Learning Units Design based in Grid Computing

1. Learning Units Design based in Grid Computing L. Iriarte, M. Marco, A. Sánchez, D. Morón y P. Pernías

2. External tools and Higher Education • In Higher Educatios, teachers frecuently uses external tools to accomplish their educational goals: • Labs (viertual?) • Especial equipment (telescopes?) • …. • GRID Computing

3. Grid computing as an educational tools • We explore the posibilities of the grid computing as an educational tool but…. • how to implement a re-usable way to describe this procedure? GRID COMPUTING as a Learning Object? GRID COMPUTING as a IMS-LD Learning Service

4. Antecedents • Expansion and development of Learning Objects paradigm. • Rapid development and use of IMS-LD specifications in learning structures design. • Development of Grid Computing to solve complex learning problems.

5. IMS-LD specifications They are the most widespread and used in the organization and design of learning structures. They originated from IMS Content Packaging (IMS-CP) and IMS Simple Sequencing Specification (IMS-SS). The first permits to organize hierarchichal content structures and the second is based on IMS-CP and permits to define sequences of teaching activities and the conditions upon which each should be done. IMS-LD comprises the previous ones and incorporates the facilities for learning modelling from the Educational Modelling Language (EML) specifications developed by the Open University of Holland. These specifications permit the modelling of study units which can solve one or more teaching aims by using a language that defines “who does what”, “when and with What contents” a specific aim can be accomplished. Many research projects have been developed which allow professors and students to use these specifications.

6. Available and under development IMS-LD projectsTaken from https://www.unfold-project.net/general_resources_folder/tools/currenttools The Learning Activity Management System LAMS should also be mentioned. This is an activity sequencer, inspired by IMS-LD, but it does not generate IMS Learning Design compliant code. It is valuable as an example of the kind of functionality and interface which a high level editor might offer. There are plans for making the system compliant, but no date for this has been announced. It s a proprietary application, though some parts may become open source.

7. The existing tools permit to design powerful and complex learning structures taking into account the cooperation among students as well as systems interoperability.

8. Structure of an IMS-LD document

9. Comment about the graph • An IMS-LD based learning unit is composed of objectives, roles (either students or professors), learning tasks organized through different structures, which are composed of learning objects and necessary services in the teaching - learning process. • An activity is based on a learning object or a service. Learning objects are study units, exercises, practices, figures, documents that are catalogued according to a standard and which are available in applications’ local repositories or can be selected from libraries in the internet. • Services are basically software products and applications as Chat, email, as well as programs that support the learning process. • They have three levels of implementation; level A defines the vocabulary and the metadata necessary for the implementation. Level B permits to associate properties and conditions for carrying out the activities, and level C allows to implement notifications and messages among the components of the learning unit.

10. Grid Computing • Grid computing has its origin in the area of distributed computing, in Meta-computing, in particular; where geographically distributed computers are united in such a way that they can be seen as an only one more powerful computer. • Modern grids are scalable as they adopt web technologies and standards like XML or web service. • During their evolution, computational grids and data grids have developed. Computational grids organize and distribute computational resources (CPU, memory), and the data ones, are oriented towards manipulating “terabytes” or data “perabytes”.

11. eLearning Grids eLearning Grids appear due to the need to integrate the potentialities of grids in the teaching system, where complex applications of high cost were not present due to the lack of such technologies. Victor Pankratius professor of Karlsruhe University, in Germany, has proposed an alternative to use grid computing in elearning. This definition combines the potentialities of a traditional learning object with those of grid computing.

12. Grid Learning Object (GLOB ) http://www.aifb.uni-karlsruhe.de/BIK/vpa/pankratius_vossen_e-learninggrids.pdf The metadata contain the information that characterizes the grid. The Reusable Information Object ( RIO ) contains the information necessary to reuse the grid; the contents in different formats, practices and tasks are part of it. The RIO also contains the facilities of the grid implemented as Grid Service. The user can have access to these services through a user interface. eLearning oriented grid applications are implemented in the Grid Application Layer . To accomplish that, Core Grid Middleware services are used.

13. Problem • As it can be seen, both paradigms develop rapidly and important steps are taken to approach grids to applications and development related to learning.

14. Problem • GLOB is an interface between a Learning Management System (LMS) and a Grid; which can be get into through a user interface. Nevertheless, as modern learning environments are so complex, it is necessary to have a better communication to know what is going on in the grid to consider it in the learning process, as seen below. • It could be assumed that the Grid could only be activated with a Grid user interface from the learning unit through an IMS-LD resource element which permits to make references to applications and external tools; but the coordination necessary with the other activities and the roles within a learning environment could not be accomplished, as the Runtime Engine could not know the results and its execution state to control the learning process.

15. Solutions Researchers at Valladolid University, in Spain, do research works to strengthen the IMS-LD capacity to create collaborative learning environments. They have created a tool calledGRIDCOLE (*) that makes possible to combine IMS-LD and Gridsto obtain high collaboration levels. http://ulises.tel.uva.es/uploaded_files/52415_BoteJITEL05.pdf

16. Our Solution In the Grid Application Layer • Our proposal is based on establishing the relationship between an IMS-LDand Grids through functions or services that are added in both GLOB and IMS Learning Design Engine, using the elements that make up the IMS-LD. In this way, it is not necessary to modify the specifications.

17. We consider that there is a LMS that has its own repository of learning objects that professors and students will use in the teaching learning process. The LMS permits to design IMS-LD based learning environments and it also has an IMS Learning Design Engine. Moreover, we consider that during the design process the professor requires a grid to solve a highly complex computational task or to present to the students the combination of the existing data in different computers or instruments that are in places unknown to the users. It is very important that the Grid has adopted the structure of a Grid-enaBled Learning Object (GLOB)

18. We propose to add to GLOB a new layer called Runtime Interface Layer, which will establish communication with the IMS Learning Design Engine. In this layer we include services to know the status of the gridand to obtain the results of its execution. For example: The engine uses: Start : to initiate the Grid. Status : to know the functioning of the Grid Result : to know the results of its execution.

19. Comments about the Grid tounderstand the model proposed • In a Grid, there is an intermediary system) ( to make reference to the lower part of the graph ) that together with the subsystems that compose its architecture, manages the resources in the grid, which can be data resources or computational ones. • In the data grids, the interaction with the metadata service is very important, which together with the metadata catalogue manages the data using the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), very efficient in the management of distributed data. • In both types of grids, mechanisms of selection and management of replicas are used to increase the efficiency in the management and transference of the data, which can be independent files or a system of files with a specific organization and structure.( to make reference to the lower part of the graph ) • This type of organization offers great advantages to those LMS that require to manage information in many geographically distributed repositories.It will be seen later in the example.

20. We continue explaining the model • From the LMS we know the available Grids through the metadata that the GLOB has. • During the design of the IMS-LD learning structure, the professor should define a learning service which constitutes a facility or external resource that he wants to use in an activity as part of the learning unit. In IMS-LD specifications, many services as email are already defined aimed at making the IMS-LD Runtime Engine to have an easier configuration. In the case of a grid, it is necessary to transfer the required parameters to the Runtime, so that it can activate the grid. For that, we can use the global elements, Global Attribute class and the metadata that the Runtime Engine can access when the learning service is activated. (see book). • With the information that these elements have, the Runtime Engine creates a petition or query that is sent to the grid service “START” of the Runtime Application Layer, which activates the grid. • Once the grid starts , the IMS-LD Runtime Engine knows its execution stateand the results obtained through GET_Status and GET_ Result services implemented in the Runtime Interface Layer of the GLOB. The execution state of the grid can be used by the IMS-LD Runtime Engine to manage notifications and parameters that are useful in the learning sequence that is being designed.

21. An example in its design phase At present, there are different prototypes in their design phase which will allow us to test the model proposed. A group of professors is designing learning structures that permit students to diagnose diseases from the analysis of the images and data given by professors. The images are in repositories placed in laboratories and clinics distributed all through the cuban universities that create, daily, hundreds of images of different systems and organs in various animal species. The images are selected and catalogued by researchers and professors who use the facilities of DSPACE for the management, distribution and search of metadata. We use it as a bases to create a data grid that manages the images efficiently. • On the other hand, a computational grid is being designed to use the capacity of many computers that are distributed in different universities to process images and to obtain indicators used in the diagnosis processes that require great computing capacities.

22. A Learning Unit Design The professor presents to the students a collection of images and some other data, so that they may diagnose a disease in an animal specie. Each student analyzes the data and sends the images he considers to be processed. With the results obtained, he proposes a diagnosis to the professor for his evaluation.

23. Comment • As you can see, it is a simple learning sequence which is easy to model through IMS-LD specifications; but if grids that permit to manage the search of images and their processing were not used, it would not be possible to complete the process; if we consider that the execution of the grid conditions the sequences of professors and students. • It is here where the adequate communication between the Runtime Engine and the grid is required so that it may know the results of its execution and influence in the flow of the learning process through the facilities that the IMS-LD has to manage notifications, variables and conditional structures. • To design this structure, we will use the tool COMALO that we have created and we will modify the CopperCore IMS-LD Engine to make both grids communicate each other; where the functions that make up the Grid Runtime Layer will be implemented through web services.

24. Conclusions • We have presented some alternatives that make possible the interrelationship between grid technology and learning structures based on IMS Learning Design specifications, obtaining that they have the possibility to include big volumes of information and to use tools that require great computing capacity,important elements to solve highly complex problems that sometimes are not present in the teaching processes due to the lack of such tecnologies that optimize the use and management of computing resourcesand data that are geographically distributed. • The solution we have given is addressed to software developers and developers of applications related to the IMS-LD Engine to make possible the access to both data and computational grids,modifying the interpreters of IMS-LD documents, which give access to the grids and the Grid Runtime Layer that we have added to the definition of Grid Enabled Learning Object (GLOB) so as to know the status and results of the grid and use them in the learning process. • Our proposal connects both technologies without modifying the IMS-LD specifications. Nevertheless, we consider that it is necessary to look for alternatives that enable to incorporate the grids as special services within the specifications, as they can be considered a type of role that the professor can define in his design strategy.

25. NEXT STEPS • Aply the IMS-LD to the CMS4OCW software to provide a user-friendly and wide-range tool to teachers to build their proposals. • (CMS4OCW is a Content Management Sistem For Open Course Ware. At the moment, as a subproduct, it provides IMS-SCORM learning objetcs.) • Describing usual High Education learning tools as a IMS-LD service