Digital Marketplace FAQ

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General Digital Marketplace Information

What is the Digital Marketplace

the Digital Marketplace integrates a wide range of user-facing pedagogical and administrative tools with enterprise services for: authentication and authorization, repositories of various kinds, content acquisition, content protection and delivery, etc. Benefits:

  • Reducing the cost of educational content resources
  • Streamlining the process of content acquisition
  • Fostering choice and innovation in educational resources
  • Improving the discovery, request for, and use of accessible materials
  • Clarifying the use of specific materials and educational outcomes
  • Supporting a campus, institution, cross-institution, and life-long connection with users

The DM architecture offers a standards-based approach that is flexible and can be cusomtized to specific instances. Anticipated interoperability benefits include:

  • Foster choice among service consumers
  • Enables faculty, students, and staff to use "best-of-breed" products tethered to the institutional infrastructure
  • Ease the burden of integration of content consumers with content providers
  • Enable substitution, federation, and distribution among peers
  • Reduce the risk of integrating the output of indepent development efforts (integration boundaries are agreed to before development begins)
  • Facilitate reuse and allows consuming applications to search content from any compliant provider
  • Reduce disruption in the face of technology evolution
  • Support a "network effect" to leverage work from disparate activities within and without an institution

Is there likely to be a single Digital Marketplace or many

the Digital Marketplace is a single set of interoperable services which can be customized though configuration controls to support many distinct local instances. More than one institution can field a Digital Marketplace instance. The Digital Marketplace makes use of certain common interoperability standards that foster a "network effect" among institutions.

Who is building the Digital Marketplace

The California State University (CSU) is building the Digital Marketplace with several pilot activities during 2009 on multiple CSU campuses. The CSU is also serving as the "incubator" of Digital Marketplace services to be commonly available to any institution in the near future.

Digital Marketplace Design Principles

(See DM Overview 2008 11 10)
  • A broad set of open, standards-based Internet services that allow for the exchange of commercial and non-commercial education content between many providers and many users
  • This exchange treats education content as individual units of material established by the provider
  • This exchange operates independently of the application which uses the education content (e.g. a LMS or portfolio)
  • This exchange enables full access compliance by using applications
  • Providers of learning resources are free to put conditions of use on their property
  • Users are free to gather content from any source available
  • Providers and users are free to negotiate terms as appropriate
  • Faculty discover content and catalogue required materials that the student acquires
  • Learning resources may be acquired directly from the provider or through third parties including the institution
  • Resource list content acquisitions by the student are known by the institution
  • The integrity of the exchange is maintained by trusted third parties which manage the transactions flowing through it

How does the Digital Marketplace handle applications and content interoperability

Digital Marketplace services act as intermediaries between client applications and accessible content repositories. Digital Marketplace services assure interoperability between content and client applications by defining a common set of interface and metadata specifications.

Users will be able to select the client application with the characteristics best suited to the problem or process they want to tackle and content from any system. While not all pairings of client and content / content system make sense, broad choice is desirable. If this goal is obtained, one would expect to be able to do the following:

  • Easily, transparently, and conveniently use a new client tool with an existing content system.
  • Easily, transparently, and conveniently use a new content repository with an existing tool.
  • Use a client tool with more than one repository system in a federated or distributed form.

How does the Digital Marketplace manage access control to applications and content

A critical element in managing access control is identity. The Digital Marketplace Initiative needs to be suitable for large institutions with many decentralized administrative entities. Individual entities require control over their identity systems; the Digital Marketplace wants to serve users no matter which entity authenticates them. The goal is to allow for management of identities at the campus level and use of identity by a single institution-wide marketplace. Each Digital Marketplace instance supports authentication of users that can be integrated with enterprise identity management systems like CAS or LDAP. Support is provided for single sign on to enable appropriate system access from a distributed instance.

If this goal is obtained, one would expect to be able to delegate management of identity to campuses and enable them to use existing single sign-on with centrally managed Digital Marketplace. Users should be able to login to, say, the campus learning management system and then use the Digital Marketplace-enabled application with appropriate access controls in place.

What does the Digital Marketplace do to reduce the total cost to the student of their education content on a course-by-course basis?

The high cost of commercial content, principally printed textbooks, has become a key area concern for institutions. For more background on textbook affordability and the Digital Marketplace at CSU, visit this resource: http://www.calstate.edu/PA/news/2007/textbook.shtml external link.

The Digital Marketplace reduces the cost of learning resources to the student by performing the following:

  • Commercial publisher content can be discovered and purchased through Digital Marketplace applications in a one-stop, convenient process accessed through current applications.
  • Demand can be aggregated via the Digital Marketplace for the purpose of realizing cost savings for individual students.
  • Both commercial publishers and institutions can experiment with new business models for digital content in the hope of identifying "win-win" approaches that reduce cost or increase value, or both.
  • The Digital Marketplaces offers just-in-time access to the latest offers from commercial vendors.

How does the Digital Marketplace support accessibility

Institutions are operating in an environment where compliance with Section 508 (http://www.access-board.gov/508.htm) is a business requirement. In the presence of the Digital Marketplace, one would expect to be able to do the following:

  • Integrate accessible applications into the Digital Marketplace.
  • Facilitate the discovery of accessible content from various sources conforming to the Digital Marketplace's metadata framework enhanced by additional, locally managed metdata.
  • Facilitate passing accessibility-related user preferences to client applications.
  • Facilitate the delivery of content in accessible forms to appropriate client devices and users.
  • Integrate with campus Disabled Students Services Offices to streamline alternative materials requests digital workflow for requests to office and purchase receipts.

How does the Digital Marketplace impact the insufficient variety of high-quality, suitable, stable, digital content?

Several trends are emerging:

  • more and more content is being made available in digital form
  • as the volume of material grows, it becomes a challenge to identify high-quality content from a wide range of sources
  • value added to content, through aggregation, supplemental metadata, and other means, needs to be effectively managed and shared
  • community activity, such as peer-review, will continue to evolve
  • content, compartmentalized due to different business models such as open and free, commercial, needs to available seamlessly in a single tool

In the presence of the Digital Marketplace, one would expect to be able to do the following:

  • Use discovery tools to search across a wide range of resource types and content management systems.
  • Make multiple and appropriate quality measures visible and associated with individual assets.
  • Use search to filter by measures of quality.

How does the Digital Marketplace use Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) concepts

Today, organizations seeking flexible interoperability: transparent, convenient, efficient, and consumer-centric, are focusing on a service-oriented architecture (SOA) with stable integration boundaries between service consumers (typically client applications) and service providers. SOA hides provider implementation detail from consumers, allowing independent technical evolution of providers and consumers. SOA separates concerns among services and between providers and consumers. Use of appropriate standards for interfaces and what flows across it (e.g. metadata, identity), widens the range of providers and consumers that can be mixed-and-matched. SOA also has specific implications for risk mitigation: implementation changes in the provider or consumer implementation, appropriateness of or change in the integration boundary, etc.

Access to enterprise systems of record: content management systems, identity systems, authorization services, student information systems, and so on, can be unified and structured through a services-of-record. For example, a single federated-search service in support wide access to various forms of content, can organize heterogeneous systems behind a single coordinating interface.

A white paper on the Digital Marketplace architecture is under development and will address:

  • The link between specific business goals and architectural elements. For example, the goals of fostering innovation and exploration of new business models might be furthered by rapid protyping; and this pace of experimentation facilitated by SOA.
  • A description of specific services and interfaces
  • Specific interoperability expectations with a single marketplace and across marketplaces. For example, how the architecture allows applications to be built at the edges of the enterprise; how services can be integrated into clients a-la-carte; how can new pedagogical developed to stand-alone can be tethered easily to the enterprise.

Will the Digital Marketplace maintain its architecture by leveraging community participation

In the context of the Digital Marketplace, business goals and expectations of capabilities drive a specific architectural approach and architectural artifacts. The need to deliver a specific instance of the architecture grounds that architecture in the problems of a specific customer and holds the development and processes to an externally-defined timetable. Any Digital Marketplace project, being in a new category, is likely to be watched closely at other institutions and to some extent any architecture must be validated more widely than through any one institution's implementation. Lessons-learned from other community efforts indicate that we have a need to serve the requirements of various institutions with specific business objectives. Similarly, a contribution-based and a multi-vendor model impose different constraints from a single customer, single vendor situation.

A community workgroup might be formed to:

  • Articulate the business goals and capability expectations that inform the architecture. This description needs to be written and published. Readers need to be able to consume the material without facilitation. Documentations needs to be specific and comprehensive in its discussion assumptions and arguments underlying architectural decisions. The documentation should enable potential adopters to judge the architecture's merits and determine if the goals of the architecture match the customer's circumstances.
  • Identify the members of the architecture workgroup and substantiate how the group's members reflect the breath of experience and constituencies and the depth of experience suitable to the task.
  • Document the process for producing the artifacts of architecture and how various stakeholders can and are expected to comment and contribute. The process should include both the time during which the architecture is forming as well as the era after its initial release and during evolution. The operating principals of the architecture workgroup should be transparent and strike a reasonable balance between broad inclusion and effective control.
  • Identity specific artifacts and a timeline for delivery.
  • Identity implementations that depend on the architecture.

Current exploration of the Digital Marketplace

Who is trying this model

The California State University is currently leading the Digital Marketplace effort. As of Fall 2009, various DM services are in pilot at selected CSU campuses.

The California Community Colleges have signed an MOU and are providing infrastructure support for the Digital Marketplace pilot and field test activities.

Which commercial publishers have been exploring Digital Marketplaces

The following publishers are involved with the development of the Digital Marketplace: Pearson Education, Bedford, Freeman and Worth, Wiley, Elsevier, and VitalSource.

Which library systems could be connected to the Digital Marketplace

Initial work begun by the Open Knowledge Initiative has been leveraged to create a Repository service that has been shown to work in integrating content from systems that expose SRU, OAI, and similar protocols. Demonstrations have been shown in the community for connections to DSpace, ExLibris Metalib (www.exlibrisgroup.com), JStor, and a variety of museum content systems.

Which open (no-fee content) repositories are connected to the Digital Marketplace

The following open content repositories have been integrationed with the Digital Marketplace and may be accessed from it:

  • MERLOT
  • Connexions
  • Pachdyerm
  • iTunes University
  • Xerxes

What educational standards might be used in the Digital Marketplace

The Digital Marketplace will leverage existing educational standards where appropriate.

Campus Enterprise Integration

Enterprise integration is planned for the Digital Marketplace. It will include integration with campus identity management systems, registrar systems, etc.

How does a user's campus ID relate to their Digital Marketplace ID

A user's Digital Marketplace ID is not the same as their campus ID. This does mean that a user must login to the Digital Marketplace separately from logging into other campus services.

The DM architecture has support for "System Accounts". One of this is a DM system account that contains a user name and password. This user name is required to be unique across the DM instance. System accounts could also be created for local campus access. In theory, a DM system account is not needed. A user could authenticate locally using a campus system account and be allowed access to DM services. However, that user would still need a DM identity. This can be created on-the-fly, if needed.

Does each Digital Marketplace user have a profile and what's in it

Each user has a profile. The profile contains a variety of preferences such as those for content format, accessibility, vendors, tools, and so on. Depending on the level of campus enterprise integration, some profile information may come from other systems.

Provisions have been made in the DM design for a user profile. Exactly how that will be used is still TBD. Preferences are actually separate from the Profile, so preferences can be maintained independently of profile data. Some profile data may be aggregated from campus information if local enterprise identity systems (LDAP, etc) maintain such data and made it available. There are a lot of regulartions and security considerations around identity and profile data that needs to be considered. For that reason, the DM does not require profile data. It is provided as a convenience to the user. For example, the profile could retain a commonly used delivery address, or the user could enter it every time it is needed.

Does each user of the Digital Marketplace have a unique ID

Yes, no two users have the same ID and this ID is intended to endure across changes to campus, graduation, etc.

Note that DM identity and the DM system account name shouldn't be confused. The later is needed to gain access to the system and has a human readable user name ("mnorton", for example).The DM identifier is not intended for display to user. It is of the form, "user:7374df734-08fe85-80923d7fe-ab347". This form is deliberately chosen to be globally unique and is based on IETF standards.

Does the Digital Marketplace user id stay with someone over time and as they change institutions, graduate, etc?

The intent is that a user has the same permanent ID for their entire experience with the Digital Marketplace. This ID does not change if the user changes campus, graduates, changes roles, etc.

Can a vendor or other parties determine a campus ID from the Digital Marketplace ID

No, the intent is that the Digital Marketplace is separated from a campus or other ID. This does not preclude logging into the Digital Marketplace via a campus LMS or similar, nor does it preclude profile, course registration, and other data flowing between the Digital Marketplace and other campus systems.

The DM security system and authorization rules provide control over these issues.

Does the Digital Marketplace manage vendor IDs for purchasers so that vendors can know who is purchasing

Yes, the intent is that a user's profile will include the IDs by which participating vendors know that user. For example, a vendor may allow users to establish accounts from within the Digital Marketplace. Similarly, the Digital Marketplace allows a user to list specific vendor account information in their user profile.

Provisions are included in the current design for vendor system accounts. This allows each person to have a user name (and additional) information that is specific to a particular vendor.

Do all users experience the same Digital Marketplace applications

No, the Digital Marketplace offers an experience and options based on user profile, campus role, and other factors. The Digital Marketplace can, should the user opt-in, share certain information with vendors during operations so that vendors may supply tailored content options, promotional offers, etc.

Access to DM functions and applications are controlled by the DM security service. Access to personal data can be provided on an opt-in basis based on preferences.

Content

How are assets found by the Digital Marketplace

DM federated search requires that all repositories to be included in searches be registered with the DM along with an access protocol implementation. To leverage the power of DM federated search, searches must be conduced via the DM Federated Search service. Specification of search and result parameters are still under devlepment. The use of industry standards, such as those being developed by library associations, are under evaluation.

Does the Digital Marketplace include physical and digital goods?

Yes, subject to individual institutional business arrangements with suppliers.

Does the Digital Marketplace include educational and non-educational goods?

Yes, subject to individual institutional business arrangements with suppliers.

Will there be a standard format for assets

The Digital Marketplace is content format agnostic. This avoids assumptions about end-user applications needed to display and render content, As an example, the DM will allow MS-Word documents to be included as resources, but it does NOT support MS-Word, per se. It makes no claim to support any specific content formats, but allows all to be accessed transparently.

Asset owners are encouraged, but not required, to support the DM metadata specification. The DM has support to layer metadata over existing resources in external repositories, augmenting the ability to find alternative forms of resources, adding accessibility information, etc.

Will there be a standard means for asset delivery

No, the DM encourages all forms of asset delivery.

Will there be standard metadata for assets of different types

The Digital Marketplace resource metadata provides comprehensive support for content typing, format, identification, etc. This information not only allows resources to be discovered, it also provides support for finding alternative forms that might be less expensive (eBooks vs. a printed book, for example). The metadata can be used to determine how the resource can be delivered - electronically vs. shipped.

Does the Digital Marketplace have a standard for accessibility metadata

The Digital Marketplace has a detailed specification for accessibility metadata aligned with the IMS Access for All Metadata specification (IMS-ACC-MD).

Is accessibility metadata required to list assets in the federated search service

No, but the Digital Marketplace encourages including accessibility metadata with all content. The presence of such metadata may influence ranking of results. Note the Digital Marketplace architecture includes a strategy for allowing supplemental metadata to be associated with metadata from a primary source. While this can be used for any metadata, it is certainly an option for adding accessibility metadata for specific assets when a underlying content management system does not let provide for this data natively.

Accessibility metadata is needed to define alternative and equivalent media desgined to accommodate various kinds of disabilities.

Can accessibility metadata be added for use in the Digital Marketplace that is not in the current repository

Yes. The Digital Marketplace architecture includes a general provision for aggregating with a single asset metadata from multiple sources.

What types of assets are included in the Digital Marketplace

The Digital Marketplace is not a content management system or repository itself. Rather, the Digital Marketplace provides access to a variety of institutional and external repositories. The Digital Marketplace also includes user profile information and an activity / transaction data warehouse.

Can the Digital Marketplace contain faculty-produced content

The Digital Marketplace supports a broad federation of content repositories, which can include faculty submitted material. Faculty may submit their content to any of a number of open systems, e.g. MERLOT, which are connected to the Digital Marketplace. Institutions may also field repositories for their faculty. Note there may be particular interest in the Digital Marketplace reporting capabilities to track use of specific content. For example, there can be optional acquisition reporting back to faculty about the adoption of their materials.

Can the Digital Marketplace contain student-produced content

The Digital Marketplace provides comprehensive support for institutional repositories, including student submitted material.

Does the Digital Marketplace provide access to library resources

Yes, the DM provides access to library resources via the repository service. As an example, systems such as DSpace or ExLibris MetaLib have been connected to the Digital Marketplace.

Are there quality measures associated with specific assets

The DM includes provisions for insitutional quality measures. The current design includes three kinds of recommendation: referals ("I recommend this"), ratings ("I give it a 5 out of 10"), and reviews ("The greatest thing since sliced bread!").

How does a vendor have their content added to the federated search service, technically

If a vendor desires resources provided by them to appear in a DM federated search, the vendor repository must be registered with the DM repository service and an access protocol implementation provided. This is true for all repositories available to specific and federated search, as well as repository browsing.

What business agreements are required in order for a vendor to have their content included in the Digital Marketplace

The business agreements that will define relationships within the DM are under development by California State University. As the pilot phase is completed, these agreements will be made available to other institutions and interested parties for inclusion in the Digital Marketplace.

What kinds of searches does the Digital Marketplace support

The Digital Marketplace offers a federated search service. This service includes commercial publisher content, library systems content, open / free content, etc. Searches can be general or advanced where a user expresses specific resource types, field values, result ranges, etc. The Digital Marketplace searches its own content, institutional resources, and external systems. Note that not every content provider may offer the same kinds of searches for their content systems.

A specific repository can be searched. All registered repositories can be searched (federated search). Users can restrict federated search to a list of repositories or exclude specific ones. Finally, browsing of a specific repository is also provided. As for kinds of searching, the DM will need to address the problem of search specifications. Simple searches, like keywords on titles or metadata fields are supported. More advanced searches, such as those with logical operators, will require search specification translation.

How does the Digital Marketplace search service rank results

Currently the DM returns results in alphabetic order. Other kinds of ordering and ranking will be considered in the future.

What happens in the Digital Marketplace search service when more than one vendor offers the same asset

Currently, a search result in the DM will place identical results from different vendors next to each other. This allows the user to see, at glance, different offers for the same material.

Can a user specify a preferred vendor whose results will appear first in rankings

Yes, the DM anticipates that this is one of the factors that influence ranking. Other factors are institutional business agreements, past use patterns, etc.

How can federated search results be sorted

The federated search service will offer sorting by various common fields such as identifier, title, price, content provider, resource type, accessibility metadata, etc. Note that specific applications will expose different sort capabilities and gestures.

How does a vendor present their brand in a federated search and elsewhere

Federated search results include the content's source. The form of this reference, including branding graphics and similar detail is subject to the capabilities or individual user-facing applications and business agreements between vendors and institutions.

Does the Digital Marketplace include advertising

No support for advertising is provided by the DM at this time.

Content Purchasing and Pricing

Does the Digital Marketplace support for-fee and free content

Yes. There are no restrictions on the business model that underlies a particular content provider. The Digital Marketplace Project at California State University has already prototyped interactions with commercial publisher content, publisher content aggregators, the institutional library system, and repositories of open / free content.

Does the Digital Marketplace support variable pricing for users from specific institutions and under specific volume and adoption agreements

Yes. The Digital Marketplace can include prices (or pricing rules) for users based on role, campus affiliation, etc. There is also an exchange of pricing and other data about specific assets while Digital Marketplace applications are running.

Do all Digital Marketplace users see the same prices for the same assets

Not necessarily. The Digital Marketplace allows for variable pricing by user, user role, user campus, etc. The system asks a vendor, in essence, what is the price for a specific asset for a specific user.

Does the Digital Marketplace facilitate requests for faculty "desk" evaluation copies

Yes, the Digital Marketplace can support this. The Digital Marketplace knows the role for each user, for example that the user is a member of the faculty. The Digital Marketplace has a trusted relationship with publishers and can forward requests for this kind of material.

How does the Digital Marketplace support credit / debit card transactions

An institution can make arrangements with a specific transaction service (e.g. Blackboard Transaction System). The Digital Marketplace may be connected to credit/debit card service companies that have relationships with content providers.

Is there only one credit / debit card clearinghouse available

This is institution specific. There is no restriction to a single vendor of this service.

The new DM design has the concept of financial accounts. Each account has information associated with it, such as account numbers, validation dates, contact info, etc. This information is made available to the DM clearing house when payment is to be tendered. As such, it is better to say that the system can be configured to handle credit cards (etc) using a (external) clearing service.

Can a user select which vendor fulfills an order for a particular asset

Yes, subject to institutional policies and business arrangements. There is nothing to preclude this.

Is there a way for a user to split a single shopping cart of goods across product vendors

Yes, this is a specific use-case and one of the convenience value propositions of content aggregators in general, and the Digital Marketplace as well.

How does the Digital Marketplace coordinate financial transactions

Institutions can have varying levels of control and outsourcing of this service. The Digital Marketplace model makes no restriction in this area.

Does the Digital Marketplace integrate with course management systems and resource list applications

Yes, any system can export a resource list for acquisition by complying with the Digital Marketplace's Resource List metadata schema.

Does the Digital Marketplace offer a federated search service that can be accessed from within a course management system

Yes, the Digital Marketplace offers a web service through which applications can perform a federated search. This capability can be used to extend the capabilities of an existing CMS to access Digital Marketplace services, such as federated search.

Can the Digital Marketplace include content contained in a learning or course management system

Yes, content can reside anywhere, including in the campus content system. Content managed by an external course management system must be revealed to the Digital Marketplace via its repository service.

Does the Digital Marketplace integrate with the institutional identity and access management infrastructure

Yes, the DM will establish secure and personalized interaction with recognized vendors; offer single sign-on; store and retrieve user profile and preferences for a tailored experience; and support offers of desk copies for authenticated faculty.

Does the Digital Marketplace provide appropriate recommendations for ancillaries

The Digital Marketplace will provide a template for integration with institutionally negotiated rules for presentation of appropriate optional materials supplements. Templates like this one are planned but do not exist at this time.

Does the Digital Marketplace support institutional purchases

Yes, the Digital Marketplace has access to institutional pricing and discounts arranged with commercial vendors. It presents the latest information at time of acquisition.

Does the Digital Marketplace work with the campus bookstore

Yes, the Digital Marketplace works with campus bookstores to include their content in federated search. The DM integrates with the bookstore order processing system as part of one-stop acquisition.

Does the Digital Marketplace aggregate links to acquired content for the convenience of the user

Yes, the DM will integrate with a personal "Shopping Bag" application to store links to all content acquired. This approach organizes all materials accessible from a single place.

Can the Digital Marketplace offer acquisition of non-content services such as learning management system access of tutoring

Yes, Get It Now is flexible in that regard.

Activity Reporting

What kinds of reports are available from the Digital Marketplace

In general, all activity within the Digital Marketplace will be recorded, consistent with institutional privacy, security, and other policies. The institution has a strong interest in activity / transactional data for legal, planning, policy, and research purposes. Different stakeholders will be interested in different areas. For example, technology capacity planners may be interested in usage patterns by time of day and data volume; human-factors and usability specialists may be interested in how applications are used and the paths users follow through options, etc; researchers may be interested in understanding which content is being requested, how often, by whom, and importantly, with what eventual learning outcome, and so on.

Post-Sales Support

How does the user get post-sales support

Operational details are specific to each institution. In general, the Digital Marketplace seeks to provide a convenient service. It is likely there will be different tiers of service and different channels for problem resolution, return of goods, technical support on the Digital Marketplace, technical support for content, etc. Current pilot activites are evaluating providing first level support from campus service providers such as the bookstore and the library.

What kinds of information are available to different tiers in post-sales support

Details will vary by institution and arrangement. The Digital Marketplace holds a position of trust within the institution and consolidates a sales channel to vendors. In general, vendors will have only the information they need to fulfill their responsibilities with regard to specific transactions. Separately, there is valuable activity / transaction data being gathered by the Digital Marketplace and vendors (as well as academics and others) have a particular interest in mining this data appropriate and to advantage.