Melbourne SUMs Workshop (Au & NZ)

4-5 October 2007

Preceding the  IDEA2007 is an Australian and New Zealand SUMs Workshop in Melbourne. This is an informal, by-invitation, workshop for those developing SUMs where we exchange ideas and plan the DEST and NZ Ministry of Education's e-Framework future directions.

At the  IDEA2007 e-Framework in Action afternoon we will be presenting some of what occurred during the preceding e-Framework workshop, as well as go into ePortfolio in some depth.

Sections:

1. Partner Priorities
2. Attendees
3. Meeting Notes
4. General Comments

Partner Priorities

Here are the partner priorities which we will discuss...

• Access management

• Enterprise architectures

• Repositories

• Student data

• Research data

• e-Portfolio

Attendees

Lyle Winton, DEST

Simon Porter, DEST

Kerry Blinco, DEST

Sandy Britain, MoE NZ

Grant Floyd, MoE NZ

Graham Leech, MoE NZ

Owen ONeill, eWorks

Suzanne Curyer, Education.au

Brenton Westley, DECS

David Levy, DEST

Nick Nicholas, PILIN & FRED

Chris Blackall, APSR

Meeting Notes

A gentle introduction to the e-Framework was presented, followed by a technical introduction to the e-Framework components, especially SUMs (Service Usage Models).

Chris Blackall identified a need: many SII projects coming to fruition. (Clever Collections will present some examples). It would be great if these projects could articulate their services interfaces in a common format. APSR need to document their REST interfaces.

NB: See Development - SUMs on this wiki for more information on all SUMs mentioned below.

e-Framework Components

People were interested in the relationship between Service Expressions (SEs) and SUMS. (Briefly discussed but we ran out of time to go into details.)

How do you document Service Expressions? Service Expressions document the service interfaces (often standards based) to the level at which you need interoperability. This includes: what are the standards, how do you create one or bind to it, are there non-functional constraints, what are the semantics of the input/output.

What comes first, SUMS or service expressions? No real answer, it depends.

At the moment, probably need to do both as companion documents, but as the e-Framework fills up, SUMS can refer to already existing service expressions.

"Workflow" (business process) was discussed. How do you bridge the abstraction - practicality divide? It was felt that this depends on the purpose of the SUM and how critical this is to interoperability. For some SUMs human process or service coordination might be critical.

How do we best present e-Framework components/documents/SUMs/SEs? We need to present for several audiences: Business Managers, Architects, Developers. The editorial group is beginning to address this.

How do we map implementations in the e-Framework or to e-Framework artefacts? It was felt this would be very useful. How do you know what you can just pull off the shelf or download and use? The e-Framework links off to "Known Uses" of expressions and SUMs but we don't document these as first class components. We expect people to be able to discover these from within the e-Framework. The e-Framework is looking collaborative tagging for something like this (see the discussion on a machine readable knowledgebase).

Domain models and mapping was discussed and their relationship to e-Framework components. It was agreed that this was important but something that needed to happen at a national level. Australia's approach is to allow the community to do it's own mapping using their own tools and reference this from the e-Framework components.

Simon demonstrated an approach to mapping the e-Framework against the TOGAF enterprise continuum.

e-Framework has to dove tail into your methodology. (it should not be perceived as top down) Creating the SUM itself as the user story. This is possible as a wiki page and the SUM can evolve with your thinking or your system. (Wiki templates for SUMs can be found under the Guides on the wiki.) We need some good examples. See the SUM Registry on the website and SUMs development on the wiki.

e-Framework Training

There was talk regarding the development e-Framework resources for the community. There is a 101 Guide in development by a small group of people but this is taking time. It was suggested that individuals produce guides, we collect a number of them and let the community them how they like. What I’ve learnt from the eframework. Personal perspectives, look for an authority to emerge. The feeling was just get it done, seek feedback, publish to time lines.

Good companions to the 101 Guide could be something like an e-Framework Blog. The Wiki plays part of this role, wiki notifications ("Watch Page" feature) and so does the SUM Talk list. However, answers to historical problems might be difficult to search for.

It would be good to have something on what should you look for in other peoples SUMS (for potential SUM creators).

The SUM Tutorial day (4 Jun 2007) was mentioned as a possible resource for training people in e-Framework development.

In order to make the most of future workshops it was thought we should capture the e-Framework workshop presentations as a pod/vod cast. This could be used with other resources (101 guide etc.) to introduce people to the e-Framework before coming to workshops. NZ would use a resource, as a way of backing up the promotion of e-Framework methodology into institutions. Developing this sort of resource should be put into a communications plan.

We discussed a training program for the e-Framework to introduce people and getting them up-to-speed as implementer/developers. This might consist of an introductory presentation (online vod-cast), a more in-depth technical tutorial (face 2 face), and informal workshops for implementers ("SUM Scrums").

Identity and Access Management

Viviani Paz, AAF, could not attend due to injury, however the  AAF animation was presented to begin with.

We discussed Identity and Access Management (IAM) activities in the e-Framework included:

• MAMS IAM SUM (Australia)

• has been around for a while

• the NZ MoE (Ministry of Education) IAM SUM focuses on evidence of identity and provisioning, and MAMS doesn't

• AAF Identity and Access Federation SUM (Australian Access Federation)

• we will be starting to document the federation from a more production implementation perspective

• focus on policy, procedure, levels of assurance

• should align better with NZ IAM SUM.

• UK Access Federation SUM is coming!

Could the eFramework be used to facilitate the adoption of access federation policies across country boundaries?

• Making connections without formal policies? Making connections by example?

• Working it out at the SUM level?

• Using SUMS to bridge language gaps in the access conversation.

• A trans-Tasman dialogue is possible (from IDEA 2007 it appears this is happening)

• It was thought that AAF is big science, needs to broaden out...

• A good thing to focus on in trans-Tasman collaboration.

Repositories

We talked about the Federated Repositories including the Australian FRED and LORN projects.

FRED SUM is a mapping of federated repositories problem space. How do you create federations and what services might you have in one.

LORN SUM - Five repositories in the federation ... a mini FRED. A sub project to this is called e-transactions ... being able to grant licences for the content. Almost at the point of being able to create a new SUM about this process. LORN itself has been in development for a couple of years. The LORN was developed in 2-3 days using Owen's knowledge and with e-Framework support and expertise. Originally, people were having a lot of trouble understanding each other. The e-Framework has helped in this area.

When can you create a SUM? How early in the project can you create a SUM? Owen: a lot of discussion/argument was needed before it was useful to get started.

The e-Framework SUM Repository itself is being proposed as a SUM.

Repository activity going on in NZ: NZ national digital archiving work

South Australia Schools (Brenton): Digital learning bank as a repository for learning objects. They are hitting issues for copy right. Would like a single point of access for all of the digital objects.

There is possibility of collaboration between LORN federation and SA, here.

There was mention of the Australian Science and Maths School. Two federations with with different rules, complex situation. (More information?)

Research Infrastructure

The PILIN SUM was presented (Australian identifier infrastructure). One of the motivations is to tracking research data. Initially planned just for Handle System infrastructure.

Possibly related (but not research) NZ have a national student identifier system which will map to proof of identity and access management SUM.

Other projects: LSE (London School of Economics) - they have issues of version control, derivative works; RIDIR (Hull) - have related business processes (in fact RIDIR have used PILIN use-cases)

Australian Annotations SUMs: Annocryst example is on the wiki. Is it possible to use sums to document interoperability between API on desktop applications? As a related issue many service interfaces are via local API to use the service. We need examples.

Research Project Information: Using the eFramework as a tool to argue for the use of research project information services. Based on the euroCRIS 2006CERIF data model.

Data and Collaboration: The Australian ARCHER SUM is under development.

ePortfolios

There are 2 JISC SUMs up on the wiki.

Most of the talk/information is about institutional based portfolios. There's lots of activity in the ePortfolio space. Are there non-institutional based portfolio systems? ePorfolios in the VET sector already exist. What happens when you get to QUT?

The EU have a skills passport. Should look into this.

South Australia have an initiative: future passport to a better future. Not to be implemented until july 2008

 http://www.futuresace.sa.gov.au

Suzanne (education.au) demonstrated their e-Portfolio system. Education.au is willing to help facilitate the development of ePortfolio SUMs. Looking at the development of both educational and professional development.

There may be a possible research use case, including evidence of funding and publications (Lyle).

General Comments

Further training resources are needed. We'll work on this and look into a more structure training program.

The NZ MoE will look into the NZ and AAF connection, with the UK in mind. We can do a SUM to document this.

Owen (eWorks/LORN/VET) might be able to do a SUM on student transfer.

Education.au is willing to help facilitate the development of ePortfolio SUMs.

Brenden will provide further contacts for the  Schools Interoperability Framework Association - SIFA.

The NZ MoE will follow up research connections in NZ.

Statements from attendees:

• e-Framework is a place to have discussions around infrastructure planning/development/operation.

• "The SUM Workshop was a very successful event. It expertly focused on the needs of the emerging interoperability practitioner community in Australia and New Zealand"

• "I need the e-Framework to achieve my professional goals—if not to remain passably sane."

• Without the e-Framework infrastructure initiatives would have to invent a similar framework, just to know what's going on internally.

• The e-Framework should be embed into current infrastructure activities.

• "As a shared ‘resource’, the e-Framework facilitates communication, saves time, ensures better outcomes and encourages innovation."

• Further meetings like this would be valuable. "SUM Scrums"! More of these brainstorming sessions. Perhaps just before clever collections in November?