A Community Source Student Services System Richard Spencer Leo Fernig JA-SIG Summer Conference June 5, 2006 Vancouver, BC

2 Mellon funded planning study  Goals –level of interest in an open source SSS? –need for an open source SSS? –any existing applications to use as a base?  Participants –University of Indiana, Georgetown University, San Joaquin Delta College, UBC, consultants and others  Consultation –meetings at JA-SIG and Sakai conferences –SOA workshop in Vancouver –focus groups at AACRAO –consultation with vendors

3 3 trends that enable a CS SSS  open source software  community source software development  service oriented architecture The SSS vision  focus on the end user  support non-traditional learning  build a modular system –integrate modules with existing systems  use workflow and rules engines –cross departmental and system boundaries –implement “your practices”, not “best practices”

4 Open and Community Source

5 The evolution of Open Source Core Infrastructure Tools and components Enterprise solutions Linux (1991) 1990 Apache (1995) PostgreSQL (1999) Eclipse (2004) uPortal (2001) Sakai(2004) Kuali(2004) Moodle(2001) jBoss (1999) SSS (2006) ???

6 Open vs. community source Open source  Open membership  Large developer community  Individuals may decide priorities & projects  Local development can lead to different versions  Source code is open for review and change  Corporate contributions welcome Community source  Membership in a community  Smaller development community  Priorities established by community  Locally developed components are compatible  Source code may be included in commercial products  Institutional and corporate contributions welcome

7 Community source objectives  Productivity –more developers working on project  Reliability –more eyes looking for bugs  Innovation –institutions are free to innovate and share  Direction –partners can have input into Community projects  Evolution –community can ensure sustained development  Partnerships –include commercial partners

8 A student services system

9 SOA goals  break business processes down into: –process or control logic (orchestration service layer) –business logic (business service layer) –application functions (application service layer)  use standard data models and XML schemas  build agnostic, reusable “services” to provide the business logic and application functions  use rules engines for the internal logic  use workflow for the process logic  loosely couple components  agility - make process change easier!

10 Community source SSS possibilities  True service orientation  Common entity models, data standards and XML schemas  Web services for loose coupling  Combining modules developed at different schools  Combining open source and commercial components  Using commercial service providers to implement and support systems and system components

11 Imagining a next generation student services system

12 The Expedia model  Where do you want to go  When do you want to go there  You can choose: –the airline –the class  You can sort the results by –price –departure or arrival time  and there’s more..... –one way, return, multiple legs? –seniors or children, other special fares? –is there anything else we can help you with?

13 How we often deal with our customers  Give me your personal information first –including your name, gender, date of birth...  Here is our list of 80 programs  Choose one or two you think might fit  Pay us  We will let you know if we can admit you.....but it will take us a few weeks to figure this out  We will give you a registration time  Then you can search for the courses you need......no refund if you’re not eligible

14 Letting students admit themselves

15 Self admission  If there are specific admission requirements: –e.g.: required courses, grades or gpas  Students choose a program & enter their own courses and grades  A rules engine determines if they are admissible –they get a full explanation of:  what credentials were used, what was missing  how the admission gpa was calculated  why they did or didn’t qualify for admission  They can admit themselves.. –and print their admission letter in real time

16 Reflecting on self-admission  Students: –do the grade submission work –get an immediate answer –can see the rules and how they have been applied  The process allows: –a student to try multiple “what if” scenarios –counselors to advise students on program requirements  The rules engine could allow the student to: –select a program, and see what is required to enter it –enter what they have, and see what they are eligible for  Staff can concentrate on value added work  The process is scalable!

17 Applicant login Identity service Evaluate applic’t/ offer choices Program/aid service Information collection Prior inst. service Applic’t bio & other info Choice not available Registration service Outcome Choice available

18 Where we are going...

19 Reasons for interest in a CS SSS  add functionality to existing systems –ERPs can’t do everything –re-use some existing functionality  replace old technology –don’t want to install a monolithic ERP system  future path for in-house systems –one institution can no longer develop a complete student system  get off the ERP upgrade path –improvements don’t always reflect cost and effort Delaware: housing dining course approval judicial referral course & faculty evaluation advising notes Indiana course trading

20 A next generation student system  Focus on end users,  Support non-traditional learning  Modular, standards based, loose coupled  SOA, web services, and enterprise services  Workflow, rules engines (decision services)  Make it easy to redesign business processes  Extend functionality into new areas  Community source development  Scalable, rule based, self-service processes

21 Next steps  Entity models, XML schemas  Web services standards  Reference infrastructure  Service oriented analysis of key processes –some process redesign  Governance structure  Identify partners  Identify first modules  Deploy resources

22 Thank you.... and over to Leo

Development strategy for a student system It is too big to be built as a single monolithic system It has to be built as a set of independent components These components are collections of web services It has to be built with open technologies On an open source infrastructure On open standards With open source tools

Business services Agnostic Composable Composed services Aggregations Orchestrations A more detailed decomposition of services Infrastructure services Enterprise wide Student System specific

Services are built on the same model

Anatomy of a service A service is composed of: 1.A container 1.Lifecycle management 2.Security 3.Caching/logging services 2.An interface defined in WSDL 1.Data structures 2.Method signatures 3.Implementation code 1.Java classes

Anatomy of a service bus A service bus is composed of: 1.A canonical XML 2.Lightweight service containers 3.A messaging system backbone

A simple example: Admissions processing an SAT score An SAT score arrives via ftp: 1.It is converted to standard (canonical) XML 2.Both messages are logged 3.The SAT is evaluated 4.The SAT and the evaluation are added to the applicant’s file In reality these services would deal with any tests: GRE, TOEFL, LSAT

A simple example: Message flow

A simple example: A message transformation service All messages in the Student System conform to a standard set of schemas (a canonical XML) Wherever possible we need to use existing industry standards. For example: PESC IMS

A simple example: WSDL for an academic decision service Data definitions Message definitions Interface definition Schemas are defined elsewhere

A.Message transform service B.Logging service C.Academic decision service D.Academic record service A simple example: Fitting services into the component model

Generalizing from the simple example In reality we would not want a service that simply evaluated SAT scores. Instead….. 1.A general Academic Decision Service Degree audit Pre-requisite checking in registration Evaluating admission requirements 2.A general Academic Record Service that can handle any learning result: Test results (SAT, TOEFL, GRE) Transcript courses (and transfer credit) Portfolio artifacts

Generalizing from the simple example C.Academic decision service Is used by: 1.Admissions 2.Registration 3.Awards 4.Degree Audit

Are the technologies available? 1.Core infrastructure 2.Web service standards 3.Web service technologies 4.Application components

Core infrastructure Linux (1991) 1990 Apache (1995) PostgreSQL (1999) Eclipse (2004) uPortal (2001) Sakai(2004) Core Infrastructure Tools and components Enterprise solutions Kuali(2004) Moodle(2001) jBoss (1999)

Web service standards 1.W3C standards: 1.XML schema 2.WSDL 3.SOAP 2.Other web service standards (mainly OASIS): 1.WS-transaction 2.WS-coordination 3.WS-security 4.BPEL (Business Process Execution Language) 3.Web Service Interoperability Group 1.Basic Profile 2.Basic Security Profile

Web service tools 1.Tools for authoring XML schemas 2.Tools for authoring WSDL’s 3.Web service run-time containers For example: 1.WST Eclipse tools for authoring XML schemas 2.Axis (Apache) graphical tools for authoring WSDL’s 3.Web service run-time containers

An example tool The graphical user interface for developing WSDL’s that comes with Axis and is an Eclipse plug-in.

Conclusion Three prerequisites for a student system 1.An entity model 1.A high level entity model 2.A set of XML schemas (a canonical xml) 2.A service model 1.A high level service decomposition model 2.A common set of WSDL’s 3.Technology infrastructure 1.Core infrastructure 2.Web services standards 3.Web service tools and technologies 4.Application components