University Expertshttp://experts.sjsu.edu

HigherEdWebDev 2006October 22-25, 2006Rochester, New YorkTrack: TPR9

Harish V. ChakravarthyInterim Lead & Web Applications DeveloperWeb Services Unitharishvc@sjsu.edu

Session Layout

BackgroundAbout us

IT infrastructure

Relaunch of Univ. Experts Lessons learned Objectives Solutions Architecture Roll out Usage status

Future road map

Q & A

Before we get started:

First time at HighEdWebDev Conference First time to Rochester I am thrilled to be here!

Feel free to ask me any questions during the presentation

Feel free to let me know, if you can’t understand what I am talking about

Slides will be available online!

Background: About us

Background:About us

http://www.sjsu.edu/webservices

Formed in Fall 2002 Web site redesign project

ORG chart Office of the President

Office of the Provost Academic Technology

Web Services Unit

Services we provide Maintain University main Web site (www.sjsu.edu)

Maintain content for top level pages

Maintain the Content Management System Create subsites for Site Masters

Maintain and configure search engine

Develop & Maintain web applications for University needs News, Events, Form Handler, Syndication Feed, web survey and more…

Web space

and more …

We are responsible for the overall web presence of San Jose State University

Background:About us

http://www.sjsu.edu/webservices

Staff University Web Master

Position open since Mar/2006

Web Applications Developer (me)

Content Editor/Programmer New position

Staff hired in May/2006

Web Infrastructure Servers

4 Sun Solaris, 1 Windows

Set up Production

Stage

Development

Web Servers Apache, Tomcat

Database MySQL

Languages JSP, Perl, XML, XSLT

Version Control CVS

We are work with numerous open source applications

Background:About us

http://www.sjsu.edu/webservices

We serve Academic Units and Departments

Faculty

Staff

Students Current

Prospective

Alumni

We serve the entire campus

Units we work very closely with University Computing & Telecommunications (UCATS)

Servers in a cold room

Ensure 24X7 uptime (power supply)

Monitor network

CMS Team (my.sjsu.edu) Query tables for information

University Communications & Marketing Approve content for top level pages

University Logo and Seal usage guidelines

Web Oversight Committee (Formed in Spring 2006) 16 member team

University wide representation

University Web Policy (Ist project) Currently debated in the Academic Senate

Background: IT Infrastructure(related to this session)

Background: IT

Infrastructure

Campus IT Infrastructure

Decentralized

Numerous authoritative sources of information

We have more than one login and password to access various services offered.

Faculty & Staff Directory

http://www.sjsu.edu/directory/

Authoritative Source

Phone number

Email address

FAX number

Location

Building

Floor

Extended Zip

Department

Background: IT

Infrastructure

Background: IT

Infrastructure

Faculty Affairs

http://fa.sjsu.edu/

Authoritative Source for faculty

Education: Terminal Degree

Licenses & Certificates

Job Classification

Background: IT

Infrastructure

Bursar’s Office

http://www.sjsu.edu/bursar/

Authoritative Source

Tower ID Photo

Background: IT

Infrastructure

Human Resources

http://www.sjsu.edu/hr/

Authoritative Source

Name

First

Preferred first name

Middle

Last

Prefix

Suffix

Working Title

Employed faculty & staff

Not Phone Directory!

Background: University Experts (Version 1.0)

Background: University

Experts

Maintained by Univ. Marketing and Communications

Information was manually updated by staff

Static pages with no search and proper navigation

Primary key was not Tower ID

Sometime information was out of date

There was no easy way to know!

There was a need for a better system!

Background: University

Experts

One earlier attempt Developed some time before 2003

A standalone web application

One more login and password

Not user friendly to input or view

Not a committee approach

Unsuccessful in achieving its objective

Relaunch of University Experts(Version 2.0)

Project Objectives:

Lessons Learned

Put a committee together

Automate as much as possible

Pull data from authoritative sources

Empower experts

To update their “own” information

Ability to opt-in and opt-out

Initiative Launched:

Fall 2004

Project Team

Rhea Williamson, Associate Dean, Graduate Studies and Research Mary Jo Gorney-Moreno, AVP, Academic Technology Jeff Gordon, Director, Business Development, SJSU Foundation Joan Merdinger and Angee McGhee, Faculty Affairs Nancy Stake, Media Relations Officer, University Advancement Paul Nozicka, University Webmaster Harish Chakravarthy, Web App. Developer, Web Services Rigo Vargas, Enrollment/Academic Services-IT Danielle Moon, MLK, Jr. Library Special Projects Sara Willis, Sponsored Programs Office, SJSU Foundation Beth Lemke, Content Editor, Univ. Marketing & Communications Bethany Shifflet, Faculty, Kinesiology Andrew Wood & Christina Sabee, Faculty, Communications Studies Carrie Medders, CMS Project Support

16 member team!

Project Objectives

Increase Awareness of SJSU Experts

Foster Collaborative Opportunities

Leverage Investments/Resources

Capture information in a standard format

Identify top categories External Speaker

Contact for news media

Collaborative researcher

Provide accurate information

Retain the SJSU look and feel

Keyword searchable

Easy to navigate

Standards compliant

“One stop shop” to find experts

Possible Solutions:

Plan A

Write a new web app. from scratch

Pros:

Develop inhouse We already have the infrastructure

Save time Less coordination with rest of campus

Cons:

One more login and password!

One more standalone application!

Possible Solutions:

Plan B

Use MySJSU, PeopleSoft Portal (my.sjsu.edu)

Pros: Currently in use

University has vested interest

In built modules available to capture

similar information

No need for additional login and password

Cons: In built modules will require customization

May require approval from Chancellor’s Office

Will require coordination with the CMS team & other teams on campus

Long process

Possible Solutions:

Plan Aor

Plan B We decided on Plan B!

(A road less traveled)

Using MySJSU:

Customize modules

Identify modules to capture informationEducation-Degrees

Courses-Teaching Experience

Research-Scholarly Activity

Professional-Service Activity

Licenses-Certificates

Publications-Presentations

Customize Text changes

Remove fields

Add fields Easy to Copy & Paste

Accept Home page URL

Accept to existing URL’s

Courses

Publication

Using MySJSU:

New module

Faculty Info

Display Tower Image

Yes

No (Default)

Select 3 categories

External Speaker

News Media Contact

Collaborative Researcher

Expertise Summary

Keyword field for search

Experts should select any one of the 3

categories to be found inside university experts

Provide a way to out-out if desired

We went through 13 iterations!

(Fall 2004 - Summer 2005)

Using MySJSU:

Architecture

Identify Authoritative Sources

Query for a list active experts

Pull information for active experts from various

authoritative sources Various databases across campus

Map information gathered using Tower ID as the

primary key

Map Tower ID to unique random key (public display)

Generate SQL inserts

Update local database

DBTrainman

(a command line driven program written in JAVA)

Putting all this together & making it work …

CMS DBmy.sjsu.edu

UCATS DBwww.sjsu.edu/directory

Experts DB

DBTrainman(The BRAIN)

Active Experts vis CMS

Education(Terminal Degree from Faculty Affairs)

Office of Public Affairs

News Media Contactdatabase

Graduate Studies & Research/Foundation

Funding alerts and Keywords database

Towercard Photo from Bursar’s Office

Faculty Initiated pages• Courses• Research• Publications …

http://experts.sjsu.edu

Univ. Experts:Roll out

Step I (early Fall 2005) Identify beta testers

Request feedback & make required changes

Step II (Beta Launch, November 2005) Communicate via campus mail and email

Request experts to check accuracy of information

Raise awareness

Request experts to fill out their information

Step III (Full Service Public Launch, January 2006) SJSU Press Release

Point all references to Univ. Experts

http://experts.sjsu.edu

Univ. Experts:

Project Update

# Experts

Feb/01/2006 Oct/20/2006 change

Contact for News Media 329 362 10%

Collaborative Researcher 38 76 100%

External Speaker 47 91 94%

Tower Images 19 45 137%

# Records

Active Experts 2016 1743 -14%

Education 2120 2366 12%

Licenses & Certificates 19 21 1.6%

Research & Scholarly Activities 363 386 6.3%

Courses & Teaching Expertise 196 375 91.32%

Professional & Service Activity 258 305 18.21%

Publications & Presentations 264 334 26.5%

Univ. Experts:

Future Roadmap

Increase awareness Offer hands-on lab session

Memo from Office of the Provost

Meet with Department Chairs and College Deans

Visibility on website and other forms of communication

Students newspaper

Technical Improvements UI Improvements

Import publication from University Library

Integrate data with other web applications

Beta Site Demowww.sjsu.edu/cats/2003/showcase/

http://experts.sjsu.edu/

Additional Slides

DBTrainman:Code: Output

Generating a Vector of active IDs ...

Generated a Vector of existing Mapping ID

Checking for complete ID Mapping ...

Insert into sjsu_id_map values (531281767,"55AESWE34");

Generating ID Map ...

Generating DeptID Map ...

Generating sjsu_experts_contact header ...

Generating sjsu_experts_contact sql ...

rows processed:1748

Generating sjsu_experts_info header ...

Generating sjsu_experts_info sql ...

rows processed:479 (392)

CR/ES/NM:76 91 362

Generating sjsu_experts_education header ...

Generating sjsu_experts_education sql ...

rows processed:6568 (2366)

…

Generating Images ...

rows processed:45

Generating sjsu_experts_contact_from_ucats header ...

Generating sjsu_experts_contact_from ucats sql ...

rows processed:6160 (1770)

…

Statistics for today ...Oct/23/2006 1748 392 2366 21 386 375 305 334 45 76 91 362

DBTrainman:Code:

Images

DBTrainman:Code: Query

Phonebook

Service Oriented

Architecture