The open standard for sharing educational dataOpen Education API14 June 2016Frans Ward - SURFnet#TNC16 - Prague

https://www.flickr.com/photos/statefarm/19349203414

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50 students9 teams3 daysUpgrading education with innovative ideasand smart concepts

50 students, working together in 9 teams, upgrading education with smart concepts and innovative ideas in just 3 days. Their goal: make their student life easier and their study more efficient.

At the top there is an URL of the video of the winning team Bijdehand developing their concept and prototype of Nomi+, an application that informs students about stress and helps them to reduce it or find help.2

The problem.

And that my dear audience, brings us to core of the problem. The truth is that more and more educational institutions are making educational data available to their students via apps. However, all the underlying data is stored in different systems, and to access them, these systems have to be connected with the apps that display them. Setting up separate links to all these systems would soon create a tangle of connections that wouldnt really help anyone. 3

The problem.

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and before you know it, you have created this mess. Many non standard and badly maintained connections to different systems...4

Why does this matter in education?We still have data silosWe are still here.Many metadata standards (DC, IEEE LOM, local schemas)Diversity of web interfaces (REST, OAI-PMH, SOAP)Different exchange formats (XML, RDF, JSON)

and not there

All because educational apps and software do not, as a rule, talk to one another

Educational data is still mostly stuck in silos, something that is fostered by educational software that makes it cumbersome at best and impossible at worst to move data in and out of systems. As a result, theres lots of extra clerical work that educators and administrators have to do recreating rosters, copying grades, a lot of copying-and-pasting all together. All because educational apps and software do not, as a rule, talk to one another.Student Information Systems might not talk to the states records system. Students probably dont get an automatic push notification when theres a teacher absence issue or when there is a vacant spot at the computer room. 5

The solution!

To get around this, educational institutions develop APIs. APIs are interfaces that allow data to be exchanged between the different educational systems and thus opening the door to all sorts of real-time connections between services and systems that are currently impossible due to time constraints, burdensome download and data entry processes, and vendors whod prefer to maintain data lock-in.

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API 101Kirsten HunterAPI Evangelist

API 101WHAT ARE APIS AND HOW CAN I USE THEM TO TAKE OVER THE WORLDhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/petercastleton/

Application Programming Interface That is were the acronym breaks down to. At its most basic level, an API allows one app to talk to its data source at the educational institution. Its the way in which web and mobile technologies can open up their data and their softwares functionality to others.

Rather than having to export a file from one system, then import it into another, APIs allow programs to make calls, sending and receiving just the information they need just when they need it. Web APIs (also known as REST APIs) do this via the Web using the protocols of the Web (HTTP). But instead of returning HTML like a website does when you call it, Web APIs return XML or JSON that is, machine-readable data that other apps and websites can make us of.But enough with the tech

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What do we need? Open Educational Data!Open data and content can be freely used, modified, and shared by anyone for any purpose. By opendefinition.org

So why does this a problem? What do we need? We need open educational data! What is open data? By the definition of opendefinition.org you can explain this as Open data and content can be freely used, modified, and shared by anyone for any purpose. 8

All open data that gives information about the educational institution, like number of students and pass rate. Metadata about the educational institute.All open data that can be used for educational purposes (e.g. research data, OER etc.). Data exploited or used by education.All open data that is released by education institutes. Administrative data created by educational systems that can improve efficiency, allow students to make informed decisions etc. Food for Thought: Open Educational Data

But when we look at open educational data, there are more interpretations possible(tekst van scherm)Think about information about available workstations, course information, timetables, exams results.So when I talk about open education data in this presentation I refer to the last category.9

The Open Education API project:an open standard for making educational data available

POWERED BY

Our answer to this is the Open Education API project, a SURFnet initiative to create a standardized API for sharing educational data in collaboration with all stakeholders and that is set to become the new standard in educational data access.

APIs offer a way to unbolt the value of the institutional educational data and make data accessible. Open API's foster interoperability and create an ecosystem of technology, of developers, of users.

The following animation will explain this Open Onderwijs API project.10

Animation

Available workstations: /rooms Course information: /courses Groups: /groups and /grouproles News: /newsfeeds and /newsitems Users: /persons

Timetables: /schedules Study progress: /courseresults Exam results: /testresults Buildings: /buildings

API 1.0The Open Education API currently supports the following data types:The development of the Open Education API standard will be ongoing, so this set will be further expanded in the future to support new data types like: Learning Analytics/ xAPI, Minors, Study guides, Absences and more.

At this moment we are at the 1.0 version of the Open Education API with support for the following data types:12

Online Reference

http://api.openonderwijsapi.nl/v1http://api.openonderwijsapi.nl/v1/docs

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Governance

CommunityWorking Group

Project Lead

Advisory

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The Open Education API project is a good example of connecting, learning, innovating together

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Community website

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Typical Ecosystem

This is not an presentation about enterprise topics like service-oriented architecture or the role of microservices well leave that for another day.But this image shows where in the enterprise ecosystem the open education API sits. 17

Typical Ecosystem

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The solution!

A project of SURFnet Customised Education (Onderwijs op Maat) innovation programme.

a SURFnet initiative to create a standardized API for sharing educational data.

Is set to become the new (national) standard in educational data access.A ready to use SURFnet service.

A platform where the education institute could store its educational data.

A centralized authorisation server for accessing educational data.

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The Open Education API @TNC16.

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frans.ward@surfnet.nl info@openonderwijsapi.nlhttps://openonderwijsapi.nl/en/

frans.ward@surfnet.nl

frans.ward@surfnet.nl info@openonderwijsapi.nlhttps://openonderwijsapi.nl/en/

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