Lightning Round of Innovative Work and Projects

Copyright Joann Martyn, Joyce Esterman, Tracy Mitrano, Mark D. Strandskov, Tobias Nownes, Jacques Du Plessis, Jiatyan Chen, Ralph Shank, Uttra Singh and the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents 2007. This work is the intellectual property of the authors. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is by permission of the authors. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission from the authors.

EDUCAUSE Midwest Regional Conference 2007

Lightning Round of Innovative Work and Projects

1. Visual Assignments2. Communication, Collaboration, Self-Service3. Blogging for Course Instruction4. Enterprise E-Mail/Calendaring Solution5. Virtual Labs6. Working Around Limitations7. InCommon Federation and Campus Participation8. Network Managers: Get Your Lives Back!

Facilitated by David Stack, UW–Milwaukee

Achieving Curricular Goals Through Visual Assignments

Joann MartynAcademic Computing Coordinator,

Arts, Performance, RecreationCarleton College

Lance T. McCready, Ph.D.Assistant Professor of Urban Education

Dept. of Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning

OISE, University of Toronto

Context

Introduction to Educational Studies

• Examines the current state of education through the lens of “clashing views” on controversial issues.

Multicultural Education

• Provides students with a chance to understand his or her place in the multicultural, multiethnic, multinational country that is the United States.

Courses broadly focused on Foundations of Education.

Introduction to Educational Studies

• Documentary Film assignment– To explore a

controversial topic in education using a documentary film format

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Multicultural Education

• Digital Memoir assignment – to use scanned photographs, found images on the

web, music, and voiceover to tell a story about an experience or event in which you gained a greater awareness of your racial/ethnic identity in a globalized world.

Assignment Evolution

• Collaborative Creation

• Both involved through the entire process

• Informal conversation led to project

Those technical details…

• Technical Training

• Equipment

• Server Space

• Final steps support

Results• Did the projects meet the goals of the classes?

– Yes

• Done Differently?– More time for students to critically discuss the projects

through writing activities and dyad conversations.– Lengthen the 10-week term!– Use the projects as a teaching tool for audiences beyond the

class.

Portal Communication, Collaboration and Self-Service

Xavier University

Joyce Esterman

esterman@xavier.edu

Creighton Blogging System

Open Source Instructional Tool

Faculty Survey

• May 2nd 2006 - Sent out survey• 903 Faculty members (Full & Part-time)• Received 51 responses• Departments represented in responses

– Medicine – Pharmacy– College of Business– Arts & Sciences

Do you have a blog?

44 No7 Yes

25 Yes

23 No

Are you Are you interested in interested in blogging?blogging?

Would you Would you use a CU use a CU blog?blog?

14 No

7 Yes

28 responded28 responded “I would have to see it first”

Search Parameters

• Customizable• Linux• Free

Open Source (Free and Customizable)Runs on LinuxWritten in PHPHealthy developer community

Open Source (Free and Customizable)Runs on LinuxWritten in PHPHealthy developer community

Initial Feature Requests

Password ProtectionImagesMultiple Authors Custom URL

WordPress for Multiple Blogs

• Implementation– .htaccess file can use pass-thru rewrites or aliasing to map

multiple URLS to one file– Configuration for wordpress is PHP

• Use the value of the request URI to dynamically load

• Configuration values - by setting the database prefix– Tie in with the Active Directory– Group blogs entitled from files

• Configuration dynamically driven from URL– Really need to validate that URL well!– ...but setup is automatic on first visit!

Caveats• WordPress not built for this

– Work with WordPress developers to make it work– Changing the WordPress code base in isolation means no

upgrading... and that's bad

• Delays, but worth it to "do it right"• Users like media... uploads...• Size...

– Since it's all owned by www - quotas won't quite work

• Security... – Since it's all owned by www, well, yikes

Resulting Application

• Security Limitations– Common Themes– Safe Options– No editing themes or plug-ins

• Custom Features– Category Subscription– Subscription Page– Music Player

Launching Creighton Blogs

• Launched Beginning September 2006• Soft Launch• Presentations

– IDD Demo - Introducing CU Blogs– Jacobson Chair - Hands-on Blogging– Breakfast Bytes - Blueberry Blogs

• Total number of users as of Feb. 19th 2007• 165

Future Features

• Footnotes

• Individual Glossary

• Simple Polling

• Math Publisher

• Podcasting

Collaboration Suite Procurement Process

Jacques du Plessis

School of Information Studies

UWM

The Process / RFP / Communication

• The Problem– A representative campus-wide committee– Keeping everybody on the same page

• The Solution– Intranet-based group anchor– Doc repository– Website emailfuture.uwm.edu– Not dependent on frequent F2F meetings

The Process / RFP / Communication

• Network, network, network– Sample RFPs from vendors– Other Universities– Industry leaders– Expertise inside UWM– Understanding what you are asking for

The Process / RFP / Communication

• Committee chair has little leverage on campus• Need strong communicative support from the CIO and

provost to all university constituents.• Website with streaming media, and data• Emphasize inclusiveness, openness• Personally meet with each email group (Outlook, Groupwise,

etc.)• Do surveys, advertise the website• All-in-one-day finalist demos to campus. (3 vendors or less)

Jacques du Plessis

School of Information Studies, UWM

jacques@uwm.edu

Virtual Labs

Michigan State UniversityVirtual University Design & Technology

Jiatyan Chen <chenjiat@msu.edu>

Reactions

Cross Departments

Ralph Shank and Uttra Singh

“Working Around Limitations”

Engage

Educate Enable

Working Around Limitations

• Needs Analysis

• Research

• Content Management System

• CONTENTdm as Campus-wide Solution

• Discussions

• Training/Support

• Research

• Evaluation

• Technology Adoption

• Paper Documentation• Group Training• One-on-one Training

• Campus-wide Solution

• Collaboration

• Evaluation

•Research• Evaluation

• Instructional Video

• Needs Analysis• Innovative Faculty

• Collaboration• Building Relationships

• Showcase

Working Around Limitations

Engage

Educate Enable

• Need Analysis• Innovative Faculty • Instructional Webpages

• Blogs and RSS• Luncheon Sessions

• UIS on iTunes U

• Collaboration

• Evaluation

• Evaluation

• First Podcast and Vodcast

• iTunes U• Colleagues• Students• Faculty

• Online Resources

Working Around Limitations

Engage

Educate Enable

• Needs Analysis• Collaboration• Innovative Faculty• Build Relationships• Research• Showcase• Competence Development• Training/Support• Evaluation

Engage

Educate

Enable• Technology Adoption/New Tools• Campus-wide Solutions• Learning Environment

The Partnership Challenge• Higher education’s missions are realized in

increasingly global, collaborative, online relationships– Higher educations’ digital collections, data, and

resources– External services and resource partners

• How many relationships do you manage?

Tracy Mitrano

• How much time is spent on the differing, one-off requirements for each partner?

• How much risk do these one-off implementations bring to your network, to the control of private data?

The Partnership Challenge

The Partnership SolutionWouldn’t it be great if we could:• developed and implemented solutions that

efficiently use our existing information infrastructures securely and safely

• InCommon economizes the time and resources that otherwise would be spent on the differing “one off” requirements for each individual partner deal with each partner in the same way; saving time and reducing risk

• InCommon maximizes security and privacy of personally identifiable/sensitive information

Wouldn’t it be great if we could:• richer, easier to use, safer online experience

for Penn State students, faculty, and staff.”• securely and safely in such a way that we

maintain control over the release of personal information for people

• This is what federations are created to do

The Partnership Solution

Identity Management Federationsaka

Access Management Federations• A definition of Federation: A collaboration of

independent entities that give up a certain degree of autonomy to a central authority in pursuit of a common set of goals.

• Identity Management Federations set common policies, technical interoperability criteria, and provide central services to establish and maintain trust (Central Authority)

• Identity Management Federations enable scalable, trustworthy, secure online partnerships (Common Goals)

Attributes: Anonymous ID, Staff, Student, …

Online Resource

Federated Access in 30 seconds

Home Institution

Metadata, certificates, common attributes & meaning, federation registration authority, Shibboleth, pinch of magic

4. If attributes are acceptable, access is granted!

3. Authorization: Privacy-preserving exchange of agreed upon attributes

2. Federation-based Trust exchange to verify partners and locations

1. Authentication: Single-Sign-On to existing Home Institution

The Value of InCommonBroadly Put

• Identity Providers (Home Institutions) control user accounts and the release of personal information

• Online services get to focus maintaining online resources – and standards-based access controls to them – and not on user account management

• Partners can quickly and securely deploy new collaborations and service relationships

The Value of InCommonFinely Put

• Governance by a Representative Steering Committee– Formulates policy and shared direction – Ensures services meet business needs with appropriate security levels and legal requirements– Establishes and communicate scalable operational standards and practices– Establishes a common set of attributes and definitions

• Legal Agreement– Basic Responsibilities, Official Signatory and Establishment of Trust, Conflict and Dispute

Resolution, Basic Protections

• Trust “Notary”– InCommon verifies the identity of organizations and their delegated officers;

• Trusted Metadata– InCommon verifies & aggregates security information for each participant’s servers, systems, and

support contacts

• Certificate Authority– InCommon issues server certificates to Participants for secure communications

• Standards for Policies and Practices– How high is the bar? Right now, each Participant decides. Participants self-declare their practices to

other Participants

• Technical Interoperability (Technical Advisory Committee)– InCommon defines shared attributes, standards (SAML), software (Shibboleth)

Internet2Internet2

InCommon Governance

FederationOperator

&Business Office

FederationOperator

&Business Office

TechnicalAdvisory

Committee

TechnicalAdvisory

Committee

NominationsCommittee

NominationsCommittee

Steering CommitteeRepresentative

of Higher Ed & its Partners

Steering CommitteeRepresentative

of Higher Ed & its Partners

Directio

nD

irection

Directio

nD

irection

CandidateApprovals

AdviceAdvice

45 Current InCommon Participants• Case Western Reserve University• Clemson University• Cornell University• Dartmouth• Duke University• Florida State University• Georgetown University• Miami University• New York University• Ohio University• Penn State• Stanford University• Stony Brook University• SUNY Buffalo• The Ohio State University• The University of Chicago• University of Alabama at Birmingham• University of California, Irvine• University of California, Los Angeles• University of California, Merced• University of California, Office of the President• University of California, Riverside• University of California, San Diego• University of Maryland• University of Maryland Baltimore County• University of Maryland, Baltimore• University of Rochester• University of Southern California• University of Virginia• University of Washington• University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Cdigix• EBSCO Publishing• Elsevier ScienceDirect• Houston Academy of Medicine - Texas Medical

Center Library• Internet2• JSTOR• Napster, LLC• OCLC• OhioLink - The Ohio Library & Information

Network• ProtectNetwork• Symplicity Corporation• Thomson Learning, Inc.• Turnitin• WebAssign

NEXT?• U.S. eAuthentication Federation and Agencies:

– NSF (FastLane, …)– NIH (Grants Administration, …)– Dept. of Education (Student Financial Aid, …)

• Federations within the InCommon Federation– University Systems– Coalitions of Universities organized around

Networks, Grids, others…

Higher Education (31) Sponsored Partners (14)

Network Managers - Get Your Lives Back!

Educause Midwest Regional Conference 2007

Mark StrandskovNetwork Manager

Central Michigan University

Security Model

Contact Information

Mark Strandskov, Network ManagerCMU Information Technologystran1md@cmich.edu989-774-6881

Ryan Laus, Associate Network ManagerCMU Information Technologylaus1rj@cmich.edu989-774-2102

Questions for our Panel?

Feel free to continue discussions in the lounge, lobby or over dinner

Many thanks to Lida Larsen & Leslie DeGrassi of EDUCAUSE!!!