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Design and Implementation of OpenDSA Interoperable Infrastructure

OpenDSA is a system for creating rich eTextbooks that combine quality text with visualizations and interactive, auto-graded exercises. As OpenDSA gains recognition, its use increases each year. This mandates a scalable, reliable, and sustainable infrastructure to accommodate the fast-growing demand for OpenDSA access.

We implemented OpenDSA-LTI, an interoperable infrastructure which transforms OpenDSA from a standalone, self-contained eTextbook to an integrated learning tool communicating with a Learning Management System (LMS) through the Learning Tool Interoperability (LTI) protocol. OpenDSA-LTI delivers OpenDSA content and interactive materials to students through a reliable and secure LMS interface. LTI integration encourages OpenDSA adoption by providing easy, intuitive tools that help instructors to build and generate OpenDSA eTextbooks in their LMS courses. OpenDSA-LTI allows OpenDSA content developers to take advantage of various tools already provided by the LMS instead of reproducing these through their own proprietary services.

The OpenDSA-LTI extendable design allows for adding new LTI-compliant exercises to OpenDSA books. This changes OpenDSA developers' efforts to searching for learning tools instead of reimplementing them. As an example, instead of maintaining the original OpenDSA programming evaluation engine, we could easily replace it with the Code Workout online drill-and-practice system.

Since its launch in August 2016 until June 2017, OpenDSA-LTI has hosted 36 active courses offered by 25 different universities in 6 countries, 41 instructors have used OpenDSA-LTI to host their courses on the Canvas LMS, and the system has 2,729 registered students. / Master of Science / OpenDSA is a system for creating online textbooks that combine quality text with visualizations and interactive, auto-graded exercises. As OpenDSA gains recognition, its use increases each year. This mandates a scalable, reliable, and sustainable infrastructure to accommodate the fast-growing demand for OpenDSA access.

We built OpenDSA-LTI, an online web application which transforms OpenDSA from a standalone, self-contained textbook to a learning tool which any university can integrate in their learning systems.

OpenDSA-LTI delivers OpenDSA content and interactive materials to students through a reliable and secure interfaces. The new infrastructure encourages OpenDSA adoption by providing tools that help instructors to build and generate OpenDSA online textbooks in their institution’s learning systems.

The OpenDSA-LTI extendable design allows for adding new exercises to OpenDSA online textbooks. This changes OpenDSA developers’ efforts to searching for other learning tools instead of creating them from scratch. As an example, instead of maintaining the original OpenDSA programming exercises, we could replace it with the Code Workout online programming evaluation system.

Since its launch in August 2016 until June 2017, OpenDSA-LTI has hosted 36 active courses offered by 25 different universities in 6 countries, 41 instructors have used OpenDSA-LTI to host their courses on the Canvas LMS, and the system has 2,729 registered students.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/78682
Date09 August 2017
CreatorsShahin, Hossameldin L.
ContributorsComputer Science, Shaffer, Clifford A., Kafura, Dennis G., Fox, Edward A.
PublisherVirginia Tech
Source SetsVirginia Tech Theses and Dissertation
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis
FormatETD, application/pdf
RightsIn Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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