I feel concern when the word interoperability is raised, not just in the
context of VLEs but just about any aspect of application of IT to a real
World problem. The government (the NHS and Child Support Agencies in
particular) are wedded to this concept and it seems to bring nothing but
tears. More time and effort is spent trying to make integration work
than in actually doing the job which is meant to be done. The same thing
is happening with the porposed ID cards, where they want to integrate it
with everything. It won't work.
We have a home grown student record system. We can extract any set of
information we need from it by running a standard SQL query. To feed
information into our non-integrated email systems and our non-integrated
VLE and our non-integrated library management system, we just run an
apropriate query every week/day/hour as appropriate. We can change any
part of any one of these systems without it having any impact on the
others at all. We can change software, data structures or whatever and
the most we have to do is to re-word the query. Even that isn't often
necessary.
We had thought of pursuing Microsoft SharePoint as a form of document
based VLE, but the more I found it was integrated with Micosoft Office,
the less I liked it. It would have forced us to upgrade all of our basic
Office programs so that they "integrated" with the current version of
SharePoint. By going for a non-integrated VLE, we can use any word
processor, web authoring systems or email system we like.
In a nutshell, data interchangeability is essential, but systems
integration is a highway of tears and frustration which is desperately
hard and expensive to get off.
Julian
--
Julian Swindell
[log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: Virtual Learning Environments [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Miles Berry
Sent: 25 November 2005 11:40
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [VLES] MIS Integration
This is such an interesting area, and I'm both reassured and
disappointed that the present situation in FE/HE is no different from
how it is in schools.
Becta are now pressing for interoperability between MIS and VLEs, and
this is, I believe, going to be part of the forthcoming rewrite of the
learning platform conformance regime. I'm not sure exactly what they'll
mean by interoperability though, probably something less than the
read/write access you and I are both looking for.
With an open source VLE, there's nothing to stop a competent MIS
programmer coding the stuff to get things in and out, and rumour has it
some of the commercial houses are working on this for Moodle in schools.
And there's an embryonic schoolforge-uk project to try and do much same
in an open way - see
http://www.schoolforge.org.uk/index.php/Management_Information_and_Admin
istration_Systems
I don't suppose there's any open source MIS used in HE/FE is there?
It's also worth reading the Becta report on "School MIS and value for
money"
(http://www.becta.org.uk/corporate/publications/documents/mis_%20report(
revised-for-web).pdf)
- apparently things at the moment are 'suboptimal'! Becta are pressing
for interoperability here, with a UK version of the Schools
Interoperability Framework - see http://www.sifinfo.org/
Miles Berry
Deputy Head
St Ives School, Haslemere
www.stiveshaslemere.com
Ken Smith wrote:
> Back in 2002 Jisc ran a project to evaluate the possibilities of full
> 2
> way, real time, integration of VLEs and MI systems. The Idea was to
make
> a true managed learning environment with admin staff being able to
> interrogate the VLE via their MI system and teaching staff being able
to
> check student records(lateness, abscence etc) via the VLE. The result
of
> the trial, according to the JISC, report was a qualified success.
> However, annecdotal evidence from the people who took part in the
trial
> says that it was an unmittigated disaster. Apparently even systems
> supplied by the same company could not be made to talk to each other
> without a huge chunk of middleware being written.
>
> I have heard nothing about progress in his area since that time so
> what I
> want to know is:
> Does anyone know of a virtual learning environment which provides that
> level of 2 way, real time integration with a MI System? and if so
what is
> the VLE? what is the MI system ? and are bolt on goodies required to
make
> it work?
>
> I do know that there are systems which will enrol students and set up
> and
> populate courses using MIS data but does anyone go further than that?
>
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