The Web is the most pervasive collaborative technology in widespread use today; and its use to support

eLearning has been highly successful. There are many web-based Virtual Learning Environments such as

WebCT, FirstClass, and BlackBoard as well as associated web-based Managed Learning Environments. In

the future, the Grid promises to provide an extremely powerful infrastructure allowing both learners and

teachers to collaborate in various learning contexts and to share learning materials, learning processes,

learning systems, and experiences. This position paper addresses the role of support for sharing artefacts

in distributed systems such as the Grid. An analogy is made between collaborative software development

and collaborative learning with the goal of gaining insights into the requisite support for artefact sharing

within the eLearning community

Boldyreff, Cornelia

Kyaw, Phyo

Lavery, Janet

Nutter, David

Rank, Stephen

English

University of Lincoln Institutional Repository

Towards Collaborative Learning via Shared Artefacts over the GridThe 1st LeGE-WG Workshop 1Towards Collaborative Learning via SharedArtefacts over the GridCornelia Boldyreff, Phyo Kyaw, Janet Lavery, David Nutter, and Stephen RankResearch Institute for Software Evolution, University of Durham, Department of Computer Science, Science Laboratories, SouthRoad, Durham, DH1 3LE, UKcornelia.boldyreff@durham.ac.ukAbstractThe Web is the most pervasive collaborative technology in widespread use today; and its use to supporteLearning has been highly successful. There are many web-based Virtual Learning Environments such asWebCT, FirstClass, and BlackBoard as well as associated web-based Managed Learning Environments. Inthe future, the Grid promises to provide an extremely powerful infrastructure allowing both learners andteachers to collaborate in various learning contexts and to share learning materials, learning processes,learning systems, and experiences. This position paper addresses the role of support for sharing artefactsin distributed systems such as the Grid. An analogy is made between collaborative software developmentand collaborative learning with the goal of gaining insights into the requisite support for artefact sharingwithin the eLearning community. Keywords: collaboration, shared artefacts, grid, eLearning.1. INTRODUCTIONFive major classes of grid applications identified by Foster and Kesselman [1] are as follows: distributedsupercomputing, high throughput, on demand, data intensive, and collaborative computing. Any community intendingto make effective use of the Grid must collaborate; and the Grid itself has enormous potential to support suchcollaboration. One important aspect of collaboration is artefact sharing. Often the asynchronous exchange ofinformation via shared documents augments synchronous communication either in face-to-face meetings or throughvideo conferencing. The famous four by four matrix classification of groupware: same place/same time, same place/different time, differentplace/same time, and different place/different time, originally employed by Johansen, cited in [2] provides a overview ofpotential areas of applying groupware in collaborative learning in the grid context. These applications range fromdistance learning environments with video conferencing, computer based classroom systems for both collocatedstudents and distance learners, to shared development and management of learning materials, processes, andexperience reports. The latter application can be summarised as shared artefact development and management. Theremainder of this paper will focus on support for artefact sharing. Within the Genesis project [3], an Open Source Component Artefact Repository, OSCAR, [4] is being developed tosupport artefact management in general and more specifically collaborative software development via artefact sharing.In the following sections, both collaborative software engineering and collaborative learning are described, and ananalogy is made between collaborative software development and collaborative learning and their respectiveassociated activities. On the basis of this analogy, we argue that the support for artefact sharing developed within theGenesis project has the potential with suitable adaptation to be applicable to those engaged in collaborative learningand developing and managing shared artefacts. Artefacts in this context could be lesson plans, lesson content, studentrecords, or other forms of educational artefacts.2. COLLABORATIVE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENTThe increasing globalisation of software development has led to the recognition of that large software systems arerarely the work of a single individual. During development of a software system, and throughout its evolution, a numberof individuals will be involved. In many cases, the individuals concerned may come from distributed locations, forTowards Collaborative Learning via Shared Artefacts over the GridThe 1st LeGE-WG Workshop 2example, divisions within a company or from various co-operating companies working together in a single project.  Theteam may develop a large software system from its inception. Certainly over its lifetime, a large software system willinvolve more than one person in its subsequent evolution. In this context, the software system constitutes a collectionof shared artefacts; and it is highly likely that a number of associated shared artefacts will also result such asrequirements documents, designs, program code, user manuals, test plans, and various other work products andforms of project documentation.  Thus, in this setting, the sharing of artefacts and their management throughout thelifetime of the system is highly desirable to ensure continuity of knowledge within the team. During the lifetime of asystem, the team associated with its development, deployment, and evolution is also subject to change as membersleave and new members join. Having an established repository of shared artefacts is one means to easing theintegration of new team members.Equally important is the recognition that the processes whereby software systems are developed and maintained canbe defined and refined as the basis of software process improvement within the software industry [5]. Furthermoredefined processes may be enforced through process enactment systems, such as workflow management systems [6].Defined processes that have proven successful are potentially reusable in the future, whereas unsuccessful processesmay refined in the light of experience gained and may be reused in other projects.  Such process definitions formanother type of shared artefact and their refinement and reuse are often collaborative activities facilitated by storingthem in an artefact management system, such as OSCAR, being developed by the Genesis project.The Genesis project is focused on the development of a generalised environment for process management incooperative software engineering [3]. The environment under development includes global project management aswell as local site based workflow management to support both global and local work processes. A key systemunderlying these process management systems is the artefact management system, OSCAR.  Additional servicesunder development include resource management, event notification, metrics, and agent-based communications.OSCAR has been designed to provide generic support for artefact management. To support collaborative softwareengineering, the following specific types of artefacts have been pre-defined with XML document type definitions:software, documentation, software tool/service, process element, process instance, actor/user, and legacy [7].At first it may seem odd to record details of people as actor (synonymous with user) in OSCAR. The rationale for this isto support access controls, but also to record historical data such as authorship of an artefact and membership of aproject. In maintaining a software system, it is helpful to know the processes by which it has been produced and haveaccess to the associated work products and their respective authors. In addition, recorded profiles of the softwaredevelopment personnel, both engineers and managers, are frequently used in large multi-national software companiesin the selection of software project teams. Such records, profiles associated with actors, are another type of sharedartefact that supports project managers in the selection of project teams. Where teams from previous projects are alsorecorded, these teams may also be potentially reusable. There are privacy issues that need to be considered withrespect to recording personal data and these may be dependent on obtaining the consent of the individuals concerned. In the software industry, much work has been done to standardise the activities of Software Engineering and theirassociated work products through professional organisations such as the IEEE [8]. More generally, the focus onsoftware process improvement has resulted in the Capability Maturity Model [9] and more recently the SPICE standard[10].  Orthogonal considerations of quality through the development of the ISO 9000 standards family [11] have alsobeen influential in the software industry. Thus, distilled industrial best practice is available for software organisations touse in the development of their own process models. In addition, more specific development approaches such asRational Unified Process [12], RUP, are available with associated tool support. However, to facilitate collaborationacross projects over time such tools require integration with an artefact repository, so that artefacts have the possibilityof persistence and can be made more generally available to potential reusers. 3. COLLABORATIVE LEARNINGIn the education domain, comparable standardisation is not so advanced internationally, nor so widely adoptedalthough there are national efforts such as the Teaching Quality Assessment initiative in UK universities [13]. However,there are long and established traditions of learning and much literature describing educational processes, student-centred learning, and learning resources. An extensive literature survey can be found in Koper’s report [14].There are some standards under development that mirror the SPICE standard with respect to the introduction standardterminology and models for key concepts and processes in education. One standard recently proposed the OpenUniversity of the Netherlands defines the Educational modelling language [14], EML, an XML based notation to enablethe codification of educational processes and typed learning objects within learning environments. More recentTowards Collaborative Learning via Shared Artefacts over the GridThe 1st LeGE-WG Workshop 3proposals have addressed the standardisation of collaborative learning systems [15]. A related proposed standardbeing developed by educational software producers in collaboration with user communities in education is the IMSEnterprise addressing exchange of data within managed learning environments and other systems within learningorganisations such as virtual learning environments, student records, library management, and human resources [16]. These various education standards provide the basis for systematically describing educational processes, learningmaterials, student profiles, and educational outcomes in such a form that they could be recorded and stored in anartefact management system while under development and for collaborative reuse in the future by other educators andstudents. It may be that many educationalists are willing to contribute learning artefacts as open source. It is notablethat EML is in the public domain. 4. ANALOGY BETWEEN COLLABORATIVE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT AND COLLABORATIVE LEARNINGIf we compare the status of process modelling and standardisation with the two domains of software engineering andeducation, there are many points of agreement. Both are concerned with assuring the quality of their processes andproducts. In both domains, computer-based systems support the key activities. Both rely on computer-basedrepresentations of key work products. Many of the management processes in both domains are heavily supported bycomputer systems. In addition, in both domains, individuals as well as groups are key participants; and in neither case,is it sensible to speak of any activity without reference to others. The individual system designer relies on conceptsestablished by others; just as an individual learner consults literature written by others; and in any case, both workwithin well established domains of theory and practice.In both domains, collaboration is well established, as is the practice of computer-supported co-operative working.  Toensure results of such work can be easily shared across each community, open source developers, software companyproject teams, students and teachers within an institution of learning or working in an international learning network,support for artefact sharing in both domains is necessary. Thus, there is a need for an artefact management systemsuch as OSCAR.Currently OSCAR has been integrated with the Software Configuration Management system, CVS; and there are plansto develop interfaces to various other relevant applications in the software domain, such as PVCS, Rationale Rose,and the Argo UML toolset. In the education domain, interfaces to the contents of various virtual learning environmentssuch as WebCT, FirstClass, and BlackBoard would need to be investigated.To gain the benefits of widespread reusability, such an artefact management system should be distributed and hostedon an infrastructure such as the Grid to ensure its accessibility and continued development by the internationalcommunity. The present implementation of OSCAR is being developed as open source, and hosting it over the Gridservices toolkit provided by the Globus project [15] would not be problematic. 5. CONCLUSIONSThere are many aspects of collaboration that can be found in any domain where people are working co-operativelysupported by computer systems. Here we have considered support developed for artefact management in the contextof collaborative software development. By identifying analogous aspects of collaborative learning and educationstandards being developed, we have shown how this support has the potential to form the basis for more specialisedsupport for eLearning in the context of collaboration over the Grid.REFERENCES[1] Foster, I and Kesselman, C. (1999) Computational Grids, chapter 2 in The Grid: Blueprint for a New ComputingInfrastructure, edited by Ian Foster and Carl Kesselman, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc., pp. 15-54.[2] Ellis, C.A., Gibbs, S.J., and Rein, G.L. (1991) Groupware: Some Issues and Experiences, Communications of theACM, Vol. 34, No. 1.[3] Gaeta, M and Ritrovato, P. (2002) Generalised Environment for Process Management in Cooperative SoftwareEngineering, Proceedings of the 26th Annual International Computer Software and Applications Conference,COMPSAC02, IEEE Computer Press, pp. 1049-1053.[4] Boldyreff, C., Nutter, D., and Rank, S. (2002) Active Artefact Management for Distributed Software Engineering,Proceedings of the 26th Annual International Computer Software and Applications Conference, COMPSAC02, IEEEComputer Press, pp. 1081-1086. [5] Christie, A. M. (1995) Software Process Automation: the Technology and its Adoption, Springer. Towards Collaborative Learning via Shared Artefacts over the GridThe 1st LeGE-WG Workshop 4[6] Aversano, L., Cimitile, A., Gallucci, P., and Villani, M. L. (2002) FlowManager: a workflow management systembased on Petrie nets, Proceedings of the 26th Annual International Computer Software and Applications Conference,COMPSAC02, IEEE Computer Press, pp. 1054-1059. [7] Boldyreff, C., Nutter, D., and Rank, S. (2002) Architectural Requirements for an Open Source Components andArtefact Repository system within GENESIS, Proceedings of the Open Source Software Development Workshop,University of Newcastle, pp. 176-196.[8] IEEE Software Engineering Standards Collection, IEEE Press, (1994).[9] Carnegie Mellon University / Software Engineering Institute, (1995) The Capability Maturity Model: Guidelines forImproving the Software Engineering Process, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.[10] ISO TR 15504 Software Process Assessment and Improvement (commonly known as SPICE), ISO, (1998)(approved for publication), specifically see Part 2, A Reference Model for Processes and Process Capability.[11] Kehoe, R., and Jarvis, A.(1996) ISO 9000-3 a tool for software product and process improvement, Springer.[12] Kruchten, P. (2000) The Rational Unified Process: an Introduction, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company. [13] QAA, Quality assurance in UK higher education: a brief guide, The Quality Assurance Agency for HigherEducation, available on-line at http://www.qaa.ac.uk/public/heguide/contents.htm [14] Koper, R. (2001) Modeling units of study from a pedagogical perspective: the pedagogical meta-model behindEML, Open University of the Netherlands, First draft, Version 2.[15] Caeiro, M., Anido, L., Santos, J.M., and Rodríguez, J. (2002) Towards the Standardization of CollaborativeLearning Systems, Proceedings of the Eleventh IEEE International Workshops on Enabling Technologies:Infrastructure for Collaborative Enterprises (WETICE'02), IEEE Computer Press, 2002.[16] IMS (1999) IMS Enterprise Information Model, Version 1.01 - Final Specification, IMS Global Learning Consortium.[17] Foster, I. and Kesselman, C. (1999) The Globus Toolkit, chapter 11 in The Grid: Blueprint for a New ComputingInfrastructure, edited by Ian Foster and Carl Kesselman, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc., pp. 259-278.

(approved for publication), specifically see Part 2, A Reference Model for Processes and Process Capability.

Active Artefact Management for Distributed Software Engineering,

Architectural Requirements for an Open Source Components and Artefact Repository system within

Computational Grids, chapter 2 in The Grid: Blueprint for a New Computing Infrastructure, edited by Ian Foster

Engineering Standards Collection,

FlowManager: a workflow management system based on Petrie nets,

Generalised Environment for Process Management

Groupware: Some Issues and Experiences,

IMS Enterprise Information Model, Version 1.01 - Final Specification, IMS Global Learning Consortium.

ISO 9000-3 a tool for software product and process improvement,

Modeling units of study from a pedagogical perspective: the pedagogical meta-model behind EML,

Quality assurance in UK higher education: a brief guide, The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, available on-line at http://www.qaa.ac.uk/public/heguide/contents.htm

The Capability Maturity Model: Guidelines for Improving the Software Engineering Process,

The Globus Toolkit, chapter 11 in The Grid: Blueprint for a New Computing Infrastructure, edited by Ian Foster

The Rational Unified Process: an Introduction,

Towards the Standardization of Collaborative Learning Systems,

Towards collaborative learning via shared artefacts over the Grid

https://telearn.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00190449

Towards collaborative learning via shared artefacts over the Grid

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