JA-SIG UK – Afternoon presentations

JA-SIG, uPortal, SAKAI and CREE

The afternoon started with some worthy, but not very interesting (to me) presentations on the state of JA-SIG generally, and current progress with both SAKAI (the JA-SIG E-learning framework) and uPortal.

There have obviously been some real issues with different versions of uPortal, but it now looks like code developed for v3, will actually be folded back into v2.x (and possibly renamed uPortal NG) – basically there is some housekeeping to do.

Also, they are expecting to do a wide consultation on where uPortal should go next – important that we are aware of this, and understand where SunGard SCT (who produce Luminis) see this going.

I can’t get a handle on the SAKAI stuff – until now it had seemed like it was all coding and no product. However, apparently there are some really big installs in the states now (e.g. 90,000 users at Indiana)

There are apparently a couple of sites (Cambridge and Hull) in the UK seriously looking at this. It was interesting to chat to some of the team from Hull about this – in the end this seemed to be a technology driven thing (they have invested heavily in Java/Webservices/XML skills, and want systems to be based around these technologies).

On a slightly more interesting note Ian Dolphin spoke very briefly about CREE. This was a project looking at how users want to ‘search’ in various environments – including institutional portals.

There was some technical work done showing how various search tools can be integrated using JSR 168 and WSRP (the former being easier to do, the latter proving to be better in this particular context). There are some oddities here – Ian argued this was a ‘thin’ portal implementation, but from a Library point of view it seems ‘thick’ – unless you immediately go from (say) the number of results to the native interface. From my point of view, it would be more efficient to code a single channel for MetaLib, and then add parameters so that the channel can be used to search any MetaLib compliant database (either one at a time, or several at once). This keeps all the ‘hard’ configuration work and metasearch issues in the federated search engine, rather than trying to solve these again within the portal.

CREE also looked at what users wanted, and found that generally users like to have the search tools in context, and especially seemed to appreciate subject specific portals within VLEs – this is definitely something for us to consider in terms of integrating MetaLib into our portal and/or VLE.

Load testing and performance monitoring

A short, but interesting, session on how this had been done at Edinburgh. The best thing was seeing the tools they have used – definitely some stuff worth following up here:

  • Load testing – Webserver Stress Tool – Enterprise Edition – v7.x (£600 for site license) by a German company called Paessler.
  • Database monitoring – Spotlight on Oracle by Quest (also available for other databases and other systems – e.g. Exchange – something I’ll mention to various people back at base)
  • Usage – wusage, looked like it gave a very good set of information about the usage of various websites and applications.

Portals and Content Management Systems

The last sessions of the day, and the main reason I was here.

Firstly Hull presented on their use of HyperContent. They chose this on a number of criteria, but the 3 main pre-requisites were that it would work with Ingres database, it was Java based and that it was free. Hypercontent stores content as XML and uses XSL to ‘style’ it (although not on the fly – this done when the page is ‘published’).

Hull saw CMS as a companion project to their portal project – the portal is just a framework, and requires content to make is useful or interesting. However, they are going beyond just web based content for the portal – they are now doing some of their Public Website with the CMS, and also planning to do their prospectus (presumably printed and online) with the CMS in 2007. They highlighted that ‘ownership’ of content is an issue, and not one that they have solved (and perhaps there isn’t a ‘solution’)

Nottingham have the same setup as us (Luminis as portal, and Luminis Content Management System – LCMS), so I was listening avidly to this, and rather hogged the question/answer session at the end (oops).

The key issues/selling points for them were:

Ease of use for editors – esp. in context editing
Allows you to concentrate on the content rather than the technology
Helps ensure overall quality and consistency of layout and navigation
Ensure accessibility
Introduce formal editorial practicies – workflow
Maximising databse driven content
Standardised navigational structure for all websites
Prefabricated website – merely awaiting content – default pages and templates pre-defined, option pages available within the model website structure

To get Schools (departments) going, they provide support as follows:

Work with Web Team to develop visual ID
Identify Site Manager and Key Contacts
Identify Content requirements with reference to the model – needs and resources
Develop content and enter via ‘Content Collection Tool’
Indentify Content Editors and Content Managers
Typically the process for a single school takes 3-6 months

LCMS is based on Documentum, and it was good to get an overview about what ‘bits’ of Documentum were included – these were:

Content Server (metadata and file system)
WDK – Web Development Kit
Documentum Administrator

These are complimented by the SunGard SCT developed ‘Luminis Site Studio’

This means that with LCMS you get a fully functioning EMC Documentum Content Server including
Versioning
Workflow
Lifecycles
SCT Site Studio
Documentum Administrator
Support from Sungard SCT
More functionality with each version increment

What you don’t get is
Publishing more than 1 version of content at any one time
Documentum licensed as an ECM solution
Direct access to Documentum support
Documentum Webtop/Desktop client

However, it was clear from the comments from the SunGard SCT representative present that these were not inherent limitations – and that additional components could added – and they seem very interested in growing this area, and perhaps even getting into Enterprise Content Management for HE. Nottingham were certainly hoping to see some of the Documentum ready made portlets appearing in Luminis portal in the future.

The actual integration between LCMS and Luminis portal seemed a bit poor. There is something called ‘Automated Luminis Channel Creation’ (ALCC) – which allows you to publish ‘role’ specific information in the portal – however, the functionality here seemed limited, and possibly not that useful.
The other ‘integration’ is an Inbox channel with SSO to LCMS – this is a portal channel which shows outstanding tasks/workflow etc. from LCMS

Nottingham haven’t yet implemented either of these integrations.

In a reverse of the likely approach at RHUL, Nottingham have so far concentrated on externally facing content. They are considering the Intranet now, but feel that much of the intranet content is already in the portal (Module information, SSO to VLEs, Exam timetables, Reading lists etc)

Finally Nottingham said that it takes them 3-6 months to migrate a school website (elapsed time), depending on the staff in the school. However, they can do more than one school at a time (currently working on the outstanding 27 schools – and don’t seem to expect this will affect the overall timescales – 6 months)

JA-SIG UK – Morning presentations

uPortal and Shibboleth

This was a report on the SPIE project (Shibboleth aware Portals Information Environments) from Oxford (who are one of the partners in the project)

I’m impressed by the work done here, but there wasn’t much to ‘see’ – once you’ve seen one login, you’ve seen them all. However it has helped (I think) to clarify some issues concerning Shibboleth and SSO.

Shibboleth is neither an authentication nor authorization system – it is a framework. I had understood that in order to have SSO, you would also need to have a separate SSO solution (e.g. PubCookie, CAS).

However, from this presentation I now believe that it is slightly more complex. As long as you are working within the same federation any ‘shibbolized’ resource would be able to understand you already had a ‘shibboleth session’, and so wouldn’t ask for further logins.

This implies that within a completely shibbolized environment, the need for separate SSO solutions may disappear. However, this is obviously some way off at the moment – many of our resources show no sign of becoming Shib enabled yet…

It also isn’t clear when Luminis might be Shib enabled (as opposed to uPortal). At the moment I believe that Luminis will work with CAS, so it maybe that we should investigate this as well as our current work on Shibboleth (via the ShibboLEAP project).

Portals for Prospective and New Students

University of Nottingham

support a portal for prospective students. The main business drivers were:

Gain competitive edge
Increased efficiency
Enabling better service for true enquiries
Convert more applicants into actual students

One attendee questioned some of this, as Nottingham is terribly over-subscribed, and the ‘prospective students’ portal currently only deals with UCAS applicant students – rather than those that might have more of an impact such as overseas or postgraduate students.

When they have put in an application (I think), Prospective Students are sent a letter with a username/password – which is only valid where they are a prospective student – they get a new one when they become a student (there was a question about when does someone move from ‘prospect’ to ‘student’)

Prospective student details are held in the internal Luminis LDAP – and there is fall-through authentication on the portal, which uses the internal Luminis authentication if the main Nottingham LDAP fails (which it would always do for Prospects).

Within the portal, deliver information about their application – updated as this changes (similar to the ‘Status Checker’ we offer at RHUL).
Also general information about student life – links to different areas/facilities, as well as showing webcams etc from around campus.
Finance information – including ‘Fee estimator’ which covers Course fees, accommodation fees, food, gas/electricity, water, council tax etc.
Contact information – for more information.

For Nottingham PSP (Prospective Student Portal) is part of the ongoing relationship with their students – from Propsect, to Student, to Alumni. However, each ‘portal’ is acutally role based rather than separate portal installations.

Future goals are:
PG Admissions Portal
Improved/integrated online prospectus
Targeted announcements
Student induction channels
Links to CMS
School managed channels
On-line payment of fees (already have for existing students)

University of Edinburgh

on the otherhand offer the portal once students become UF (Unconditional Firm) – at this point, they start treating them as full students, and issue them with a student username and passwords, and give access to the full range of services. The username/password is sent by post, but there is an online ‘signup’ procedure, where they have to agree to the relevant regulations before they get full access to services.

This has proved very popular, with over 61% of new students had used MyEd by 12th Sept 2005, after the passwords going out in the Summer. Next year they plan to send out username/passwords earlier – in fact, they expect to send out the first ones to UF students starting in Sept 2006 in January.

JA-SIG UK Meeting

I’m at the JA-SIG UK meeting in Edinburgh today. JA-SIG are the driving force behind uPortal, and that is the focus of today’s meeting. I’ve not been to one of these before, so I’m hoping it isn’t too techie for me.

The main reason I’m here is to hear what University of Nottingham have done with the Portal and Content Management – they have the same portal software (Luminis – a commercialised version of uPortal), and the same CMS (Luminis Content Management System – LCMS) as us, and as we are hoping to pilot the LCMS this year, it is quite timely.

First up – Introductions from people here, and some information about how far people have got with uPortal. I’ve tried to capture the more interesting aspects of this here.

University of Edinburgh

Have been ‘playing’ with uPortal over several year. Focus on Alumni initially, then Staff. Now have launched for students – over 26,000 users on the portal system. Many of the systems being accessed via the portal are Oracle based. They use the ‘web proxy’ tool to integrate legacy systems. Now looking at portal services for ‘visitors’ – both formal (visiting lecturers) and informal (parents).

Edinburgh use ‘Cosign’ for SSO

University of Nottingham

Have a portal team of 8-9 people – what a luxury. They are using the Luminis product 3.III, approx 30,000 students and 5,500 staff, and between 20,000 and 40,000 prospective students – wow. They have implemented the LCMS (see above, and notes on the later session). Use of the portal still increasing.

University of Leeds

Recently acquired Luminis. Aiming to launch to students mid-2006. Currently on Luminis 3.x – looking for upgrade to Luminis 4 before going live. Have a ‘virtual’ team – from across Computing and Library. Have a VRE project, which include a ‘research portal’.

University of Manchester

First steps with uPortal. Still looking at a variety of possibilities for portal solutions. The potential user-base is large, and want to rollout for students (35,000) and research staff (6000) next year.

London Metropolitan

Currently working on student portal, although no definite decisions yet. A staff portal was previously mooted, but not implemented

Manchester Metropolitan

Business school – will pilot for about 6000 students. Oracle house mainly. WebCT, SAP Finance, .Net student records. Some JSR-168 experience from JISC project. Interested in content management, and single sign-on for document stores.

UWE

Pilot of uPortal – roughly 2000 students, with limited staff functionality. Developing portlets where possible, tying into web services. Looking to go into production to 25,000 students and 3000 staff in 2006/07

University of Liverpool

uPortal 2.2 in Summer 2005 (25,000 staff and students). Various integrations. Currently limited to about 200 concurrent users – not sure why. Use Oracle, Apache and Tomcat at backend. Quiet launch, but as soon as promoted it was overwhelmed by demand.

University of Ulster

Signed contract for Banner, looking at Luminis. Want to see consolidation of services, identity management is a big issue, going to deploy WebCT.

JA-SIG UK Meeting

I’m at the JA-SIG UK meeting in Edinburgh today. JA-SIG are the driving force behind uPortal, and that is the focus of today’s meeting. I’ve not been to one of these before, so I’m hoping it isn’t too techie for me.

The main reason I’m here is to hear what University of Nottingham have done with the Portal and Content Management – they have the same portal software (Luminis – a commercialised version of uPortal), and the same CMS (Luminis Content Management System – LCMS) as us, and as we are hoping to pilot the LCMS this year, it is quite timely.

First up – Introductions from people here, and some information about how far people have got with uPortal. I’ve tried to capture the more interesting aspects of this here.

University of Edinburgh

Have been ‘playing’ with uPortal over several year. Focus on Alumni initially, then Staff. Now have launched for students – over 26,000 users on the portal system. Many of the systems being accessed via the portal are Oracle based. They use the ‘web proxy’ tool to integrate legacy systems. Now looking at portal services for ‘visitors’ – both formal (visiting lecturers) and informal (parents).

Edinburgh use ‘Cosign’ for SSO

University of Nottingham

Have a portal team of 8-9 people – what a luxury. They are using the Luminis product 3.III, approx 30,000 students and 5,500 staff, and between 20,000 and 40,000 prospective students – wow. They have implemented the LCMS (see above, and notes on the later session). Use of the portal still increasing.

University of Leeds

Recently acquired Luminis. Aiming to launch to students mid-2006. Currently on Luminis 3.x – looking for upgrade to Luminis 4 before going live. Have a ‘virtual’ team – from across Computing and Library. Have a VRE project, which include a ‘research portal’.

University of Manchester

First steps with uPortal. Still looking at a variety of possibilities for portal solutions. The potential user-base is large, and want to rollout for students (35,000) and research staff (6000) next year.

London Metropolitan

Currently working on student portal, although no definite decisions yet. A staff portal was previously mooted, but not implemented

Manchester Metropolitan

Business school – will pilot for about 6000 students. Oracle house mainly. WebCT, SAP Finance, .Net student records. Some JSR-168 experience from JISC project. Interested in content management, and single sign-on for document stores.

UWE

Pilot of uPortal – roughly 2000 students, with limited staff functionality. Developing portlets where possible, tying into web services. Looking to go into production to 25,000 students and 3000 staff in 2006/07

University of Liverpool

uPortal 2.2 in Summer 2005 (25,000 staff and students). Various integrations. Currently limited to about 200 concurrent users – not sure why. Use Oracle, Apache and Tomcat at backend. Quiet launch, but as soon as promoted it was overwhelmed by demand.

University of Ulster

Signed contract for Banner, looking at Luminis. Want to see consolidation of services, identity management is a big issue, going to deploy WebCT.