On 10 and 11 May took place in Valladolid the UXSpain 2013. Here we collect some of the references on the web.

A few days ago we had a visit from Kristiina Hormia-Poutanen, Director of Library Network Services at the National Library of Finland. This visit was for one of a series of seminars organized by the Consorci de Biblioteques Universitàries de Catalunya (Catalan University Library Association, CBUC). The visiting experts relate their experiences with library system changes, as already mentioned in other posts.

The National Library of Finland is working on a system change. They manage the technologies at libraries, museums and archives.

The aim of the project is to change the current system and create a new union catalogue called the National Metadata Repository.

After analysing different software solutions, they decided to create one by themselves to bring together all the different information they currently have. They are planning to create an API to connect their data, for those interested.

She told us how they are organizing the whole project and how they are managing the different project groups and resources.

They are also currently working on the National Digital Library (www.finna.fi), which includes information from museums, libraries and archives. This new site is now in beta. They are working to replace the current union catalogue, Melinda,  with the new system.

There is a big challenge to develop a new system from scratch. We suppose that they will base it on the Kuali Open Library Environment. However, it is a big software system to build and they have a big task ahead of them. Another important aspect is the funding; this challenge could be expensive and they have to think about the future, because the system will have to be maintained.

We will follow the progress of the Finnish system and look forward to seeing the end result.

 

 

 

Learning Analytics is defined as a “field associated with deciphering trends and patterns from educational big data, or huge sets of student-related data, to further the advancement of a personalized, supportive system of higher education” on the 2013 Horizon Report.

For this purpose, the Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative, best known as the stewards of SCORM, have been working on a new specification named the Experience API to facilitate the recording of all the learning events .

SCORM has been the de facto e-learning standard for packaging e-learning content to be delivered to LMS but has some drawbacks that the new specification tries to improve. The Experience API (also known as the Tin Can API) defines a more flexible way to record the learning experiences. That is, taking the elearning out of the browser like on native mobile apps, a solid security using OAuth or the ability to track games, simulations or even real world experiences, among other improvements.

This API captures data, in the form of statements, about a person or group’s activities from many technologies. Then a central Learning Record Store (LRS) stores learning records from different platforms, and the data stored can be accessed by LMS, reporting tools, or other LRS to be processed and analysed properly.

Many companies and products, such as Blackboard or Sakai, have adopted this de facto standard already. So we’ll have an eye on it.