AnaXagora: a step forward in e-learning - CiteSeerX

AnaXagora: a step forward in e-learning Sandrine Reiter, Jessica Kohlbecker, Marie-Laure Watrinet Public Research Centre Henri Tudor, Luxembourg [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Abstract: Several e-learning platforms have already been developed, but thanks to different research projects and e-learning surveys conducted in Luxembourg, we have observed that they do not always fulfill companies’ needs. Indeed, they want their employees to develop competencies linked to their specific business domain and to capitalize their knowledge. Moreover, SMEs cannot always afford to invest in a learning management system. On the basis of those observations, we have developed Anaxagora, a new e-learning platform that can support organizational learning. In fact, it is a platform integrating four different modules: the Business Process Modeling module gives the possibility to represent an organization’s processes graphically, the Human Resources module allows to manage competencies, e-learning trainings can be followed via the Learning Management System, and in the Knowledge Management module, one can capitalize on the information coming from all the modules and add other useful information and documents. In order to be able to adapt the platform easily and develop new functionalities according to an organization’s needs, AnaXagora platform is open source. This also gives the possibility for companies to invest in the training contents rather than in a platform itself. In the first part, we present the development context of the platform. A detailed presentation of AnaXagora, as well as an example of its use is proposed in the second part of our paper, and in the third part, we will end up explaining AnaXagora developments new orientations, and more particularly the platform architecture adaptation into a service-oriented architecture and the integration of a computer-based testing module to AnaXagora. Keywords: Learning management system, knowledge and competencies management, business process modelling, organizational learning, e-learning.

1. Introduction E-learning trainings can require an important financial investment and the existing solutions are not always adapted to some of the market’s real needs. Those reasons have been identified through elearnig surveys we have conducted, to justify the lack of use of e-learning trainings in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), especially in Luxembourg. Indeed, companies require tools that would give their employees the opportunity to develop competencies related to their specific business domain. For instance, they want to link the trainings they design directly to their business processes. Taking this consideration into account, AnaXagora, an open source platform giving the possibility to manage knowledge and competencies, to model business processes and follow e-learning courses, has been developed to provide a relevant answer to companies’ needs. This article aims at presenting the solution AnaXagora proposes. In this perspective, the first part of this paper will focus on the evolution from a Learning Management System (LMS) to a learning global system. After we have presented AnaXagora components and an application case in the second part, we will conclude by tackling AnaXagora current evolutions.

2. From an LMS to an organizational learning support platform In the last few years, several e-learning platforms have been developed, as we can see in a study realized by two French e-learning consulting companies, Aska and KLR, and a French e-training exchange community, Le Préau (Aska, Le Préau, KLR.fr, 2000). Among the different platforms, we can mention SABA (Saba, 1997) and WBT Manager (WBT Systems, 1995), which are proprietary solutions or Dokeos (Dokeos, 2004) and Ganesha (Anemalab, 2001), open source solutions. In 2002, the Research Centre Henri Tudor started a European project called Itema (Bucciarelli et al, 2004), aiming at developing an e-learning project management course. The objective was not to develop a new platform, which could already exist, but to add new functionalities useful to this project and focus on the course content. In order to find an existing LMS platform corresponding to the project needs, an internal platform benchmark was realized. The required functionalities were the possibility to access and publish a course, to track students’ results, and to propose tutoring and communications. To avoid expensive license fees and facilitate reusability, developments were based on an open source platform (Bonaccorsi and Rossi, 2003). Ganesha 1.2 was chosen as its functionalities were

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close to what we were looking for and were a good basis for further developments. Indeed, the following modifications were realized on Ganesha: the user database was improved, a course navigation menu was added, the user interface was graphically reshaped, and course templates were developed in order to facilitate courses development. One of those templates enabled the creation of an opened question exercise; the learner can send his answer directly to his tutor via the platform and the latter will give him a personalized feedback. In the meantime, new functionalities, such as the possibility to design a personalized learning path based on the learner’s needs were developed. In order to enable a flexible profile and right management, a new service oriented user’s rights system was also implemented. Moreover, to allow interoperability, accessibility and reusability of web-based learning content, compliance to the Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) (Jones, 2002) standard has also been implemented. In 2003 and 2004, e-learning surveys conducted within Luxembourg companies (Ant et al, 2005) showed a weak use rate of e-learning within SMEs (small and medium sized enterprises) whereas it was more implemented in bigger companies. One of the main reasons arising from the study, concerning companies’ curbs to turn to e-learning was the inadequacy of existing software solutions to SMEs requirements, and particularly the lack of specific solutions. Indeed, the Educational and Cultural General Direction report (European Commission, 2005) of the European Commission proposes, “the professionals – suppliers of e-learning – should offer innovating solution meeting the specific needs for SMEs”. In fact, most of the existing LMSs are oriented towards a traditional instructional method. However, e-learning, which implies an active involvement of the learner in his training, should be more business process oriented, and closer to employees’ activities. To follow this orientation, appropriate tools are needed, as a regular e-learning platform is not enough to achieve those requirements and to be an efficient tool that could support organizational learning. As specified in the previous report, “learning is integrated in knowledge management, knowledge sharing and change management”. KM tools flourish on the market and companies are more and more interested in knowledge management. Indeed, “new KM approaches are made possible by advances in information management and technology. Examples include groupware for collaborative work, knowledge encoding for knowledge bases, performance support systems, natural language understanding, and advanced search engines” (Wiig, 2000). Based on all these observations, other modules of the AnaXagora platform have been developed, giving the possibility to model business processes, manage competences and capitalize collaborator’s knowledge. Tools dealing with those different issues, but individually, already exist (we can mention for instance Apes, a process engineering software (IP Squad, 2003), Brainbench, an employment testing solution (Brainbench, 1998) and Easy KM, a knowledge base (eliKya, 2001). However, the advantage of the proposed solution is that all these tools are combined in one global and unique platform. To our knowledge, up to now, this type of solution has not been proposed.

3. AnaXagora components In order to meet the requirements mentioned previously, four modules are integrated within the Anaxagora platform, and linked so that information can be exchanged between them. As we can see on Figure 1, these modules are the following: - “Anaxagora BPM” which allows work process modelling, - “Anaxagora HR” which is oriented towards skills management - “Anaxagora LMS” which is the initial LMS platform - “Anaxagora KM” which allows capitalization and improvement of work practices

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Figure 1: AnaXagora platform To use these modules in an efficient way, one can start to model a business process. A process can be defined as ‘a naturally occurring or designed sequence of operations or events, possibly taking up time, space, expertise or other resource, which produces some outcome’ (Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia). Indeed, in the BPM module, one has the possibility to represent graphically a frame of reference, composed of different processes. A process is built up of a sequence of activities and a role is assigned to each one of them. Roles are responsible for their activities. Documents can also be enclosed in input and output of each activity. To be able to execute processes directly in a workflow engine, they are described using the XML Process Definition Language (The Worflow Management Coalition Specification, 2001). Those different elements can be graphically represented in two ways in the BPM module. Firstly, by an activity diagram, which shows the sequence of activities, and secondly by a flow chart, which shows each role’s responsibilities on the different activities and which documents are in input and output. For those graphs to be reused easily, they were to be compliant to widespread standards. Moreover, we wanted to base the developments of the BPM module on an existing open source tool that fulfilled our functional requirements (drag&drop, colors, zoom…), not to redevelop entirely something that was already existing, but rather to adapt a tool to our specific needs. That is why we chose the BPM tool APES (IP Squad, 2003), which is SPEM (Software Process Engineering MetaModel) compliant, SPEM being a process graphical representation standard (Object Management Group, 2005). The model used was adapted to be ISO 15504 compliant as well, which is the first time for a BPM tool. ISO 15504 is a norm for processes evaluation, defining a set of requirements for the definition, the evaluation and the improvement of processes. We considered using ARIS (IDS SCHEER, 2005) or UML (Object Management Group, 2005), but ARIS was not adapted to represent all the concepts in a limited number of diagrams, and UML formalism did not fit, as it is originally made for software development rather than for process modelling. In order to carry out an activity, a role needs some competences, that is skills required to properly perform a specific task. Those competences are defined within the HR module. In this module, each line of business has several jobs, which have assigned competences. So, one can see what competences are required for a particular job and one’s own competences can also be evaluated. Thanks to this link existing in AnaXagora between courses and competences needed for an activity, trainings are business oriented. The competences referenced in the HR module can be acquired via the LMS module, which is the elearning platform previously developed on the basis of Ganesha. It gives learners the possibility to follow online courses, teachers to support and help learners in their progression through a course, and authors to manage the course content. To have the possibility to associate a specific competence to a part of a course learners could follow to develop it, we chose to use HR-XML, a standard giving the possibility to exchange human resources data (Allen and Pilot, 2001). In order to associate courses parts to competences, we have used the metadata mechanism, which gives the possibility to enrich the XML with additional data.

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In the KM module, one can capitalize on the information coming from the BPM, HR and LMS modules. Indeed, one can visualise the frame of reference that has been created in the BPM, the competences needed for each role, the courses available… But there is also the possibility to add other information, like strategic and business objectives to the different processes or typologies for instance. Within the KM module, one can also share information (best practices, return of experience, tools…) on business processes and on a particular company’s activities. This is a very important aspect, as problem solving in collaboration becomes the main activity producing value in companies (Forum Français pour la Formation Ouverte et à Distance, 2002). All information contained in the KM module should be ideally interoperable with other applications in any company. That is why the ontology of the KM module is represented according to the RDF (Resource Description Framework) model, which is a widespread general framework to describe any Internet resource. RDF fulfils the main requirements for any format used to exchange data; it has ‘universal expressive power, supports syntactic and semantic interoperability’ (Decker et al, 2000).

To illustrate how Anaxagora functionalities can be used, we can take the example of risk management (Figure 2). The risk management process is graphically represented in the BPM module 1. One of the process activities is called risk evaluation 2. The risk manager is responsible for it and one of the output documents is the risk catalogue. The competences required by the risk manager are defined in the HR module 3. A collaborator can then evaluate himself 4. The competences he has already acquired can be capitalized in the KM module, where he can also make available some personal documents for his colleagues 5. And for the competences still to acquire, he can follow corresponding training modules in the LMS 6.

Figure 2: AnaXagora use example To sum up, there are two different ways to learn with the AnaXagora platform, via the LMS, but also via the KM module, in which collaborators’ knowledge can be capitalized. This idea of capitalization implies sharing knowledge, which is one of the strategies leading to a learning organization. That is why we do not talk about teaching or training, but rather about active learning. Indeed, King (2001) says that in an organizational learning strategy, andragogy rather than pedagogy should be emphasized, as one of andragogy characteristics is that the learner is self-directing. Each of the open-source modules is currently a complete application in itself, as they were developed separately by reusing and enriching existing open-source components. The aim is now to delimit the functionalities of the four modules in services, so that the services from one module will be available in the other ones as well.

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4. Current evolutions As we have seen up to now, starting from an LMS, Anaxagora Platform has extended to a more complex paradigm, which aims at integrating the training process within a more global learning process in an organization, i.e. organizational learning. However, this evolution has been done by combining different existing open-source applications, which result sometimes in some incoherence or real different view depending on the application you rely on. So, one of the major drawbacks of the Anaxagora platform is its lack of coherence. It can be stated that most of the time incoherence within an application is seen by end-users as a real usability problem (Bastien, J.M.C. and Scapin, D.L., 1992; Scapin, D.L. and Bastien, J.M.C, 1997). Another point that has also been noticed by the different users of the platform is the lack of flexibility of the user interface. As one of the goals of the platform is to be integrated within any organization, the possibility to adapt, at least, the interface to its own graphic charter (logos, colours...) should be given. Added to it, we can also consider users’ preferences and take them into account by allowing them to personalize their own work environment (Nielsen J. 1993). Considering the current developments made on Anaxagora, this personalization could only be done after new development phases and not simply by the end-user (using preferences for example). This drawback may result on a low usage of the platform. On the development side, relying on several applications could also be a problem, as it means maintaining several applications, with several technologies, which do not evolve in the same way or at the same time. Once again, being coherent within the developments and allowing easy evolutions are major assets of an application deployment. In order to maximize the user’s satisfaction, as well as to minimize the development cost, we have then to find the right balance between client needs and development investment. This concept is not really new but is more and more supported by the new technology that came up these last years, and more precisely through the concept of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA). This concept, which is, according to BEA systems, in the way to become the main technology issue in the IT market (BEA Systems, Inc., 2006), aims at defining the use of services to support software user’s requirements. The main idea is to define each consumer’s needs by the mean of a service, which will then be delivered by the application. It has been observed that most people consider that ‘SOA is a standards-based organizational and design methodology that aligns IT with business using a collection of shared resources’ (BEA Systems, Inc., 2006) The concept of SOA is linked to the user-centered design (UCD) approach, as it focuses on the services that users need and build the application according to these services. UCD principle is to involve users in the design decision process of the application and to understand their needs (services) and to address them in the required way (Preece and al., 1994). The idea underlying the use of SOA in a user-centered design is to develop a common architecture as flexible as possible that will allow the addition of any needed services at any time. This introduces a large flexibility within the development and the ability to modify the application at low cost. On the basis of these considerations, AnaXagora platform development efforts are now concentrated on implementing a Service-Oriented Architecture and rely on a four layer architecture (Figure 3).

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Figure 3: AnaXagora Service-Oriented Architecture

The first layer, on which all the application is built, is the database layer. Considering the fact that the platform should be compliant with the General Public License (GPL) (Free Software Foundation, Inc., 1991) this database is implemented using PostGresSQL, one of the main open-source solutions existing so far (Gilfillan, I., 2005). As each module of Anaxagora platform is not especially useful to every organization, the database will be partition, in order to allow the deployment of each module either as a single application, or in a more global approach. For instance, one can choose to have only the BPM module, which does not require to have the LMS database part. In order to access the previous database on demand, several libraries are then developed on demand. These libraries are integrated into a second layer (libraries layer), which role is to allow communication between the several concepts managed by the platform and the database. At this stage, we can find typical libraries, like user right management, preferences management, language management… If we take the case of language management, this could be useful for a user to choose his own navigation language depending on his own mother tongue, for example. Moreover, this functionality could be extended to more complex cases, like for example the adaptation to the organization vocabulary. Let’s take an example; in the actual BPM module we have used a vocabulary which is adapted to our organization and that is well known by each of our collaborator. For instance, we state that a frame of reference is made up of processes, which are themselves proposing activities. However, according to other models, what we call processes could be identified as activities and what are for us activities can be known as tasks. Allowing such vocabulary adaptation will then offer a better integration of the platform within a given organization. Each of the common libraries identified in this second layer will be developed in the same idea and so, keeping in mind that each case is specific, but should be able to be integrated within the AnaXagora Platform. Following this idea of specific adaptation, the third layer is made of all the services that organizations will need or ask for. These services are identified either for one of the specific module, or common to several modules. Services should also focus on needed exchanges between the different modules. Some of these services already exist in the current Anaxagora version and will be reused as they are,

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S. Reiter, J. Kohlbecker, M-L. Watrinet like for instance the course consultation service in the LMS module, or the user rights management. Some others will be adapted to reflect the new orientation of the platform, this is the case for instance of the forum, the chat or the planning. Finally, some others will be added to fulfil new needs, like for instance the possibility to add computer-based assessment in order to evaluate the competencies development needs of a given user (Dösinger, G., Albert, D. 2005). Using the Service-Oriented Architecture allows us to plug in, to the platform, these new services, on demand, with a minimum of development investments. If we come back to the example of the computer-based assessment, we intend to use an already existing tool, which is currently being developed at the Public Research Centre Henri Tudor: TAO (Martin R. and al. 2005). Deploying the platform within an organization requires to choose the adapted services for this organization and to install only the corresponding part. For instance, for a given organization, only the LMS could be useful, whereas for another one the entire services linking BPM/LMS/HR management and KM will be used. Each of the services will then be accessible through a unique portal, which represents the last layer: Anaxagora Portal. This portal aims at presenting a unique view of all available services within a given organization, respecting its own characteristics (its own graphical charter for instance). This portal is developed using a rich client software, i.e. an application running on the client station and which can communicate via the network with a server using an API interface. The server is then able to rapidly and securely transfer data between customers and distant databases. Rich client technology is presented as a tool that “capitalizes on the strengths of both web and desktop applications” (Noda, T., Helwig, S., 2005). As “Web Services and SOA enable presentation layers to be completely independent from business logic layers”, (Noda, T., Helwig, S., 2005) the use of a rich client is a good way to finalize a SOA architecture. Through this portal, individual users will also be able to personalize their application within the predefined framework of the organization. This personalization can concern the graphical interface (change color, font, position of the different content…) as well as the content itself. Within the predefined services available in the organization, we can imagine that one specific user will choose only part of them, which are directly linked to his own activities within the company. These new evolutions are currently being developed. The next release of the platform will present the same functionalities as currently existing, as well as new ones, but integrated within the presented layer structure.

5. Conclusion One of the objective of AnaXagora platform is to provide an answer to companies needs to link their business processes to their employees training and to capitalize on their knowledge. The flexibility of the platform allows them to adapt AnaXagora to their different jobs. They can then rely on this tool to implement an organizational learning process within the organization. Moreover, as it is an open source solution, they can acquire the platform at no cost and concentrate on the investment of their core business and associated learning content instead. AnaXagora is currently experimented within different companies and universities within the context of national and European projects. Feedbacks of these companies gave and still contribute to the current development orientations. Indeed, the Service-Oriented Architecture that is being developed will give them more flexibility in their use of the platform. It will then be possible to adapt it to their particular needs. In addition to this, computer-assisted testing services will be added as well, to give the possibility to design adaptive tests that will evaluate competencies within AnaXagora. E-learning is evolving and needs to adapt more easily to organizations requirements for its use to increase. Through the association of its different modules, AnaXagora can be a first step towards that evolution.

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