New account activation for new students

We have just completed the development of the newly improved activation process for our new students. This application allows students to activate their computing account and set their chosen password. Since its launch last Thursday, it has attracted over 900 users and resulted in a much improved account activation service for our new students.

Following the activation of their computing account, students are able to access all online IT services that the university provides as well as log onto any of the university's desktops.

We feel that this improvement has helped new students in completing their pre-registration tasks which will greatly improve their first experience with Canterbury Christ Church University.

StudentNET extends to our accepted students

We have extended the student portal to include students that have been accepted on a course of study and are required to pre-register online before arriving at the registration event in September time.

The new 'stage' of the portal has several new widgets including 'Key things to know', 'Top questions' and 'Essential first steps' as well as drawing on the functionality of previously developed widgets including the 'WebNote' and 'i-zone search and browse'.

This portal will allow students to confirm their place of study with us, get their arrival instructions, upload their photo, and apply for and accept University accommodation places, as well as being introduced to the student portal with which they will interact for the next 3 years or more.

StudentNET Presentation at IWMW10 with Twitter feedback

Yeay! I managed to do my mini talk at this year's IWMW in Sheffield, and considering I was stressing about it so much ... the audience was very nice.

The slides are available on http://www.slideshare.net/czechman/student-net-iwmw-2010-presentation-upload

Some of the Twitter live feedback

liwazi any library related studentNet widgets exist ? such as reading lists, exampapers, amazon-like recommendation borrow system #iwmw10 #p8

spellerlive #iwmw10 #p8 CCCU - very nice job!

ostephens #iwmw10 #p8 think the UI of StudentNET looks nice - strength of building on something from outside the sector, non-corporate ?

PlanetClaire Brilliant talk there from Josef. Time to revisit the student portal project methinks. #iwmw10 #p8

mancypino Loving the Student Portal demo! #iwmw10 #p8

spellerlive #iwmw10 #p8 Contextural help for each widget - all works very smoothly.

webpackets #iwmw10 #p8 I like the studentnet portal - seems really well thought out, designed and most importantly usable for the students

spellerlive #iwmw10 #p8 Use of the campusM API to pull data in as future development - interesting - I'm looking at that too...

ostephens #iwmw10 #p8 the problem with this stuff is almost always getting access to the data - not building the code/widgets

PlanetClaire StudentNET looks fab! MIght have to pay a visit to Canterbury! #iwmw10 #p8

NIMRweb RT @liwazi studentNet - Canterbury Christ Church Univ is like CAMSIS in Cambridge Univ, but better #iwmw10 #p8

spellerlive #iwmw10 #p8 Comms widget to send personalised alerts - nicely done - even if it is all .NET :(

webpackets #iwmw10 #p8 Good to catch up on this project, attended the barcamp last year on the early stages of it.

PlanetClaire Who owns the student portal? Internal comms, web team, student services? #iwmw10 #p8

liwazi studentNet - student portal from Canterbury Christ Church Univ is like CAMSIS in Cambridge Univ, but better, much better #iwmw10 #p8

I was there ... honest

Here is some more proof that I attended the IWMW2010 in Sheffield.

Josef Lapka at IWMW10 from UKOLN on Vimeo.

Thumbs up for StudentNET portal at IWMW10

This year I signed up to do a presentation about the Canterbury Christ Church University student portal, StudentNET, in front of my peers and colleagues at the IWMW 2010. Although it was quite nerve-wracking, and it included a live demo, the nightmare of any presenter, it went very well.

My 20 minute talk was well received on Twitter and in subsequent interviews. Here is some of the feedback that our portal received ... (ego boost!)

Some feedback
"What has been the best bit this year so far?
All of it has been brilliant. By far the highlights were Sid and Paul Boag’s p5/p6 talks, however the StudentNet portal was a great technological demo. If pushed to select just a single highlight, I would go with Josef Lapkas StudentNet – to save me having to decide between Sid & Paul! The project management parallel session also deserves a mention."

Twitter feeback

liwazi any library related studentNet widgets exist ? such as reading lists, exampapers, amazon-like recommendation borrow system #iwmw10 #p8

spellerlive #iwmw10 #p8 CCCU - very nice job!

ostephens #iwmw10 #p8 think the UI of StudentNET looks nice - strength of building on something from outside the sector, non-corporate ?

PlanetClaire Brilliant talk there from Josef. Time to revisit the student portal project methinks. #iwmw10 #p8

mancypino Loving the Student Portal demo! #iwmw10 #p8

spellerlive #iwmw10 #p8 Contextural help for each widget - all works very smoothly.

webpackets #iwmw10 #p8 I like the studentnet portal - seems really well thought out, designed and most importantly usable for the students

spellerlive #iwmw10 #p8 Use of the campusM API to pull data in as future development - interesting - I'm looking at that too...

ostephens #iwmw10 #p8 the problem with this stuff is almost always getting access to the data - not building the code/widgets

PlanetClaire StudentNET looks fab! MIght have to pay a visit to Canterbury! #iwmw10 #p8

NIMRweb RT @liwazi studentNet - Canterbury Christ Church Univ is like CAMSIS in Cambridge Univ, but better #iwmw10 #p8

spellerlive #iwmw10 #p8 Comms widget to send personalised alerts - nicely done - even if it is all .NET :(

webpackets #iwmw10 #p8 Good to catch up on this project, attended the barcamp last year on the early stages of it.

PlanetClaire Who owns the student portal? Internal comms, web team, student services? #iwmw10 #p8

liwazi studentNet - student portal from Canterbury Christ Church Univ is like CAMSIS in Cambridge Univ, but better, much better #iwmw10 #p8

Useful links

View the presentation

Watch part of the presentation

Fitting development methodologies

It seems to me that with cutting resources the need for structured methodologies is more and more important. The use of the waterfall methodology seems the obvious choice, because it is designed to cut down on feature creap and allows for easy management, but others have a place too.

What have I learned about WCF?

WebNote's just around the corner

The. NET development team has completed the second phase of StudentNET WebNote. The WebNote is an area within the University's student portal that displays important messages to students, including reminders to do certain admin tasks.

We wanted to make this tool as flexible as possible so that massages could be sent to all students if necessary or just one individual, and anything in between.

So we have devised an admin tool that allows our staff to do just that. We have also de-coupled the different parts of the system. In the middle of it sits the messaging interface which has been deployed as a webservice and can be called by any application. This means that we can send automated messages as well.

The whole system will be handed over into production by the end of this month.

StudentNET V2 at IWMW2010

CCCU's student portal will be showcased at this years Institutional Web Management Workshop in Sheffield. Presenting to delegates from all over the UK I'll be giving a 20 mins presentation as part of 'Doing the day job'. For more information visit IWMW2010.

Park and Ride Application for staff

The web app development team have released a Park and Ride application for staff today. It's a simple but great new addition to CCCU's new Staff Services portal.

StudentNET Content

This paper describes how student content could be treated once removed from the external web. Its purpose is to start a discussion.

Option 1 - Full content integration into StudentNET V2

Similar to content administered by the i-zone content would be surfaced using the 'app area' in StudentNET V2.

i-zone content surfaced through StudentNET V2

The advantage of this approach is that it is in keeping with existing design and functionality.

Option 2 - Layered content integration into StudentNET V2

Following the original StudentNET vision, content would be surfaced using a conventional, layered web structure.

This layered content would be accessed through an 'A-Z app widget' from StudentNET V2. It could also be accessible through direct URLs.

E.G.: https://secure.canterbury.ac.uk/student/subject1/

The advantage with this approach is that it appears to be more scalable. It allows for more flexibility when having to cater for all CCCU's departments' needs.

Content structure

With either option the content structure needs to be carefully designed to allow for content to be reused in different areas of the web and in different media.

Content would be packaged up in logical subject sections. These subject sections may be informed by the more detailed content audit.

Content administration

With either option Contensis CMS would be used to administer content and support workflow rules.

Content rules will be important because content will be edited from staff across departments.

Change password online - Manage My Account

CCCU staff and students are now able to change their passwords online using a new application built by CIS with assistance from CS.

This is the first step in delivering a complete computing account self service online to all current staff and accepted and enrolled students. This will include the ability to unlock the account if it was locked and reset your password if it has been forgotten as well as keeping your secret questions and answers up to date.

So, if you have ever forgotten your password or locked your account, no need to worry. Soon you will be able to reset and change your University password and unlock your computing account online.

StudentNET V2 at UCISA

StudentNET V2 development has been chosen to be showcased at this year's UCISA 2010 Conference.

"UCISA represents the whole of higher education, and increasingly further education, in the provision and development of academic, management and administrative information systems."

UCISA Conference Programme

StudentNET V2 is Canterbury Christ Church University's new student portal, currently being rolled out gradually to its students, with a final release on March 1st 2010.