WO2006109342A1

WO2006109342A1 - Distribution of e-learning courses and services

Info

Publication number: WO2006109342A1
Application number: PCT/IT2006/000241
Authority: WO
Inventors: Fabrizio Serafini
Original assignee: Scuola Di Management S.R.L.
Priority date: 2005-04-12
Filing date: 2006-04-11
Publication date: 2006-10-19
Also published as: ITRM20050176A1; WO2006109342B1

Abstract

The technique of authentication through one time unique identifier for the access to e-learning services includes: i- the opening of an account by an organization that distributes the course and the relative subscription and the assignment of the permissions and the access rights to 5 the owner of the copyright. ii- disposition of the course in a storage (3) on a web server (2) of the organization that distributes the course, with the implementation of the object course in a way to associate thereto the owner of the copyright, iii- definition of the courses' catalogue, including for every course the relation 10 author to object course which establishes its copyright. iv- distribution of the course and relative activation of an one time e-key, for each enrolment, that gives the right to have access to the same course; v- real time survey and monitor functions for the owner of the copyright on the remote host, of the activation requests of the enrolment e-keys in addition to the date 15 of distribution and other subsidiary information.

Description

Description Distribution of e-leaming courses and services

Technical Field

In general, the invention relates to It systems in a www environment, that offer e-leaming services and tools for the e-leaming, more in detail the present invention refers to a technique of authentication for the access to the e-leaming service, that provides the use of an one-time unique identifier for any distribution and enrolment to a training course. What is meant for training course is a complicated articulated project of activities or even only a limited number of didactics units.

Legend

File System Unix file system Http Hyper Text Transfer Protocol

It Internet technology

L.O. Learning object - object course

LMS Learning Management System associated to each L.O.

Web-server Computer or, more in general, a number of resources aimed to provide services on the web.

SW Software.

Background Ait

The e-leaming technique is a new tool for training, that has known a wide diffusion. This was bom to plan and manage the e-leaming training through Internet and the Web technology. This field is one of the area with the biggest potential of expansion, because allows corporation that distributes the course to provide training with rapidity, flexibility and remarkable capillarity of diffusion. In fact the e-leaming is configuring itself as the centre of a new formative paradigm in the Public Administration, business, university and school, able to satisfy in an effective way the requirements linked to the training of new professional profiles and to personal learning.

On the other hand the implementation of a training project in the e-learning modality comes from a careful valuation of the costs, of the wise choices that are relevant to the organization conditions and to most convenient technological and methodological choices for the embodiment of the same project.

Project implementation can differ in relation to the specific training requirements and to a specific context in which they will be unfolded for their efficacy. All the choices have as a main point the active participation of the user, which in a process of e- learning need to be assured not only an easy retrieval of documents on the www but also a range of services that allow the communication, interaction and self valuation. Certainly the project commitment is remarkable: to manage the communication and interaction in a course of e-learning require the use of human resources - psychologists, pedagogues, SW project manager etc. not to mention the specialist on the subject, that face each other in detail on the contents and on the different presentation method and intervention.

Besides, if the technique of self-valuation on one side allows managing all the information in relation to the training course and to the students' curriculum, on the other hand it requires the implementation of complicated trace and report procedures. Focusing the attention on those that are producing and distributing e-learning courses, need to be underlined how certainly these courses are not going to be made of traditional papery text that includes a number of pages to be read, more or less, enriched with picture. Instead they are planned as a tool to interact with the user in a way to capture the attention and build up a "motivational tool".

For example is well know how in order to obtain a good interactivity is not going to be enough to insert simple multi-media contents but it is necessary to use real interactive animations. At the moment a technology that is extensively used is the one provided in Flash - Macromedia registered T^M - that provides file with extension SWF easily imported in HTML documents. If on one side the visibility of the application is immediate (on condition that the browser would be supplied with of the plug-in previously installed), the resources employed to obtain the multimedia interactive product, are extremely compelling in terms of work days/man necessary, then in terms of economical costs. At the moment the technical state provides for two different procedures: a. DIRECT DISTRIBUTION

The business that produces SW coincides with the business that distributes the SW. Therefore is the same business author that is responsible not only for the production of the course SW, but also for its direct commercialization. Fig. 3 represents how at present they operate in the ambit of direct distribution of the courses. In said figure it is set forth how a business 5 that produces and realises its own courses does a direct control of data about the author or the owner of the copyright by means of informatics tools 4.

Data 7 concerning the management and the administration of the enrolments to these courses and the management of the same courses are processed by its own web server 2b and relative LMS. For this reason they will operate by the direct contact 8 with end user that has its own connection and processing unit 1. Based on this unit is made the direct distribution 9 of the real course. b. INDIRECT DISTRIBUTION

The business that produces the SW courses grants a licence for the retail of its SW courses to the vendor business. Such licence can be perpetual or time limited, and has enormous costs, because the business that produced the course can not verify the real number of courses actually distributed by the vendor. Besides, based on this procedure the business that produces the SW for the courses lose any contact with the end user, that for this reason can not be fidelized, because the vendor sells the courses at his own name (see Fig. 4). The mentioned figure is meaningful in a way that explain how, at the present, they operate in the sector of indirect distribution of courses. It is set forth how a business 5 that produces courses - or is the owner of the copyright -, producing them by its own, sells the course by transferring 12 the licence (with or without expiration) to a business -vendor- 10, that distributes the courses and has its own It management and administration units 1 1. For this reason the vendor will implement the installation 13 of the course on its own LMS allocated on a special purpose web server 2c. At this point the owner of the copyright does not have any chance to operate control and check on the licence that had been sold because management and administration operations are made by the vendor. In fact the distribution 14 is made privately by this latter interacting with the computer of the student 1 to which the vendor sends the course at its own title for a possible personalization 16.

A training organization that wants to establish its own e-learning sendee, to manage in the right way the different activities, need to organise the entire program in procedural and chronological phases and continue in the establishing material and human resources (tutor, assistant, collaborator, etc.) to be employed in the project. It is important, also, that the organization analyzes in advance the requirements for the e-learning program like equipments and the organizational structure. In other words said organizations do not plan or implement the e-learning courses, because their competences are completely different from the specific one that are required in the production of the software package. On the contrary they are very effective in working as intermediaries or as third part between who produces the real course and who instead need to use the course, that is to say the student or the end user. Unfortunately the possibility of a collaboration between these two - organization that produce SW and/or owner of the copyright and training organization - is difficult because of a static situation occurs, as consequence with difficulty a common point on the price of the licences is founded. In fact on one hand the business that produces the course, having faced huge expenses for the production of the course, asks high equivalent prices for each licence, on the other hand the organization that distributes the course to the user does not have wide number of possible students and is able to pay smaller amount than the one that are requested. Certainly the solution can not be over simplified in a way that the minimum number of licences is not decided or provide that business or the training organization agree in being monitored directly by the business that produces the course and/or by the owner of the copyright, through its own data base in relation to the real number of course that has been granted and sold. In fact, often an LMS is implemented by the training organization, that allows to control and record in real time all the information relevant to the training course and curriculum of the student through specific trace and report tools.

Such LMS is the tool that allows to give a feed back during the planning phase and the distribution of the course, satisfying the requirements of flexibility and efficacy with the realization of a combination between personal learning, collaborative learning, and assisted learning.

In relation to the management of this kind of archives is obvious how in practice is not possible to provide an interaction between the business that produces the e- learning course and the training organization, or how is extremely complicated to manage any possible form of interaction. In fact every course distributor will create a personal date archive- including also sensitive data - for each student and will plan a specific training course; on this archive no one else can directly interfere, otherwise the basic principle on the security, privacy and competition would not be respected. For example, nowadays, if a final user wants to buy an on-line course by a training organization, the enrolment procedure does never operate in an interactive way. That means that, a first a kind of registration/reservation need to be done in a way to receive, after a couple of day, an e-mail or another message to confirm that the assignment has occurred. At this step the organization that distributes the course should communicate every time to the organization that produces the didactic SW - or owner of the copyright - the new enrolment. In this way the organization is up dated about the number of courses that have been sold. But it is evident how this practice is entirely based on the good faith and honesty of the organization that distributes the course, because it is not possible for the organization that produces the course and owner of the copyright to verify directly. In addition to that need to be underline how at the present these operations are not done in automatic but manually.

Disclosure of Invention The aim of the present invention is to provide for a technique of authentication through univocal identifier for the enrolment to e-learning services, that allows the owner of the copyright of these courses to have in real time a detailed knowledge of the sale process performance relative to courses distributed by a third part. A further aim of this invention is to supply a technique of authentication through unique identifier for the access to e-leaming courses, that allows to operate with an automatic modality, in every step, through an on-line procedure of enrolment and registration to a course of a final consumer, even when this course is proposed from an organization or institute that is not directly the business - or in any case is not the owner of the copyright - that produces the course. Finally the aim of this invention is to provide for a technique of authentication through one time univocal identifier for the access to e-learning services, that uses programming technique, communication protocols and implementation languages, those that are the one with a wider distribution and that in the sector are recognised as standard, in order to make immediate the embodiment of the present invention and its easy management and maintenance.

Those and other aims that are going to be clarified in the course of the description, are obtained by a technique of authentication through univocal identifier for the access to e-leaming services, whose basic principle are enucleated in the enclosed claims.

Brief description of Drawings

At the only intent of clarify the invention and without restricting the area and the sectors in which it can be applied, next there will be described some peculiar embodiments referring to the figures here enclosed in which:

Fig. 1 is a general scheme that illustrates the subjects that operate in these procedure according to the present invention.

Fig. 2 is a details scheme that sets forth the different steps and processes that implement the technique of authentication according to the present invention;

Fig. 3 is a representative scheme of a process of distribution of the e-learning courses according to the background art.

Fig. 4 is a scheme representative of a further process of distribution of the e-leaming courses according to the background art;

Fig. 5 is a further procedural scheme that sets forth the different steps and process that implement the technique of authentication according to the present invention.

Modes for carrying out the invention

In Fig. 1 is underlined how, a course enrolment procedure is performed by a student - or a final user - first of all opening on the browser 1 , those web pages of the site of the corporation or of the institute that is the mediator - allocated together with the relative LMS on a web server 2a; in said web pages is required the usual subscription to obtain a login for the access. The purchase of the course is done in an interactive way with an allowance or credit card in agreement with the usual procedure of e- commerce.

In relation to the payment that is produced at the LMS of the web server 2a, relative to the organization that distributes the course, an identifier - from now on mentioned as e-key - that joins to an object L.O., in an univocal way a series of detailed information such the identifiers data of the user, the choice of a specific course (organization that creates the course and the author as the only owner of the copyright of the course) in addition to the correlative subscribed. The e-key has been sent by e-mail to the final user. At this point the final user does not have to do anything else then execute the login and insert the e-key code in the form window. From the time of the introduction of the e-key code, the course is considered distributed and is automatically disposed the availability of the information concerning the enrolment to the producing organization - to the author and owner of the copyright - that will visualise the relative information on its own browser 4. Fig. 2 is a first detailed representation of the closed loop control that can be performed by the owner of the copyright from its own console 4. In such figure is evident that the owner of the copyright can examine and verify the distributions 18a' of those courses at the LMS of the Web Server 2a, from his own console 4. On its rum such Web Server 2a, at the time of the purchase of a course by a final user through an usual e-commerce transaction, performs the production of a key 17a and the transmission 18 of the same one to the user 1 that is subscribing to the course. With the reception of the key - e-key - the student can access to the real course through the one time activation 17b. On one side such activation is communicated on the path 18b to LMS of the web server 2a, on the other side the access is made available, on the path 18a, from the console of the author 4 to the relevant information relative to the new enrolment. Fig. 5 is a further detailed representation of the closed loop control that can be performed from the owner of the copyright through its own console 4. In said figure is evident that the organization 5 producer of the course - or alternatively the owner of the copyright - has established an agreement of intermediation with the organization that utilizes the course - a vendor - 10 and that will set up the course on his own LMS on the web server 2a. The vendor will have its own It system 11 for the management and administration that differs from the one owned by the organization that produces the didactic SW. The data transfer 20 indicates the activities of distribution done by the vendor for an author that interact with the final consumer 1 and that provide to the consumer a personalized course 9. In this course enrolment step further operation of fidelization of the student by the organization that produces the courses are provided; this is performed in spite of the commercialization of the course occurred in an indirect way, in fact through the paths 18a, 18b will be possible that the author accomplish the control through verification and inspection of the quantity and kind of licences released for each course. In this way is the activation of the e-key itself that allows the organization which produces the e-learning courses, to know how many courses have been distributes from the intermediate organization/institution that on one side records on its data base the unique identifier produced by every enrolment to the course on the other side makes it available to be read to the author that has granted the licence. Its obvious that the algorithm that generated the e-key allows to work with a wide range of embodiment typology, more or less restrictive, starting from the solution according to which to a user is associated only one course a time - only one e-key a time -, and only at the expire date of the course being possible to subscribe to another course, or alternatively operative choices not restricted in which to a user is allowed to subscribe to more than one course a time creating a relative e-key for each subscription.

The production of the e-key can be made with different techniques. For example it is possible to start from the use of the fiscal code of the final user, as well as the use of usual cryptographic generation techniques of random keys. It is important that the e-key is produced in an univocal way because this cause the production of an univocal association with a specific training course of the final user, and from here will be possible to get data that are relevant to the control of the training of the single user- such as test frequency, intermediate and/or/ final test results, results of the feedback, etc. These information, cleaned from the sensitive data - in case it is required through an appropriated agreement - can be transmitted to the organization that implements the e-learning courses, that can use these data for statistical aims. After that the user has bought the course, as a consequence the e-key that is been already produced and generated - as a one time key - every time that he decides to resume the study and enter in the site of the distributing organization, as answer to the login done by the browser 1 , he access to the contents placed in the storage 3 on the LMS web server 2a that are licensed by the organization that produces SW. In substance the final user, having as intermediates the only distributing organization or institution, requires to access to the subscribed course from a Web page.

Nevertheless the supplier organization (and/or the owner of the copyright) keeps in any case the constant control over the real number of licences that are given to the grantee through its own browser 4. The enrolment of the user that creates an e-key as unique identifier has a twofold aim to make the organization or institute that distributes the course sure of its identity and to establish with it a secure channel of communication through which the information concerning the training activities will be sent.

As already described in general at the time of the subscription the management SW gives to the final user an identifier, the one time e-key, which is certainly unique, this latter allows the activation of the course only the first time, after that the access to the course bought will be activate, for example by id-user and password already created in the subscription step. More in details the steps comprised in the enrolment procedure are: i- the user requires to the organization that distributes the courses the registration providing the information required from this latter in a way to be able to state his identity, ii- verified the validity of the request an identifier -e-key, strictly univocal, is assigned to the user, iii- the user is inserted by distributing organization with the assigned identifier in the registered users archives especially the LMS, managed by itself, iv- at the same time the final user of the course is provided - linked through a secure channel - with the unique identifier for the activation of the e-learning course to which the user can access until the expire date of the course, v- and again at the same time of what has been mentioned before the useful information (date, name of the course, expire date, etc) are recorded and made available to the producing organization - owner of the copyright -, to identify the enrolment to the object course. Also for what may concern the preliminary operation relating to the subscription of the agreement, the loading of the operative system tools and the different courses on the web server 2a and the beginning of each course need to be establish specific connection sessions between the organization that distributes the course and the organization that produces the e-leaming courses (and/or the O¹SVnCr of the copyrights) and need to be considered a series of basics activities to be executed in sequence.

Initially need to be executed a session in a way to be able to open an account - a real user account - for the owner of the copyright of the course, in the organization that distributes the e-leaming course with a registration and assignation of the rights for the access. To this phase follows the allocation of the course in a deposit area 3 on a web server 2a with the implementation of the course object L.O., that provides for the tight combination with the owner of the copyrights. In the following step the catalogues of the courses are defined and contingents information in relation to price, duration, etc.; the definition of the identifier "Author" is particularly important, because the copyrights - and in the end every compensation due on the base of the licence realised - will be unequivocally settle in relation to the association author/object course. Once the mentioned catalogue of the courses is defined the real sales operation - or the distribution - can be done through relative activation of the e-key, of the kind "one-time", that gives the right to access to the course.

And again considering the embodiment of the present invention, from the point of view of the inter-facing of the distributing organization and the organization that produces and supplies the SW, is necessary to underline that at the same time of the sale of the e-key the organization that produces the SW - the owner of the copyright ■ will be allowed to verify and examine the request of activation of the e-key and the consequent distribution of the course, the activation date, the nature of the course, modalities of development and other possible subsidiary information, on the remote host in real time, in the area enabled for read access permission. The access to the mentioned information allows the organization that distributes SW, owner of the copyright, to monitor the course of the subscription in real time. The activation of the e-key has the aim to guarantee the copyright owner as a part that intervenes about the conduct of the organization that distribute the course in the sale process of it.

The present invention is based on the basic principle that provides, that the same activation of the e-key gives the opportunity, to the organization that produces the course, to know in continuous and immediate way how many and what kind of courses have been distributed by the intermediary organization / institution. These information are instantly made available on a specific user account to which are associated the univocal identifiers produced at every enrolment. In fact the possibility to operate in secure modality with an effective system of authentication and communication of the produced identifiers, is an important principle in a way to guarantee the reliability of the entire management system. The management software of the training organization on a Web Server 2a can be any of those that are used more, at the moment.

The flexibility of the operative system turned to be extremely favourable to the management of the permissions and to the control of the user accounts.

In particular is useful one of the peculiarity of the operative system that, allows more then one user to be connected in the same time, having the possibility to access to the resources of the server with the permissions that have been given the user in the configuration of the file system. For example, the commands that allow to assign to the archive - i.e. to a file - are effectual, or further more for example the permissions used to read, write and execute. The attributes "rwx" placed in V- " protected file and directories from not authorized operation made by other users. The chmod control, allows to change the access permissions to protect files. In the specific implementation is obvious how need to be established already in the project step of the File System the possibility to have all the permissions granted in the "anagraphical" archive for the organization that distributes the course and that manages the identifiers and instead to grant only a read permission for the organization that produces the course or the owner of the copyright. The typical characteristics on which the present invention is based need to be underlined. The present invention essentially differs from a technique that is based on the association user-id/password (i.e. identifier and password). As the access procedure through password is useful if it has been specified the access to a server through Telnet, Ftp or to an E-mail server, or something similar; in fact in these conditions the use of the password allows to the user to get in particular the access to the resources of that server. The problem here is different, because is necessary to work in HTTP for the subscription and for the access to the course, and especially when is necessary to establish an univocal authentication tool that guarantees to be able to read the requests of production of the e-key received by a third part. Further more the present invention differs from the authentication that is usually performed by the use of digital signature, that has the aim - completely different from the present invention - to add an information to digital document in a way to be able to guarantee the integrity and origin. On the other hand is not possible to compare the on-line procedure of course enrolment to other typical procedure of the e-commerce such as purchase of books or CD on line or distribution of insurance policy etc., in which the active subject in the transition are only two. In fact for this kind of transaction usually is not produced, in real time, any kind of one time unique identifier, that on one side allows the locking definition of a supplying agreement of a service that ends at the expire date of each enrolment and on the other hand, is used to guarantee a real time report of the number of grants made by a third part, to the final user, to the organization that produces SW and/or the owner of the copyright.

Industrial Applicability

Instead, with the technique object of the present invention could be gain the same result of a service in which the organization that produces the e-learning courses or the owner of the copyright is going just to advertise its own course on the platform of the distributing organization but has at the same time the possibility to know in real time how many and which courses are sold.

It is evident then, how the sale and transfer system from the organization that produces the course to the final user of the e-leaming courses has been improved, in significant way, by a course procedure allocation based on unique identifier in agreement with the present invention.

Claims

1. Technique of authentication through one time unique identifier for the indirect distribution of e-learning services, with a real time survey and monitoring system characterised by an access protocol to the system comprising the following steps: i- opening of an user account by an organization that distributes the e-learning course (9) and relative subscription and assignation of the access rights and read permissions to the owner of the copyright of the course; ii- allocation of the e-learning course in a storage area (3) on a web server (2a) of the organization that distributes the course, with implementation of an object course (L.O.) that provides for a specific join with the owner of the copyright of the course; iii- definition of the catalogues of the course, that includes for every course, the contingent information like prize, duration, etc., in addition to the statement of the association author/object course that establish the copyright and relative amount due, in connection to the granted licence; iv- distribution of the course and relative activation of an one time e-key, for each enrolment, that gives the right to have access to the same course; v- in relation to the activation of these e-key (17b), closed loop control (18 a, 18a', 18b) enabling real time survey and monitor functions for the owner (4) of the copyright on the remote host (2a), in the area relative to said account configured with read permission of the activation requests of the enrolment e-keys (17b) in addition to the date of distribution, the kind of the course, and the modalities of execution of the course and other subsidiary information.

2. Technique of authentication through one time unique identifier for the indirect distribution of e-learning services, with a real time survey and monitoring system, according to claim 1 characterised by the fact that the enrolment of a student to a course comprises the following steps: i- the student asks the enrolment to the organization that distributes the course providing for the information required by this latter in a way to assure his identity; ii- verified the validity of the request a one time unique identifier is assigned to the user/student; iii- at the organization that distributes the course the user, with the assigned identifier, is inserted in the archives - in particular in the LMS (2a) - of registered users and managed by it; iv- at the same time the one time unique identifier (17a) is issued in an interactive way for the activation (17b), once in a while, of the e-leaming course which, once is activated, the user will access until the expire date of the same course; v- furthermore at the same time the issued one time unique identifier and the complementary information (like expire date, modality of development etc.) are made available to the owner of the copyright (5), and access and reading, through web page (4), of the results of the activation that have been done, are guaranteed in a direct and constant way (18a) in relation to the agreement with said owner of the copyright.

3. Technique of authentication through unique identifier for the indirect distribution of the e-learning services, with a survey and monitoring system, in real time, in agreement with the previous claims, characterised by using only one management tool of enrolment to the e-leaming courses, that has a double administrative functionality: a- on one hand, to memorize and record the information (3, 2a) relative to the training development and didactic course of the student and his identifying data for the organization which distributes the course; b- on the other side, - for the owner of the copyright - to operate only on the data identifying of the enrolment to the course - such as, date of subscription, expire date etc. - on which the subscription is based.

4. Technique of authentication through one time unique identifier for the indirect distribution of e-leaming services, with a real time survey and monitoring system, according to any of previous claims characterised by the fact that the access identifier is issued creating an univocal join between the user and the specific training course, to said join being assigned the monitoring data concerning the training of the single user - such as frequency and results of the test, intermediate or final, and the result of the feed-backs, etc.

5. Technique of authentication through one time unique identifier for the indirect distribution of e-learning services, with a real time survey and monitoring system, according to any of previous claims characterised by the fact that information concerning the monitoring of the single user to which is assigned the one time unique identifier, are properly filtered from sensitive data and are available for the organization that implements and provides e-learning courses.

6. Technique of authentication through one time unique identifier for the indirect distribution of e-learning services, with a real time survey and monitoring system, according to previous claims characterised by the fact that the algorithm that creates and manages the one time unique identifiers execute the control of the assignment of only a course a time to every identifier and only at the expire date of the one allows another enrolment to another course through the issue of a different e-key code.

7. Technique of authentication through one time unique identifier for the indirect distribution of e-leaming services, with a real time survey and monitoring system, according to previous claims characterised by the fact that the one time unique identifier - for the access to the e-learning course - is provided to the useiAstudent and at the same time is made available for the organization that produces the courses through connections and configurations which are managed in a secure way.

8. Technique of authentication through one time unique identifier for the indirect distribution of e-leaming services, with a real time survey and monitoring system, according to previous claims characterised by the fact that at the issue of the one time unique identifier, being enrolled a new on-line course user, the distributing organization of the course sends a notification e-mail to the organization that produces the e-leaming course.