Bulk Import to NLOD

Some providers have expressed an interest in being able to import their course information to the national learning opportunities database (NLOD) in bulk.

For colleges, universities and other providers offering a large number of courses we have developed a bulk import facility. This should save you a significant amount of time, especially if your course information is already held in one place.

The solution uses XCRI, the industry standard format for exchanging course related information. Some learning providers already hold course information in the XCRI format in order to exchange details with other organisations.

Once your information is imported to the NLOD, you can edit and manage individual courses and opportunities using PROMT if necessary.

Bulk import to the NLOD is an option for your organisation if:

• You offer a large number of courses (typically, more than 75 courses)
• Your course information can be offered using the XCRI-CAP (course advertising profile) format
• Your technical department is available to extract the information from your own systems into an XML file using the required specification

To get started, please download the schema for your technical team to work with. You can also download an annotated version if you prefer - both versions can be opened as text files.

To find out more about holding and transferring your course information using XCRI, please visit the XCRI wiki and website or direct your technical contact to it.

• XCRI wiki
• www.xcri.org

If you have further questions about the bulk upload facility, please contact the information services team by emailing info.services@sds.co.uk.