FOLD in Public

Yesterday, I presented the work we are doing on this project as part of a one day conference at RAL on XML Access languages organised by XML UK and W3C UK.

Several other speakers mentioned the eXist Native XML database which underpins FOLD with enthusism and my session, the only one reporting on the user experience of these lanagauges and technologies when down well. Michael Kay talked about XSLT2 - his free Saxon engine will be incorporated into eXist when we next update the version ofthe software. Mark Birbeck from ( the developers of FormPlayer) talked about XForms persuasively and Andy Seaborne from HP Labs Semantic Web Group described SPARQL - a query langauge for RDF triples - an appraoch we had initially in mind for modelling organisational relationships.

Module Timetables

Access by students to module timetables - yes or no? Opinions vary but the little response I've had so far would indicate that access does more good than harm. This is especially so at the start of the academic year when timetables are being sorted out. At least students can see when the lecture is on. On the other hand, there are concerns that:

a) if students know when other tutorials are on, perhaps at a more convenient time, they will ask for a timetable change and this will overwhelm the timetablers, and in any case will usually be impossible.

b) students will be able to simply attend a more convenient tutorial without making a formal request to change and this will disrupt classes, especially if staff arnt quite sure who should be in the tutorial and who should not.

At present, I've adopted a rather weasly compromise - they are available in FOLD but not in the public StudentsOnline. This doesn't help anyone trying to figure out what to do from home of course. The main problem s that it doesnt provide a point at which to intervene with advice on our policy on tutorial changes. I'm planning to add the links to StudentsOnline but would welcome comments.

Earlier this year I started work on a wiki to address the general probloem of transparancy i.e who can see what data where. I'd like to resume this work.

Module Specifications on the UWE site

At long last, we have set up the mechanism to link the UWE CEREUS system to FOLD. When you search for module specifications on the UWE site, it will be using FOLD to supply the specification. At long last the need to provide word documents to ITS for conversion to HTML has gone.

The specifications on the UWE site are however not as informative as those on FOLD or studentsOnline, since for example there are no links to pre-requisite modules, but we have to conform to a standard. Use FOLD or StudentsOnline in preference.

Contributes to..

I've added a page in StudentsOnline to show the programmes which a given module contributes to, either as a core module or an optional module. The public studentsonline site is slowly acquiring much of the functionality of the FOLD intranet for readers, in a better designed interface we feel.

RSS feeds

I've added a couple of RSS feeds from FOLD - one for changes to Module Specifications, the other for changes to Programmes. Links to these can be found in the about page on studentsonline - thery have tobe here because RSS feeds must be publicly accessible to be readable by aggregators like Google Reader and Bloglines. Adding these feeds was straightforward - about 20 lines of XQuery for the module feed.

The basis of these feeds are EditEvents. Currently only ModuleSpecifications and Programme Structures have EditEvents, but the concept can to be applied more generally, so that changes in, say Organisational Structures - membership of schools for example, can also be RSSed. A more difficult case is that of the base programme data - this is currently in a spreadsheet but that format is creaking and we need to consolidate that data with descriptive data into a singel programme document, whence Edit trails can be added here too.

'Post-requisites'

Students and Staff need to be able to see the consequences of choosing a module. The Programme of Study checker in FOLD checks the choices made over a whole programme - it still needs some work before full release. However it should be possible to just reverse the pre-requisite relationship. So if you are looking at module X, which modules have Module X amongst their pre-requisites. Peter has now added this functionality to StudentsOnline.

Once more into the breach, dear friends

Thanks to the efforts of Peter, Julian and most of all Andrew Hart, Studentsonline has worked well over summer, option choice forms are, well perhaps 'flooding' is too strong, into the timetablers and there have been no howls of protest at the site.

We still have much to do, both in structure and content but Julian and Peter are pretty much up to speed on the system and software now. Peter Chapman is based in 2P50 as part of Claire's team, Julian Humphries in N-Block as part of Sandra's team, each taking prime responibility for content in their respective areas. Both will also be working on the development of the system.

Julian is currently working his way through the module specifications, tidying up the formatting (lists, tables) and helping Jon Algate enter Reading Strategies. In the process he is also adding ISBNs to books. This is to facilitate links to the UWE library and to Amazon for reviews and perhaps purchase. I'm wondering if we should participate in Amazon's affiliate scheme with the proceeds going to a selected charity- what do you think?

Peter is working on setting up the Events calendar for the new year. Let him know of any forthcoming events.

As we move towards induction, the public site (StudentsOnline)is getting most attention to ensure it can provide students with the relevant information. Alison Eastwood has been working on the glossary and FAQs for this site, so contact her if you have any input to this material. It is actually edited on a separate collaborative wiki, so you could also become a contributing editor - let me know.

We now have a number of staff (about 80 ) who have short biographies on the site now. I would like to encourage you all to write up something about yourself and your research interests. These might be coordinated through Heads of school or sent directly to fold@cems.uwe.ac.uk.