The

1

• The
• LearningOnline Network with CAPA
• (LON-CAPA)
• Gerd Kortemeyer,Wolfgang Bauer, Deborah Kashy,
  Edwin Kashy, Cheryl Speier
• Michigan State University

2
What is LON-CAPA?

• LON-CAPA stands for LearningOnline Network with a
  Computer-Assisted Personalized Approach.
• developed and implemented by a group of faculty
  and professionals
• provides instructors with a common, scalable
  platform to assist in all aspects of teaching a
  course, from lecture preparation to
  administration of homework assignments and exams
• Distributed Learning Content Management and
  Assessment System

3
Distributed

• LON-CAPA is built as a geographically distributed
  network of
• constantly
• connected servers

4
Distributed Domains

• The network is logically divided into domains
  such as MSU, FSU or Publisher X
• Domains limit the flow of user information
• Domains can limit access to content resources
• Domains limit the extent of user privileges

5
Distributed Users

• Users can log into any machines in the network
• Users can access courses/resources from anywhere
  on the network under one username
• Users can have roles and associated privileges
  for any resources, data, and functionality on the
  network

6
DistributedServer Types

• Two classes of servers access servers and
  library servers
• Access servers host user sessions processing
• Library servers every user and course has a home
  server in the network which holds all of their
  resources and data storage backend

7
DistrubutedLoad Balancing

• Access servers can have a list of spare access
  servers to offload sessions depending on own work
  load
• Additional round robin IP scheme possible
• MSU setup

msu.lon-capa.org
Round Robbin
s1
s3
s2
s4
Spares
Library Server
8
Distributed Dynamic Replication

• When a content resource is first requested, the
  access server finds the home library server of
  the author/owner, subscribes to the resource, and
  copies it in the background.
• When resource is modified on its library server,
  subscribed access servers are notified.
• Depending on last date of local access, the
  access servers copy the new version over, or
  delete local cached copy.

9
Learning Content Management

• Allows instructors to create educational
  materials and to share such learning resources
  with colleagues across departments and
  institutions
• All instructional content goes into
  cross-institutional shared repository and is
  cataloged
• LON-CAPA provides online tool, Resource Assembly
  Tool (RAT), to combine content into Custom
  Online Course Pack

10
Learning Content Management

• Pages can be constructed from fragments and other
  pages
• Sequences can be constructed from fragments,
  pages, and other
• sequences
• Courses point to (top-level) sequences
• Maps at every level are simply other content
  resources

11
Learning Content Management

• Graphical resource assembly tool (RAT) to
  construct maps
• Working on
• branching
• based on
• conditions using
• performance data,
• course data,
• and preferences
• Individualized
• curriculum

12
Content Management Handlers

• Every resource in the system, both content and
  system programs, is called by URL all resources
  can be bookmarked.
• Any resource can be processed on-the-fly while
  being delivered to the user.
• User calls for a resource, LON-CAPA finds
  appropriate chain of handlers, processes resource
  for desired target, and sends it out.
• Chain of handlers can also cover several
  transactions. Example user calls for URL, but
  needs to login first and then pick course.
• All handlers can interact with session environment

13
Content Management Document-driven processing

• Example user calls for sample.xml

sample.xml Uses my.style
my.style Defines tags for targets
triggers
loads
Target
XML Handler
Session Environment
Prefe- rences
User
14
Content Management XML/MathML/HTML

• XML handler provides rendering of XML and HTML to
  targets XML, HTML, MathML, and LaTeX
• Math rendering capability LaTeX can be inserted
  into HTML and XML documents between ltmgt and lt/mgt
  tags.
• lth1gtIdentitylt/h1gtltimg srccircle.gif
  alignrightgt
• The ltigtidentitylt/igt ltmgt\sin2(\omega t)
• \cos2(\omega t)1lt/mgt allows us to
• Math fragments are rendered into symbol fonts for
  target HTML, and MathML for MathML-capable
  browsers using a derivative of tth/ttm.

15
Content Management LaTeX

• LaTeX files can be directly put onto the file
  system, and will be automatically handled as if
  they had
• one large
• ltmgtlt/mgt
• around them

16
Individualized Assessment

• Individualized problems different numbers,
  different graphs, different options,
• Classical online homework types multiple
  choice, option response, mix-and-match, string,
  etc
• STEM types numerical, multicomponent
  numerical, physical units, symbolic math,
  individualized simulations
• Combination of the above types
• Adaptive immediate feedback
• Multiple attempts

17
Individualized Assessment

• Example Individualized graph, numerical answer

18
Individualized Assessment

• Example
• Individualized
• labels, options
  

19
Individualized Assessment

• Example Multicomponent numerical with
  individualized animation

20

• Some of the History

21
1992 CAPA

• Started by Ed Kashy et al. in Cyclotron
• Individualized assessment system for science and
  math
• Immediate feedback, multiple tries - mastery
  based
• Used paper copies of assignments and terminal
  input
• X-Windows problem editing
• Got Web student interface in 95

22
1997 LectureOnline

• Started by Wolfgang Bauer, Walt Benenson, Gary
  Westfall, and Gerd Kortemeyer in Cyclotron
• Learning content management and individualized
  assessment system for science and math
• Sharing of content between courses
• Completely web-based interface

23
1999 LON-CAPA

• The LearningOnline Network with CAPA
• Collaboration of CAPA and LectureOnline groups
• The best of both worlds
• Sharing of content between courses and
  institutions
• Reusability of content on different levels of
  granularity
• Distributed and Scalable

24

• Who are the users (at MSU)?

25
Who uses it? Students(It CAPA, LectureOnline,
LON-CAPA family)
26
Who uses it? Students
27
Who uses it? Courses
28
Who uses it? Faculty
29
How is it used?

• Material written by faculty teaching course or
  re-used from other faculty
• Homework in addition to traditional lecture and
  textbook
• Traditional lecture, homework and textbook
  online
• VU courses
• AP courses
• Prelab quizzes
• In-class exercises

30
LON-CAPA versus BlackBoard

• LON-CAPA has no licensing cost, BlackBoard does
  -)
• LON-CAPA is open-source GNU GPL, and can be
  adapted, enhanced, debugged, , BlackBoard cannot
  -)
• BlackBoard does have systems-support, lots of
  documentation, training material, , LON-CAPA
  does not -(

31
LON-CAPA versus BlackBoard

• LON-CAPA was initially developed primarily by
  STEM faculty for power users
• LON-CAPA makes the hard things possible, but
  currently does not yet make many easy things easy
• BlackBoard makes easy things easy, but leaves
  many hard things impossible

32
Faculty Perspective

• My problems are computational and not multiple
  choice, the types of grading mechanisms built
  into standard instructional delivery platforms
  (e.g., Blackboard) would not be sufficient for
  me.
• Professor Paul Rubin
• teaching MBA804

33
Faculty Perspective

• Although LON-CAPAs potential benefits as a
  distributed-network resource indexing system far
  outweigh what could be achieved by an off the
  shelf course management system (e.g., Blackboard,
  WebCT) it still needs considerable interface
  development and user testing
• LBS144 Professor
• Janet McCray Batzli
• Challenge keep hard things possible, make easy
  things easy

34
LON-CAPA versus BlackBoard

• Making the easy things easy Recently added
• Chatroom
• Document Upload (PowerPoint, Word, etc)
• Online Contextual Help
• Significant Documentation Effort
• User and Administrator Mailing List
• Easy RedHat 7.3 Installation
• 3-Command-Upgrade Sequence
• help.lon-capa.org

35
Chronicle of Higher EducationDecember 21, 2001

• BlackBoard is affordable for now
• (But) higher-education officials expect that
  courseware companies will raise their prices
  after creating a market for the software, and
  after seeing course-management systems become an
  indispensable part of the academic-computing
  infrastructure on most campuses.
• As the company integrates more functions into
  Blackboard, its executives anticipate signing
  many more "200,000-, 300,000-, and
  400,000-a-year relationships"

36
LON-CAPA vs. BlackBoard

• LON-CAPA runs on Linux (target for installs
  RedHat distribution)
• Apache webserver
• mod_perl for server-side handlers
• JavaScript for client-side functionality
• MySQL as database for metadata searches
• LaTeX, Gnuplot
• MuPAD for symbolic manipulations (planned)

37
Chronicle of Higher EducationDecember 21, 2001

• (And) whatever the current faults of WebCT and
  Blackboard, many academic
• administrators say they are preferable to
  homegrown systems.
• Princeton developed its own course-management
  system, beginning in 1997. Two years later, the
  university decided to abandon its homegrown
  system in favor of Blackboard. Why?

38
Chronicle of Higher EducationDecember 21, 2001

• "The problem with homegrown systems is you
  typically have one or two staff people who know
  how the system works, and those people might
  leave or decide to do something else," Mr.
  Goldstein Director of Academic Services,
  Princeton says.
• Problem
• one or two staff people
• Solution
• Collaboration with other institutions
• Workshops
• Conferences
• Investment in documentation, etc

39
SummaryWhy do it?

• Solid, scalable platform
• Easily expandable
• Customizable
• The hard things are done
• Control over codebase
• Standard open-source tools and libraries
• Independence
• No licensing fee for both application and
  operating system
• Forming academic consortium
• Linux model of sustainability

40
The Project

• Investigation of a Model for Online Resource
  Creation and Sharing in Education Settings
• Uses LON-CAPA as model system
• Five year project, funded by the National Science
  Foundation Information Technology Research Program

41
The Project Research Goals

• Open source code development concept for
  Instructional Management System
• Pooling online educational resources between
  departments, colleges, universities and schools
• Business models for trading such resources on
  small level of granularity
• Metrics for resource quality and effectiveness
• Curriculum adaptivity to learner types and
  remediation needs

42
The Project Pilot Users, Boards

• Pilot users 6 high schools, 2 community
  colleges, 1 four year college, 12 universities
• Business advisory board McGraw-Hill, Saunders,
  Wiley, Freeman/Worth, Dell, RedHat, Apex
  Learning, university representatives
• Three member Evaluation Board
• Four high school teachers in Research Experience
  for Teachers (RET) supplement

43
The Project National STEM Digital Library

• Supplement to cross-integrate LON-CAPA with NSF
  National STEM Digital Library
• NSDL available to LON-CAPA as content domain
• LON-CAPA resource pool available in NSDL as
  associated library
• LON-CAPA can be used as course delivery tool for
  NSDL content

44
The Project Status

• Started October 2000
• First user meetings with 50 faculty from other
  universities at MSU
• Second user meeting at Florida State University
  with 56 faculty from 22 institutions
• Next user meeting at Truckee Meadows Community
  College, Reno
• Programmer Workshops at MSU in Summer

45
Status Installations

• High Schools
• Mio AuSable High School - Mio, Michigan
• Charlotte High School - Charlotte, Michigan
• Fowlerville High School - Fowlerville. Michigan
• Theodore Roosevelt High School - Wyandotte,
  Michigan
• Community Colleges
• Westshore Community College - Scottsville,
  Michigan
• Truckee Meadows Community College - Reno, Nevada

46
Status Installations

• Universities (department level)
• Ohio University at Athens - Athens, Ohio
• SUNY Stony Brook - Stony Brook, New York
• Florida State University - Tallahassee, Florida
• University of Massachusetts at Amherst - Amherst,
  Massachusetts
• Michigan State University, various departments -
  East Lansing, Michigan
• Outside United States
• Simon Fraser University - Vancouver, Canada
• University of Halle - Halle, Germany
• University of Oldenberg - Oldenberg, Germany

47
Installations in Progress

• University of North Carolina at Greensboro -
  Greensboro, North Carolina
• University of Michigan, ITCS - Ann Arbor, MI
• Eotvos Lorand University - Budapest, Hungary
• Dakar University - Dakar, Senegal
• George Washington University - Washington, D.C.
• University of South Carolina -Columbia, South
  Carolina

48
On the web ...

• www.lon-capa.org
• korte_at_lon-capa.org
• WANTED
• Collaborators

49
Network Architecture Distribution

• LON-CAPA is build as a geographically distributed
  network of
• constantly
• connected servers

50
Network Architecture Domains

• The network is logically divided into domains
  such as MSU, FSU or Publisher X
• Domains limit the flow of user information
• Domains can limit access to content resources
• Domains limit the extent of user privileges

51
The Tool Coding Environment

• LON-CAPA runs on Linux (target for installs
  RedHat distribution)
• Apache webserver
• mod_perl for server-side handlers
• JavaScript for client-side functionality
• MySQL as database for metadata searches
• MuPAD for symbolic manipulations (planned)

52
LON-CAPA vs. BlackBoard
53
Network Architecture Server Types

• Two classes of servers access servers and
  library servers
• Access servers host user sessions processing
• Library servers every user and course has a home
  server in the network which holds all of their
  resources and data storage backend

54
Network Architecture Load Balancing

• Access servers can have a list of spare access
  servers to offload sessions depending on own work
  load
• Additional round robbin IP scheme possible
• MSU setup

msu.lon-capa.org
Round Robbin
s1
s3
s2
s4
Spares
Library Server
55
Network Architecture Dynamic Replication

• When a content resource is first requested, the
  access server finds the home library server of
  the author/owner, subscribes to the resource, and
  copies it in the background.
• When resource is modified on its library server,
  subscribed access servers are notified.
• Depending on last date of local access, the
  access servers copy the new version over, or
  delete local cached copy.

56
Resources Handlers

• Every resource in the system, both content and
  system programs, is called by URL all resources
  can be bookmarked.
• Any resource can be processed on-the-fly while
  being delivered to the user.
• User calls for a resource, LON-CAPA finds
  appropriate chain of handlers, processes resource
  for desired target, and sends it out.
• Chain of handlers can also cover several
  transactions. Example user calls for URL, but
  needs to login first and then pick course.
• All handlers can interact with session environment

57
Resources Document-driven processing

• Example user calls for sample.xml

sample.xml Uses my.style
my.style Defines tags for targets
triggers
loads
Target
XML Handler
Session Environment
Prefe- rences
User
58
Resources XML/MathML/HTML

• XML handler provides rendering of XML and HTML to
  targets XML, HTML, MathML, and LaTeX
• Math rendering capability LaTeX can be inserted
  into HTML and XML documents between ltmgt and lt/mgt
  tags.
• lth1gtIdentitylt/h1gtltimg srccircle.gif
  alignrightgt
• The ltigtidentitylt/igt ltmgt\sin2(\omega t)
• \cos2(\omega t)1lt/mgt allows us to
• Math fragments are rendered into symbol fonts for
  target HTML, and MathML for MathML-capable
  browsers using a derivative of tth/ttm.

59
Resources LaTeX

• LaTeX files can be directly put onto the file
  system, and will be automatically handled as if
  they had
• one large
• ltmgtlt/mgt
• around them

60
Resources Assessments

• Personalized by course, user, and instance.
• Assessments are XML documents.
• Converters for both CAPA and LectureOnline
  problems exist (functionality superset).
• Web-based form editor for these XML documents
  will be provided similar to LectureOnline.
• Code segments within numerical type problems are
  written in Perl.
• Other problem types need no coding.

61
Resources Publication

• Authors have a construction space (private) to
  edit their resources
• Authors can publish their resources into the
  public resource space
• Triggers several actions generation of a new
  version (keeping all old versions), collection of
  metadata for cataloging, notification of all
  subscribed access servers.

Publication Step
Construction Space
Resource Space
Metadata
62
Resources Metadata

• Metadata is collected for every resource at
  publication time
• Publication
• handler
• identifies
• possible
• keywords,
• gets default
• data

63
Resources Granularity

• LON-CAPA RAT allows to dynamically combine
  content resources at several levels of
  granularity by reference
• Lowest level fragments. One GIF, one paragraph
  of text, one applet, one problem
• Next level Pages
• Next level Sequences of pages
• Top-level Maps for Courses (sequences)

64
Resources Adaptivity

• Graphical resource assembly tool (RAT) to
  construct maps
• Allows for
• branching
• based on
• conditions using
• performance data,
• course data,
• and preferences
• Individualized
• curriculum

65
Data Structure Users

• Courses are assigned to users, not vice versa
• Users keep their login, data, preferences, etc,
  throughout complete tenure
• Users assume a set of (temporary) roles over
  their tenure

66
Data Structure Privileges

• Each role has a set of privileges
• Privileges on
• system, domain,
• and course level
• Allows for
• course-
• coordinator
• defined custom
• roles

67
Data Structure Courses

• Internally, courses are handled like users
  without login privileges
• Each course has a unique ID, no semester
  transition
• Course points to its top-level resource map
• Deadlines, spreadsheets, etc, can be associated
  with the course
• Sections are part of course
• Homework and quiz performance data is associated
  with user by course

68
Data Structure Authentication

• Course lists in CSV, tab-separated, and space
  separated format can be uploaded (planned XML)
• It is checked if the user already exists if not,
  new user is established on one of the library
  servers of the domain
• Role of student in that course is added
• Users are authenticated by their home server.
  Authentication can currently be internal, UNIX,
  or Kerberos. Authentication modular, other modes
  can be added
• All authentication information is 56-bit (DES)
  encrypted between client and server, and 128-bit
  (IDEA) between servers. No certificates necessary.

69
Data Structure Resource parameters

• Deadlines, open dates, publish-answer dates,
  maximum number of attempts, weight of problem
  parts, etc, can be independently set for courses,
  sections and individual students
• Can cover all
• resources, one
• map, or only
• one resource
• Resources
• publish their
• parameters in
• metadata, no
• predefined set
• of parameters

70
Data Structure Locking, Offline

• To use LON-CAPA for exams, locking mechanisms
  will be established access to resources, all
  communication can be locked (planned,
  infrastructure in place)
• Role of Exam Proctor in system
• To facilitate paper based exams in offline mode,
  individualized exam sheets can be printed and
  checked out bar code on top of page to check
  in grades for that exam (planned, infrastructure
  in place)

71
Data Structure Assessment data

• Only raw data is stored
• All attempts are stored
• Data is stored in non-randomized form to allow
  for item analysis
• LON-CAPA provides
• spreadsheet functionality
• with sheets at
• assessment, user, and
• course level (exporting
• into each other) to
• calculate grades and
• statistics

72
On the web ...

• www.lon-capa.org
• korte_at_lon-capa.org