1. Blackboard Data Integration with a University Wide Administrative and Directory Services. Alan Berg a.m.berg@uva.nl

2. 2 Agenda The unique nature of the Universiteit van Amsterdam. What we did with blackboard. The issue –System diversity and complexity The solution –Oracle interconnect & Blackboard –Focus on Blackboard technologies Other Blackboard related projects (if time permits) Questions

3. The unique nature of the Universiteit van Amsterdam. Distributed

4. 4 Universiteit van Amsterdam Established in 1632 as Athenaeum Illustre 25.000 students 5,000 people employed (55% academics) Close links with the city of Amsterdam Distributed, distributed and scattered http://www.uva.nl/organisatie/object.cfm

5. 5 Most faculties are still located at historic sites throughout the city… http://www.uva.nl/locaties/

6. 6 Blackboard at the UvA It started as a pilot project in 2000. Now Blackboard is the mayor e-learning environment at the university. About 90 % of the regular university courses have a Blackboard component. Coupled with LDAP directory Services Previously glued together with perl scripts

7. 7 Blackboard log analysis (the quiet period –Q3) Visits 431,213 Average Visit Length 00:09:09 International Visits 39.10% * Netherlands (NL) 60.87% Page Views 11,284,963 Successful Hits for Entire Site 35,593,373

8. What we did with blackboard. This is a blackboard congress

9. 9 Functionality of the Blackboard code Creation, deletion, modification –Person(S) –Course(s) –Course enrollment(s) –Workgroup(s) –Workgroup membership(s) Course copying via proximity search Reads in XML in IMS (Enterprise) format.

10. The issue

11. 11 MIELOSO integration: The wrong way

12. 12 Disadvantages Many to many relationships Diverse technologies Diverse administrative zones Reliability issues Scripting, Write once, be confused often Overview is difficult Etc …. Advantages? Incremental. If you don’t think it grows.

13. The solution Show us the money

14. 14 ldap Integration Hub ISIS Blackboard SAP Question mark Digitaal Portfolio CRM Planon MIELOSO integration: The right way

15. 15 Oracle Interconnect Hub and spoke model Low latency Number of standard adapters. HTTP, FTP, Advanced Queue SDK for building own adapters* Extra adapters for extra price. Kiss methodology used HTTP adapter. http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/integration/h tdocs/interconnect902ds.htm http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/integration/h tdocs/interconnect902ds.htm

16. 16 Reality

17. 17 Oracle HTTP Adapter Sends as binary stream over HTTP. Sends IMS standard XML If error occurs, continues sending. Leaves an audit trail by the hub. Is proven and reliable. Requires configuration effort KISS

18. 18 The Blackboard side of the story. Custom webapp context Looks simple JSP UvA Library Blackboard API http post (binary) IMS XML payload

19. 19 Functionality of the Blackboard code Reads in XML in IMS format. Creation, deletion, modification –Person(S) –Course(s) –Course enrollment(s) –Workgroup(s) –Workgroup membership(s) Course copying via proximity search

20. 20 The reality. Complex, but doable. The point: Java is good for this type of complexity. As each object fulfils a well defined task

21. 21 Class Structure (Managers are responsible for particular types of record) The point: Object Oriented Methodology reduces complexity by searching and reusing commonality.

22. 22 Lessons Learned for decision making Java is a good language for maintenance Java is a good language for reusability later Blackboard Java API is comprehensive enough for our requirements Learning curve for Blackboard API Learning curve for Infrastructure configuration Is reliable. Infrastructure is easier to expand than a long series of perl scripts Look carefully at the range of adapters available. Look carefully at Meta directory products. Where do you want to keep your identity information

23. 23 Lessons Learned 2 Multiple objects in XML not required IMS parsing costs extra effort now, but has benefits in the future. Much of the code already written for any future additions to the infrastructure. Spread the knowledge within the organization

24. 24 Other Blackboard projects Data mining Personalized searching within library system Tools (in spare time hobby)

25. 25 Questions?