Kennisnet and EIfEL have the pleasure to invite to participate in the ePortfolio plugfest that will take place 17 october 2007 during the 5^th ePortfolio conference

Objectives

The objective of this Plugfest is to support the efforts of publishers and users of information systems in the creation and implementation of interoperable technologies for the benefits of learning individuals and learning organisations. In order to achieve this objective, during this day, publishers of ePortfolios and ePortfolio-related systems will demonstrate how their solutions support a series of scenarios and use cases requiring that different systems talk together. Users and implementers of technologies, the clients of those publishers will have the opportunity to explore real life scenarios, and challenge the publishers with their own requirements.

Participants

The prime participants of the Plugest are representatives of organisations that are looking for solutions to interoperability issues as well as those providing interoperability services:

• Solution providers and publishers – proprietary and open source, publishers and advanced users – who have developed a particular solution to a problem within an institution or a community

• Standardisation bodies – that are providing the building blocks for technical and semantic interoperability

• System engineers and architects - people in charge of information systems and ICT within organisations looking for solutions to interoperability issues in the implementation of ePortfolios and ePortfolio related technologies.

• Managers – from educational institutions, HR departments, employment agencies, etc. who want to understand what are the issues and the potential solutions to actual problems.

Outcomes

Based on the success and failures experienced during the day, recommendations to standardisation bodies will be published as well as guidelines for the implementation of standards for the publishers.

The publishers that participate in the Plugfest will receive a certificate recognising their contribution to interoperability.

Organisation

An open space is provided where the solution providers will organise their working space. Each working space will organise demonstrations, respond to questions and workout possible solutions to the questions raised by the participants.

At the beginning of the day, a series of USB keys with a set of reference data will be distributed to the participants who will be able to move from one space to another to explore the different scenarios and use cases. Participants will collect on the USB keys the evidence that the different solutions are able to exchange information.

Participants are free to move from one place to another, just like an 'open conference.'

In order to facilitate the participation for those users who wonder how to organise their day, a 'default' path / agenda will be provided, indicating a series of highlights covering the most important elements of interoperability.

Three main sections of the Plugfest

1. Conformance against IMS ePortfolio
2. Curriculum vitæ based ePortfolio (Europass - Europortfolio - HR-XML, hResume) 
3. Digital identity management (Liberty Alliance, HR-XML, OpenID)  

 

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Conformance against IMS ePortfolio

Possible scenarios proposed by Kennisnet.

In contrast to last years PlugFest the scenarios are written from the e-portfolio owner's perspective (Not the Portfolio System's perspective). Of course it is our intend that both the e-Portfolio owners and the e-Portfolio-system owners keep track of each scenario-step (both successful and erroneous) 

1.        Import the e-Portfolio into an e-Portfolio system 

2.        View the e-Portfolio content and see if there is information missing, changed or added
(the e-portfolio content provided by the PlugFest organization is described in a separate document on the memory stick)
(changes could be created by either the exporting or importing system) 

3.        Add some content to the e-portfolio 

4.        Change some of the e-portfolio content 

5.        Remove some of the e-portfolio content 

6.        Create some additional relationships between e-Portfolio parts in your e-Portfolio 

7.        Create an export of your e-Portfolio to a Memory Stick 

8.        Copy your e-Portfolio to the central Scenario computer for independent validation of the e-Portfolio conformance
(this is an optional step) 

9.        Repeat steps 1 to 8 for each e-Portfolio system available
(save each e-portfolio export as a separate e-Portfolio package using the "scenario_2" folder to avoid loss of information should one export or import corrupt the package) 

1.        Create your own e-Portfolio in a random e-Portfolio system
(enter some personal information, and optionally some products proofing a competency on a certain level) 

2.        Create an export of your e-Portfolio to a Memory Stick 

3.        Copy your e-Portfolio to the central Scenario computer for independent validation of the e-Portfolio conformance
(this is an optional step) 

4.        Import your e-Portfolio into another e-Portfolio system 

5.        View the e-Portfolio content and see if there is information missing, changed or added
(changes could be created by either the exporting or importing system) 

6.        Add some content to the e-portfolio 

7.        Change some of the e-portfolio content 

8.        Remove some of the e-portfolio content 

9.        Create some additional relationships between e-Portfolio parts in your e-Portfolio 

10.    Repeat steps 2 to 9 for each e-Portfolio system available
(save each e-portfolio export as a separate e-Portfolio package using the "scenario_1" folder to avoid loss of information should one export or import corrupt the package) 

1.        Create a public view of a sub-set of your e-Portfolio 

2.        View the public sub-set using a different user account
(try to find out if you can see all elements you selected for the sub-set -and no others-) 

3.        Try to change some of the element values
(which you should not be able to, since you're using a different account, unless you've granted the other account additional editorial rights). 

1.        Create link to, e.g. a VCARD file
(links to external information are tricky, since you are not sure what happens if that information should be unavailable for some time or even permanently delete or moved. The e-portfolio standard lacks rules concerning the necessary SLA for externally linked information. However a portfolio-system should provide an elegant way to deal with these situations.) 

2.        Rename the externally linked information
(do not rename the link itself.) 

3.        Look at the results in your own e-portfolio from different e-portfolio systems
(how does the e-portfolio system show the missing or changed links?) 

Participants

• EIfEL, FR
• Kennisnet, NL
• Synergetics, NL
• University of Newcastle, UK
• Winvision, NL

Other online services that could be used (conformance of these services regarding IMS ePortfolio have been tested at the 2006 ePortfolio Plugfest):

• PebblePad ePortfolio (IMS ePortfolio export)
• Giunti Learn eXact ePortfolio (IMS ePortfolio export)
  

Curriculum vitæ - Europass - Europortfolio - HR-XML   

Curriculum vitæ can be seen as the front page of an employment ePortfolio. Being able to export CVs from ePortfolios that can be read by employment agencies, job boards and employers will be critical for the take-up of ePortfolio in the industry. This raises 2 main issues:

• conformance of CV records against recognised industry standards
• control by the CV authors on the usage and update of the CV through digital identity management.

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Conformance against HR-XML Europortfolio / Europass CV standards

As chair of the HR-XML Europass CV working group, EIfEL has organised the work to provide an application profile for a CV that is conformant to the HR-XML industry standard, while providing the ability to be interoperable with other formats, such as Europass.

During the plugfest, ePortfolio solution providers as well as providers of technology for job boards and employers will be asked to demonstrate their ability to import and export CVs that are conformant to the Europortfolio standard.

All the providers that wil have demonstrated their conformance will be entitled to display the Europortfolio "Curriculum Vitæ Conformant" logo.

To ease this implementation EIfEL will provide according XSLs and a web-service to ease dynamic transformation to main CV and ePortfolio specifications (Cedefop Europass CV, German CV, iProfile, CV Universel, hResume, IMS LIP and ePortfolio) to this profile.

Interoperability scenarios/demonstrations

• Publication of ePortfolio CV from University system to EuroCV online CV repository, From UK to Europe -
  (Newcastle University, UK - EIfEL, FR - EuroCV.eu project - IT).
• Cross-interoperability bewteen CV based on XML Schemas (Cedefop schemas, HR-XML Europass CV application profile, German CV, iProfile, CV Universel) as well as other micro-format embedded in user public HTML webpage (hResume used in LinkedIn, proprietary micro-format used in Easycv.com) - 
  (EIfEL) 
• Using web-service to publish information from ePortfolio system to existing Europass CV in EuroCV system using web-service. 
  (EIfEL)
• Using hResume microformat operator plugin for Firefox to produce Europass CV (EIfEL, IBM)
  
• Organisational Team building on the basis of collected CVs in an ePortfolio package (EIfEL)
• Assessment of competency/ePortfolio
  (under reserved, EIfEL).

Participants

• EuroCV.eu project, IT
• EIfEL (CV Transformation web-service), FR
• Newcastle University (ePet ePortfolio), UK

Other online services that could be used:

• Cedefop Europass CV editor
• Eures (Cedefop Europass Export)
• LinkedIn.com (hResume support)
• Ziki.com (hResume support)

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Digital identity management

EIfEL is currently working with Liberty Alliance to define a protocol, based on SAML 2.0 to transport CVs and provide services such as anonymity and CV updates. During the plugfest we will explore how to transfer the outcomes of this activity to ePortfolio platforms.

Interoperability scenarios/demonstrations

• Federation of identities and Single Sign On based on Liberty Alliance or OpenID
  (EIfEL)
• CV User privacy support based on new draft Liberty Alliance HR ID-SIS (using Europass / Europortfolio CV HR-XML Application Profile)
  (Entr'Ouvert, Symlabs) 

Participants

• EIfEL FR
• Entr'Ouvert (Lasso library, Authentic IDP), FR
• Symlabs (Symlabs Federated Identity Suite, Zxid), PT

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Call for presentations and demonstrations (closed)

ePortfolio and HR platforms are invited to join the 3rd ePortfolio plugfest to demonstrate the solutions used for interoperability across institutions !

To participate, please contact marc.van.coillie@eife-l.org