MACE-CourseID Call Minutes July 07, 2003

MACE-CourseID Call July 7, 2003

*Attendees*
Grace Agnew, Rutgers
Keith Hazelton, U. Wisconsin
Stephen Carmody, Brown
David Bantz, Alaska
Scott Cantor, OSU
Art Vandenberg, GSU
Tom Barton, U. Chicago
Barry Ribbeck, UT-HSCH
Mark Jones, UT-HSCH
Renee Frost, Internet2
Jeanette Fielden, Internet2
Steve Olshansky, Internet2

*Discussion*
The charter was modified to use the phrase course data elements in place of identifiers since course identifier could be interpreted to be the value. Potential uses will be in it's own section on the web page. The charter was approved by group consensus.

The relationship between OKI and IMS is not completely understood. It would be helpful to have a better idea of what the interaction between the two organizations is.

For course data elements we are discussing the element itself not the data in the element. In most cases people will assign a course name, a date, etc. The concern is not if English 101 is the same as Basic English but just to map them into a course name.

The group agreed that the first set of deliverables with a target date of the Fall Internet2 Member Meeting is a general glossary, a mapped/graphed hierarchy of levels under course, and a scope defined by a set of three to four basic scenarios. Also want a draft data element or suite of data elements and the linkage into eduPerson as entitlement, affiliation, memberof or all above.

[AI] Tom and Keith will work on hierarchy and examine what IMS has said about it.
[AI] Grace will map across OKI, Stanford and IMS.
[AI] Grace will draft some scenarios.
[AI] Grace will draft an updated work plan and e-mail to list.
[AI] Renee will enter a request for courseID BoF.
[AI] Stephen Carmody will contact WebAssign.
[AI] Keith will check with Ken about WebCT, and contact Blackboard and Desire to Learn.
[AI] Grace will contact on Endeavor and Circe.

There was discussion over how to define course and what level of detail is appropriate. The vocabulary will be very important. In general it seems to be that a course is the abstract description spelled out in an official course listing, with a class being a time-defined instantiation of a course. A class has its own registry of students, instructor, date, etc. The individual classes vary according to different parameters, attributes. A section would be a particular listing of a course. For example, English 101, fall semester, with six sections. There is also the issue of how labs, recitations, lectures, seminars, and sessions will fit in. There are at least three levels in the hierarchy.

In the context of Shibboleth we're looking at authorization after authentication. You can limit access to resources across institutions based on a shared attribute. If we could map to what IMS as a standard and OKI as an example is describing then we're continuing to enable them. The end result would be equivalent to a multi-valued attribute that would intersect with eduPerson. It may be a whole object class of its own, eduCourse. The syntax for it would be defined in some subset of the IMS format.

This could be linked back to the individual/student through attributes in certain objects that do forward referencing. You need to have the relationship between people and objects in a couple of different places. There are a couple of options for that using eduPerson entitlements. Might have a course object that's something like a group with a lot of extra data plus attributes that go on a member object.

Registrars may think this is unnecessary replication of data in the Banner system. The reason for putting it in LDAP is so other systems can leverage it as well. We've talked about defining a set of LDAP attributes, how to represent a course in a directory and how to connect that to a student or faculty member. It's important to define how that's represented when it's sent over the wire as a SAML or Shib attribute or XML element that is a collection of attributes.

It was agreed that a BoF at the Fall Member meeting would be worthwhile. A questionnaire could be conducted in advance for people to answer what they're working on, who the best contact at their institution would be, and comments and concerns.
[AI] Renee will enter a request for courseID BoF.

Involving vendors in this would also be worthwhile. WebCT, Blackboard, and WebAssign were identified to contact. There are also a couple of companies in the e-Reserve space to talk with in particular Endeavor and Circe.
[AI] Stephen Carmody will contact WebAssign.
[AI] Keith will check with Ken about WebCT, and contact Blackboard and Desire to Learn.
[AI] Grace will contact on Endeavor and Circe.

The next call will be Monday July 21, 2003 at 1:30 EDT.