News

iTunes U Building Block v2 released — May 02, 2009

After much anticipation, the Vanderbilt iTunes U Building Block, version 2.0.7, is finally ready. You can download the Building Block from Vanderbilt.

This building block was developed by our group as an improvement of the previous version. The new features are:

  • iTunes U course areas are automatically created when instructors initializes their courses
  • A module containing the link to iTunes U is displayed for Community System users
  • Support for managing multiple iTunes U sites with multiple Blackboard domains is included
  • Instructors can link an iTunes U course area to new Blackboard courses each semester, emulating "course area copying."
  • The ability to create additional iTunes U user roles according to Blackboard user roles and define specific permissions is available
  • The debug suffix function is operational

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! The short list: City University of New York, University of Cincinnati, and Virginia's Community Colleges, not to mention Blackboard and Apple's iTunes U team.

A developing situation — Feb 26, 2009

Stories are much easier to tell in an effective way with keeping the audience audiovisually excited. There are questions and thoughts about every research project that can be answered easier through a story incorporating the subject of the research into a imaginary world with realistic characters and their motivations. Add a little bit of drama to emphasize values, errors, needs or consequences and you will see how we ended up producing a movie - not for the first time - to make complex and abstract factors more naturally sensible.

In the "A developing situation" we can see how a nurse in an imaginary hospital turns into a criminal stealing patient data, and how state of the art, trustworthy clinical information systems can guard privacy and help in detecting such cyber security incidents.

Though the story, the place and the characters are fictional, the problems and the solutions being developed in our institute and featured in this movie are quite real. To find out more about this TRUST research area visit the Electronic Medical Record project page on the TAO Portal.

This film was made for research and educational purposes with the contribution of ISIS researchers and friends who put so much effort in it sometimes from their valuable private time.

Special thanks to:

Original idea by Janos Sztipanovits, Akos Ledeczi, Bradley Malin, Janos Mathe story line, camera, movie and music production by Laszlo Juracz with much help from Julie Johnson writing the final script. Special thanks to Larry Howard for his support and his private equipment he let us use.

Parts of this movie were filmed at the Vanderbilt University though there is no connection between the actual infrastructure of Vanderbilt University and the one illustrated in the film.

VaNTH Portal gets a new, more characteristic skin — Feb 25, 2009

We gave new look and feel to one of the most important resource center of learning materials built and published with our technologies. This dissemination vehicle - the VaNTH Portal - now provides the same content and services for biomedical engineering students and teachers through a one-column-based user interface. The fine tuned, eye catcher logo introduces a progressive color theme and gives a stimulating 3D effect together with the background visual.

CAPE 2.7 Released — Nov 19, 2008

A new version of our authoring technology for adaptive learning is now available. CAPE 2.7 focuses on support for larger-scale design families and courseware product lines.

CAPE has long supported instructional design patterns as a means of capturing commonalities among sets of courseware designs. These patterns are represented in CAPE as abstract designs, or models, that can be instanced in various ways. At the same time, CAPE's data modeling facility, Condition Sets, and adaptive content features have been used to create designs that are data-driven, providing an alternative abstraction facility. The power of using these capabilities in concert has been demonstrated by a web-based authoring system for a class of engineering homework problems that provide students with adaptive remediation.

CAPE 2.7 extends these capabilities with new features that support more aggressive design reuse strategies. An example of such a strategy is the ACT Online courseware product line. This training system, sponsored by the U.S Federal Emergency Management Agency, provides 9 courses on cyber-terrorism incorporating a total of 45-50 modules that share a common instructional design macro-structure called STAR Legacy.

TRUST TAO Portal Enhances User Experience — Mar 22, 2008

The TRUST Academy Online (TAO) Portal supports online community outreach for the NSF TRUST Science and Technology Center. TAO reuses the dissemination portal framework that we originally developed for the NSF VaNTH Engineering Research Center for Bioengineering Educational Technologies.

Like the VaNTH Portal, TAO provides "courseware profiles" that bundle sets of learning materials with descriptions, metadata, and scaffolding resources. For TAO, we have added a new type of content object, called "project profiles," that tell the stories of TRUST research projects and provide access to resources produced by the projects such as papers, presentations, and posters.

Project designers Laszlo Juracz and Gabor Pap have recently refined this Plone-based framework to provide a fresh "look and feel" featuring visual browsers for content objects along with other usability, content, and interoperability enhancements.

This further evolution of our dissemination technology reflects a continuing commitment to provide educators and other users access to materials and resources produced by our research partners through the World Wide Web.

CAPE 2.7 Adds Search Support — Feb 04, 2008

Following the introduction of powerful search engines, searching joined hyperlink-based browsing to form the two dominant use metaphors of the World Wide Web. Online learning designs, even when constructed as browsable hypermedia, seldom employ searching as an important element of the learning experience. With CAPE 2.7, we have provided infrastructure that allows authors to incorporate this capability into their learning designs.

Our first use of this infrastructure is in the ACT Online program, which provides course modules based on the STAR Legacy instructional design pattern. This inquiry cycle provides sets of learning resources and self-assessment questions anchored on an overarching challenge. The ACT Online search facility indexes these resources and questions so that they can be searched on demand by learners. The user interface of this facility, shown above, supports a "live search", where keywords and phrases are matched and returned as suggestions to assist the search. The interface returns search results on separated "Resources" and "Questions" tabs sorted by relevance with direct navigation to the content objects.

The new infrastructure provides services for indexing and searching that are accessed through the existing eLMS Platform Services at delivery time. Indexing services build up search indices and search services then support assisted retrieval by keywords and phrases.

The search infrastructure reflects our ongoing efforts to make online learning more indigenous to the web.

ACT Online pushes CAPE 2.7 feature-set — Sep 20, 2007

The Adaptive Cybersecurity Training (ACT) Online program, sponsored by the U. S. Department of Homeland Security, is using CAPE to create a courseware product-line: 70-80 modules comprising 9 courses in 3 tracks with progressing levels of difficulty. Some innovations arising from this program are directly influencing features of CAPE.

The ACT Online approach to product line development with CAPE involves extensive use of instructional design patterns. These patterns (basically, modeling abstractions) are instanced using sets of specifications for parts such as learning resources, formative and summative assessments, and scaffolding elements. The patterns govern the integration of these parts when forming modules and complete courses, as well as artifacts that support specialized role-players in the development process (the production line.)

One ACT Online-inspired feature coming in CAPE 2.7 involves a new method of incorporating these part specifications into designs. The specifications ultimately reside in CAPE's data modeling facility known as condition sets. The new feature permits the specifications to permanently reside on the file system in the development environment where they can be managed using tools like CVS or Subversion. Condition sets will contain a new modeling element, called ImportFile, that incorporates such files into condition sets at courseware packaging time.

Another area where ACT Online is innovating aggressively concerns custom interfaces and templating. We will hightlight some influences of these innovations on CAPE and eLMS technology in future news.

CAPE Documentation Searchable — Aug 01, 2007

CAPE's online documentation has been indexed by the Google search engine and can now be searched from the documentation page. A new search element has been added to the documentation page, accessed using the link on the sidebar at left, that performs a search restricted to the documentation area on the CAPE server.

Searchability is a documentation feature that has been requested by several users. Rather than address this issue by building our own indices and server-based search tool, we have elected (like many others) to use features provided by web search engine providers.

CAPE Divorces IE7 — Apr 20, 2007

An available update to the CAPE authoring environment ends its long, intimate relationship with Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. Perhaps that's a tad strong—the relationship is no longer exclusive.

Since the beginning, CAPE has used IE for all of its previewing services: for locally viewing adaptive content and design elements, as well as for previewing in-progress courseware designs. This exclusivity has extended to browser-based HTML editing with the recently incorporated TinyMCE editor. But more and more authors are telling us that they no longer use IE as their default browser, and we have responded by honoring their choice.

With around 80% marketshare, IE is certainly not a browser to be neglected. But it presents security issues (its support for ActiveX controls through scripting, for example) that other browsers simply don't face, particularly when accessing local files. After many exploits, IE7 addresses these issues with a hardened security policy that is not easily (nor safely) softened for a particular trusted application. These restrictions present certain inconveniences to authors using CAPE's previewing services.

The update adds a new setting to the CAPE Settings component that allows authors to select whether they wish to use their default browser or Internet Explorer for previewing within CAPE. A further advantage of this setting is that—when IE is not the author's default browser—content rendering between browsers can be easily checked by switching this setting without the need to change default browser.

CAPE 2.6 Released — Mar 29, 2007

Version 2.6 of the CAPE authoring environment is now available for download and installation. The installer can be accessed by selecting the Release Notes item on the menubar at left. Detailed information about what is new in this release, beyond that provided in the article below, is included on that page.

CAPE is not available directly to the public, but rather by agreement with the VaNTH ERC or through affiliated institutions, centers, or projects. Inquiries about using CAPE (and eLMS) in other contexts can be made using contact information available on this site.

For new users, especially those participating in the VaNTH Workshop series, there is an available Installation Guide that provides detailed instructions, demonstrational resources, and access to a tutorial CAPE project.

Coming in CAPE 2.6 — Mar 22, 2007

A forthcoming major version of the CAPE authoring environment provides extensions to the design language, particularly in the area of assessments, improves scaffolds for the author, and includes a new courseware package export facility. CAPE's online documentation has been given a fresh "look", and bundled with this release is a new version of the Generic Modeling Environment (GME) infrastructure.

Multiple Choice assessment items can now include an "Other" (or, arbitrary) choice. An Image Multiple Choice item is introduced specifically for these kinds of questions. A new File item is added that allows learners to upload a file as the response. Other design language additions include Comment attributes for adaptive elements such as Action, Condition, and Select. Several more attributes can now be accessed via author-defined external editors.

The design environment adds features that further contribute to usability. For example, when an Assessment element is created in a courseware model, a corresponding Outcomes element is automatically created and associated. Changes to the Assessment definition are now dynamically reflected in the Outcomes. Similar conveniences are added when defining Condition Sets, for example, coordinating the naming and definition of Functions. The new GME version adds a model window navigation toolbar with capabilities similar to the history features of web browsers.

We anticipate the release of CAPE 2.6 within a week.

Active learning online with STAR Legacy — Mar 06, 2007

The Software Technology for Action and Reflection (STAR) Legacy Cycle was originally developed by the Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt as a "software shell" for anchored instruction. This active learning style grounds the learning process on authentic problem situations (challenges) and further promotes the development of learning skills by allowing learners to explore a multiplicity of learning resources and providing activities that facilitate the learner's self-assessment in guiding this exploration.

CAPE can be used to author online learning experiences in this style and has long supported a design pattern for the so-called "six-phase" Legacy Cycle. For the NSF TRUST STC, we have developed additional scaffolding for this pattern that supports familiarizing learners with the cycle and provides content templates for the individual cycle phases.

The new DHS ACT Online Program (described below) will use another manifestation of Legacy called the five-phase cycle (shown at right above), employed successfully for adult online continuing education by the IRIS Center at Vanderbilt. In pursuing this pedagogical approach, we will be extending CAPE and eLMS to combine design templates and delivery interfaces. This represents a departure from our fundamental strategy of adaptive design with CAPE and a consistent presentation of design enactments with eLMS. The extensions will open many new opportunities for supporting particular learning styles.

New DHS Training Grant — Dec 28, 2006

CAPE and eLMS will be used as authoring and delivery technologies for a new cybersecurity training grant funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The Adaptive Cybersecurity Training (ACT) Online program will provide multi-level, multi-track training for first responders in the critical area of information assurance. The three-year, $4M program will be lead by Prof. Dipankar Dasgupta of the University of Memphis.

The online aspects of the program will be developed in collaboration with Vanderbilt University's Institute for Software Integrated Systems (ISIS). Adaptive features of CAPE and eLMS will be used to customize the training to reflect the prior knowledge and skills of individual learners and to facilitate their progress through various modules culminating in the granting of certifications.

CAPE 2.5.4 released — Dec 19, 2006

A new version of the CAPE authoring environment is available today as an automatic update. The principal new feature in this release is an integration of the TinyMCE web-based HTML editor (described in an article below). TinyMCE can be configured as an external HTML editor using the CAPE Settings component. We were so pleased with the integration of this editor into our web-based authoring interfaces, we thought we would also offer it as an option to CAPE authors.

Virtualization solution eases CAPE on Macs — Dec 05, 2006

A new beta release of the Parallels Desktop for Mac virtualization solution makes significant strides towards easing the use of Windows applications, like the CAPE authoring environment, on Mac OS X. A new mode, called Coherence, allows Windows applications to appear directly on the Mac desktop, enabling easy switching between applications on the two operating systems.

This feature, along with drag and drop support for file sharing and better integration with Apple's dual-boot solution, called Boot Camp, make using CAPE on Macs easier than ever before. Larry Howard, the principal designer of CAPE (and Mac fan), uses Parallels Desktop on his MacBook Pro extensively for CAPE courseware design. “This environment is excellent for checking web content among a number of different browsers”, he said.

We expect these new features to be just the beginning of powerful capabilities for seamlessly running applications from multiple operating systems enabled by virtualization technology. We further anticipate that competition among solution providers in this sector will bring these capabilities quickly to market.

Rich editing added to web authoring — Nov 30, 2006

To improve the ease of use of new eLMS authoring and adaptation tools, we have added support for a full-featured open source Javascript HTML editor called TinyMCE. This enhancement allows assessment and content elements to be edited in a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) manner to assist users with limited knowledge of HTML.

TinyMCE is an extensible, cross-platform HTML editor and among the extensions we have provided are support for data-driven resources and dynamic content. Resources uploaded through the authoring interface can be inserted into HTML content and manipuated by TinyMCE, including support for resource browsing that ensures resources are properly referenced. Dynamic content elements in TinyMCE appear in their substituted form and an editing interface supports defining, altering, and evaluating the corresponding content expressions in the facility known as <py> tags. This interface further supports referencing data items through an integrated data space browser.

With these extensions, TinyMCE-based HTML editing for web authoring in the delivery environment mirrors usability features supported by CAPE itself.

eLMS adds support for web authoring — Nov 16, 2006

CAPE is a state-of-the-art visual language authoring environment for adaptive online learning, and its ability to be used to design new web authoring tools for eLMS provides a glimpse of its power and versatility. The first such tool (shown at right cycling through its views) supports many of the capabilities of CAPE itself—dynamic content, integrated formative assessments, adaptive (potentially progressive) feedback, instructor interventions, and data definitions (including derived data and functions). That these varied design specifications, along with file-based resources, can now all be dynamically created within the delivery environment is an achivement that enables multiple forms of assignment-time adaptation and just-in-time authoring.

The demonstration we have chosen for these capabilities is a kind of Socratic tutor, where exercises proceed by asking learners questions, adaptively providing feedback based on their responses, and then adaptively selecting follow-on questions. The web-based authoring tool is based on a generalized version of a design pattern by Prof. Robert Roselli of Vanderbilt University referenced in an earlier article below. The authoring tool was created in collaboration with Prof. Roselli and two bioengineering graduate students: Kathryn Dwyer and Andrew Slatton.

The authoring tool is directly contained within a courseware implementing the Socratic tutoring design pattern and, like CAPE itself, provides an integrated debugger. Communication between the authoring tool and the delivery component is via the new assignment profile. Instructors interested in this new courseware can contact Prof. Roselli and inquiries about the new features can be directed to us.

Resources added to late authoring support — Oct 13, 2006

To complete our scaffolding for new late authoring capabilities within the delivery environment, CAPE adds support for representing file-based resources using its dynamic data representation (Condition Sets) and eLMS adds support for uploading and using such resources at delivery time. In addition to late authoring, these capabilities can also support learners uploading file-based resources created as workproducts within an online activity.

CAPE authors identify file-based resources as part of the specification of a learning design. When a CAPE design is uploaded to an eLMS server for delivery, these file-based resources are automatically gathered and incorporated into a package sent to the server. As the courseware design is enacted with learners, these resources are made available to satisfy requests coming from the learner's browser. This approach to resource management is intrinsic to the designs of CAPE and eLMS, and it creates a limitation that all file-based resources must be identified at design time.

Data-driven resources remove this limitation by enabling an alternative approach: representing resources as data. CAPE supports this alternative through a kind of condition called Base64 that can contain encoded file resources. eLMS now supports uploading and encoding such resources using a new service of the delivery engine, called uploadConditions, and supports referencing such conditions through Dynamic resources defined at design time, called gateways. A mini-project called Data-Driven Resources in the CAPE author area of the Repository documents and demonstrates these capabilities.

CAPE gets data-driven Condition Sets — Sep 25, 2006

Introduced back in CAPE 2.3, data-driven assessments began to blur the line between designs at authoring- and delivery-time. The innovation was that an assessment's design could be contained in CAPE's dynamic data representation, called Condition Sets, thereby enabling it to be modified during courseware delivery to add, remove, or alter the kind of questions presented by the assessment. Prof. Robert Roselli of Vanderbilt used this capability to create a highly generative design pattern in CAPE that supports authoring using only data structures contained in condition sets (detailed in this paper). The design pattern, involving adaptive sequencing and adaptive content in addition to data-driven assessments, acts (essentially) as a special-purpose delivery engine that enacts the "instructions" defined in the data structures, including what questions to ask learners and how to react to their responses. Similar techniques were used by Prof. Eric Perreault of Northwestern to create a lab preparation exercise where questions are randomly drawn from mutliple question banks with progressively increasing levels of difficulty.

Data-driven Condition Sets represents our next step along this path, enabling data contained in condition sets to define other condition sets that can be initialized during courseware delivery. Whereas Actions and eLMS web services enable altering a courseware's dynamic state, data-driven condition sets focus on defining (or re-defining) this state. The definitional capabilities extend to CAPE's computational features (Derived conditions and Functions) that heretofore could only be defined at authoring-time. A supporting mini-project, called "Data-Driven Condition Sets", is provided in the CAPE author area of the Repository.

We are introducing data-driven condition sets as scaffolding for forthcoming capabilities that will address assignment-time adaptation and authoring. These capabilities will allow CAPE-authored courseware designs to be adapted by educators through the web using authoring interfaces designed with CAPE that are adaptively integrated directly into the courseware. The effect will be to enable a spectrum of authoring times, from early design within the authoring environment to late design within the delivery environment, and authoring tasks, from design creation to design adaptation.

CAPE Wizard supports custom templates — Sep 20, 2006

The CAPE Wizard (shown at right) is an authoring environment extension that supports creating new design elements based on templates. The initial version of this extension—introduced in CAPE 2.5—supported a set of "built-in" templates. After it was introduced, authors inquired about using the Wizard to support their own templates. A CAPE update released today provides this capability.

The Repository Browser CAPE component now supports designating a model in the Repository as a template. Only those models that are self-contained (that is, have no external dependencies by reference or derivation) can be templates. Use the Mark as template choice from the context menu (right click) to designate a template. Authors can (and should) provide a short description of the template that will be displayed by the CAPE Wizard. Use the Edit template description choice from the context menu to modify the description at a later time. Authors are further encouraged to use model annotations to assist other designers in reusing templates.

Each time the CAPE Wizard is started, the Repository is queried for available templates. When selecting a kind of element in the Wizard, if templates are available, then an associated radio button on the interface enables switching between built-in and repository templates. When the latter is selected, templates are presented in a listing view for selection and creation.

VaNTH Workshops to include CAPE — Sep 11, 2006

A series of four workshops will be delivered by the VaNTH ERC over the coming academic year that are based on methods and technologies researched by the center. The workshops will include training on instructional design using the How People Learn (HPL) framework, as well as the use of the CAPE authoring environment for designing online and blended learning environments.

The two-day workshops will be conducted by Dr. Alene Harris, the director of VaNTH's Education Program, and Dr. Stacy Klein, an education and bioengineering faculty participant in VaNTH—both highly experienced workshop facilitators. The location will be Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN. The workshops will include contributions by other VaNTH participants from the ERC's Bioengineering Domains and Learning Technology Thrusts, including Larry Howard, the principal designer of CAPE. The workshops will include a half-day focusing exclusively on introducing CAPE and a half-day synthesis of pedagogy and technology-focused aspects.

Those interested in participating in one the workshops can help determine the dates by pre-registering online by October 2, 2006. Additional information is available at the workshop site, including details of scholarships and stipends that have been established to help extend participation.

Updated: October 11, 2006

The following four 2007 dates have been selected for the VaNTH workshops: January 8-9, February 5-6, April 16-17, and May 7-8. You can register for one of these workshop dates and apply for the available scholarships online.

Collaborate with eLMS — Sep 07, 2006

eLMS provides a capability, called Profiles, that can be used to support various kinds of online collaborative work. Class profiles are shared by the students in a class and Courseware profiles are shared between all deliveries of a particular courseware. Such "global" state enables information sharing among students or between students and the instructor (or teaching assistants) of an eLMS class.

To facilitate the use of these capabilities by CAPE authors, we have produced a set of demonstration designs made available in the Repository. The designs are annotated in CAPE and web pages further document them and support trying them out. Dialoging demonstrates using the Class profile to support dialogs between individual students and the instructor of a class. Such dialogs enable instructors to iteratively give feedback to a learner during the course of an activity performed online and allow the learner to respond to this feedback. Research Designs demonstrates support for experimental designs where learners can be randomly assigned to groups to adaptively receive different "treatments". Discussions demonstrates forums where participation can be class-wide or in the context of randomly formed mini-groups.

The importance of these capabilities for eLMS courseware is that collaborative features can be situated within courseware authored with CAPE. Adaptive design capabilities supported by CAPE can be used to scaffold the use of these kinds of elements or to integrate them into designs that also provide features for individualized instruction.

eLMS introduces Quota Links — Aug 03, 2006

eLMS has introduced a new courseware delivery mechanism, called Quota Links, that allows learners to access eLMS courseware using special limited use URLs.  This new mechanism greatly extends our existing integration solutions by not requiring the use of eLMS, or a cooperating learning platform, to manage learner identities and class rosters.

When learners access a Quota Link, a panel (shown at right) is presented that collects their identity information and then launches a courseware delivery for them.  This approach is different from existing forms of anonymous delivery supported by eLMS in that it allows learners to continue or review an eLMS courseware over any number of browser sessions.  Learners choose their own passcode that, together with their email address, uniquely identifies their courseware delivery record.  Quota Links permit only a fixed number of courseware deliveries (the quota) to be started. 

The eLMS Author interface supports the creation of Quota Links.  The delivery records resulting from the use of such links can be retrieved in a similar way as those from SCORM packages. 

New in CAPE 2.5.1 — Jul 10, 2006

CAPE 2.5.1 is an incremental release of the authoring environment that provides bug fixes and a couple of significant enhancements.  The first of these is a new project launcher (shown at right) that reflects our continuing efforts to customize and brand the Generic Modeling Environment (GME) infrastructure upon which CAPE is built.  This dialog is specialized for the CAPE project file type (.cape)—introduced in CAPE 2.5—and can be used to open existing CAPE projects, create new projects, or select from the recently opened project list maintained by GME.

The more significant enhancement in this release is the introduction of an automatic update feature.  This feature can be configured using the CAPE Settings component to check for updates each time CAPE is launched or on a fixed schedule.  With this new component, we will be able to distribute changes to the authoring environment through the web in the future without the need to provide incremental releases like this one: easier for you, easier for us.

CAPE on Intel Macs — Jun 12, 2006

Virtualization solutions are appearing that allow Windows applications, including the CAPE authoring environment, to run on Intel-based Macs.  One currently available solution is Parallels Desktop. Virtualization performs much better than emulation solutions that have been available in the past, such as VirtualPC, and are easier to use than dual-boot solutions like Apple's BootCamp.  We have confirmed that CAPE runs quite well in Parallels Desktop.  To use this solution, users must purchase a low-cost Parallels license and supply a Microsoft Windows operating system.

Microsoft has announced that they will not carry forward VirtualPC for Intel-based Macs, so it seems that virtualization solutions and dual-booting will be the only practical approaches to running CAPE on Macs.  VMware has also announced a new virtualization solution, and we will be tracking the development of this product.

CAPE 2.5 Released — Mar 14, 2006

CAPE 2.5 provides improvements to its support for interoperability, changes to its metadata representation, and performance and functionality enhancements to the CAPE Repository.

Interoperability improvements address three areas: multiple external content editors, SCORM/IMS content packaging, publishing to a dissemination portal.

GME's support for defining an exernal editor has been extended to define different editors for attributes of CAPE objects containing text, HTML, and Python. The CAPE Settings component adds support for these settings. SCORM packaging, introduced by eLMS in 2.4, can be performed directly from CAPE 2.5. Support for IMS content packaging is added for certain legacy CMS that do not support SCORM. A new VaNTH dissemination portal, based on the Plone content management system, has been developed and support is added for directly publishing information about courseware to the portal from CAPE 2.5. This metadata-based capability will also be used by TRUST authors to publish to the forthcoming TRUST Academy Online (TAO) portal.

CAPE's metadata support has undergone its first revision since the original definition of the VaNTH paradigm. The changes reflect a restructuring to support more systems of description. Metadata specifications now consist of three kinds: Tags, MultiTags, and CompoundTags. Tags support defining a single value, provide a description for the user, and can define a validation predicate. MultiTags support similar definitions, but serve as containers for multiple values. CompoundTags provide a (potentially recursive) container for Tags and MultiTags to support a set of specifications employed as a unit. Metadata folders, which can contain each of the above kinds of objects, are now recursive to support hierarchically organized collections.

The CAPE Repository incorporates improvements that address scalability and evolution. Launch time is dramatically decreased using a lazy browsing strategy and interchange performance is improved using a new binary format. Support has been added for search and retrieval, with server-based indexing. Repository assets created with earlier versions of CAPE can now be loaded into newer CAPE projects with automatic version migration.

CAPE 2.4 released — Dec 05, 2005

The next version of the CAPE authoring environment will provide the first installment of "instructor-in-the-loop" capabilities called interventions.  Since CAPE/eLMS courseware are predominantly used in blended learning environments, these capabilities target coordination between in-class and outside-class elements of some overarching learning design.  The first capabilities will concern modeling synchronization points at which a courseware design will suspend awaiting action by an Instructor or teaching assistant.  Release of learners from these synchronization points can be selective or collective within the context of an eLMS class.

Other new features of CAPE 2.4 include exception sequencing edges in courseware models and dynamic Resources models.  The former pertains to the Action, Condition, and Select modeling elements.  The design language now supports defining delivery pathways that are followed in the event that the execution of statements or evaluation of expressions raises an exception.   Resources models can now be associated with a folder on the local file system, which can be filtered for particular content types.   Files in such folders are automatically incorporated into content packages when previewing or uploading courseware.

New eLMS Blackboard Building Block version available — Oct 27, 2005

This update to our integration with the Blackboard Learning System supports writing learner outcomes from eLMS courseware back to a Blackboard gradebook. The gradebook recording feature can be enabled or disabled by system administrators at building block installation time.

Version 2.4 of eLMS to offer SCORM compatibility — Oct 27, 2005

The next version of eLMS will support packaging and delivery of courseware authored with CAPE by a SCORM-compliant LMS. An eLMS server will still be required to enact the courseware design and serve learning content. This interoperability solution wraps the eLMS courseware as a single SCORM Shareable Content Object (SCO) that can be assigned, launched, and resumed from a SCORM LMS, with outcomes returned to the LMS. Complete delivery records can be accessed from eLMS by the user that generated the SCORM package using a data mining interface similar to that provided to eLMS Instructors. These capabilities replace our announced objective to develop a PowerLink integration with WebCT.

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