IMS Enterprise Services

Introduction

This document describes the IMS Enterprise Services and the methods supported by itslearning.

In the words of the  IMS Global Learning Consortium, Inc.:

The Enterprise Services specification is the definition of how systems manage the exchange of information that describes people, groups and memberships within the context of learning. The Enterprise Services specification is constructed following the recommendations documented in the IMS Abstract Framework.

In addition to supporting the bulk of the specification, itslearning adds certain extensions to the standard that cover functionality that is not present in IMS ES by default.  The parts not supported by itslearning mainly relate to features that are not applicable to itslearning as a learning platform.

The documentation contained on this web site will provide you with descriptions and examples for all the services and methods supported by itslearning, as well as instructions and tips on how to get started using an IMS ES integration with itslearning.

Functionality and implementation

Services and methods implemented

Information on the individual services and methods are listed by their main function:

Managing persons

Managing groups

Managing memberships

Helper classes / sample implementation

IMS ES is a standard framework, it is much more general than most users need. It is also not always clear how to make a change in Itslearning, as IMS ES provides multiple ways to implement certain changes. Therefore an IMS ES Template was created, to be used as wrapper between the much more general IMS ES and the users needs. This template is written in C#, and wraps around IMS-ES, only using the parts that are actually used in Itslearning. The template can be downloaded from Downloads

IMS Enterprise Service online documentation

The original function descriptions, original WSDL files, request/response examples can be found here:

http://www.imsglobal.org/es/index.html

Service access

To obtain access to a development environment, you must be a licensed customer or system integration partner.

Please contact your local itslearning team for more information.

Once the formal stuff is out of the way, the IMS ES services are available on the following itslearning environments. If you are unsure which environment applies to you, please contact your local itslearning team.