Simple Single Stream Model
FIGURE 9: UML ACTIVITY DIAGRAM FOR SIMPLE SINGLE STREAM MODEL
Typified by
Characteristic |
Description |
Number of courses | Small number of courses and / or simple provision |
Complexity of provision | |
Number of sources | Single source of data |
Quality of authoring | Good quality authoring |
Data structures | Well defined data structures |
Update frequency | Whole data set supply (no audit trail required) |
Audit trail | |
Centralisation | Centralised data source |
Process capability | At least a performed process (it supports and enables the work needed to produce outputs, but the process may not yet be institutionalised, so improvements might be lost over time). |
Technical capability | Moderate technical capability |
Organisational context | Moderately good organisational context |
Resources | Minimal resources required |
TABLE 3: CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SIMPLE SINGLE STREAM MODEL
Description of scenario
The HEI has only a relatively small number of courses, which are maintained once per year. Course advertising information is held in a well defined database with normalised data. This database holds the course catalogue for all the course advertising material, including free text descriptions, controlled or coded data such as duration and method of study, and information about qualifications, instances of courses and venues.
The data is extracted from the database and transformed by a software application (XSL transformation) into an XCRI format flat file. This file is then used for four purposes: to populate a new version of the HEI’s course search facility on its website, as a primary input to the production of its paper prospectus, as a file for export to third party data collectors by email, and as a file for access through an XCRI-CAP-enabled web service.
The data on the web service is also used internally in the HEI as the authoritative source of course advertising information.
Example: Reid Kerr College
Data was held in a simple MS Access database. Before the process started, fields were mapped to XCRI. A system was developed in ASP to transform the data to XCRI flat files. These files were then used on the Reid Kerr website.
Multiple Source Aggregation Model