Progress 09/15/04 to 03/14/06
Outputs
The objectives as stated in the original proposal were: 1. Develop the portal business case and plan for portal implementation at DSU 2. Define user functionality and content requirements; 3. Define a portal architecture and select, install and integrate portal products based on the previous characterization 4. Develop the portal taxonomy and categorization scheme; 5. Design and customize the portal user interface; 6. Develop the security and single sign-on architecture; 7. Develop, implement and integrate information, collaboration and applications with the portal; 8. Personalize and prototype to create multiple role-based portals, train users, and deploy portal technology in a phased manner. Objectives 1 through 6 were met or exceed compliance expectations as per the timeline defined in the original submission. During the course of our roll-out we determined that their was a fundamental shift (an increase) in the users' abilities to capitalize on use of the portal
and thereby changed the content requirement defined in objective 2, which directly affected the portal products delivered to the end-user defined in object 3. Additionally, during the first year of this project, the nature of portals began to change from a channel driven system to a system driven by portlets. For these reasons, the decision was made at the end our fouteenth month to request a no-cost extension and address the aforementioned factors before proceeding to the final 2 objectives. The production team with the aid of our main contractors revisited objectives 2 and 3. All DSU personnel concurred that this was the best use of time while contractors were on site. Also, our defined user classes were unchanged as stated in objective 4. Additionally, objectives 4 and 5 were not impacted by these changes. Two members of the implementation team attended three training sessions during the summer of 2005. All three sessions (Sakai, Open Source Portfolio Initiative, and uPortal
Conference) were grouped together under the banner of University Open-Source Week to minimize travel costs for the participants. The primary challenge of Objective 7 was to port the University's administrative software, Banner, to a portlet. The previously mentioned delayed, aided us inn this aspect, as the manufacturer delivered both a web client and portlet module, saving us the development time. Ultimately, we used a third-party solution for no cost, which we obtained from the uPortal open source repository. Objective 8 is an on-going process. The University's contractual collaboration with CAI has ended with this project, but it resulted in the partnering of DSU with other universities from their client based for assistance and technical advise (e.g. University of Delaware and University of New Hampshire). Additionally, this project drew upon the expertise of USDA personnel from the ARS, which increased the contact and working relationship of both project personnel and ARS
technical personnel and scientists.
PRODUCTS: Our Action Plan formalized the process in the form of a uPortal Deployment White Paper which can serve as a deployment guide for other Universities. The final portal will provide faculty and students with a platform for Instructional Management System for additional or supplemental instruction. Illustrated documentation is being compiled to a directory which will be edited upon completion of initial deployment. This will serve as an online user manual.
OUTCOMES: The expected outcomes of this project are; increased interaction between the student and instructor, while freeing the faculty from many of the administrative duties associated with instruction; increased availability to instructional materials on the part of students, and; improved operational efficiency, resulting in cost savings.
DISSEMINATION ACTIVITIES: The Principle Investigator and Developer attended the Community Source Week June 8 to14, 2005 which included the Sakai Summer Conference, the Open Source Portfolio Initiative and the uPortal Summer Conference. We made two kiosk presentations at the uPortal Conference where we discussed innovations, refinements, and problems with commercial VLEs.
FUTURE INITIATIVES: 
Portal refinement and tuning after deployment is an ongoing process, according to the project plan. The future initiatives include additional user services including: Test Results displayed as a distribution chart (with score, percentage, position in class), Diary Function which includes the Timetable data, Staff to Student News Feed (can target individuals or groups and be time limited), XML/XSLT Document handling (Student Regulations and Student Handbook), On-line Questionnaire (e.g. Key Skills - creates summary charts for staff to study).
Impacts
The beneficial impacts of portal deployment include improvements in operational efficiency, facilitated by the data integration of our communication tools and student information system, providing users (students, faculty, staff, administrators) with a single sign on and access to information in a personal, user customized manner.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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Progress 01/01/05 to 12/31/05
Outputs
The focus of the first 14 months was on creating and testing a working demonstrator. Several functions and processes were re-worked to make them more reliable, secure and friendlier. Features that could only be tested on specific small groups of users (due to data only applying to that small group, e.g. test results) have been added to a demo user account, so that all features could be seen, for evaluation. While the default services remain limited to those initially targeted, we have added services to which the user may subscribe. Many other features have been experimented with and will be included as time allows. In the past year the podcast and RSS news feed have emerged as very popular and potentially powerful tools for dissemination of information. We have incorporated RSS, which summarizes data, and have begun exploring the applications for podcasts We are now confident that this uPortal provides a viable framework on which to develop a local service. It can be
extended using the same kinds of standard JAVA technology that we now have experience in and allows many functions to be developed at a higher (XML) level, without the need to write additional programs. It provides better browser support (and allows other target devices, e.g. WAP phones) and is structured to support personalized screens (both themes and content). It has been tried and tested in a scalable environment and comes with many features that are difficult for a single developer to produce in limited time (e.g. good caching, logging and error support). It is being developed by a community of University and College users and supported by commercial supplier, so we will not be quite so reliant on a single developer. We are now in the process of testing and comparing these systems. WebCT was very simple as it comes with an API which is meant to support IMS, so we are writing some interfaces to it. Blackboard is a Java based environment and requires commercial products to work
with, e.g. MS Windows 2000 Server and SQL Server, or Oracle on Unix/Linux. Both these option pose a significant barrier to any casual inspection/development. We have the additional challenge in the fact that DSUs current Blackboard deployment is a remotely hosted. On a positive note, WebCT has been working with uPortal developers and have created a Channel that presents a users WebCT homepage inside their uPortal screen. Links allow direct access to WebCT pages without the user having to login again. This is an extremely useful first-stage and WebCT are willing to accept user-driven requirements for future developments. Blackboard also meant to have a similar link, but this has not been demonstrated. We are currently, investigating both products. While we have a channel, provided by the manufacturer for WebCT and expect one from Blackboard in January 2006, this was a disappointment to all of the Technical team as we had anticipated using portlets exclusively (rather than channels). We
have as a result turned to a test deployment of SAKAI, as our IMS. SAKAI was developed for the uPortal platform, and like uPortal, it is an open source product with a large number of universities adopting it
Impacts
The beneficial impacts of portal deployment include improvements in operational efficiency, facilitated by the data integration of our communication tools and student information system, providing users (students, faculty, staff, administrators) with a single sign on and access to information in a personal, user customized manner.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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