Electronic Resources in the Virtual Learning

particularly important in the e-commerce sector; however, they have also
been investigated by the JISC-funded project, Digital Certificate
Operation in a Complex Environment (DCOCE)
28
based at the
University of Oxford.
Access management and VLEs
Access to virtual learning environments is typically integrated with
student records systems and network usernames and passwords, so for
example students would gain access to WebCT using their network user
name and password. This area has been much enhanced by the
development of standards.
LDAP is another standard that you will hear mentioned in the context
of VLEs. It stands for Lightweight Directory Access Protocol and is an
Internet protocol that e-mail programs use to look up contact
information from a server. This standard has a number of functions,
including allowing an organisation to keep an up-to-date e-mail
directory. Software companies such as Microsoft, IBM, Lotus and
Netscape adopted this standard. LDAP servers also provide
‘authentication’ services, so that web, e-mail and file-sharing servers, for
example, can use a single list of authorised users and passwords. By
using LDAP, a university can ensure that network usernames and
passwords remain synchronised.
Conclusion
This chapter has looked at many technical standards and specifications
associated with electronic resources and virtual learning environments. It
is designed to provide a very brief overview of many of the major
concepts and standards, therefore the further reading suggested at the
end of the book is particularly useful in this chapter. It is inevitable that
library databases and e-learning systems contain data in incompatible
formats. Therefore one of the most time-consuming challenges for
developers has been to exchange data between such systems over the
Internet, and standards that allow interoperability are an extremely
important goal for the librarian, the learning technologist and the
systems engineer.
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Notes
1.
See: http://dublincore.org/
2.
See: http://dublincore.org/about/
3.
More information is available at: http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/
4.
See: http://www.koha.org/
5.
See: http://www.greenstone.org/
6.
See: http://public.ibiblio.org/gsdl/cgi-bin/library?a=p&p=about&c=gberg
7.
See: http://vidya-mapak.ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/cgi-bin/library
8.
See: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/greenstone/frameset.html
9.
See: http://dewey.library.nd.edu/mylibrary/
10. See: http://bodington.org/index.html
11. See: http://classweb.ucla.edu/
12. See: http://moodle.com/
13. See: http://www.niso.org/about/index.html
14. See: http://www.exlibrisgroup.com/metalib.htm
15. See: http://encompass.endinfosys.com/
16. See: http://www.fdusa.com/products/zportal.html
17. See: http://www.ala.org/ala/pla/plapubs/technotes/librarywebportals.htm
18. More information about SICI is available from: http://sunsite.Berkeley
.EDU/SICI/
19. See: http://www.openarchives.org/
20. See: http://www.cetis.ac.uk/
21. JORUM Scoping and Technical Appraisal Study, Volume I: Overview and
Recommendations, p. 3. Available from: http://www.jorum.ac.uk/vol1_
fin.pdf
22. See: http://imsglobal.org/rliCharter.pdf
23. See: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=programme_aaa
24. See: http://www-itg.lbl.gov/security/Akenti/homepage.html
25. See: http://www.internet2.edu/
26. Carmody, Steven, Shibboleth Overview and Requirements, Shibboleth
Working Group Document, 20 February 2001. Available from http://
shibboleth.internet2.edu/docs/draft-internet2-shibboleth-requirements-
01.html
27. See: http://www.ietf.org/
28. See: http://www.dcoce.ox.ac.uk/
122

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Standards, specifications and access management
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