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The project uses web service style called the document literal wrapped web service style, and the code generation is to the Java programming language.

Benefits | Outline | What's Related | Live Demo

The work has been funded under the JISC e-Learning Program to sustain techniques, skills, technology and lessons learned from prior work with web service design.

 Key Output: Project Narrative

 Download from SourceForge.Net

Web services built using this approach afford the following benefits:

• Web service code is generated from XML design documents, ensuring design led development.

• With XML documents as foundational design documents, web services can be generated in different programming languages. The approach is platform neutral. Icodeon have used the techniques described with both Java and C# programming languages.

• Web service operations and the service messages are completely self-describing. This ensures that the web service can be discovered and automatically conmsumed by tools and clients.

• The web service is standards compliant against the Web Services Interoperability profile. This means that the web service can be integrated with other web services technologies, within service oriented architectures and web services orchestrations.

• The web service is robust against future requirements changes. Changes can be made to the messages that the service sends or receives without breaking exisiting clients and consumers.

Project Outline & Context

The project describes an approach to web service design for a service that sends and recieves documents according to a schema for the "Content Object Communication Datamodel" published under the IEEE 1484.11.3 specification.

The IEEE schema is an XML binding for the "Computer Managed Instruction Datamodel" in the widely deployed SCORM e-Learning profile.

The project has the following structure:

• First, a web services description for the operations of the web service is designed in XML. The XML document is used for code generation of the web service, using a WSDL-to-Java tool.

• Second, schema descriptions for the documents that the web service will send and recieve are defined in XML. The XML schema document is used for code generation of the data model used by the web service, using an XSD-to-Java tool.

• The generated Java code is combined and the web service is deployed using the Apache AXIS web services framework.

• The web service is tested using functional testing, load/stress testing and conformance testing.

• A generic AJAX client for document literal wrapped style is built as a Java Script object. The generic client is sub-classed to a specific client for the particular web service.

What's Related

The following projects, some with various strands of JISC funding relate to this work:

• The techniques developed in this project are now being applied to new areas. At the IMS Quaterly Meeting July 2007, Icodeon demonstrated the use of the IMS Learning Tools Interoperability Specification to integrate the Icodeon SCORM run time into the SAKAI learning platform. The integration used code generation techiques to build document literal wrapped web services. The integration also used web services to exchange SCORM tracking data as IEEE 1484.11.3 schema XML documents.

• Some work on using web services with SCORM tracking data as IEEE 1484.11.3 schema elements has recently been added to the ADL Community Website. This work uses remote procedure call (RPC) style web services. The ADL project provides a compare/contrast with document literal wrapped style web services.

• Initial work on web service design began with the ASSIS project with the Sun Microsystems Centre of Excellence in e-Larning at the University of Hull.

• Refactoring of web service design to the document literal wrapped style began with Making Tracks project at with the NRICH and Millenium Mathematics programme at the University of Cambridge.

• The COVARM reference model project has made extensive use of design led development to develop document based web services.

• The Repository Metadata and Management project at the University of Hull has been informed by the work on Document Literal Wrapped web service design.

Live Online Demonstrator

• An online demonstrator that uses AJAX clients to work with document literal wrapped web services is available on the main Icodeon website.

• Launch a course. During the running of the course AJAX clients work to exchange documents with web services. When you are ready, press the "Exit" button to leave the course. [Click thumbnail for larger image].

  

• When prompted to view the SCORM tracking data, press the "Yes" button.

  

• Press the "Download" button. An AJAX client calls a web service and SCORM tracking data as IEEE 1484.11.3 schema XML is returned.

  

Icodeon Ltd
July 2007