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.

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

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.

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.

StudentNET stress testing - it's not just about running the scripts ...

We have done some preliminary stress tests to see how StudentNET responds to high levels of usage. To start us off we created very simple test scripts that simulated a user logging on, loading the framework and logging off.

Creating test scripts using Visual Studio Team Foundation is a piece of cake, so at first we didn't stumble upon any problems. Within a few minutes of launching the wizard, the script was created in C# and we were ready to set up the first load test.

For an adequate load test we needed to have at least 4 agents that would be sending requests to our web servers; a controller that would be distributing the test load among the agents; a test client that executes the script. Now, considering we do not have a testing environment, let alone a testing lab, we had to make do with PCs of colleagues that were on holiday. So getting together 6 PCs was difficult enough.

Set up

Setting up the testing grid with staff PCs proved to be quite tricky. At first we had problems connecting the client (runs the scripts) to the controller (distributes the load). A few IPCONFIGS later we discovered that the two machines were on completely different IP ranges and were unable to resolve the machine name. Even though we were able to connect via IP, Visual Studio Team Foundation did not work, seemingly because the controller tried to contact the client with its name, which again did not resolve.

Secondly, running Virtual PC 2007 on our staff PCs meant that all 6 machines were too weak to generate a load that we would have wanted to test. It created a bottle neck of 300 requests to our web servers at any one time before the agents started to fail.

So we reduced the load of concurrent users to be able to run a few 5 hour tests to see whether the application was deteriorating in any way. Although this significantly reduced the load on our webfarm and resulted in minimal load balancing, we were able to fetch a few results that helped us improve the application.

Next steps

We're going back to the framework to improve its load and also to fix fundamental errors that cropped up during stress tests.

We are also going to look at the possibility of using a Virtual Environment to run 10-12 agents to increase the stress on our web servers.

First mini barcamp experience

I held a barcamp session today. After 3 years of attending the IWMW, I finally plucked up the courrage to speak in front of my peers at this years IWMW at the University of Essex.

My session was about our development efforts towards delivering a new student portal at Canterbury Christ Church. The session, I think, was well received a few delegates have contacted me since wanting to be kept informed about our progress and student feedback.

You never know, we might be able to share the portal and collaborate on future widget developments.

StudentNET Pre-registration Portal is coming

We have just completed the first stage of the new Canterbury Christ Church University pre-registration portal. It currently lets prospective students log in and supply us with a working email address, so that we are able to guide them through pre-registration. This means that when they arrive at Christ Church, their induction and formal registration will run more smoothly than before.

The next steps of this development are crucial. We will expand our newly built FAQ system to this area and re-purpose and re-fresh most of our tired web content that is spread across our currently unmanaged website. It will also see the creation of packaged up content to support most if not all pre-registration steps that they need to take to successfully register at CCCU.

There will be a 'Uplod your photo' application so that students can provide us with their photo to get their uni cards, and just before they arrive at Christ Church, they will be able to activate their computing account from the comfort of their homes.

StudentNET Development Update

The current student home page is being replaced by a totally new portal., StudentNET. The portal will present the student with an extended range of facilities as well as easy to use customisation tools.

The technology underpinning the portal is also new. The current StudentNET is effectively a web page that brings together a variety of student related applications and services. The new version of StudentNET will be a true portal that will give the student seamless, authenticated access to relevant services and applications. One advantage of an authenticated portal is that the system will be aware of who the user is and will be able to tailor the facilities presented to match the user’s profile. For example a final year student will not normally be presented with the option to re-enrol for the following session.

The development of the portal is being shared between CIS within the University and an external software supplier. The external company, Ballard Chalmers, has been contracted to provide the portal framework using a product known as ‘Drop Things’. The final version of the work from Ballard Chalmers is due to be delivered at the end of April and will be delivered complete with the university’s styling already incorporated into the framework. The University will develop the content (known as widgets) and this will include a variety of university applications, RSS feeds and some of the more popular social sites (in the first instance Flickr, an image sharing site). Once the framework is delivered CIS will progressively develop and introduce the widgets so that the functionality is incrementally increased. In the case of the student administration functionality, it will be introduced to coordinate with the student calendar. CIS are currently developing a detailed project plan and deliverables map but the mock-up included in this report is a reasonable approximation of the content and appearance of the intended phase 1 deliverables.

The portal will include the concept of an ‘application area’ where those widgets that require a work area will ‘open’ an area of the portal to present the user with additional facilities they need (e.g. the fields to enter if they are changing their address). The portal has a single application area which is shared by those applications that need it. The area is managed, such that if a user tries to use the area for a new application before saving their current work they are warned and given the opportunity to save or continue.

The portal will have a default colour scheme and layout but students who wish to do so will be able to easily modify the appearance of their portal. CIS has consulted extensively with the Marketing Department in order to agree a set of applications and default layout but each widget can easily be dragged into a new position within the framework and the colour scheme will be replaceable by selecting another from a set of available schemes.

CIS are working with selected student focus groups to obtain their perspective on the new development and to obtain the maximum ‘buy-in’ from the users. Once the framework is delivered and stable the focus groups will be invited to use and comment on the new StudentNet. It is planned that as development progresses the number of users will be increased in order to get the maximum input and to stress test the environment with a view to a full release at the end of July.

Want to be part of StudentNET usability testing and be one of the first to be grated access to the new portal? Just let us know.

StudentNET design and security

Another milestone has been passed on the journey towards the new StudentNET. Two major developments are complete.

StudentNET framework design

A revised, final design has been completed by our in-house designer. Drawing on the latest design techniques and online trends, Chris has produced a highly usable, friendly and customisable StudentNET homepage. As well as the layout of the page, Chris has produced custom buttons, panels and icons of every aspect of StudentNET, which, as you can imagine, is a mammoth task in itself. Here is a sneak preview of his design.

StudentNET Security Model

We take security of your data and access to our web servers very seriously and have therefore spent a lot of time planning out and testing appropriate security models to allow us to publish StudentNET pages. External specialists have thus been employed to help CIS proof that it can overcome several security issues.

From our meetings with the company last week, we are now confident that StudentNET will allow us to protect ourselves appropriately while remaining a flexible and extendable application.

If you have any questions about any StudentNET developments or would like to find out how you could be part of it, just leave a comment on this blog post.

Development of StudentNET Portal in full swing

The development of the new StudentNET portal is now truly under way. CIS has completed a collection of comprehensive specification documents and along with the help of external developers has set its sights for a rapid creation of a first prototype to be released within the next 3 months.

At the same time the web team's graphic designer is pushing forward original design ideas to enrich the students' experience of the new StudentNET portal.

Although still over 8 month off from completion, the StudentNET portal is taking shape as a well founded concept and is supported by state of the art web 2.0 technologies. The StudentNET framework within which students will be able to create their own homepages, is based on DropThings.com, a web 2.0 portal product that has revolutionised the way users view and collect information on the web. Students will have the opportunity to view their modules, timetable, external RSS feeds and much much more, all on one page hosted by the University.

Thoughts on developing access to facebook and external mail clients such as GoogleMail, HotMail and the like are also under way to try and enhance the students' online experience at CCCU.

All these cool services will be underpinned by online content tailored to each student. This means that students see what they want to see online as well as what they need to see to support their studies and life at CCCU.

There will be many more news about features and services, and ideas coming from this in the next few months, so watch this space!