National Learning Network

Client

National Learning Network

Industry

Public Sector/Education

Technology

Java

Client Profile

The National Learning Network (NLN) is a national partnership programme designed to increase the uptake of Information and Learning Technology (ILT) across post-16 education in England.

Background

Box UK were commissioned by the National Learning Network (NLN) to produce a cross-platform application capable of extracting data from manifest files of IMS-compliant learning packages, in order to make the package available offline as HTML-based material.  In this way, the package can be viewed and navigated without the need for a Virtual Learning Environment.

Solution

The solution developed by Box UK hinged upon the design of an easy to use, wizard-like graphical user interface providing step-by-step guidance for the user - thus facilitating rapid adoption of the tool.  The development language, Java, was selected in order to make the tool available to end-users irrespective of operating system.

The tool is capable of parsing and extracting data from the central manifest file contained within a directory, a zip archive or a Java ‘jar’ archive.  The HTML output files can be customised – navigation button icons can be selected, along with page colour schemes and font types.  There is also the facility to produce output in accessible format i.e. high contrast colours with large fonts.  The tool is capable of handling the batch processing of many input packages and/or output file destinations in one continuous process.