Application & Tool Component Frameworks

Introduction The JISC 3/04 Call seeks to fund user-facing tools that broadly support the areas: authoring of resources for learning; lifelong learning planning and ePortfolio systems; associated negotiation of learning; project-based collaborative learning; assignments and assessments; and personal learning environments that compliment and work with institutional learning environments. Under the section 'Technical framework for integration', the Call suggests the need for 'application component deployment frameworks' (ACDFs). The intent of such component frameworks is to: • enable component functionality to be assembled according to need • increase the flexibility and adaptability of user-level applications • provide a top integration layer to the service oriented architectures of the eLearning (and eLibrary and eResearch) Framework Programmes • allow process support to be more easily tuned, adapted or changed • increase the reusability of funded developments across a wider community • allow smaller, more focused projects • enable projects to assemble and build on components produced by others There are two broad approaches to such top level 'application layer' frameworks: 1. The provision of portals that support plug-in functionality on the server side, to be accessed through web browsers. They also provide a framework for integrating backend services. 2. Desktop application frameworks that that are extensible via plug-in components, and able to call on online services This briefing elaborates further on these. In the past, numerous innovative projects have been funded which have generally suffered from not spreading beyond their originators. One common factor is that they have been developed in a particular technical context: for a particular platform, in a particular technical environment with a unique mix of other systems and platforms. Such applications don't travel well, as too much work and application-specific knowledge is needed to adapt them to work anywhere else. To increase the spread of uptake and the sustainability of the outcomes of funded Programmes, it is proposed to work towards establishing common frameworks that will enable applications and services, from different sources, to work together and add up to more than the sum of the parts. A major part of such Frameworks is developing, agreeing and standardising the technical interfaces that enable the various parts of the whole to be assembled and configured according to institutional needs and priorities, and to work together. Not only is learning becoming more distributed within an institution, there is a significant increase in learning provision that crosses institutions and is provided on a …