be found at: IMS Global
The three Australian entrants were selected from ten nominees at the Regional Finals as part of !DEA 2007, an event sponsored by DEEWR, the University of Southern Queensland and IMS GLC.
ArchiMate to become a global language
Enschede, 28 May 2008 –The
ArchiMate language for modelling, analysing and visualising enterprise
architectures, was officially transferred to The Open Group. This marks
the development of a Dutch creation towards an open standard on a
global scale.
Product launches that are postponed or do not stay
within budget are a thorn in the side of many an entrepreneur. But how
can you know in advance the consequences a single decision will have
for the rest of the organisation? ArchiMate is an independent
description technology used to model and visualise the connections
between various business domains. This gives decision-makers a powerful
instrument to maintain an overview of the results of changes across the
entire width of the organisation, and to schedule and communicate them
effectively. “This enables them to
quickly respond to different client needs and business goals without
the resulting changes leading to chaos,” explains Henry Franken, chairman of the new ArchiMate Forum of The Open Group.
The
ArchiMate language was developed between 2002 and 2004 by a consortium
of enterprises, government organisations and research institutions
under the direction of the Telematica Instituut. The ArchiMate
Foundation has primarily contributed to the distribution and use of
this modelling language. Since last year, this has been an independent
organisation, whose goal is the international acceptance of this open
standard. According to Marc Lankhorst of the Telematica Instituut, the
assistance of The Open Group guarantees ArchiMate a place in history. “We’ve
seen that, with other standards like the Unified Modelling Language for
describing software and the TOGAF method for architectural development,
the international standardisation of methods and techniques has given a
tremendous impulse to the field.”
As
a global consortium of organisations and knowledge institutions, The
Open Group focuses its efforts on improving access to integrated
information within and between organisations. To accomplish this, the
group uses open standards. Well-known examples of these are the UNIX® operating system and WAP protocol for wireless communication applications. More information can be found at
www.archimate.org
http://www.opengroup.org/overview/what-we-do.htm#2
Standards and Technical News
PILIN - ANDS Transition Project
“Laying the groundwork for a persistent identifier infrastructure”
The PILIN
(Persistent Identifier Linking Infrastructure) team is currently
involved in the government funded ANDS Project. There is a strong
ongoing interest from across sectors (incl. e-research, e - learning,
vocational education, schools, cultural and collecting organisations
and government information custodians) for the adoption and use of
persistent identifiers in a sustainable, shared identifier management
infrastructure. A collaborative paper is being prepared entitled
"Incorporating Persistent Identifiers into a Data Management Plan" (for
e-researchers). A limited release to promote feedback is available – to obtain a copy contact: ul@people.net.au
It is anticipated that a National Persistent Identifier Service will be in operation by January 1 2009.
OASIS reference model
OASIS
(Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards)
has announced a public review period for their new Reference
Architecture for SOA 1.0. The Reference Architecture for Service
Oriented Architecture addresses the issues involved in constructing,
using, and owning an SOA-based system. Conducted by the OASIS SOA-RM
TC, this public review ends 8 July. For more information see : OASIS SOA-RM TC
Events and Reports
UK e-Science AHM2008 , 8–11 September, Edinburgh, Scotland - a number of workshops incl. ‘Profiling UK e-Research: Mapping Communities and Measuring Impacts’
e-Research Australasia,
28 September - 1 October, Melbourne Australia - a presentation by the
e-Framework Implementers Group will document how services in the
e-Research space are being used as well as promote the uptake of
service usage models
Open Access and Research Conference 2008, 24 -25 September; Post-Conference Workshops 26 September Brisbane, Australia
JAVA Architectures Special Interest Group (JASIG) Conference
The
JASIG Conference, held in St. Paul at the end of May 2008 brought
together several of the current or former Andrew Mellon Foundation RIT
Strand projects, uPortal, Sakai, Fedora, and the Kuali Finance,
Research, and Student Projects, together with representatives of other
software communities, most notably those around CAS, DSpace and
Internet 2. The JISC e-Framework Programme attended and presented a
main conference track session, Birds of a Feather (BOF) session, and
gave a poster at the main conference reception. Interestingly, several
of the current Mellon RIT Projects have espoused SOA based or
influenced design methodologies, and it provided a good opportunity to
discuss potential collaborations. For further information please
contact Alex Hawker (a.hawker@jisc.ac.uk)
TechWatch report call for libraries to adopt ‘coherence approach to metadata’
The web is having a profound impact on the role and function of libraries. This, say some commentators, goes beyond ‘the demise of the book’
and touches on a wider vision for the future and on attempts to
understand how libraries are to realise that vision. For more
information visit: JISC
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