Philipp Kärger, ICALT 2007 1

Services forKnowledge Resource Sharing and Management

in an Open Source Infrastructure

Elena Demidova, Philipp Kärger, Daniel Olmedilla

(L3S Research Center, Hannover, Germany)

Stefaan Ternier, Erik Duval (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium)

Michele Dicerto (GIUNTI ILABS, Sestri Levante, Italy)

Carlos Mendez (Altran SDB, Madrid, Spain)

Krassen Stefanov (Sofia University, Bulgaria)

The 7th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT) July 18-20, 2007, Niigata, Japan

Philipp Kärger, ICALT 2007 2

1. Motivation Scenario

2. Problem: lack of interoperability

3. Solution: interfaces

4. Implementation

5. Conclusion

Philipp Kärger, ICALT 2007 3

1. Motivation Scenario

Philipp Kärger, ICALT 2007 4

Which services are provided?

•search

•publish

•rate

•store user data

P2P

Magic platform

Philipp Kärger, ICALT 2007 5

2. Problem Statement

Philipp Kärger, ICALT 2007 6

search

publish

rate

information source

management

user management

P2P

Web 2.0

LMS

How to provide

all these servicesheterogeneous

information sourcesat all the

from one single

platform?

How can we provide

interoperability?

Philipp Kärger, ICALT 2007 9

3. Our solution:

A standard interface

implemented by the information sources.

Magic platform has to care solely about the interface!

and not about all the specificities of all the specific information sources!

Magic platform

Philipp Kärger, ICALT 2007 10

The magic platform becomes less magic *

* ****

any knowledge resource management platform can easily access any

information source!

By simply calling the interface.

Philipp Kärger, ICALT 2007 11

3.1 Interfaces in DetailFor each service, we developed one interface

5 interfaces: search, publish, rate,information source management,user management

Each interface is– Simple– Open Source– Standard

Philipp Kärger, ICALT 2007 12

There is already an interface for:1. search:

Simple Query Interface (SQI)

We provide interfaces for:2. publish:

Simple Publishing Interface (SPI)3. user management:

Simple User Management Interface (SUMI)4. inform. source management:

Simple Inform. Source Mgmt. Interface (SISMI)5. rating:

Simple Resource Rating Interface (SRRI)

Simple and Flexible:•session based•query language independent•synchronous and asynchronous•result format independent

• upload of resources and their metadata

• independent from resource and target location

• assignment of roles• password storage for single-sign-on• allows for arbitrary user date (name, address, etc.)

Allows to specify where to upload and where to search

• assign rating values to resources• arbitrary recommendations by retrieving user’s ratings

Philipp Kärger, ICALT 2007 14

4. Implementation

Philipp Kärger, ICALT 2007 15

Current application of these interfaces:TenCompetence project

provide a platform for a personal life long competence development

(www.tencompetence.org)

There, the interfaces allow to:

Provide means for learners to manage knowledge resources

Philipp Kärger, ICALT 2007 16

... Lobster Flickr YouTubeAriadneLionshare

Wrapper Wrapper WrapperWrapper

FederatedSearch Engine

Search Publishing

InformationSource Registry

Information Source Mgmt.

UserDatabase

User Mgmt.Rating

ClientClient

INFORMATION SOURCE LAYER

SERVICE LAYER

CLIENT LAYER

LionsharePeer at DesktopGUI

Taste

TenCompetence

Knowledge Resource

Sharing and Management

System

Philipp Kärger, ICALT 2007 17

5. Conclusions:

• interfaces provide flexible approach to connect any learning platform with any information source

• easy to adopt due to simplicity and open source• interfaces work well for our implementation

(TENC. KRSM System)

Philipp Kärger, ICALT 2007 18

Thank you!Questions are welcome!

Philipp KärgerL3S Research CenterHannover, Germany

kaerger@L3S.de