XCRI

XCRI is a standards organisation that maintains an XML specification for syndicating and advertising information about courses.

XCRI stands for eXchanging Course-Related Information, and the XCRI Course Advertising Profile (XCRI-CAP) is an XML specification used to share information about courses between UK education institutions and aggregators such as UCAS and other sites that advertise courses.

Organisation and membership

XCRI is a community-based standards organisation with no formal membership processes, similar to initiatives such as Microformats.

People

Key people involved in XCRI in recent years include:

* Scott Wilson
* Mark Stubbs
* Ben Ryan
* Alan Paull
* Vashti Zarach
* Sebastian Rahtz

Patents and open standards

Like many "informal" specification organisations, XCRI releases its specifications under a Creative Commons license. It also has a patent-free policy.

History

2005-2006

XCRI was originally developed as part of a project funded by JISC in April 2005 [cite news |last=Down |first=Kerry Ann |url=http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning_framework/elfref_mmu.aspx |title= XCRI - eXchanging Course-Related Information |publisher=JISC |date=2005-04-01 |accessdate=2008-04-09]

This project was focussed around exploring how education institutions developed their portfolio of courses (also known as curriculum management) and the potential for new approaches to interoperability. The project created an XML schema for course management primarily aimed at use within universities and colleges.

2007-2008

In March 2007 a second XCRI project received funding from JISC, this time to focus primarily on developing a much more lightweight specification aimed at helping universities and colleges syndicate information about their courses to aggregators and brokerage services, such as services that handle applications to universities. The project was funded for two years, with the premise that at the end of the project in 2009, the resulting specification would be handed off to an open standards process.

European standardisation

In 2008 work began at the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) to develop a new standard for course descriptions to be used across Europe. The XCRI Course Advertising Profile is one of several specifications, including Norway's Course Description Metadata submitted as part of this effort.

Implementations

The XCRI Course Advertising Profile has been adopted at a number of UK education institutions, including:

* Adam Smith College
* Manchester Metropolitan University
* Oxford University
* University of Manchester
* University of Salford
* University of Bolton
* West Cheshire College
* Reid Kerr College
* Open University
* University of Hertfordshire
* Staffordshire University
* Edge Hill University

Criticisms

While XCRI has generally been considered a success by its funders and participants, there have been criticisms of the approach taken in developing the Course Advertising Profile.

Well-known eLearning expert Stephen Downes has criticised XCRI for developing a new XML specification rather than basing it on RSS, which would enable courses to be aggregated using existing technologies. [cite news |last=Downes |first=Stephen |url=http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?post=40740 |title= XCRI - eXchanging Course Related Information |publisher=OLDaily |date=2007-06-05 |accessdate=2008-04-09 ] .

The choice by the XCRI developers to be inspired by RDF design principles but not to use an RDF binding approach has also been slightly controversial; this approach was also taken by the developers of the Atom Syndication Format.

Notes

References

External links

* The [http://www.xcri.org XCRI website]