Current efforts for next generation Digital library and e-learning architectures are aiming for a transition from integrated, centrally controlled systems to dynamic configurable federation of library and educational services and information collections. Current systems have major drawbacks because of their limitations in scalability, availability, distribution of computing power and storage system. This paper reports the efforts that have been done to develop an DLEL grid middleware.
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Current efforts for next generation Digital library and e-learning architectures are aiming for a transition from integrated, centrally controlled systems to dynamic configurable federation of library and educational services and information collections. Current systems have major drawbacks because of their limitations in scalability, availability, distribution of computing power and storage system. This paper reports the efforts that have been done to develop an DLEL grid middleware.
Current efforts for next generation Digital library and e-learning architectures are aiming for a transition from integrated, centrally controlled systems to dynamic configurable federation of library and educational services and information collections. Current systems have major drawbacks because of their limitations in scalability, availability, distribution of computing power and storage system. This paper reports the efforts that have been done to develop an DLEL grid middleware.
Copyright:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
Current efforts for next generation Digital library and e-learning architectures are aiming for a transition from integrated, centrally controlled systems to dynamic configurable federation of library and educational services and information collections. Current systems have major drawbacks because of their limitations in scalability, availability, distribution of computing power and storage system. This paper reports the efforts that have been done to develop an DLEL grid middleware.
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Digital library and Distance Learning Web service based Middleware:
Specifications and Applications
Hajar Kashfi Mohammda Reza Razzazi
hkashfi@ce.aut.ac.ir razzazi@ce.aut.ac.ir CEIT Department CEIT Department Islamic Azad University of Qazvin Amirkabir University of technology Qazvin,Iran Tehran,Iran
Abstract increase. These users have many different interests
Current efforts for next generation Digital and objectives and they will need to access to a huge library and e-learning architectures are aiming for a amount of information. Therefore, a successful transition from these systems as integrated, centrally system will be one that addresses all these issues for controlled systems to dynamic configurable all type of users across the world. Such a system federation of library and educational services and should be scalable, available, interoperable, information collections. So, developers adapt their extensible, and adaptable and indeed it should be systems to novel technology trends and developments based on novel technologies. Since such systems are including technologies like Web services and the Grid very huge, many organizations and institutes can as well as the success of new paradigms like Peer-to- contribute in the construction of these systems [3]. So Peer networking; and also, Service oriented the development costs of these systems will highly Architectures. Current systems have major drawbacks decrease. These organizations can cooperate under because of their limitations in scalability, availability, some policies to reach their common objectives. distribution of computing power and storage system, Here, we need a middleware for uniform access to all as well as sharing information between users that theses resources belonging to different administration contribute in these systems. Proposing a grid DLEL areas. Also, an infrastructure is needed that insure middleware ,we described how some new availability, scalability, security, extensibility and technologies including agent, web service and Grid interoperability for implementing such distributed and emerging standards can be applied to Digital systems. Each organization should be able to reuse library and E-learning. functionalities and services as well other resources that are provided by other organizations. This paper reports the efforts that have been done to develop an 1.Introduction DLEL grid middleware. By proposing the use of grid technology as scalable, flexible, coordinated and secure resource sharing among geographically One of the main objectives of digital library and e- distributed individuals and institutions [4] in the learning systems is to make information accessible context of e-learning, we are able to address for any type of users. A digital library(DL) is a interoperability, distribution and sharing concerns. distributed technology environment which Our middleware focused on Grid as well as using dramatically reduces barriers to the creation, agent [5] and web service [6] technologies to provide dissemination, manipulation, storage, integration, and developers an integrated infrastructure facilitating reuse of information by individuals and groups[1].on digital library(DL) and E-learning(EL) system the other hand ,E-learning (EL) could be regarded as development. Meanwhile, by implementing our the process of learning with the use of Telematics that middleware based on web service technology, we are is the combination of telecommunication, information able to reuse functionalities. This way, many service and multimedia technology and its services [2]. providers and content providers can contribute in Both Digital Library and E-Learning systems have developing a very large scale integrated e-learning been topics of increasing interest in recent years. system. The reminder of this paper is structured as in Users who are interested in such systems are daily the following: section 2 gives some background information in Grid technology, section 3 describes visualize and accomplish other high computational e- web services. In section 3, there is some information learning services in an effective way. in the field of web services. In section 4 next generation digital library and e-learning have been 3.Web Services introduced. In section 5 the convergence of grid ,digital library and e-learning systems are discussed. Internet is now almost service oriented and based on In section 6 Digital library and e-learning standards messaging and standards for XML interfaces to and specifications are exposed. Section 7 discusses enable coordinate use of distributed resources. This our proposed middleware architecture, and finally, leads to high level of interoperability in such section 8 contains the conclusion. heterogonous distributed environment. As a result, the basic concept and building block for internet 2.Grid Technology computing becomes the Web service. A service in this context is a network-enabled entity that provides Grid is coordinate resource sharing and problem some capabilities.[11] solving in dynamic multi-institutional virtual Service-based architectures take legacy application organizations [7. An important issue that should be functionality and expose it to the internet in a reliable, mentioned is that: “the sharing that we are concerned highly available, scalable, flexible, manageable, and with is not primarily file exchange but rather direct secure manner, easy and reliable internet-based access to computers, software data, and other method to create and access learning. resources” [4]. This sharing is necessarily highly Web Service technology has emerged as a new controlled and under some sharing rules. A set of paradigm of distributed computing. They are layered individuals and/or institutions defined by such on the top of standard transfer protocols for sharing rules form Virtual Organizations (VOs). An transmitting messages that currently, the most actual organization can participate in one or more common ones are the XML-based specification VOs by sharing some or all of its resources. This SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol), UDDI resource sharing is conditional: each resource owner (Universal Description, Discovery and Integration), makes resources available, subject to constraints on and WSDL (Web Service Description Language) when, where and what can be done [4]. [12]. This concept is illustrated in figure-1. A web The background concept in grid is not new. As a real service is a stand alone software component that has a of fact, the collaboration and sharing of resources in a unique URI (Uniform Resource Identifier). geographically distributed environment is an idea Web services present another alternative distributed existed since the computer domain originated. In grid, computing infrastructure which is strongly promoted people will be able to easily access to unlimited as a preferable one in contrast with the use of resources connected through the Internet. distributed object middlewares such as Java RMI or Mechanisms for creating, managing, and exchanging CORBA [12]. information among entities called grid services. The next generation of scientific experiments and studies, 3.1.Grid services popularly called as e-Science [8], will be carried out by communities of researchers from different A Grid can be defined as a layer of networked organizations that span national and international services that allow users single sign-on access to a boundaries. Grid computing [7] enables aggregation distributed collection of computing, data and and sharing of resources through by bringing together application resources. Grid services allow the entire communities with common objectives and creating collection to be seen as a seamless information virtual organizations [4]. Data Grids have evolved to processing system that the user can access from any tackle the twin challenges of large datasets and location [13]. A Grid Service is a Web Service which multiple data repositories at distributed locations in conforms to a set of conventions (interfaces and data-intensive computing environments [9]. behaviors) that define how a client interacts with a Current e-learning systems are very limit; for Grid Service. Therefore, Grid Services are standard example, it is vastly impossible to compute, photo- Web Services with improved characteristics. realistic visualizations in real-time and display the Two advantages of web services framework that are computation result on a remote screen [10] with the mentioned in [7] as important reasons for using web advanced functionality of an e-learning grid, students services in Grid are: First, the need to support the could be provided with the possibility to search, dynamic discovery and composition of services in heterogeneous environments. Second, the widespread On the other hand, in e-learning systems [15], recent adoption of web services mechanisms means that a efforts concentrate on the reuse of application framework based on web services can exploit functionalities. However most of these efforts in e- numerous tools and extant services. learning such as [16] have been focused on the reuse of learning material, a few of these researches have tried to introduce web service as a preferable technology in this area [10]. Some E-learning systems use advantages of new features offered by Web services such as integration of heterogeneous applications, publicity of available services, etc. As the adoption of this new technology increases, it will become necessary to offer intermediary platforms that make it easier to find and locate services and composing new services from the existing ones [17]. The success of e-learning has promoted the proliferation of different kinds of e-learning-related Figure1. Web Service technologies software applications [17]. Next generation e-learning systems will use Web services that can match learning 4.Next Generation Digital library and E- content to user context in a way that provides a Learning Systems customized, personalized experience. Information retrieval (IR) functions that serve a critical role in As it has mentioned before, according to the huge many e-leaning systems can be distributed or their amount of data being stored and communicated, and functions be made available through the web services also increasing number of users interested in DL and framework [18]. Also, by using web services, EL systems, new architectures of these systems developers can provide the flexibility a learner needs should be able to address issues such as scalability, in tertiary education in which many institutions offer flexibility, interoperability, availability and courses for education [15]. heterogeneity. Next generation DLs should enable transparent access to distributed data sources, ensure 5.Grid, Digital library and e-learning communication and possible collaborations with convergence scientists in other disciplines facing similar problems, define an open scalable middleware architecture to In contrast with current applications which may use build on top of existing and future archives to high performance computing as a secondary task, facilitate interoperability, and finally provide an modern systems can use novel technologies such as environment as flexible as possible and self– grid and parallel computing as well as web services to extensible[14]. reach interactive, collaborative and reality based In the area of digital library, few efforts have been learning environments [28]. done to use novel technologies in these architectures. By proposing the use of grid technology, many One progressive effort in this area is arco project[14]. service providers and content providers can Arco is a digital library storage project faced several participate in various VOs. Using the concept of challenges, such as the availability of peta-scale virtual organization in Grid, we can effectively group storage, seamless spanning of storage cluster, users and organizations especially for cooperative administration and utilization of distributed storage learning and participating in digital library and computing resources, safety and stability of data instruction. Organizations and institutes that transfer, scalability of the whole system, automatic contribute in developing such a system can share their discovery and monitoring of metadata, etc. It can be resources and services forming different VOs. These inferred that the efforts in Arco project just cover the organizations can cooperate under some policies to storage aspect of DL; however by using novel reach their common objectives. Here, we need a technologies like web services we would be able to middleware for uniform access to all theses resources reach more flexible and scalable architecture for these that belong to different administrative areas. kinds of systems by dividing large systems to Additionally, an infrastructure is needed that insure interconnected and interactive services. availability, scalability, security, extensibility and interoperability for implementing such distributed systems. Each organization should be able to reuse 7.DLEL Middleware functionalities and services as well other resources that are provided by other organizations. Our middleware has built on the assumption that typical digital library and e-learning systems are 6.DLEL Standards and specifications collections of activities or processes that interact with users and suitably chosen content. This enables us to Everyone knows the role of standards in transmitting subdivide the main functionality of these systems into and receiving data. Just like other areas, standards a number of stand-alone applications, which can then have changed Digital library and e-learning systems be realized individually or in groups as Web services. to reach more stable status. Interoperability among Web services, on the other hand, are offered by a digital library, and also e-learning, content and system number of providers. These providers can cooperate components is a key factor in successful under some policies in the form of some grid VOs to implementation of these environments. Recently, reach their common objectives. We proposed a there have been several interoperability specifications middleware for uniform access to all theses resources and standards of development and adoption that are that belong to different administration areas. Many being launched by a number of organizations and service providers and content providers can consortiums[19]. contribute in developing a very large scale integrated Now a day, there are many organizations join together digital library and e-learning system. The content to promote globally scalable solutions for digital provider in the simplest case would be a user that library and e-learning environments. Such solutions shares her information with other users. cannot exist without standards anymore than the Internet can exist without standards such as TCP, IP, HTTP, and HTML.By means of well defined and DLEL additional services widely adopted standards, some goals of digital library and e-learning environments can be reached in a more convenient way; for instance, we are E-Learning basic Services prevented from lock-in to particular vendors and products; costs are lowered ; standardized methods of interoperability eliminate the need to write proprietary interfaces to many different products; Digital Library basic Services standards allow content to be produced in a single format to be used by any delivery system; standards can lead to more choice of products and also make Grid core services the results more portable; large storehouses of reusable content are accessible, by reducing the need Figure2. DLEL Layers to develop to multiple systems, and by allowing to create modular content that can be more easily On the other hand, since digital library and e-learning updated and maintained. In general, the purpose of all systems have many common objectives, requirements these interoperability standards is to provide and specifications; we developed a middleware that standardized data structures and communications can support services for both of these two systems at protocols for digital and e-learning objects and cross- the same time. In both of these two systems, agents system workflows. users of theses systems can play a great role in implementing services such that purchase content and system components from they can response to users in an effective manner. So multiple vendors, based on their quality and we have implemented our middleware using agent appropriateness, with confidence that they will work technology, while we tried to represent each agent as together effectively [19]. Standards are being a web service in our architecture. Our middleware is a specified and implemented in several ways: Data multi agent system which represents grid core models with XML and other bindings, Web-service services for resource sharing and other basic services architectures that rely on W3C protocols such as for digital library and e-learning, all at the same time. SOAP, WebDAV, and XQuery, and APIs with Each agent in this middleware is created, deployed JavaScript and Java™ implementations. and published as a web service. DL and EL basic services layers are the heart of this DLEL grid middleware. In these layers, agents represent basic services for digital library and e- Grid. Convergence of three major technologies to learning systems using other agents that exist in grid proposing a middleware for creating large scale core services layer. Using these agents users are able Digital library and e-learning systems including to access and share all types of information including agent, web services and the grid help us to address all papers, magazines, e-books, etc. with other users. As issues that have not been addressed by current a real of fact except sharing other resources(hardware architectures yet. Using a multi agent system in which resources such as CPU Power and storage media), all agents have a high degree of autonomy different any user can contribute in publishing digital content grid and DLEL services have been effectively in this system. On the other hand any organization deployed in our middleware architecture. can publish its digital content for its members as well as other organizations. In these two layers, basic 9. 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