Portal-based EnterpriseArchitecture

A role for uPortal?

Jim FarmerJA-SIG Summer Conference

June 13, 2005 • Baltimore, Maryland, USA

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

JA-S

IGAgenda

• Prologue

• Enterprise Portal Defined

• Why now?

• The future

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

JA-S

IGIs uPortal successful?

There’s another project, which was funded by the Mellon Foundation … that has been very, very successful—that’s uPortal. It’s in use at scores of institutions now. It is the primary enterprise portal at those institutions.

Ira Fuchs, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation as quoted in “Learning Management Systems: Are We There Yet ?,”

Syllbaus Magazine, July 1, 2004.

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

JA-S

IGIs uPortal sustainable?

• The open source portal/portal framework uPortal was also highly recognized and expected to succeed in the marketplace. uPortal came out on top from those respondents that rated their knowledge as excellent or expert.

• The open source course management system (CMS) Sakai emerged as the most recognized … over 75% of the respondents had heard of Sakai.

Ron Abel, “Preliminary Analysis of the Open Source in Higher Education Survey,” Alliance for

Higher Education Competitiveness, May 3, 2005.

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

JA-S

IGOkay, you asked

Sakai 4.4 uPortal 6.3uPortal 3.3 Sakai 4.6Moodle 1.6 OSP 1.9OSP 1.6 Kuali 1.4Kuali 1.1 Moodle 1.1OKI 0.6 OKI 0.6LionShare 0.3 LionShare 0.3

All Respondents Most Knowledgeable

Ron Abel, “Preliminary Analysis of the Open Source in Higher Education Survey,” Alliance for

Higher Education Competitiveness, May 3, 2005

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

JA-S

IGThe uPortal decisions

• Gleason: No advertising on MY portal.

• Koehler, Jacobson: Full and immediate transparency

• Campus Pipeline uses uPortal code

• Kharchenko, Weiner: Develop technology with industry, adapt to higher education

• Developers: JSR 168

• Thompson, Petro et al: Support the current and new customers well

• Kharchenko, Ivanov: WSRP

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

JA-S

IGJSR 168 and WSRP

• “Jan Nielsen thinks there's a great advantage, "we can't not do it". All the other horses will overtake you if you don't do it. And we will be abandoned. SCT really wants this. He's not so comfortable with WSRP, not as much confidence. Jan expects the Java development community to run with JSR-168 "like a wild pack of dogs" [because it is from the Java community per se].”

• “Ken [Weiner]: WSRP is an enabler -- it allows things to communicate with each other once they have been written. [it is for remote channels] JSR-168 is a container specification really. Do we write a wrapper for 168 on top of uPortal? Or rewrite uPortal to 168 and make a wrapper for IChannel? Rewriting uPortal would take about a year.”

Michael Oltz, “uPortal developers meeting Cornell University, August 7-8, 2003,” Cornell University, September 15, 2003.

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

JA-S

IGWhy WSRP?

• REDMOND, Wash., Aug. 9, 2004 — As part of Microsoft Corp.'s ongoing commitment to enterprise application interoperability … two new Web Part toolkits and a Web services toolkit for Microsoft® SharePoint® Products and Technologies that enable them to connect systems from multiple vendors using XML Web services standards.

• Microsoft's WSRP Web Part Toolkit for SharePoint Products and Technologies leverages the Web Services for Remote Portlets (WSRP) specification.

“Microsoft Continues Commitment to XML Web Services With New SharePoint Products and Technologies Toolkits,”

Microsoft Corporation, August 9, 2004.

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

JA-S

IGPhases of portal use

Phase Example Layout Control

Aggregation Early Campus Pipeline

User

Corporate or Learning Portal

Early uPortal(as implemented)Proprietary LMS

Organization or faculty

Enterprise uPortal withAggregated layout

Distributed, non-hierarchical, not yet defined

Yes, but …

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

JA-S

IGEnterprise architecture defined

Enterprise Architecture: a strategic information asset base, which defines the mission, the information necessary to perform the mission, the technologies necessary to perform the mission, and the transitional processes for implementing new technologies in response to the changing mission needs. An enterprise architecture includes a baseline architecture, target architecture, and a sequencing plan.

“A Practical Guide to Federal Enterprise Architecture,” Chief Information Officer Council, February 1, 2001.

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

JA-S

IGKey points

• Design to support the organization’s mission.

• Plan for using new technologies.

based on a business case

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

JA-S

IGTransformation of higher education

• Mass customization for education

• Inter-institutional research

• Improved productivity• Quality: More learned per course

• Unit costs: Lower unit costs per course completion

“The National Commission believes we must regain the initiative by holding ourselves to the highest standards of accountability for student success, research and service, and greater productivity in higher education.”

“Accountability for Better Results: A National Imperative for Higher Education,” National Commission on

Accountability in Higher Education, March 10, 2005.

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

JA-S

IGThe new architecture

Chief Business Officer

Chief Academic

OfficerChief

Information Officer

ERPFinanceHuman

ResourcesFacilities

Virtual Learning

Environment

Virtual Research

Environment

Library

ITInfrastructure

Chief Marketing

Officer

CRM

Core

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

JA-S

IGStandards of the new architecture

• Open standards (WSRP)

• “Loosely coupled components” using Web Services (SOAP, XML, WS-*)

• Workflow (BPEL)

• Java (according to Geoffrey Moore)

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

JA-S

IGThe enterprise portal

Enterprise Portal

(aggregation and presentation)

Enterprise Integration Bus

ER

P

Learn

ing a

nd

Rese

arc

h

En

vir

on

men

t

Etc

.

Work

flow

Secu

rity

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

JA-S

IGThe Organization of Work

Course Authoring

Course Management

Course Delivery

Library

Help Desk

TutoringIT responsibility

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

JA-S

IGWhy uPortal?

• Differentiation for higher education

• Industry, i.e. higher education (Sakai?), services

• Multimedia-rich portlets

• Internationalization of portal and content

• Distributed, aggregated layout (with priorities)

• Definition and implementation of portlet “context”

• Cost/performance

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

JA-S

IGFuture uPortal: Jon Allen’s View

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

JA-S

IGJon’s view – Dynamic layout

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

JA-S

IGJon’s view – Sakai-like layout

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

JA-S

IGUser involvement

• An open source software development needs two communities: Users and developers.

• Sometimes they are the same, Linux for example.

• uPortal needs a user community including faculty who are using the portal in their research and teaching. Sakai may have this with the Sakai Educational Partners Program.

From Bill Olivier, CETIS, Enterprise SIGDecember 2004

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

JA-S

IGuPortal will continue to be successful

• IF

• The current installed base receives satisfactory service and the software product continues to improve.

• Follows industry-accepted, broadly implemented open standards.

• There is the realistic promise of needed new functionality in major releases that support the transformation of higher education.

• “Use cases” for new features comes from experienced, dedicated, visionary users.

The End

Jim Farmerinstructional media + magic inc.

jxf@immagic.comSakai Program, University of Michigan

jxf@Umich.edu

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

inst

ruct

ional m

ed

ia +

magic

JA-S

IGim+m Permissions

Copyright ©2005 instructional media + magic, inc. All rights reserved.

This digital document may be reproduced and distributed to others provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are included in all such copies. This content itself may not be modified in any way. The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be revoked by the author, or successors or assigns.