EMREX General Assembly in Göttingen 31 May 2022
The 2022 EMREX Annual Assembly was held on May 31st. This year it was held as a physical meeting in the historical city of Göttingen in Germany with courtesy of Georg-August Universität. The yearly report from 2021 was presented and accepted, just as the yearly plan for 2022. The election of the Executive Committee resulted in some new faces so now the EC consists of:
• Igor Drvodelic, Croatia,
• Tor Fridell, Sweden,
• Janina Mincer-Daszkiewicz, Poland,
• Jan-Joost Norder, the Netherlands,
• Kimmo Rautio, Finland,
• Geir M Vangen, Norway,
• Arn Wassman, Germany.
One agenda item was changes in the statutes, demanded by the decision last year to move the EMREX Registry (EMREG) into the EWP Registry. Some parts became obsolete by this and some editorial changes were needed.
At the meeting the following new members were welcomed into the EMREX User Group:
• Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany,
• Pedagogische Hochschule Ludwigsburg, Germany,
• Pescheck, the Netherlands,
• Supratix, Germany.
All documents can be found at https://emrex.eu/documents/.
ELMO Workshop in Göttingen 31 May 2022
On 31 May 2022 the EMREX Executive Committee hosted an hybrid ELMO workshop at the University of Göttingen. In a very intensive and long session we discussed many changes and additions to the ELMO standard. The discussion showed that it is not easy to find common ground easily with a standard that is being used in so many countries nowadays. At the end of the day we could only agree on one issue out of 7 proposals. Does this mean that it was a bad workshop? Not at all, because it showed us again how valuable and important it is to talk with experts about the proposed changes. And we agreed that we need invest more time and research in the proposals. For example a standard template, so we can more easily discuss the necessity of a change. We would once more want to say thank the University of Göttingen for their hospitality.
All discussed issues are available in GitHub in the EMREX repository. Please visit: https://github.com/emrex-eu/elmo-schemas/issues/
Onsite participants of the ELMO workshop at Georg-August-Universität in Göttingen
EMREX at EUNIS 2022
EMREX was represented at the 2022 EUNIS conference. After two years of online meetings it was held physically in Göttingen, Germany.
EMREX held a presentation titled Interoperability of educational data demands standards which highlighted the problem that there are competing standards for educational data in Europe and in the world. It was interesting in that way that it was not the only presentation the stated this fact. There seems to be an awareness that we should work together more and not create own solutions for everything.
EUNIS presentation and a full paper issued in European Journal of Higher Education IT (issue 2022-1) can be found here: https://www.eunis.org/eunis2022/sessions/interoperability-of-educational-data-demands-standards/.
ELMO in GitHub
In 2022 EMREX organization has transitioned its documentation to a unified GitHub account which hosts the ELMO schemas and EMREX standard with examples. The new front page features a summary of all the repositories with direct links. The sample implementations of EMP and EMC have been updated to reflect the new naming scheme and the presentations from previous seminars and meetings have merged into the presentation’s repository. The new GitHub page is now verified which helps increase its visibility in search engines and a contact e-mail has been added as well. The changes have also been extended to the standard description, glossary, and implementation guide, which now all include extensive descriptions about the EMREX protocol and all the necessary information, which new implementers need to get started.
This novel approach provides the community with a sole source of all code and documentation while at the same time providing the traceability of changes in the EMREX standard as it continues to evolve and adapt to new usage scenarios.
Visit EMREX repository in GitHub: https://github.com/emrex-eu.
ELMO in GitHub
On 25 July 2022, the ELMO and ELM technical teams had a fruitful meeting during which they confirmed a comprehensive alignment between ELMO and ELM v.3 (recently published for feedback on Github).
It was determined that all ELMO fields can be mapped to ELM fields with the following exceptions:
• Attachment fields: These do not exist in ELM at the moment but will now be included for the final version of ELM version 3.
• Diploma Supplement fields: ELMO uses simple string fields here, ELM mostly controlled-list fields. If the string fields are not filled properly, these fields might not be mapped in the ELM controlled list fields.
So, the current status is the following:
• ELMO is mappable to ELM version 3 in the current version without change under the above restrictions.
• ELM data could be mappable to the EWP and EMREX ecosystem via an appropriate ELM schema (the schema would still need to be created).
• Regarding an information from DG EMPL on SDG, ELM should become part of the SDG data model for structured education data. The DGs of the European Commission are in exchange there.
• Thus, we have defined a European data standard consisting of ELM version 3, which is largely compatible with both ELMO and SDG (regarding SDG under the restriction that SDG will use ELM).
During this meeting, a mapping table was produced: its clean and finalised version will be circulated in the course of August.
As this is a significant achievement, DG EMPL calls for a meeting with EMREX and ELMO key stakeholders as well as relevant Commission colleagues to discuss the following:
• Any pending questions regarding the technical work for the alignment of the two data models (the mapping table will be circulated in advance).
• Communication actions regarding this milestone.
• Agreement to start a policy discussion on the two data models.
Regarding dates, DG EMPL suggests such an online meeting on 5 September 2022, 16.30-17.30 (Brussels time).
Visit us at the EAEI Poster presentation
On Wednesday 14 September 2022 from 14:30-16:00 EMREX will be present at the EAIE conference in Barcelona. We will give a poster presentation about the achievements of EMREX in the last five years. The use of EMREX has grown over the last years and also its potential. It has proven to be very useful in several uses cases, such as admissions, recruitment and data exchange between universities. Next to that we will also give an outline of the future plans. Don’t miss it!
EMREX at EAEI conference in Barcelona
The Groningen Declaration Network Annual Meeting
EMREX is represented at the 11th Annual Meeting that will take place on 12-14 October 2022 in the birthplace of the GDN, the beautiful city of Groningen, The Netherlands (and also online).
The themes of the 2022 meeting are Learner Centricity – Interoperability – Lifelong Learning which highlights the interdependence of three key issues that have to be met to make digital learner data portability a global reality. That is, a focus on the pivotal role of learner centricity as starting point, requiring interoperability so as to ensure seamless learners’ access to their data. This is almost exactly the same focus as the EMREX network and we are therefore very glad to be present. Our presentation will focus specifically on the different standards for educational data and a suggested way forward.
The Groningen Declaration Network is an international, non-profit and voluntary network that supports academic and professional digital credential mobility so that citizens worldwide are able to consult and share their authentic educational data autonomously, with the expectation of fair recognition.
Link to the conference site: https://www.groningendeclaration.org/2022-am-groningen/
EMREX Data Access Points in the EWP Network and Discovery 6.0.0
EMREX Data Access Points are already present in the EWP Registries, both in DEV and PROD Networks. To check if your manifest file is properly handled by the Registry, please visit:
• https://dev-registry.erasmuswithoutpaper.eu/status
• https://registry.erasmuswithoutpaper.eu/status.
Bare in mind that we still use the new EMREG, which reads the XML catalogue file from the EWP registry and translates it to the JSON format expected by the EMREX clients. The EMREX clients switched from the old EMREG and now send requests straight to the new EMREX. The old EMREG has been removed.
That means that EMPs are now registered only in the EWP registry but the EMREX clients can still get responses in the old JSON format.
EMREX clients send requests directly to the new EMREG which translates EWP catalogue file from XML to JSON format
Eventually we will delete the new EMREG. The EMREX clients will send requests directly to the EWP registry and will accept the catalogue file in the XML format. Inform your client about this requirement!
EMREX clients send requests directly to the EWP Registry and read catalogue file in XML format
The other important news is that the EWP Network switches to the Discovery 6.0.0. Soon earlier versions will become obsolete. All EMREX Data Access Points should change the manifest files accordingly.
You can find the example here: https://usosweb.demo.usos.edu.pl/api/manifest.php.
There is a new mandatory element: <ewp:admin-provider>MUCI (USOS)</ewp:admin-provider>. There is a new namespace:
xmlns="https://github.com/erasmus-without-paper/ewp-specs-api-discovery/tree/stable-v6" <discovery version="6.0.0"> <url>https://usosweb.demo.usos.edu.pl/api/manifest.php</url> </discovery>
Get in touch
To contact us write to info@emrex.eu. To get support write to support@emrex.eu.