Learners & Instructors

What will be/can be the best possible way to track a student’s journey if they switch tenants?

Every learner within the system has a Universal Learner Id that follows the learner life-long across the different stages of learning from K12, Higher Ed, Professional learning irrespective of the tenant they may be in each stage. So, when a learner moves from one organization to another within Gooru Navigator, the learner identity including proficiency in various facets, their portfolio, preferences and all the different attributes of the learner is available and accessible in the new organization.

What does tagging mean? Does it imply the category, framework, standards, etc that we select while creating a collection, assessment, and course?

Tagging means linking content/course to the framework, the respective competency/standards to collections and assessments.

In a course, I can create standalone assessments as well as assessments within collections. So when I set up my tenancy, can I decide, what needs to go into the proficiency test, or does Gooru Navigator pick it up?

As a part of the course building, especially when you want to build a Navigator course, it is advisable to build a course with collections to teach/learn and assessments to test- for each competency or lesson.

But each assessment when built independently can still be added to a course or used elsewhere. So when an assessment is built within a course, but can also be used independently in any other course.

Ideally, when your tenancy is created, we will transfer all your content created to the tenancy so that it’s available to all your users in the tenancy.

How do we select Standards and frameworks for Indian curriculum?

Currently, the India K-12 Frameworks are being placed under the category K12IND.

While Creating a course, select K12IND category and the respective framework from Standards, Framework, and Course. These are Indian K12 frameworks.

In the Navigator Course

A domain becomes a unit, A competency becomes a lesson.
Each lesson or competency will require a collection of learning resources to teach it and an assessment of 5-6 questions to test the understanding.
While building the collection or assessment, they would need to be tagged to the standard/ competency appropriately.

While creating a Collection or Assessment, each piece needs to be tagged to the framework, which will surface the standards/competencies in it and the tagging can happen.

What tool or rubric are you using for the quality assurance of instructional materials?

Gooru courses have undergone a badging process to ensure they meet standards for content quality and that they support personalized learning and instruction. Resources are evaluated against the Gooru Quality Content Rubric, and are peer-reviewed to ensure the course is an exemplary representation of the district or organization that designed and implemented it.

How is quality implemented and assessed? What is the vetting or review process for content?

The Gooru catalog was originally scaffolded with content from highly recommended educational websites and then supplemented with resources acquired through content partnerships. Organizations such as the Schusterman Foundation, Cisco, The Hewlett Foundation, and Lockheed Martin provide funding and expert advice to support the creation of quality content.
Before they are added to Gooru, resources are vetted in a multi-step process. The Gooru team monitors newly uploaded resources to ensure the content is appropriate and adheres to the “wiki” model, in which users share communal responsibility to keep Gooru safe and appropriate for student use. In addition, Gooru works to feature resources with significant educational value and without aggressive advertising.

Are Gooru resources and courses aligned to state and national standards, and if so, which states and national standards are available?

Educators can easily find content by national Common Core Standards, Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), and the College, Career, and Civic Life Framework for Social Studies State Standards (C3). Additional standards are in the works and customers can inquire directly to itslearning for updated availability and timetables.

What is the source of Gooru content? Who authors c?

In addition to the contributions of educators around the world, Gooru indexes and organizes millions of resources from more than 500 publishers that cover a range of K-12 topics such as math, science, English language arts, and social studies. Publisher sources include the Smithsonian, WolframMathWorld, the Library of Congress, National Geographic, PBS Kids, NBC Learn, Scholastic, ReadWriteThink, Time4Writing, and many more.

What is the technology stack of Learning Navigator?

NLC embraces open-source technologies in realizing the Navigator and at a broad-level following are the guiding design principles used:
- Microservices architecture for better scale
- RESTful API with JSON responses to access core features
- Consistent API design for ease of development
- Open-source technologies at all layers of solution
- Queuing over message bus for communication across microservices
- Localization support
- Scalable with minimum footprint
- Deploy not tied to custom infrastructure
Consequently, the choice of technology reflects the same:
- Ubuntu Linux OS is the choice of development and deploy environment
- Java-based microservices implementation
- Postgres database as primary datastore
- ElasticSearch extensions for search engine
- Postgres based datastore for analytics data
- Kafka as a message bus for data relay across microservices
- AWS hosting environment, leverage at infra-level and not custom services
- Github for source code management
- Atlassian Bamboo for CI/CD
- Atlassian Jira for product backlog, releases and bug tracking

What does it mean to have tenancy on Navigator? What is sub-tenancy?

Tenancy setup at Navigator provides for isolation of content, identity, and data. Partners can choose to bring their content for their private use; and restrict access to data for users within the partner group. Tenancy setup ensures this isolation. In addition, tenancy will support customization of Navigator to the extent of usage of specific competency model, framework, etc; and access to additional tenant-level aggregate reports.
Sub-tenancy can be imagined as a controlled group within the tenant set up like a department requiring its own data isolation within the organization but access allowed to parent tenant users but not to peer departments. Sub-tenant, from a structure and setup perspective, is no different from a tenant.