1. Setting Up Flexible Snapshot Processes Based in Role- based Access Control Cathy Colless & Anthony Leonard

2. Snapshot Consulting Engagement (first attempt)  System installation 2005  Standard engagement questions  Consultant asked us to identify an institutional data source for: –Users –Courses –Enrolments  Replied PeopleDB, SITS, SITS

3. Engagement Outcomes  All three snapshots running  Course ID format: 2004-T2-2020001-A  Course categories and user institutional roles  5000 course sites with automated enrolments created and ready for use

4. Implementation approach..pilot project bids  5000 course sites created. Ready to roll !  Resisted the temptation to walk around campus tossing course sites at passer-bys  Small scale pilot implementation approach (bids)  No enrolment constraints mentioned, approach may have encouraged constraint free proposals  Expected manual sites to be small minority

5. Diabetes Care Combined modules for diploma and degree level students  Diabetes Care module taught as a combined group of both diploma and degree students  Two separate SITS module codes/credits  Two BB course sites created and built to avoid manually managing enrolments for large cohorts of students  Announcements, discussion boards, blogs all common to the entire group  Less than ideal situation having two sites

6. Robotic Telescope Any student taking an Astrophysics programme  Control the robotic telescope  Share digital images  All Astrophysics student at all levels use the telescope  Unable automate enrolments

7. Health Economics PG Dip Café Barista All students in certificate & diploma programmes  Fully distance education  Café site in addition to individual module sites  Tutors not enrolled in Café site  Could not provide automated enrolments based on a programme affiliation

8. Chemistry college based small group tutorials all undergraduate chemistry students  All undergraduate chemistry students divided into groups based on residential college  All undergraduate chemistry students in one site  Could not provided automatic enrolments for the site   Started using CSV files generated with SQL

9. Politics – Graduate Submission all postgraduate students in Politics  Politics site managed by Post Graduate Programme Administrator for plagiarism detection purposes only  Individual modules leaders did not use the site  One site used for submission of all Politics post graduate students  Revert to csv files again

10. Some other general issues  SITS codes and terms change regularly due to scheduling and assessment changes  Example: 2004-T2-2020001- A changed to 2004-T2-2020001- B  Mid term changes cause a major crisis  Course is disabled and disappears if a SITS code changes  Cannot “restore” to an existing course

11. Reality – End of Pilot Status  Thousands of manual & “CSV file” enrolments  Technology/systems driving practice  40% of Pilot module sites had complex requirements for enrolment criteria  Other 60% represented the less innovative/creative of the bids  Trying to sell what we had in stock instead of what staff actually wanted

12. Back to the Drawing Board  First attempt relied on intuition  More systematic/evidence based approach for second attempt  Look at solutions from other system addressing similar requirements

13. Windows Active Directory

14. Digital Repository - Group Based Access Model

15. Community System Portal User Institutional Role Module or Tab

16. Role Based Access Control User List Group Role Permission Privilege Resource

17. Undocking SITS Module Groups from Course Sites 1 BB Course Site 2 BB Course Site 3 BB Course Site SITS Module 1 SITS Module 2 SITS Module 3 4 BB Course Site 5 BB Course Site SITS Module 4 SITS Module 5 SITS Module 5T2

18. The Separation Process – Implementation Options  Considered a separate database table  Wanted to use BB without customisation  Decided to create special “group users”  This would allow us to use the enrolment tools to manage the association between course and a group user  No need to write a building block or stand alone web application to manage flexible enrolments

19. Original snapshot process user snapshot course snapshot enrollment snapshot users People DB modules (MAV) SITS enrollments (SMO) SITS Admin users Blackboard courses user enrollments VLE Admin Lecturer Students extra courses extra user enrollments !!

20. New snapshot process user snapshot enrollment snapshot users People DB modules (MAV) SITS enrollments (SMO) SITS Admin users Blackboard user enrollments VLE Admin Lecturer Students courses group users group user enrollments Blackboard } group user enrollments

21. A simple one-to-one case example  Example SITS Module 0280111-T1  What happens: –a module site Y2007-000123 is created –a “group user” group.sits.module.0280111-t1 –enrolment of the group user onto the module site Y2007-000123 –enrolment of “real” users based on SITS module group user  The initial result of this is the same as hard coding the link between the module site and the SITS module

22. Example Data SchemeBB Course IDGroup User Usernames Old2006-T1-0110178-A 2006-T2-0110178-A 2006-T1-0110103-A - NewY2007-0123 Y2007-0312 Y2008-0123 group.sits.module_0110178-t1-a group.sits.module_0110178-t2-a group.sits.module_0110103-t1-a

26. Retrieving group user enrolments from the DB  Select  um.user_id,  cm.course_id  from  course_users cu,  course_main cm,  users um  where  cu.crsmain_pk1 = cm.pk1  and cu.users_pk1 = um.pk1  and cu.role = ‘U' Course_users Course_main Users Database Tables

27. The next step….Groups based on user attributes  User attributes in People Database  Departmental Association  Level Classification Attribute –First Year –Second Year… –Academic Staff –Support Staff  Potential for other systems in the future

28. People Group User examples  group.people.dept_0011.atree_01  All staff in the Biology Department  group.people.dept_0011.atree_09  All first years in the Biology Department  group.people.dept_0014.atree_01  All staff in the Chemistry Department  group.thingspeoplelike.food_fishandchips  All people who like fish & chips

29. Rolling out the new snapshots 07/08 year  Every project from the pilot phase successfully changed to snapshot based enrolments !  New round of project  Even higher level of proposals with non-traditional enrolment criteria

30. In Practice – Biology Welcome  All new Biology students  Induction, catch-up and welcome content  Blog  group.people.dept_00nn.atree_nn

31. In Practice - Plagiarism Awareness  Pan University course  Small changes to contextualised content by each department  Enrolments important to gradebook  Different enrolments for departments

32. Sociology PG & Staff Seminar Series  Termly programme of seminars  Enrolment of academic and research staff and PG students

33. Some conclusions  An inflexible snapshot model stifles creative and innovative use of Blackboard  The system will drive the practice if the system is not flexible  When news spreads that snapshot can provide automated enrolment to meet complex criteria demand for this will quickly grow.  Flexible model avoids the need for two parallel systems

34. “Don't decide how big to build the bridge by counting the number of people swimming across the big river” Keith Moala - Tonga

35. Your questions please.

36. Enrolment Snapshot Script to extract list of Group User enrolments in the BB enrolment table from the Bb database BB CourseGroup User Enrolment Y2007-0001group.sits.module_0110101-t1-a Y2007-0001group.sits.module_0110103-t1-a Y2007-0002group.sits.module_0120401-t2-a

37. Creating the Enrolment Snapshot BB CourseGroup User Y2007-0001group.sits.module_0110101- t1-a Y2007-0001group.sits.module_0110103- t1-a Y2007-0002group.sits.module_0120401- t2-a Script works through the list of group enrolments, looking up the student enrolments from SITS for each module building up a Snapshot file. external_course_key|external_person_key|role Y2007-0001|1055|student Y2007-0001|1138|student Y2007-0002|1139|student

38. Original snapshot process SITS Module (MAVS) PeopleDB SITS Enrolments Blackboard User Blackboard Course Blackboard Course Enrolment User Snapshot Course Snapshot Enrolment Snapshot 1. Create course site & 2. Link BB site to a SITS module

39. Changes to snapshot processes SITS Module (MAVS) PeopleDB SITS Enrolments Blackboard User Blackboard Course Blackboard Course Enrolment User Snapshot Course Snapshot Enrolment Snapshot 1. Create course site & 2. Link BB site to a SITS module May need changing later but put aside for now Nothing needed to change

40. Decoupling the courses snapshots SITS Module (MAVS) Blackboard User Blackboard Course Blackboard Course Enrolment Course Snapshot 1. Create course site & 2. Link BB site to a SITS module Load Group Users Enrol Group Users (1-1) Change course ID to meaningless unique identifier instead of SITS module code

41. And finally back to enrolling “real” users SITS Module (MAVS) SITS Enrolments Blackboard User Blackboard Course Blackboard Course Enrolment Course Snapshot Load Group Users Enrol Group Users (1-1) SQL direct to database. list of group user enrolments Enrol “Real” Users

42. Snapshots before & after summary SITS Module (MAVS) PeopleDB SITS Enrolments Blackboard User Blackboard Course Blackboard Course Enrolment User Snapshot Course Snapshot Enrolment Snapshot Load Group Users Enrol Group Users