Forum LAMS for Tech-Heads - General Forum: Re: Advice on accesing External Tool from LAMS

I would need the learner progress information: lesson, number of activities completed, etc. More or less the same information a tutor can watch in the monitor interface. I would like to have this information at individual level (for one single student) or cohort level (a group). Where exactly I can obtain this data?

My plan is to build an XML file with this information and pass this file to a web service. The external tool process this data depending on the service requested by the user.

So, if I have understood correctly the documentation, the interface where the LAMS' user visualize the info returned would belong to the Adapter (a wrapper type in this case)?

Another hesitation is whether I can use Tool Builder Pluging to develop the adapter (in case an adapter is needed for my purposes)

Thanks a lot Ernie,

Alicia.

Posted by Alicia Campos

The info you need regarding learners' progress is in lams_monitor and this information is not accessible by a tool.

LAMS tools are (almost) separate applications that get invoked and instantiated by LAMS Core when need be. However, lams_monitor (part of core) doesn't have an interface to share progress data with tool, as tools don't have a need for it.

Let me find out what the methods that you would need to use in lams_monitor to get the learner's progress details. You could expose this methods as web services and then query them from your other system to get the progress data.

> The external tool process this data depending on the service requested by the user.

You mentioned that you want the progress data sent to the external system and then this system would return data back to LAMS... what would that be?

Thanks,

Ernie

Posted by Ernie Ghiglione

The system I want to implement aims to produce "Learning Metrics" (statistics, graphics, etc.) and return this information to users in external LMS (such as LAMS, BlackBoard, my own OLE, etc.). This statistics and graphics are based on students learning progress retrieved from each LMS database.

So, a tutor within LAMS would be able to request the creation of "Learning Metrics" for a particular group of students. This would involve to obtain this information from LAMS, pass it to my "Learning Metrics Tool" through web services. Then, LM Tool would give statistics and graphics back to the user in LAMS. That's why I thought about implement an Adapter/Wrapper to provide the corresponding GUI and the functionality. Any advice on this?

Cheers!

Alicia.

Posted by Alicia Campos

If the aim of the stats and graphs are for tutors, perhaps this doesn't need to be a LAMS tool.

LAMS tools are primarily aimed at students and are activities for the students to do in a particular sequence.

Since your Learning Metrics system is aimed at tutors/teachers, perhaps is best to be added in the LAMS Monitor module, rather than trying to integrate it as a tool.

Does that make sense?

Ernie

Posted by Ernie Ghiglione

Yeap, it makes sense. But the idea is to develop this system once and make it available from external LMS (LAMS, Balcboard..) by using web services.

If I develop Learning Metrics System within LAMS, then I would have to develop the same functionality for other LMS as well (duplicate the work). The ideal for me, would be to provide in the LAMS Monitor a functionality to allow the user connect with the Leraning Metrics application, send learner progress data to it and receive metrics information.

Would it be possible to add a functionality in the Monitor that send information to my web services and receive statistics and graphics visualising them in the Monitor interface?

In case this is not possible, then I like the idea of exposing the methods getAllLearnersProgress(lessonID,userID) and getLearnerProgress(learnerID,lessonID) as web services.

Which would be the best approach?

Thanks, :)

Alicia.

Posted by Alicia Campos

> But the idea is to develop this system once and make it available from external LMS
> (LAMS, Balcboard..) by using web services.

Yes, that's the way to do it.

What I meant is that you would need to add the button that "pushes" the xml doc (or tells your the Learning Metrics System to get it) in LAMS monitor.

Thanks,

Ernie

Posted by Ernie Ghiglione

I like this idea more than anyone else. So I imagined an option B for the integration between LAMS and my Learning Metrics System.

I planned to add another tab in the Monitor interface (tab "Metrics", for instance), and implement the corresponding GUI.

Option B is attached. If this is not possible then, I would apply option C.

Many thanks for your advice.

Alicia.

Posted by Alicia Campos

> I planned to add another tab in the Monitor interface (tab "Metrics", for instance), and implement the corresponding GUI.

It makes perfect sense and it should be easy to do. If you don't want to do it in Flash, you can create a JSP page that pops-up once you click on a button on the monitor interface (similar to export portfolio for instance).

The JSP can be the one that talks to the Learning Metrics System and passes the XML and then displays the output that gets back from it.

Thanks,

Ernie

Posted by Ernie Ghiglione

I have attached a couple of pictures with possible options for the integration between LAMS and the Learning Metrics System.

The option A, is the plan I had at the begining. Then, when you suggested to me the possibility of exposing as web services the learner progress methods, we envisaged the option C.

What do you think? Is any of them possible according to LAMS architecture and Monitor implementation?

Hope this post hels to clear my purposes. :)

Cheers!

Alicia.

Posted by Alicia Campos

Posted by Alicia Campos

Posted by Ernie Ghiglione

When flash requests the progress information it makes a call to the backend which looks something like:

http://localhost:8080/lams/monitoring/monitoring.do?method=getAllLearnersProgress&lessonID=34

This returns a wddx packet (in the form of xml) that contains the progress information for all the learners that have started the lesson. I've attached a sample wddx packet to this thread (all_learners_progress.xml) so that you can see the structure of the response.

The two methods that will most likely be of interest are:

public String getAllLearnersProgress(Long lessonID, Integer userID)
public LearnerProgress getLearnerProgress(Integer learnerId, Long lessonId)

These are defined in MonitoringService.java under the lams_montoring project. The first one gets the progress for all started learners and second for an individual learner.

The LearnerProgress class is defined under the lams_common project.

Hope this helps!

Daniel

Posted by Daniel Carlier

Thanks a lot for this information. You've saved me lot of time going through the code. The sample of xml progress file that you attached is also very handy.


Thanks again! :)

Alicia.

Posted by Alicia Campos