ERASMUS PLUS 2015

SECTOR SKILLS ALLIANCES

AGREEMENT No. 2015 – 3212 / 001 – 001
PROJECT No. 562634-EPP-1-2015-IT-EPPKA2-SSA

Deliverable Number: 4.1.1

Title of Deliverable: Customized e-Learning Platform
WP related to the Deliverable: 4
Dissemination Level: (PU/PP/RE/CO)*: PU
Nature of the Deliverable: (R/P/D/O)**: R
Actual Date of Delivery to the CEC: 15/September/2017

PARTNER responsible for the Deliverable: UVA

WP starting month M16
WP ending month M29
Partner Contributor(s): UVA, GGallery, OMNIA, SI4Life
Partner Reviewer(s): SI4Life

*Dissemination Level: **Nature of Deliverables:

PU=Public R=Report
CO=Confidential, only for members of the Alliance (including Commission Services). P=Prototype
PP=Restricted to external subjects in confidential mode (including Commission Services) D=Demonstrator
RE=Restricted to a group specified by the Alliance (including Commission Services). O=Other
 Deliverable 4.1.1

The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an
endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission
cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

ABSTRACT
This document describes the work carried out within task 4.1 aimed at developing the CARESS e-Learning
Platform that will support the online modules of the formal training part of the CARESS pilots. This e-
Learning platform is the result of customizing an existing learning platform (Moodle) with additional
support for integrating external third-party web 2.0 learning tools, as well as with support for becoming
integrated with the Virtual Communities of Practice (VCP) Platform under development within WP5. This
document (mostly of technical nature): explains the role of the e-Learning Platform within CARESS; collects
the requirements for the e-Learning Platform elicited from WP3; motivates and justifies the technical
decisions made during the development of the e-Learning Platform; describes the software architecture
and the developed prototype; and, illustrates the main use cases of the developed Platform.

KEYWORDS
CARESS e-Learning Platform, CARESS e-Learning Platform use cases, VCP Platform integration

LIST OF BENEFICIARIES (PP-RE)/PARTICIPANTS (PU-CO)***

Ben. No. Beneficiary Name Short Name Country

1 Si4Life – Scienza e Impresa Insieme per Migliorare la Qualità Si4Life Italy

della Vita s.c.r.l.

2 Regione Liguria Liguria Region Italy

3 Ggallery s.r.l. GGallery Italy

4 I.T.C. “Vittorio Emanuele II-Ruffini” VE-II Italy

5 AGE-Platform AGE Belgium

6 OMNIA OMNIA Finland

7 Finnish National Board of Education FNBE Finland

8 Super SUPER Finland

9 Ayuntamiento de Valladolid AYTO Spain

10 Universidad de Valladolid UVA Spain

11 Sociedad de Geriatría y Gerontología de Castilla y León SGGCYL Spain

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 Deliverable 4.1.1

12 Associazione Polo Tecnico Professionale Professioni Vita Pro. Vi Hub Italy

13 Azienda Regionale Sanitaria Ligure ARS Italy

14 Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust RCHT UK

15 United Kingdom Homecare Association UKHCA UK

16 Nestor Primecare Services Ltd – Allied Healthcare Allied Healthcare UK

*** List of Beneficiaries

In case of dissemination level PU or CO please indicate all the partners involved in this Deliverable.
In case of dissemination level PP please indicate the names of the other subject to whom the deliverable is devoted
In case of dissemination level RE please indicate the restricted group of partners.

VERSION HISTORY and AUTHORS

VERSION PRIMARY AUTHOR VERSION DESCRIPTION DATE COMPLETED

1 Javier E. Hoyos-Torío (UVA) Deliverable structure and draft 26/07/2017

Juan I. Asensio-Pérez (UVA) content

2 Javier E. Hoyos-Torío (UVA) Feedback from Si4Life 13/09/2017

Juan I. Asensio-Pérez (UVA) integrated
Serena Alvino (Si4Life) Addition of section

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 Deliverable 4.1.1

Table of Contents
ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................................................................... 2
KEYWORDS ........................................................................................................................................................ 2
LIST OF BENEFICIARIES (PP-RE)/PARTICIPANTS (PU-CO)*** ............................................................................. 2
VERSION HISTORY and AUTHORS ...................................................................................................................... 3
Table of Contents .............................................................................................................................................. 4
1 INTRODUCTION: STRUCTURE AND AIMS OF THE DOCUMENT ................................................................. 6
2 REQUIREMENTS FOR THE CARESS e-LEARNING PLATFORM ..................................................................... 6
2.1 Supporting Collaborative Learning in Virtual Classrooms................................................................ 7
2.2 Tools and Services for creating Interactive Materials, including Videos and Questionnaires ......... 8
2.3 Approaches for integrating third-party tools into the CARESS e-Learning Platform ....................... 8
3 SELECTION OF THE e-LEARNING PLATFORM TO CUSTOMIZE ................................................................... 9
4 CARESS e-Learning PLATFORM ARCHITECTURE AND PROTOTYPE .......................................................... 10
4.1 Integration with external web tools via Glue! ............................................................................... 10
4.2 Integration with the VCP Platform ................................................................................................. 12
4.3 Overall architecture and prototype ............................................................................................... 13
5 SHOWCASING THE MAIN USE CASES OF THE CARESS e-Learning PLATFORM ........................................ 13
5.1 Overview the use cases .................................................................................................................. 14
5.2 Registering in the VCP/e-Learning Platforms ................................................................................. 15
5.2.1 Register for an account in the VCP/e-Learning Platforms ......................................................... 15
5.3 Moodle use cases: managing courses in the e-Learning Platform ................................................ 23
5.3.1 Create a course in the E-Learning Platform ............................................................................... 23
5.3.2 Enrol a user in a course by an e-Learning Platform Manager ................................................... 27
5.3.3 Enrol a user in a course by a teachers ....................................................................................... 30
5.3.4 Add an activity or resource to a course of the e-Learning Platform ......................................... 34
5.3.5 Carry out an activity in a course of the e-Learning Platform..................................................... 39
5.3.6 Review and grade an activity of a course of the e-Learning Platform....................................... 42
5.4 Use cases dealing with the integration of the VCP Platform and the e-Learning Platform ...... Error!
Bookmark not defined.
5.4.1 Get the list of courses in the e-Learning platform......................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
5.4.2 Get the list of courses in the e-Learning platform in which the user is enrolledError! Bookmark
not defined.
5.4.3 Enrol the user in a course of the e-Learning platform................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
5.4.4 Unenrol the user from a course of the e-Learning platform ......... Error! Bookmark not defined.
5.4.5 Cancel request to enrol the user in a course of the e-Learning platformError! Bookmark not
defined.

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 Deliverable 4.1.1

5.4.6 View the topics and content of a course of the e-Learning platformError! Bookmark not
defined.
5.4.7 Accessing a course of the e-Learning platform ............................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
5.5 Use cases dealing with the integration of third-party web 2.0 tools by means of Glue! .............. 46
5.5.1 Creation of a GLUElet in the e-Learning platform ..................................................................... 46
5.5.2 Access to a Course’s GLUElet in the e-Learning platform.......................................................... 50
5.5.3 Deletion of a GLUElet in the e-Learning platform ..................................................................... 52
6 CONCLUSIONS ......................................................................................................................................... 54
7 REFERENCES............................................................................................................................................. 54

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 Deliverable 4.1.1

1 INTRODUCTION: STRUCTURE AND AIMS OF THE DOCUMENT

Work Package (WP) 4 is in charge of the implementation of the CARESS national pilots, aimed at
showcasing how the EU Framework developed in WP3 can help overcome the skill gaps identified in the
training of HHCPs across Europe. Pilots will consist of the enactment of formal, non-formal and informal
learning situations. Non-formal and informal learning will be supported by the Virtual Communities of
Practice (VCP) Platform to be developed within WP5. The formal learning part of the pilots will involve both
face-to-face and online learning situations. The online part of the training will be supported by the CARESS
e-Learning platform, whose design and development is the main aim of task T4.1, reported in this
document.
According to the CARESS proposal, the e-Learning platform will need:
• To support the requirements elicited within task T3.4 (“Design of national pilots”)
• To customize existing e-Learning support solutions based on open-source learning/content
management systems (LCMS)
• To support the integration of e-Learning tools already available in the Internet
• To be integrated with the Virtual Communities of Practice (VCP) Platform being developed within
WP5
This document describes how task T4.1 addressed the above mentioned challenges and provides an
overview of the technical solution that has been designed and prototyped. Thus, section 7 gathers (mostly
from WP3) the main requirements to be observed by the e-Learning Platform. Section 8 explains the
decision made to select an existing LCMS in which to base the CARESS e-Learning Platform on. Section 9
provides a technical description of the developed prototype of the e-Learning Platform. Section 10
showcases the main use cases of the CARESS e-Learning Platform. Finally, section 11 concludes this report.

2 REQUIREMENTS FOR THE CARESS e-LEARNING PLATFORM

Deliverable D3.4.1 [1] provides an overview of the interrelation of WP3 and WP4 tasks aimed at preparing
the piloting phase of the CARESS project (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Relations among the main tasks concerning e-Learning delivery (from [1])

D3.4.1 provides a description of the early design of the e-Learning component of the national pilots. These
e-Learning components will be focused on a set of transversal skills for HHCPs, thus fostering a set of
common competences for the e-Learning components of the three envisioned national pilots. The
Instructional Design teams of the three CARESS national pilots made the effort of mapping the desired
competences to foster with: a set of expected learning outcomes; and with a set of “possible contents and
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 Deliverable 4.1.1

learning strategies” to carry them out with. The proposed contents and strategies in D3.4.1 [1] are
therefore the main source of requirements for the e-Learning Platform.

D3.4.1 concludes that the CARESS e-Learning Platform should support: Collaborative Learning in Virtual
Classrooms; tools and services for creating interactive materials, including videos and questionnaires; the
integration of third-party tools so as to increase the degree of flexibility of the platform to cope with the
requirements of the pilot designers.
The conclusions from D3.4.1 can be mapped into technical requirements in way described in the following
subsections1.

2.1 Supporting Collaborative Learning in Virtual Classrooms

In Collaborative Learning (CL) “learning occurs socially…Participants remain engaged with a shared task
that is constructed and maintained by and for the group as such” [1]. When collaboration needs to be
supported online, the technological support has to be designed for promoting and enhancing interactions
that may lead towards effective collaboration among learners [3]. Some studies [4,5] propose a number of
basic functionalities for supporting Collaborative Learning:
• (Individual and group) Shared repositories: for “organizing and archiving collaboratively-developed
material”
• Knowledge construction environments, where “participants can share ideas on topics related to the
educational objectives”. Different types of tools can be used as such knowledge constructions
environments. Shared document editors (such as wiki-like tools, Etherpad, Google Documents, …)
and forums are the most widely used tools for this goal.
• Shared calendars supporting group and individual working management.
In addition, these basic functionalities can be complemented with “Mirroring tools” for raising students’
awareness about their actions and behaviours, “Metacognitive tools” for helping reflect whether
collaboration is happening as expected, and “Guiding tools” for managing the collaboration and proposing
remedial actions when collaboration deviates from what was expected. For example:
• The possibility to “describe the type of contribution being made” to the collaborative activity with
the purpose of “fostering metacognitive reflection on the contributions to the discussion”.
• The use of surveys and rating tools to allow the group the monitoring of its internal collaboration
atmosphere.
• The use of tools for allowing a teacher/tutor to send suggestions, reminding deadlines, and other
remedial actions.
Other additional requirements for supporting Collaborative Learning situations have to do with flexibility:
• Groups need to be flexible in the sense that they may need to be changed on the fly [3] due to
unexpected circumstances (e.g., a student dropping out).
• A student may belong to different groups, as eventually required by the employed Collaborative
Learning Technique [6].
• Students (and teachers/tutors) may play different roles within a group.

1
The contents of the rest of the section are mostly extracted from D3.4.1. They are reproduced here to
make the document self-contained.
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 Deliverable 4.1.1

2.2 Tools and Services for creating Interactive Materials, including

Videos and Questionnaires
Students, during the learning tasks they carry out (individually or collaboratively) may interact with a wide
range of resources, from simple text document to advanced animations/simulations. These interactive
materials can be created with a large variety of tools, many of which can be accessed nowadays in the Web.
This way, the support for the creation of these types of materials doesn’t need to be provided by the e-
Learning platform itself. For instance, (this list does not intend to be exhaustive):
• Slideshows using Slideshare (https://www.slideshare.net/) or Prezi (https://prezi.com/)
• Animations using Go!Animate (https://goanimate.com/) or PowToon (https://www.powtoon.com)
• Concept Maps using Bubbl.us (https://bubbl.us/) or Text2MindMap
(https://www.text2mindmap.com/)
• Shared Documents using Etherpad (http://etherpad.org/) or Google Documents
(https://docs.google.com)
• Online games using ClassTools (http://classtools.net) or Kahoot! (https://getkahoot.com/)
• Etc…
There are even some authoring tools that allow instructors/teachers to create resources of different types
(including all the above mentioned ones). Educaplay (https://www.educaplay.com/) in one example.
According to D3.4.1 [1], Videos and Tests will play a special role in the CARESS pilots. There are also
numerous existing tools that can be used with that purpose:
• Videos using Movenote (https://www.movenote.com/) or Educreations
(https://www.educreations.com/)
• Online questionnaires and polls using Google Forms (http://forms.google.com) or ClassMarker
(https://www.classmarker.com/)
As stated also in [1], it is important that the questionnaires supported by the CARESS e-Learning platform
are compliant with Moodle questionnaires so that some CARESS partners can make use of their previously
developed questionnaires in that platform.
In that sense, Moodle is capable of exporting/importing questionnaire in the standard IMS-QTI format
(http://www.imsglobal.org/question/index.html), which is used by many existing mainstream Virtual
Learning Environments. This way, the requirement for the CARESS e-Learning platform would be to also
support this IMS-QTI format.

2.3 Approaches for integrating third-party tools into the CARESS e-

Learning Platform
Since the types of learning materials that will be used during the CARESS pilots are not completely
determined, and in order to provide the CARESS e-Learning Platform with a certain degree of flexibility to
cope with the requirements of the pilot designers, this subsection discusses several technical possibilities to
integrate existing third-party tools (as the ones mentioned in the previous subsection) into the CARESS e-
Learning platform. Three main approaches can be identified:
1. Most of the presented sample tools and services enable the loosely-coupled integration of the
created learning resources in third party platforms (e.g., the CARESS e-Learning platform) as HTML
content (e.g., using a so-called iframe HTML tag). Following this approach, the instructors of the
CARESS pilots will need to “manually” create the instances of the tools to be used by the students
(e.g., create as many shared Google Documents as needed by the collaborating groups) and then
embed them as Internet resources in the e-Learning Platform. This is a straightforward solution

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 Deliverable 4.1.1

that does not require further software development, but that is only feasible when the number of
external resources to create is not too high.

2. A second integration approach is based on the packaging of the created learning resource in a
standard format such as SCORM (https://www.adlnet.gov/) or IMS-CC
(https://www.imsglobal.org/activity/common-cartridge). These standard formats are supported by
a wide range of existing learning platforms. In this case, similarly to the first approach, the
instructors need to “manually” upload the packaged resource. However, using this approach the e-
Learning platform would have a higher degree of control on the learning material and might, for
instance, automatically assign a different “copy” of the material to the different groups. A well-
known tool for creating interactive lessons that can be exported in SCORM or IMS-CC is
eXeLearning (http://exelearning.net/). Another tool, frequently used by the GGallery CARESS
partner for creating self-contained interactive materials and tests is Articulate Studio 13
(https://articulate.com/p/studio-13). This tool supports several exporting standard formats such as
Tin Can API (http://tincanapi.com), SCORM (https://www.adlnet.gov/) and AICC
(https://www.trainingindustry.com/taxonomy/a/aicc.aspx). Articulate is made of four main tools:
a. Articulate Presenter: based on Microsoft PowerPoint slides, it allows to add characters,
quizzes, form‑based interactions, web objects, media, etc.
b. Articulate Quizmaker: to create any type of interactive assessment and build decision-
making scenarios, drag-and-drop activities, quizzes, and surveys.
c. Articulate Engage: to add interactivity, choosing from 20 different interactions.
d. Articulate Replay: for screen capture.

3. A tighter-coupled integration can be achieved by means of connectors-based distributed

architectures such as IMS-LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability) standard
(https://www.imsglobal.org/activity/learning-tools-interoperability) or Glue! [7]. Using this
approach, instructors can manage the lifecycle of the external tools (creation, modification,
removal) using the features of the e-Learning platform itself. This is very convenient when a great
number of tools instances needs to be managed or when a delegated authentication schema wants
to be enforced. The drawback is that specific adaptors need to be developed for the tools that want
to be integrated. Fortunately, there are a number of already developed adaptors for both IMS-LTI
and Glue! that might be reused in the CARESS e-Learning platform. If this approach is adopted, a
unique plug-in should be developed for the CARESS e-Learning platform in order to use the
plethora of existing IMS-LTI or Glue! compliant tools. Since both integration architectures are open,
specific new adaptors might be developed within CARESS for those tools that may play an
important role in the pilots. A deeper discussion about the pros and cons of the different
integration alternatives using this type of architectures can be found in [9].

3 SELECTION OF THE e-LEARNING PLATFORM TO CUSTOMIZE

As explained in the introduction, the goal of task T4.1 is not developing yet another e-Learning Platform
from scratch. On the contrary the goal of T4.1 is to select and customize an existing Learning/Content
Management System (LCMS)2 and customize it so as to support the requirements described in the previous
section. These requirements might be summarized in the following list:

2
Some authors refer to LCMSs as Virtual Learning Environment (VLEs). In this context we will use both
terms interchangeably.
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 Deliverable 4.1.1

1) Shared repositories
2) Shared documents edition
3) Shared calendar
4) Annotation of contributions
5) Surveys and rating tools
6) Sending suggestions, reminders, …
7) Flexible groups
8) Students belonging to different groups in different moments
9) Groups with different roles
10) Embedding of web content
11) Questionnaires in exportable/standard formats (e.g., IMS-QTI)
12) Embedding of educational resources in standard formats (SCORM, IMS-CC, …)
13) Integration of external tools via open interfaces (IMS-LTI, Glue!, …)
The project proposal suggested that one possible approach for the development of the e-Learning Platform
might consist in upgrading the platform developed and currently being used by the GGallery partner of the
project. However, GGallery’s platform lacked some important features such as “Shared documents
edition”, “Flexible groups”, “Students belonging to different groups in different moments”, “Groups with
different roles”, etc. The effort associated to the development of these new features in GGallery’s platform
would not have been negligible, especially taking into account that several existing mainstream LCMSs
support, at different levels, the above mentioned list of requirements.
As a consequence, and since all the CARESS partners involved in the design and enactment of the pilots had
previous experienced with the widely-known Moodle (https://moodle.org/) LCMS, the decision was
made to use Moodle as the starting point of the development of the CARESS e-Learning
Platform.
Additionally, Moodle provides multilingual support in the three languages of the CARESS national pilots:
Spanish, Italian and Finnish (see https://lang.moodle.org/)
After the decision was made, two main development efforts were carried out to customized Moodle so as
to fulfil the posed requirements to the CARESS e-Learning Platform:
1) To integrate the Glue! architecture with the latest versions of Moodle
2) To integrate Moodle with the VCP Platform being developed within WP5
The next section describes the technical approach adopted to carry out these two integrations.

4 CARESS e-Learning PLATFORM ARCHITECTURE AND

PROTOTYPE

4.1 Integration with external web tools via Glue!

Glue!, is an architecture (proposed by UVA in [7]) that enables the lightweight integration of multiple
existing external tools in multiple existing VLEs (or LCMSs). Glue! fosters this integration by imposing few
restrictions on VLE and tool providers, as well as by requiring a reasonable effort from developers, unlike
other integration proposals. Besides, Glue! Facilitates the instantiation and enactment of collaborative
activities within VLEs, leveraging the VLEs distinctive features for the management of users and groups (and
thus fulfilling one of the requirements for the CARESS e-Learning platform). Figure 2 shows a high-level
view of the Glue! architecture.

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 Deliverable 4.1.1

Figure 2. Overview of the Glue! architecture [7].

Glue! follows a three-tier architecture with loosely-coupled distributed services, where m VLE contracts and
n tool contracts become interoperable through an intermediate software layer and a set of distributed
software adapters.

The leftmost and rightmost Glue! tiers make use of the well-known adapter software pattern to
respectively wrap VLEs and tools, also adapting their specific and heterogeneous contracts to two generic
and homogeneous intermediate contracts: the Glue! integration contract for VLEs and the Glue! integration
contract for tools. These type of adapters are called VLE adapters and tool adapters in the Glue!
architecture.

The three-tier architecture also contains an intermediate software layer, called Glue! Core, which offers the
Glue! integration contracts. The purpose of the Glue! core is to decouple VLE and tool adapters, while
assuming most of the integration functionality. That facilitates the independent implementation of
adapters, and reduces their development effort. It is noteworthy that the Glue! core promotes a many-to-
many integration, since every new tool adapter developed for a tool enables its integration in any VLE with
its corresponding VLE adapter, and the other way around.

The Glue! architecture provides the functionality to create, configure, retrieve, update and delete external
tool instances (called GLUElets), thus managing the life cycle of collaborative tools, which is common to
many software tools, including most VLE built-in tools, and even some individual tools. This life cycle can be
combined with the VLE features for the management of groups and activities, in order to associate each
external tool instance to each group that participates in a given activity, so that students belonging to the
same group may collaborate, sharing the same instance, as they normally do with VLE built-in tools. Thus,
by using this functionality, practitioners are greatly aided in the instantiation and enactment of
collaborative learning activities. This is a Glue! feature very interesting for the CARESS e-Learning Platform,
since it would help support the “Collaborative Learning in Virtual Classrooms” requirement defined before.
For instance, if a pilot designer wants 20 groups of students in Moodle to use a shared Google Docs
document (one document per group), the creation of the 20 needed Google Docs documents (GLUElets)
would be automatically carried out by Glue!, thus reducing significantly the effort of the designer.
Furthermore, from the development point of view, the use of Glue! in the CARESS e-Learning Platform
would only require the development of a VLE adaptor (see Figure 2 above) for the version of the Moodle
VLE/LCMS intended to be used.

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 Deliverable 4.1.1

4.2 Integration with the VCP Platform

In order to facilitate the transition of HHCPs from formal to non-formal/informal learning, CARESS WP5
proposes the integration of the e-Learning Platform with the VCP Platform being developed in task T5.1.
Since the VCP Platform is an extension of the Joomla! (https://www.joomla.org/) Content Management
System and since the e-Learning Platform is built on top of Moodle, the integration of both platform has
been based on the Joomdle (https://www.joomdle.com/) open-source product. The integration based on
Joomdle provides several advantages from the CARESS point of view:
• It supports a single sign-on authentication schema. This way, HHCPs can log in once (e.g., in the VCP
Platform) and access both Platforms seamlessly.
• It allows centralized user profiles. This way, a HHCP updating his/her profile in the VCP Platform will
get his/her profile automatically updated in the e-Learning Platform.
• It allows the access and the visualization of content from the e-Learning Platform in the VCP
Platform, thus facilitating the reuse of e-Learning material in non-formal/informal learning
activities.
The use of Joomdle facilitates “the integration of both platforms in a unique “meeting point” for HHCPs
participating in both formal, informal and non-formal learning activities”, as requested by the CARESS work
plan. As a consequence of this approach, the VCP/e-Learning Platform will be provided to the users as an
integrated system. The users will typically use the VCP address (http://communitycaress.gsic.uva.es, see
D5.1.1) for accessing both platforms, although users enrolled in e-Learning courses can still use the address
http://elearningcaress.gsic.uva.es for directly accessing the e-Learning Platform, if desired.
The integration of the VCP and e-Learning Platforms is expected to evolved throughout three “stages”
during the lifetime of the project (and beyond) in relation to their “users” (i.e., trained HHCPs). In a
nutshell:
• STAGE 1 (during CARESS pilots): in this stage users of the two Platforms will be the same
(participants in e-Learning courses will be able to access de VCP seamlessly and vice versa). It is
expected that teachers of the pilots will provide the administrators of the platforms with a list of
students to enrol in the pilot courses. Thanks to the Joomdle-based integration, these students will
become automatically members of the CARESS VCP.
• STAGE 2 (after pilots, before the end of the project): some of the pilot students will become
“senior members”/moderators in the VCP, but will remain students in the e-Learning platform.
Meanwhile, the VCP will be opened to the public and the e-Learning platform will still be under the
control of the CARESS partners. New HHCPs joining the CARESS VCP will be automatically enrol in
the e-Learning Platform as students, but they will not be enrolled in the e-Learning courses of the
pilots (new e-Learning courses might eventually be created and the newcomers to the VCP might
ask for their enrolment in those courses).
• STAGE 3 (after the end of the project): both the VCP Platform and the e-Learning Platform will be
active for at least one year after the end of the project. It is expected that the VCP will be self-
sustained and under the control and initiative of VCP senior members. The policy for the
management of the e-Learning Platform will be decided at the end of the project lifetime.

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 Deliverable 4.1.1

4.3 Overall architecture and prototype

A prototype of the e-Learning Platform has been developed and set up using Moodle 3.2.2 (one of the most
recent versions). A Glue! VLE adapter for this version of Moodle has been developed and connected to an
installation of the implementation of the Glue! architecture available at http://gsic.uva.es/glue. Finally, the
resulting Platform has been integrated with the prototype of the CARESS VCP Platform (available at
http://communitycaress.gsic.uva.es) using Joomdle. Figure 3 provides an overview of the relationship of
the e-Learning Platform (Moodle, Glue!, Joomdle) with the rest of the technological platforms supporting
the CARESS project: the VCP Platform (WP5), the CARESS Framework System (WP3) and the Integrated
Learning Design Environment or ILDE (WP3). The prototype of the e-Learning Platform is availiable at
http://elearningcaress.gsic.uva.es

Figure 3. Overview of the CARESS Platforms, indicating the role of the e-Learning Platform, as well as its relationships with WP3
and WP5 technical outcomes.

5 SHOWCASING THE MAIN USE CASES OF THE CARESS e-

Learning PLATFORM
This section is aimed at showcasing the main functional use cases of the CARESS e-Learning Platform. The
section includes basic Moodle LCMS use cases, but it also includes use cases related with one of the two
main customizations carried out on top of the Moodle: the integration with the Glue! architecture. The use

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cases related with integration with the VCP platform are described in D5.1.2 (“Integration of Virtual
Community of Practice (VCP) Platform (version 2) with e-Learning Platform”).
This section will not showcase all Moodle functionalities, since they are profusely detailed in the Moodle
official documentation (https://docs.moodle.org/33/en/Main_page). Additionally, CARESS pilot designers
have previous experience in using Moodle, so this section will be just focused on showcasing the new
functional features and illustrating some key Moodle functionalities.

5.1 Overview the use cases

This section provides an overview of the functionality added to Moodle by means of a use case diagram
tackling both the integration between the VCP Platform and the e-Learning Platform, as well as the
integration of third-party web 2.0 tools by means of the Glue! architecture. The use case diagram also
contains some use cases illustrating basic functionality already provided by Moodle.
These functionalities are represented as use cases (see Figure 4). The actors interact with the system by
means of these use cases.
The actors are:
• VCP member: a user with an account in the Virtual Community of practice that can also access the
e-Learning platform (thanks to the integration carried out with Joomdle). It is important to
underline that from the perspective of this section, a VCP member is also a student enrolled in
the Moodle LMCS that is part of the e-Learning Platform (see section 4.2 for a description of the
different stages in the relationship between users of the VCP Platform and the e-Learning
Platform).
• e-Learning Platform course manager: a user with an account in the e-Learning platform that has the
manager role in a course (e.g., a pilot designer or a teacher delivering the online learning module of
a pilot). e-Learning Platform course managers can enrol students (and/or accept enrolment
requests) in the courses they manage.
• e-Learning Platform Manager: a user with an account in the e-Learning platform that is able to
create/modify/delete courses and enrol students in any of the courses already created in the e-
Learning Platform.
• e-Learning Platform Course Student: a user with an account in the e-Learning platform that is
enrolled in one or several of the courses of the platform and that take part in their learning
activities.

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Figure 4. Overview of the use cases of the CARESS e-Learning platform dealing with the integration with the VCP Platform and
with the integration with the Glue! architecture. IMPORTANT NOTE: The use cases related with integration with the VCP
platform are described in D5.1.2 (“Integration of Virtual Community of Practice (VCP) Platform (version 2) with e-Learning
Platform”).

5.2 Registering in the VCP/e-Learning Platforms

5.2.1 Register for an account in the VCP/e-Learning Platforms

Brief description
The user wants to register for an account in the platform in order to become a member of the Virtual
Community of Practice (thanks to the integration provided by Joomdla, s/he will become automatically a
student of the e-Learning Platform, although s/he cannot enter any of its courses until s/he is enrolled by
a teacher/instructor, see section 4.2).

Preconditions
No preconditions are required.
Postconditions
The user is registered in the VCP with the role of “Community member”.
The user is registered automatically in the E-learning platform with the same credentials.
Flow of events
1. The user opens the Web browser and enters the VCP Platform’s URL
(https://communitycaress.gsic.uva.es). The home page is loaded. Since the user does not have an
account yet, he/she clicks on the “Register for an Account Today” button in order to start the
registration process.

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2. The registration process has three steps. In the first step the user has to provide the platform with
the basic information about the account. There are several mandatory fields such as the Name, the
username in the VCP/e-Learning Platform, a password and a valid email address. Besides, the user
can choose the language to use throughout the site (English, Spanish, Italian or Finnish).

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3. The user is also requested to provide the platform with some more information. For instance, the
gender and the birthday are required. There are some other optional fields for extra information.
Once the user has filled in all of the fields marked as required, he/she clicks on the “Continue”
button.

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4. The second step in the registration process is about the education background and profession of
the user. The user has to provide the platform with information about the university or college
he/she studied at. The user can set what their bachelor’s degree is and which year he/she
graduated. Additionally, the user is requested to provide information about the type of Home
Health Care Professional s/he is and in which country s/he is currently working in. There are nine
types of HHCPs. When user hovers the mouse over an HHCP type, a tooltip with an explanatory
definition for the HHCP is displayed for that option. Once the user has entered that information,
s/he clicks on the “Continue” button.

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5. The third and last step in the registration process is “appearance”. It lets the user customize how
their profile will look like to other users. The user can upload a profile picture and a profile cover.
Once finished, the user clicks on the “Submit” button.

6. A message is displayed to the user to inform him/her that account has to be approved by a
moderator. Once it is approved, the user should receive an email notification in his email account.

7.

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a) The site administrator receives an email indicating that a new user has been registered on the
Virtual Community of Practice and their account requires his/her approval. He/she can use the
links provided in the email to reject or approve the user.

b) The administrator can also check the list of users who are registered on the site but whose
registrations are still pending approval by clicking on the menu item Components->EasySocial-
>Users. Then he/she clicks on the “Pending Approvals” link.

If the site administrator clicks on the user, he/she can view the user’s profile. Therefore, he/she can check
the basic information, the education and appearance fields that were filled in by the user in the registration
process

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.
If the site administrator wants to approve the account, he/she clicks on the “Approve” button. Otherwise,
he/she clicks on the “Reject” button. Then, he/she is requested to confirm the action and can enable the
option of sending a confirmation email to the recipients.
Once approved, a success message is showed.

8. Now, the user can login in the Virtual Community of Practice/e-Learning Platform. He/she goes to
the home page of the Virtual Community of Practice (https://communitycaress.gsic.uva.es). Then,
he/she enter their username and password in the login form and clicks on the “Log Me in” button.

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9. The user can start using the platform. As it is the first time that he/she logs in, a welcome message
is showed.

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10. Since the user has been also automatically registered in the e-Learning platform, he/she could use
the same credentials to login there (https://elearningcaress.gsic.uva.es) later on. Moreover, once
logged in the VCP, if the user clicks on the “e-Learning Platform” menu entry, which is available in
the “Main Menu”, he/she is automatically logged in the e-Learning platform too. A new tab is
opened in the browser to let the user manage their E-Learning platform’s account. The user is not
automatically enrolled in any of the available courses in the E-Learning platform.

5.3 Moodle use cases: managing courses in the e-Learning Platform

5.3.1 Create a course in the E-Learning Platform

Brief description

A member of the E-Learning Platform, who has “e-Learning Platform Manager” rights, wants to
add a new course to the E-Learning Platform. By default, a regular teacher (e-Learning Platform
Course Manager) is not allowed to add new courses.

Preconditions

The user is logged in the E-Learning platform.

The user has “e-Learning Platform Manager” rights in the E-Learning Platform.

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Flow of events
1. The user goes to “site administration”, which is located on the left menu of the page. If the menu is
hidden, the user should click on the toggle button in order to make it visible.

2. There are several subsections in the site administration section. The user clicks on the
“Courses” tab to see the options available for managing courses. Then, the user clicks on
the option “Manage courses and categories”, which is intended to allow the user to create
new courses or categories in a Moodle installation or manage the existing ones.

3. The course and category management section has links to create new courses or
categories. The user clicks on the “Create new course” to add a new course.

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4. The user has to fill out a form with the course settings. There are some general fields for
the course name, the category for the course and the starting and ending dates. It is
recommended to write a description of the course on the “Course summary” field.

The course format options let the user choose the layout of the course page. There are four options for
the “Format” field, although the recommended one is the topics format:
• Single activity format. For displaying a single activity or resource on the course page.
• Social format. A forum is displayed on the course page.
• Topics format. The course page is organised into topic sections.
• Weekly format. The course page is organised into weekly sections, with the first week starting
on the course start date.
There are also some options for the groups. There are three options for the “group mode” field:
• No groups: There are no sub groups, everyone is part of one big community.
• Separate groups: Each group member can only see his/her own group. The others are not
visible.
• Visible groups. Each group member works in his/her own group but can also see other groups.

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When planning for collaborative learning activities, the separate groups alternative is the most
suitable one when creating a new course.
If the “Force Group Mode” option is enabled, the course group mode is applied to every activity in
the course. It is preferred to enable force group mode.
Once the form has been filled up, the user clicks on the “Save and return” button in order to save
the new course and return to the course and category management section.

5. The new course has been added to the E-Learning platform in the selected category. It is
displayed now in the course list, within its category, and there are some icons to edit,
delete, view/hide or move up/down the course in the list.

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6. The user adds a manager or teacher for the course by enrolling a user in the just created course
and assigning him/her the manager or teacher role. The use case “Enrol a user in a course by an E-
Learning platform manager” below describes how to do that.

7. The added manager or teacher can now log into the E-Learning platform to manage the newly
created course and manually enrol the users in the course. For every student being enrolled in the
course, the manager/teacher assigns him/her the student role. See the use case “Enrol a user in a
course by a teacher” to know how to do that.

8. Once there is a manager/teacher for the course and s/he has added all of the students for that
course, the manager/teacher add some content to the course by creating sections and adding some
activities or resources to these sections. See the use case “Add an activity or resource to a course of
the E-Learning platform”.

5.3.2 Enrol a user in a course by an e-Learning Platform Manager

Brief description
A member of the E-Learning Platform, who has “e-Learning Platform Manager” rights, wants to to enrol a
user in a course of the E-Learning platform.

Preconditions
The use case user is logged in the E-Learning Platform.
The user being enrolled is already registered in the E-Learning Platform.
The use case user has “e-Learning Platform Manager” rights in the E-Learning platform.

Flow of events
1. The user goes to “site administration->Courses->Manage courses and categories” and then clicks
on the course category of the course. Then, he/she clicks on the course name in order to manage it.

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2. On the right column, the available functionality for the course being managed is displayed. There
are links to view, edit, manage the enrolled users, delete, hide, make a backup or restore the
course. The user clicks on the “Enrolled users” link to manage the current list of users enrolled to
the course.

3. The list of enrolled users in the course is displayed. For each enrolled user, the entry shows his/her
name and email address, the last time the user accessed to the course, his/her role, the groups
he/she is a member of and the enrolment method. The user clicks on the “Enrol users” button in
order to enrol a new user in the course.

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4. A modal dialog is displayed then with the list of users who can be enrolled in the course. The
“Assign roles” dropdown allows the “e-Learning Platform Manager” to choose the role for the users
being added. There are five options:
- None: The user is enrolled in the course without any role.
- Manager: The user can access to the course and modify it, as well as perform certain
administrative level task related to courses, users, grade settings, etc.
- Teacher: They can do almost anything within a course, including adding or changing the
activities or resources and grading students. The can also assign non-editing teacher or student
role to other users.
- Non-editing teacher: They are able within a course to view and grade students’ work. However,
the may not alter or delete any of the activities or resources in the course.
- Student: They can participate in course activities and view resources but not alter them.
For instance, if the user wants to enrol a teacher in the course, he/she chooses the “Teacher”
option and then clicks on the “Enrol” button which is next to their username and email address.
Once the user has been enrolled the “Enrol” button next to him/her disappears.

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In the same way, if the user wanted to enrol some students in the course, he/she would choose the
“Student” option for the “Assign roles” dropdown and then he/she would click on the “Enrol”
button of the students being enrolled.
Once all of the desired users have been enrolled in the course, the user clicks on the “Finish
enrolling users” button and is returned back to the updated list of enrolled users in the course.

5.3.3 Enrol a user in a course by a teacher

Brief description
A member of the E-Learning Platform, who is a manager/teacher in the course (“e-Learning Platform
Course Manager” role), wants to enrol a user in the course of the E-Learning platform.
Preconditions
The use case user is logged in the E-Learning platform.
The user being enrolled is already registered in the E-Learning platform.
The use case user is a manager/teacher in the course (“e-Learning Platform Course Manager” role) in which
the other user is going to be enrolled.
Flow of events
1. The user goes to the course by clicking on the link to the course which is located on the left menu
of the page, below the “My courses” list. Previously, if the menu is hidden, the user needs to click
on the toggle button in order to make it visible. As an alternative, the user can click on its name on
the course overview section.
Since the user wants to enrol a user (student) in the course “Primary Care” he/she clicks on the link
with that name.

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2. The course view is displayed next. By clicking on the gear icon, a dropdown menu is displayed to
manage the course. There are options such as edit settings, turn editing on/off, backup, restore,
import and so on. By clicking on the “More…” option, the course administration screen is displayed.
The user clicks on that option.

3. There are two subsections “Course administration” and “Users” in the Course administration
section. The user clicks on the “Users” tab in order to manage the users enrolled in the course.

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4. There are several options related to the users and permissions. The manager/teacher can manage
the enrolled users, the enrolment methods and the groups. As the user wants to enrol new users in
the course, he/she clicks on the “Enrolled users” link.

5. The list of enrolled users in the course is displayed. For each enrolled user, the entry shows his/her
name and email address, the last time the user accessed to the course, his/her role, the groups
he/she is a member of and the enrolment method. The user clicks on the “Enrol users” button in
order to enrol new users as students in the course.

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6. A modal dialog is then displayed with the list of users who can be enrolled in the course. The
“Assign roles” dropdown allows choosing the role for the users being added. There are three/five
options, depending whether the user has the manager role or just the teacher role. Enrolling users
with Manager and teacher roles are only allowed for users carrying out these tasks in a manager
role.
a. None: The user is enrolled in the course without any role.
b. Manager: The user can access to the course and modify it, as well as perform certain
administrative level task related to courses, users, grade settings, etc.
c. Teacher: They can do almost anything within a course, including adding or changing the
activities or resources and grading students. They can also assign non-editing teacher or
student role to other users.
d. Non-editing teacher: They are able within a course to view and grade students’ work.
However, the may not alter or delete any of the activities or resources in the course.
e. Student: They can participate in course activities and view resources but not alter them.

For instance, if the user wants to enrol a teacher in the course, he/she chooses the “Teacher”
option and then clicks on the “Enrol” button which is next to their username and email address.
Once the user has been enrolled the “Enrol” button next to him/her disappears.

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In the same way, if the user wanted to enrol some students in the course, he/she would choose the
“Student” option for the “Assign roles” dropdown and then he/she would click on the “Enrol”
button of the students being enrolled.
Once all of the desired users have been enrolled in the course, the user clicks on the “Finish
enrolling users” button and is returned back to the updated list of enrolled users in the course.

5.3.4 Add an activity or resource to a course of the e-Learning Platform

Brief description
A member of the E-Learning Platform, who is a manager/teacher in the course (“e-Learning Platform
Course Manager” role), wants to add an activity or resource to the course of the E-Learning platform.

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Preconditions
The user is logged in the E-Learning platform.
The user is a manager/teacher (“e-Learning Platform Course Manager” role) in the course in which the
activity or resource is going to be added.

Flow of events

1. The user goes to the course by clicking on the link to the course which is located on the left menu
of the page, below the “My courses” list. If the menu is hidden, the user needs to click on the
toggle button in order to make it visible. As an alternative, the user can click on its name on the
course overview section. Since the user wants to add an activity or resource to the course “Primary
Care”, he/she clicks on the link with that name.

2. The course view is displayed next. By clicking on the gear icon, a dropdown menu is displayed to
manage the course. There are options such as edit settings, turn editing on/off, backup, restore,
import and so on. In order to be able to edit the course content, the user clicks on the option “Turn
editing on”.

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3. Now, for each course section, there are some new links that allow the user to add an activity or
resource to the section or editing it. There are also two icons at the bottom of the page that let the
user increase or decrease the number of sections in the course. Since the user wants to add a new
activity or resource to the “Topic 1” section, he/she clicks on the “Add an activity or resource” link
for that section.

4. A dialog is displayed to let the user choose the kind of activity or resource to be added to the
course section. An activity is a general name for a group of features in a Moodle course. Usually an
activity is something that a student will do to interact with other students and/or the teacher. On
the other hand, a resource is an item that a teacher can use to support learning, such as a file or a
link. There are several types of resources that can be added to a course.

Since the teacher wants to create an assignment for the students, the user (teacher) clicks on the
“Assignment” activity in order to choose that kind of activity. Then, he clicks on the “Add” button to
create it. An assignment enables teachers to grade and give comments on uploaded files and
assignments created on and off line.

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5. The user has to fill out a form for the assignment being created. There are some general fields for
the assignment, such as the assignment name, a description of the activity and additional files that
the teacher could want to include, if necessary.

The available options allow the teacher to configure the dates for the submissions. That is, the
starting date for the submissions, the due date and the cut-off date. It is also possible to set some
restrictions as to the submission types (online text or file submissions) such as a maximum number
of uploaded files, file size or accepted file types. There are also some group submission settings to
enable and configure group submissions.

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There are additional fields for the notifications, grade, common module settings and so on. Finally,
once the activity has been configured, the user clicks on the “Save and return button” to return to
the course.

6. The assignment activity has been added to the course section. It is possible to view the activity by
clicking on its name or manage it by clicking on its edit link and then on the “Edit settings” of the
dropdown menu that it is showed then.

7. The user clicks on the activity link to open the just created activity.

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5.3.5 Carry out an activity in a course of the e-Learning Platform

Brief description
A member of the E-Learning Platform, who is a student in the course, wants to carry out an activity in a
course of the E-Learning platform.
Preconditions
The user is logged in the e-Learning Platform.
The user is enrolled as a student in the course in which the activity is going to be carried out.
Flow of events
1. The user goes to the course by clicking on the link to the course which is located on the left menu
of the page, below the “My courses” list. If the menu were hidden, the user need to click on the
toggle button in order to make it visible. As an alternative, the user can click on its name on the
course overview section. Since the user wants to do an activity of the course “Primary Care”,
he/she clicks on the link with that name.

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2. The course view is displayed next. The course is divided into sections and, for each section, the
activities and resources available are showed. Since the user wants to carry out the activity of type
assignment named “An assignment activity”, he/she clicks on its name. An assignment enables
teachers to grade and give comments on uploaded files and assignments created on and off line.

3. The activity is showed, including the title of the activity and its description. Since it is an activity of
type “assignment”, the information also includes the submission status, the due date and the time
remaining. It is possible to add some comments to the activity by clicking on the comments link and
then on “Save comment”.

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4. The assignment activity was configured by the teacher to request that the student submit a file in
order to complete the activity. The user clicks on the “Add submission” button to submit that file. It
is possible to drag and drop the files to be submitted.

As an alternative, the user can click on the “add” icon and then upload it from the local machine by
clicking on the “Upload” button and then choosing the file and uploading it by clicking on the
“Upload this file” button. Once all of the files have been added, the user clicks on the “Save
changes” button to submit the files for the assignment activity.

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5. The activity is showed again. Now, the submission status has changed from “No attempt” to
“Submitted for grading”.

5.3.6 Review and grade an activity of a course of the e-Learning Platform

Brief description
A member of the e-Learning Platform, who is a manager/teacher in the course (“e-Learning Platform
Manager” or “e-Learning Platform Course Manager” roles), wants to review and grade an activity done by a
student in a course of the E-Learning platform.
Preconditions
The user is logged in the e-Learning Platform.
The user is a manager/teacher in the course (“e-Learning Platform Manager” or “e-Learning Platform
Course Manager” roles) in which the activity to be reviewed and graded has been carried out by the
student.
Flow of events

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1. The user goes to the course by clicking on the link to the course which is located on the left menu
of the page, below the “My courses” list. If the menu were hidden, the user needs to click on the
toggle button in order to make it visible. As an alternative, the user can click on its name on the
course overview section. Since the user wants to review and grade an activity of the course
“Primary Care”, he/she clicks on the link with that name.

2. The course view is displayed next. The course is divided into sections and, for every section, there is
a list of activities and resources.

3. The teacher clicks on the activity to be reviewed and graded. Since the teacher wants to grade
his/her students’ submissions for the activity named “An assignment activity”, he/she clicks on its
name to view it.

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4. Then the teacher clicks on the “View all submissions” link to view the users’ submissions. For each
user, his/her name, email address, submission status, grade, file submissions and more are
displayed. The teacher can view the submitted files by clicking on their link.

5. The user clicks on the “Grade” button of the user whose file submissions for the assignment activity
wants to grade. The teacher can grade the submission from 0 to 100 and also feedback some
comments. It is also possible to choose whether the involved students should be notified or not.
Then, the user clicks on the “Save changes” button to finish grading the submission.

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6. A success message is displayed indicating that the changes to the grade and feedback carried out
have been saved. The user clicks on the “Ok” button to close this dialog. Then, he/she can change
the user to be graded by clicking on the previous or next icons or just go back to the course or to
the activity by clicking on the links in the upper left corner of the page.

7. Finally, the user clicks on the “Assignment: An assignment activity” to go back to the assignment
activity view.

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5.4 Use cases dealing with the integration of third-party web 2.0 tools
by means of Glue!

5.4.1 Creation of a GLUElet in the e-Learning platform

Brief description
A member of the e-Learning Platform, who is a teacher or manager in a course, is adding content to that
course and wants to add a resource of type GLUElet in a course’s section. That is, adding an external tool
from those available by the Glue! VLE adapter for Glue!, which is part of the e-Learning Platform.
Preconditions
The user is logged in the e-Learning platform.
The user has the role of teacher or manager in the course.
Flow of events
1. The user goes to the course in the e-Learning platform in which s/he wants to add the external tool,
that is, the GLUElet. For instance, a teacher in the “Dementia” course may want to add a Google
Document (https://www.google.com/docs/about/) in the section “2. Symptoms of Dementia”. The
goal is to provide the students with a document they can use collaboratively to share their
knowledge about this topic.

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2. The user clicks on the “Add an activity or resource” link that is displayed at the bottom of the
section “2. Symptoms of Dementia”. Next, a dialog is showed. The user chooses the “GLUElet”
activity and clicks on the “Add button”.

3. The user has to fill out a form in order to create the GLUElet. S/he fills in the name and description
fields. Besides, there is a “GLUElet settings” subsection where s/he has to choose one tool from
those available by the Glue! VLE adapter for Moodle (Google Documents, Google Spreadsheets,
Google Presentations, Wikipedia and so on). Since s/he wants to create a Google Document, s/he
chooses the “Google Documents (http://drive.google.com)” option. Once the form has been filled
out, the user clicks on the “Save and continue” button.

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4. Next, the user configures the new GLUElet. There are two options: create a new GLUElet or reuse
an existing one, which means reusing a previously created GLUElet in the course instead of adding a
new one.
a) If the user chooses the option “Create new GLUElet” s/he has to enter a title for the document.
S/he can also choose a file for the creation of the GLUElet instead of just creating a blank
document.

b) If s/he chooses the option “Reuse existing GLUElet”, the title and “select file” fields are
disabled. Instead, there is a “Reusable gluelets” field to choose the GLUElet that is going to be
reused. For instance, if the user chooses the option “Activity: Collaborative document about
Dementia”, it means that this GLUElet, which was created previously in the section “1. About
dementia”, is going to be reused in this activity of the section “2. Symptoms of Dementia”.

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5. Finally, the user clicks on the “Accept” button. Then, the resulting GLUElet is displayed.

6. If the user goes back to the course, s/he can see the link to the resource in its course’s section. S/he
can open that resource by clicking on the link. There is also an associated menu that allows the user
to edit its settings or delete it.

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 Deliverable 4.1.1

5.4.2 Access to a Course’s GLUElet in the e-Learning platform

Brief description
A member of the Virtual Community of Practice wants to access to a Course’s GLUElet without leaving the
VCP. The GLUElet was previously added by a manager or teacher to the course in the e-Learning platform
(see use case “ Creation of a GLUElet in the e-Learning platform”).
Preconditions
The user is logged in the Virtual Community of Practice.
The user is registered in the e-Learning platform.
The user is enrolled in the course.
Flow of events
1. The user gets the list of courses in the e-Learning platform in which s/he is enrolled (see the use
case “Get the list of courses in the e-Learning platform in which the user is enrolled”) and searches
for the course that contains the GLUElet s/he wants to access to.
For instance, the user wants to access the Google Document (that is, a GLUElet whose tool type is
Google Document) “Collaborative document about the Symptoms of Dementia”, which was created
in the section “Symptoms of Dementia” of the course “Dementia”. Therefore, s/he searches for the
“Dementia” course and clicks on it.

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 Deliverable 4.1.1

2. The user clicks on the link “Course Contents” to get the list of available resources in the course for
every section. The section “Symptoms of Dementia” contains a link to the document called
“Collaborative document about the Symptoms of Dementia”. The user clicks on this link to access
this resource.

3. The GLUElet content is embedded in the Virtual Community of Practice. This way, the user can edit
this shared document without leaving the Virtual Community of Practice.

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5.4.3 Deletion of a GLUElet in the e-Learning platform

Brief description
A member of the e-Learning Platform, who is a teacher or manager in a course, wants to delete a resource
of type GLUElet from a course’s section. That is, deleting an external tool that was created in the e-Learning
Platform by using the Glue! VLE adaptor for Moodle (see the use case “ Creation of a GLUElet in the e-
Learning platform”).
Preconditions
The user is logged in the e-Learning platform.
The user has the role of teacher or manager in the course.
Flow of events
1. The user goes to the course in the e-Learning platform in which s/he wants to delete the external
tool, that is, the GLUElet. For instance, a teacher in the “Dementia” course may want to delete a
shared Google Document (https://www.google.com/docs/about/) that was created by him/her or
by another manager or teacher in the section “2. Symptoms of Dementia”, named "Collaborative
document about the symptoms of dementia”.

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 Deliverable 4.1.1

2. The user clicks on the “Edit” link for that GLUElet to show a dropdown menu with the different
options for the GLUElet. Then, s/he clicks on the “Delete” option to delete the GLUElet.

3. A confirmation dialog is showed. The user clicks on the “Yes” button to confirm the deletion of the
GLUElet “Collaborative document about the symptoms of dementia”. After that, the dialog is closed
and the GLUElet is deleted from the course.

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6 CONCLUSIONS
This report has described the process followed towards the first operational prototype of the CARESS e-
Learning Platform. This Platform is the result of customizing an existing LCMS (Moodle) so that it can be
integrated with the VCP Platform under development within WP5, as well as integrated with the Glue!
architecture (for easily embedding third party web 2.0 learning tools into the Moodle courses). The
developed e-Learning Platform prototype not only supports all the requirements elicited from the work
within WP3 but it also provides enough flexibility to cope with eventual future requirements that might
derive from the detailed design of the e-Learning modules of the CARESS pilots.
The e-Learning Platform will now be populated with the “Multilingual Open Content” developed within task
T4.2 which will be part of the e-Learning modules to be implemented within T4.3 (“Pilots implementation:
e-Learning modules”).

7 REFERENCES

[1] CARESS project. “D3.4.1: Instructional design documents supporting the design of Open Contents
and including requirements for the development of the e-Learning platform”. Project deliverable
3.4.1. April 2017.
[2] Stahl, G., Koschmann, T., & Suthers, D. (2006). Computer-supported collaborative learning: An
historical perspective. Cambridge handbook of the learning sciences, 2006, 409-426.
[3] Dillenbourg, P., & Tchounikine, P. (2007). Flexibility in macro-scripts for computer-supported
collaborative learning. Journal of computer assisted learning, 23(1), 1-13.
[4] Calvani, A., Fini, A., Pettenati, M. C., Sarti, L., & Masseti, M. (2009). Design of Collaborative Learning
Environments: bridging the gap between CSCL theories and Open Source Platforms. Journal of e-
Learning and Knowledge Society, 2(1).

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[5] Soller, A., Martínez, A., Jermann, P., & Muehlenbrock, M. (2005). From mirroring to guiding: A
review of state of the art technology for supporting collaborative learning. International Journal of
Artificial Intelligence in Education, 15(4), 261-290.
[6] Hernández-Leo, D., Asensio-Pérez, J. I., & Dimitriadis, Y. (2005). Computational representation of
collaborative learning flow patterns using IMS learning design. Journal of Educational Technology
and Society, 8(4), 75.
[7] Alario-Hoyos, C., Bote-Lorenzo, M. L., Gómez-Sámchez, E., Asensio-Pérez, J. I., Vega-Gorgojo, G., &
Ruiz-Calleja, A. (2013). GLUE!: An architecture for the integration of external tools in Virtual
Learning Environments. Computers & Education, 60(1), 122-137.
[8] Alario-Hoyos, C., & Wilson, S. (2010, November). Comparison of the main alternatives to the
integration of external tools in different platforms. In Proceedings of the International Conference
of Education, Research and Innovation, ICERI (pp. 3466-3476).

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