Apache Wookie and IMS Basic Learning Tools Interoperability

Wookie, Basic LTI, and Blackboard Oh My!As the IMS Learning Tools Interoperability specification begins to be delivered in the shipping versions or available as plugins in BlackBoard 8 and 9, WebCT Vista, Sakai, Desire2Learn, Moodle, and ANGEL Learning, the inevitable question is “Where will the tools come from?”.
I personally have always seen the tools coming from three sources:

  • Companies that market add-ons to LMS systems such as Wimba, Learning Objects, Icodeon, Jenzabar, QuestionMark, Turnitin, and many others.
  • Publishers such as Pearson and McGraw-Hill also will take advantage of LTI to produce IMS Common Cartridges that include protected content and other services hosted on their servers.
  • Teachers, Students or others will write their own tools for their own learning purposes.


Wookie, Basic LTI, and D2L Oh My!I have always been fascinated with the third option because I think that it is where the enterprise LMS will start to shift from “Management” towards “Learning”. These new teacher-driven tools will be about learning – not about management. Often these teacher driven tools will be small and have very specific purposes such as a poll, simulation, game, or specialized interactive content.
The Apache Wookie effort (http://incubator.apache.org/wookie/) is building on the W3C widget spec in a way that makes it possible to develop and host simple learning Widgets. Scott Wilson of JISC is one of the Wookie project contributors. Scott added support to Wookie which makes it possible to create and access a widget instance using Basic LTI.
Widgets are small well-defined units of functionality that can be hosted by any widget server such as Apache Shindig and can be used directly in personal portals, desktops, or other environments in addition to LMS systems. Widgets are also evolving as a way to build portable applications across cellular telephone platforms.

Once Scott built his pre-alpha version of Wookie support for Basic LTI it was a simple matter to embed a W3C widget into Blackboard, Desire2Learn, WebCT Vista, and Sakai. The Blackboard support comes from a Building Block and PowerLink built by Stephen Vickers of Edinburgh University. Since the the platforms have tools that support Basic LTI already, it was a simple matter of plugging in URLs, keys, and secrets to make the four screen shots along the right side of this block where a the TENCompetence-developed chat widget is served from Wookie and placed in each of the LMS systems.
I am very excited to be starting to feel a slow and gentle shift in IMS Basic Learning Tools Interoperability from focusing nearly exclusively on getting vendors to support the specification to instead starting to think how we teachers will ultimately make use of the specification. As usual, Scott Wilson of JISC/CETIS as well as Rob Koper and the other folks at the Open University of the Netherlands are right there are the forefront of the movement. I am very excited to be at the starting point for this trend to take off.

Wookie, Basic LTI, and WebCT Oh My!If you too are interested in this trend, you might want to consider coming to the JISC Developer Days – February 24-27, 2010 in London. I expect that I will be there and Scott will be there as well – given the gathering potential and many of the threads of thinking coming together at this time, I think that this meeting will be one not to miss.