APPLICATIONS OF SERVICE ORIENTED ARCHITECTURE

FOR THE INTEGRATION OF LMS AND m-LEARNING

APPLICATIONS

María José Casañ Guerrero, Miguel Ángel Conde González

Software Department, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, c/Jordi Girona Salgado 1-3, (08034) Barcelona, Spain

Software Department, Universidad de Salamanca, Plaza de los Caídos S/N, (37008) Salamanca, Spain

Marc Alier Forment, Francisco José García Peñalvo

Software Department, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain

Software Department, Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain

Keywords: Learning Management Systems, Mobile-learning, Interoperability, Service orientation.

Abstract: Mobile learning applications introduce a new degree of ubiquitousness in the learning process. There is a

new generation of ICT-powered mobile learning experiences that exist in isolated contexts: experiences

limited to small learning communities. These rising mobile learning experiences appear while web-based

learning, especially Learning Management Systems, are consolidated and widely adopted by learning

institutions, teachers and learners. The innovation techniques breeding in the experimental world of mobile

learning need to be translated into the mainstream ecosystems. Mobile learning is not intended to replace e-

learning or web based learning, but to extend it. So, mobile learning applications need to be integrated

somehow in the web-based LMS. To do so is needed to address interoperability issues on both ends: the

LMS and the mobile application. Service Oriented Architecture offers a standardized and effective way to

achieve interoperability between systems. This paper presents an architecture that allows a two-way

interoperability between LMS and Mobile Applications: access LMS contents from the mobile device, and

to be able to embed part of the mobile applications inside the LMS framework. This architecture

incorporates elements from famous interoperability standards (IMS LTI and OKI) and has been validated

with two projects related to the Open Source LMS Moodle.

1 INTRODUCTION

The delivery of knowledge and the education

process has evolved during the last century and its

evolution is bound to the technological revolution.

There are several forms of delivery such as distance

learning, computer based training (CBT), the

interactive CD-ROM, the Learning Management

Systems (LMS) etc. All these practices have

transformed the methodological approach to

education, defining the new trends in e-learning.

In the year 2000 e-learning was the state of the

art for distance training (Keegan, 2005). But as the

technology changes rapidly, the learning process

evolves to new scenarios such as m-learning. M-

learning can be seen as an evolution of e-learning

that allows students take advantage of mobile

devices as a tool support the learning process

(Conde et al, 2007).

During the last years, m-learning has provided

very innovative tools and applications to enhance the

learning process. But, current m-learning

applications are usually used as standalone isolated

applications. Students and teachers could take

advantage of mobile applications if they could be

integrated with the pre-existing e-learning platforms,

such as LMS. As both technologies (e-learning

platforms and m-learning applications) have positive

aspects to enhance the learning process, it is

important to take advantage of both sides.

The adaptation of LMS and its contents to the

mobile scenario allows users to access LMS contents

and functions using mobile devices. This adaptation

must consider several issues, such as what has to be

JosÃl’ CasaÃ

s Guerrero M., Ã ˛Angel Conde GonzÃ ˛alez M., Alier Forment M. and JosÃl’ GarcÃ a PeÃ

salvo F.

APPLICATIONS OF SERVICE ORIENTED ARCHITECTURE FOR THE INTEGRATION OF LMS AND m-LEARNING APPLICATIONS.

DOI: 10.5220/0001836900540059

In Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies (WEBIST 2009), page

ISBN: 978-989-8111-81-4

adapted, what are the characteristics of the mobile

terminal etc. Nonetheless, the adaptation of any

learning platform to the mobile world must keep

track of the inscriptions, users and course

enrolments. The adaptation must also take advantage

of the capabilities of the mobile device to

communicate the users involved in the learning

process and generate activities that can be developed

on the mobile device (Keegan, 2005).

Some of the initiatives that try to adapt LMS to

the mobile world include:

 A study conducted by the Athabasca

University, into some of the technical and

organizational implications of implementing

Moodle on mobile devices (Cheung et al.,

2006).



Moodle for Mobiles. A module developed by

Jamie Pratt to do Moodle tests using mobile

devices (Hinckelman 2005).

 Mobile Moodle. A simplified Moodle version

for mobile devices developed in Japan. The

simplified version includes tests, feedback,

authentication, multilingual support etc. Due

to technological issues this project can only be

used in Japan (Hinckelman 2005).

 Moodle Offline from the Open University

provides an offline mobile Moodle client for

Ultra Mobile Personal Computers that can be

used to work offline and synchronize with the

Moodle server. (offlineMoodle 2007).

This paper is organized as follows: section 2,

introduces the service oriented architecture (SOA)

and current e-learning standards based on SOA.

Secion 3 describes two m-learning applications of

the SOA developed by the authors.

Section 4, presents an architecture based on SOA

to allow 1) the extension of LMS to the mobile

scenario, and 2) the integration of external

applications into the LMS. Finally section 5 presents

the conclusion of this work.

2 THE SOA APPROACH AND

THE LMS

The problem of delivering educational contents

through the web and its integration with LMS has

been widely studied. But education is not only about

contents, as the last educational models make

explicit (connectivism and social constructionism)

(Arina 2008; Alier 2007). Nowadays learning

applications can offer a wide range of services and

functions. To take advantage of these new services

there is a new approach for integration and

interoperability. This approach that works in the

direction of creating interoperable software is the

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). The SOA

provides a separation between the interface of a

service and its underlying implementation, so that

consumers (applications) can interoperate across the

widest set of service providers. The Open

Knowledge Initiative and the IMS organizations are

developing standards for interoperability based on

the SOA.

There are some SOA proposals to extend LMS

to mobile devices (Riad & El-Ghareeb, 2008). This

proposal extends the main capabilities of a LMS, the

assessment, to mobile devices. This is a first step to

extend LMS to mobile devices. But, there is also the

need to integrate external applications into the LMS.

2.1 The Open Knowledge Initiative

The Open Knowledge Initiative (OKI) was born in

2003 with the purpose of creating a standard

architecture of common services that learning

software systems need to share, such as

authentication, authorization, logging etc. The OKI

project has developed and published a suite of

interfaces known as Open Service Interface

Definitions (OSIDs), whose design has been

informed by a broad architectural view. The OSIDs

specifications provide interoperability among

applications across a varied base of underlying and

changing technologies. The OSIDs define important

components of a SOA as they provide general

software contracts between service consumers and

service providers. The OSIDs enable end-user tools

to be installed in different LMS using a plug-in

architecture. The OSIDs are compatible with most

other technologies and specifications, such a SOAP

or WSDL. They can be used with existing

technology, open source or vended solutions.

Each OSID describes a logical service. They

separate program logic from underlying technology

using software interfaces. The separation between

the software consumer and provider are done at the

application level to separate consumers from

specific protocols. This enables applications to be

constructed independently of any particular

environment, and also eases integration (Merriman

2008).

For example, services such as authentication are

common functions required by many systems.

Usually each application has built this specific

function. As a result the authentication function is

APPLICATIONS OF SERVICE ORIENTED ARCHITECTURE FOR THE INTEGRATION OF LMS AND

m-LEARNING APPLICATIONS

implemented in many ways and this results in

information being maintained in different places and

being unable to easily reuse. OKI would separate the

authentication function from the rest of the systems

and provide a central authentication service for all

the applications in the system.

2.2 IMS-LTI

The OSIDs tells us how to exchange information

between the LMS and an external learning

application, but how will the teacher and the student

reach the application form the LMS? OKI describes

a complete set of services between the LMS (service

consumer) and the application (service provider).

But, the LMS users students and, especially

teachers, need to perceive the external application

like a service native to their LMS. Otherwise the

adoption of a new kind of application will introduce

big deal of confusion among students and teachers,

by the lack of consistence on the interface.

The IMS Global Learning Consortium is anther

organization working in standards towards

interoperability and integration of learning services

and systems. One of these standards is the IMS

Technologies for Interoperability (IMS TI). IMS TI

(and the new revision IMS Learning Technologies

for Interoperability (IMS LTI)) focuses on the

process on how a remote service is installed on a

web based learning system (IMS 2006).

The IMS LTI 2.0 specification resolves the way

an external application can be integrated inside a

LMS.

In this line of work, in the 2008 Google Summer

Of Code program, the UPC student Jordi Piguillem

mentored by the IMS advisor Charles Severance and

Marc Alier, has successfully developed a reference

implementation for a IMS LTI simplified consumer.

This Moodle plug-in allows the integration of non

Moodle applications as if they where native Moodle

applications, by just implementing a simple set of

webservices. The estimate workload to adapt a

learning application using this standard is less than

two weeks.

3 IMPLEMENTATIONS OF SOA

FOR THE INTEGRATION OF

LMS AND m-LEARNING

APPLICATIONS

This section describes the general features of two m-

learning projects developed by the authors, which

are based on a SOA approach. The fusion of these

projects is used in section 4 as part of the proposed

architecture.

3.1 Moodbile: The Moodle Mobile

Client

The customization of LMS to be accessible from

web browsers on mobile devices has been an

interesting research problem. Researchers and web

developers have come up with possible solutions to

this problem with different degrees of success. But,

what happens if a student wants to read the latest

forum posts while she/he is traveling on the

underground without wireless access? Does the

student need to pay for the wireless access every

time she/he wants to access to contents of the virtual

campus from the cell phone? And what if she/he

prefers to use her wifi access in the cell phone to get

all the data for free while she has free connection

and review these data afterwards?

The point is that the students might want to

access the data from the LMS when they are offline

and synchronize whenever they want. And this is not

possible in a web-based scenario, which requires

being online to work (regardless of other issues such

as security).

For the previous reasons, the UPC DFWikiteam

started a research project which leads to the

development of a specific mobile client to access the

Free Open Source LMS Moodle: the Moodbile

project. The Moodbile project constitutes an

extension of this LMS to the mobile scenario.

Moodbile is the test drive application developed

by the authors and their team in the UPC that

implements this kind of mobile client for Moodle 1.9

(Alier & Casany 2008; Alier et al. 2007). The

general architecture of Moodbile consists of the

following elements:

 The Moodle LMS that runs on the server:

Moodle (but other systems such as Sakai

could be adapted).

 The Moodle interoperability extension

(Moodle-DFWS) an API to access the services

of the Moodle core system, with independence

WEBIST 2009 - 5th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies

of its implementation. This part runs on the

same server as Moodle does.

 The Moodbile Client. Through the

interoperability layer (Moodle-DFWS) the

Moodbile client syncs the data with the

Moodle server. The mobile user can work

offline using the mobile device with the same

data he can get through the web interface. The

user can even contribute to the Moodle course

while offline. All the modifications are stored

in the local database on the mobile device and

sent to the server in the next sync.

The Moodbile client can work online as well as

offline. When working online the Moodbile client

uses the interoperability extension to access the new

information originated in the Moodle server. This

new information is sent to the mobile client and

stored persistently for further or offline access.

When working offline the mobile user will be able to

access the information stored on the mobile device

in the last synchronization.

Considering that the user will use the mobile

device to access very specific information about

recent events in short connections or extend the

learning process on the move, we selected the

following activities to be access from the user’s

mobile device: forum, wiki contents, glossary

entries, internal mail messages and calendar from

the virtual classroom. The selected activities are the

Moodle core activities.

3.2 CLAYMobile

At the research GRoup in InterAcción and eLearning

research group from the University of Salamanca

(GRIAL) and with the collaboration of the Research

Department of Clay Formación Internacional, the

authors have developed CLAYMobile. The start

point of this research is a mobility system based on

the learning platform ClayNet 2.0 (Conde et al.,

2006) which has been implemented by Alberto

Velasco Florines at the University of Salamanca

(Velasco et al., 2007).

The previous system allows users access and

interaction with the learning resources of the

learning platform (ClayNet) using mobile devices.

The main goal of the project is to provide a series of

webservices that different mobile clients use to

access the contents of the ClayNet platform. The

webservices implement the necessary methods to

control the connection and authentication from the

mobile device, as well as the access to the resources.

The resources of the learning platform are adapted to

the specific characteristics of the mobile device.

Several resource adaptation packages are used to

adapt the contents to the specific characteristics of

the mobile device used to access the learning

platform. These adaptations also take into

consideration the resource type (PDF file, Web page

etc.).

The authors have currently developed a mobile

adaptation system for Moodle 1.8.X and 1.9.X and

also a client to access to those adapted contents.

Some features of Moodle must have been considered

to define this new system due to Moodle’s resource

distribution and its hierarchical user structure. In

particular, must be considered:

Where are the resources? What resources are

allowed? How Moodle distribute resources, etc.

 How many different kind of users can interact

with the LMS? What permissions have the

different users over resources?

 How are courses distributed? How an existing

role or a new one could view course or

category contents?

Having clarified those concepts the adaptation

system was redefined in the following four parts:

 Authentication Service. This service receives

a log-in request from the client application

which includes the username and password

introduced by the user and one object which

includes the technical features of the device. It

allows connection with Moodle and

determines which role has the user in the

system.

 Content Service. This service contains

methods for accessing resources and other

methods for navigating through the courses

structure.

 Content Adaptation. The first step for all the

types of adaptation is checking if the device

supports the file type of the original resource.

If not, a new copy will be generated, if it is

possible, in another file type which the device

does support. Then, the adapted resource will

be then send to the client.

 Client Application. The graphical user

interface (Figure 3) will allow the user to

navigate through the courses structure and

menu options easily. There will be a

multimedia player for playing audio and video

files, an image viewer and a text viewer. A

high level of optimization of screen rendering

will be achieved thanks to content adaptation.

APPLICATIONS OF SERVICE ORIENTED ARCHITECTURE FOR THE INTEGRATION OF LMS AND

m-LEARNING APPLICATIONS

4 ARCHITECTURE FOR THE

INTEGRATION OF LMS AND

m-LEARNING APPLICATIONS

In this paper the authors propose a software

architecture that 1) enables mobile client

applications access to the LMS contents and

activities, as well as 2) enables the integration of

external educational applications (mobile or not)

with the LMS consistently with the LMS interface

and workflow. To develop this architecture the

IMLS LTI 2.0 and the OKI OSIDs v.3.0 are used as

the basic standard transport mechanisms.

The architecture proposed by the authors is based

on services (SOA) and tries to integrate existing

external educational applications with existing LMS

as well as to extend the LMS resources and activities

to mobile devices. As shown in figure 1 - point 1,

every LMS implements a set of basic services (such

as authentication, authorization or course

enrollment). These services are used by external

applications using a webservice (WS) layer. This

webservice layer is based on the OKI OSIDs.

On one hand, this set of webservices has allowed

the authors to develop an advanced mobile

application (offline advanced mobile client) that

accesses the LMS resources and activities. This

webservice layer is used to extend the LMS to the

mobile scenario, a further step than traditional

mobile web browsers which are highly limited.

The previous mobile client application is a fusion

between the Moodbile and the CLAYMobile

applications. This fusion creates an advanced mobile

client application that accesses the resources and

activities on the LMS. This mobile application uses

the bandwidth efficiently, can work online and

offline and adapt the LMS contents to the specific

characteristics of the mobile device. From time to

time the mobile client application syncs its data with

the LMS to get the last updates. The mobile database

stores these updates for further access (see figure 1-

point 2).

On the other hand, the proposed architecture

takes advantage of the IMS LTI 2.0 features to

integrate external educational applications with the

LMS. For example, assume we have a mobile

application to create collaborative digital videos and

want to integrate this application with a specific

LMS. In this scenario, the users would use their

mobile phones to shoot the story and take pictures.

As the media is being captures with the mobile

phone this media is transferred via MMS to the

editors at the computer via the server-side mobile

application (figure 1 - point 3). Finally this

applications is integrated in the LMS (figure 1 -

point 4). The proposed architecture allows the

integration of these external applications with the

LMS expanding the possibilities of the educational

activities.

Figure 1: Architecture to integrate LMS with external

mobile applications.

The proposed architecture presents important

advantages such as 1) LMS independence. The

webservice layer defines the necessary services to

access contents and activities in any LMS. The only

thing to do is the implementation of this WS layer

on a specific LMS. 2) Mobile device independence.

Any kind of mobile device can be used as a client

application (i.e, cell phones, tablet PC, One Laptop

per Child). It is possible to have different

implementations en different clients. 3) External

application independence. The architecture is

independent from the external applications that need

to be integrated with the LMS. 4) The possibility of

offline work on the mobile client application.

5 CONCLUSIONS

The evolution of the educational process and the

delivery of knowledge is bound to the technological

revolution. The existence of a current solution that

matches the current requirements is not enough,

because these requirements may change in the near

future, especially if we consider that we live a

rapidly-changing world. For this reasons it is

necessary to create new strategies to surpass the new

pedagogical challenges. Mobile technology

represents an opportunity in this direction. The SOA

architecture expands LMS services to many

scenarios and allows the integration of different

system, overcoming an inherent problem of many

WEBIST 2009 - 5th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies

current e-learning standards based on data exchange

(Vossen & Westerkamp 2008).

The architecture based on services we propose,

provides an infrastructure that can be used to

improve the learning process. It also tries to unify

several current approaches such as the integration of

external learning tools with LMS, and the

distribution of LMS services to the mobile scenario.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks also to Dr. Xavier Franch and our

researchers colleagues from the GESSI research

group in UPC. This work has been supported by the

Spanish project Education TIN2007-64753. Thanks

also to the GRupo de investigación en InterAcción y

eLearning members from the University of

Salamanca for their support. This work is partialy

supported by the KEOPS research project (TSI2005-

00960) from the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia,

and by the project SA056A07 from the Consejería

de Educación de la Junta de Castilla y León.

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APPLICATIONS OF SERVICE ORIENTED ARCHITECTURE FOR THE INTEGRATION OF LMS AND

m-LEARNING APPLICATIONS