How to set up the Learning Object Evaluation Platform

This section explains how to set up ViSH to use a Learning Object Evaluation Platform in order to provide evaluation, quality metrics and additional services.

1. Introduction
2. Use an already deployed LOEP instance
3. Set up a new LOEP instance
4. Synchronization
5. Additional Settings

Introduction

LOEP (Learning Object Evaluation Platform) is a web platform which aims to facilitate the evaluation of educational resources. It is also open source and the code is available here.

• A LOEP instance can be used in a ViSH application to:
  • Allow end users to evaluate the resources of the platform using web forms.
  • Provide different evaluation forms depending on the user (student, teacher, ...).
  • Allow to appoint reviewers to evaluate the resources.
  • Generate quality metrics based on the evaluations in order to:
    • Enhance the search engine.
    • Allow the recommender system to provide enhanced recommendations.
    • Improve the original metrics used by ViSH to generate the views.
  • Generate automatic alerts for resources with low quality (customizable).
  • Resource filtering feature based on quality (customizable).

Use an already deployed LOEP instance

1. First off, you should go to the LOEP instance and log in with a user with administrator role.
2. Go to the menu and click on: Applications -> Add New.
3. Create a new application with name 'ViSH' and callback 'http://{your_ViSH_domain}/loep'. For instance, for a ViSH application deployed in http://vishub.org, this value would be http://vishub.org/loep.
4. After create the application, copy the 'Authentication Token' value.
5. Open the application_config.yml file, and include and uncomment the following lines:

loep:
  domain: "loep_domain"
  api_version: "v1"
  app_name: "ViSH"
  auth_token: "secret_loep_token"
  repository_name: "ViSH"

In domain you should include the domain in which the LOEP platform is operating.
The app_name should be the name of the application in LOEP (ViSH in this case).
The auth_token should be the 'Authentication Token' copied on the step 4.
Repository name is an informative value to be stored in LOEP. You can choose the name you desired.

6. Migrate existing resources to the LOEP platform

If you have set up a LOEP platform for a ViSH application that had resources (that is, a non empty ViSH instance), you need to register these resources. Otherwise, these resources will not be able to be evaluated (an error message will be displayed if a user tries to do it).
To register the resources of a ViSH application into a LOEP platform, execute the following command after configure the ViSH to use the desired LOEP instance:

bundle exec rake loep:registerLOs

7. Restart the server

rails s

Set up a new LOEP instance

To set up a new LOEP instance follow the installation instructions of the LOEP wiki.
Once the new LOEP instance has been succesfully deployed, you should follow the instructions of the Use an already deployed LOEP instance section.

Synchronization

ViSH and LOEP servers need to be synchronized. This is done automatically as long as both servers are operative. However, if one server goes down additional steps may be needed to keep the synchronization.
The following commands should be helpful on these occasions:

  bundle exec rake loep:registerLOs

Register the new resources of the ViSH platform into the LOEP platform.

  bundle exec rake loep:getAllMetrics

Send the quality metrics from the LOEP platform to the ViSH platform.

Additional Settings

Some additional settings can be specified in the application_config.yml file.

Key	Description
qualityThreshold[create_report]	Allows to automatically generate reports when a resource is rated below the specified threshold. The report will appear on the admin panel together with the spam and error reports. This option is disabled by default.