Model-Driven-Design Of Nren Bridging Application: Case Study Afgren

National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) are dedicated networks that provide a backbone for the collaboration and data exchange between academic organizations. However, the lack of a domain-specific bridging application, lack of interoperability and data integration are serious challenges in educational technologies, hampering collaboration and resource sharing even within existing agreements. NRENs are cost-effective backbones of large scale networks aimed to deliver convergence and promote educational opportunities beyond individual institutions. In this paper we prototype an inter-organization bridging application based on an abstract NREN architecture based on a broker pattern. The ability to communicate is also an essential precondition for the easy adoption of Open Education Resources. The motivating case study is the Afghanistan Research and Educational Network (AfgREN). To enhance ease of adoption, adaptation, and evolution, the prototype is designed following an eXtreme Model-Driven Development (XMDD) paradigm, using a low-code development environment for modelling data, processes, user interfaces in an agile rapid prototyping fashion. We generalize the results to the (federated) collaboration of regional and global NRENs, to enable the delivery of easy collaboration, data integration, high accessibility, and resource sharing across educational organizations on a national and cross-national level.