Some new features

FOLD/StudentsOnline is adding bits of functionality every week. Here is a summary of some of the recently added features

StudentsOnline (the public site)

Coursework
The coursework schedule, which includes an indication of coursework read for collection, is listed with each module, e.g. Data Schemas and Applications, with each stage of a programme (helpful for seeing problems with deadlines) e.g. Stage 2 Multimedia and also as a list of the latest available for collection . We are looking at emailing students when coursework is ready and a Foyer display screen.

Joint Honours
Where both halves are in CEMS, we are able to show the complete programme in a single diagram. e.g. Computing and Multimedia

Hyperion (Library Digital Collection)
We have added a link to the module in Hyperion for such exam papers have been lodged there.


FOLD (the Intranet site)

Rooms
A database of teaching rooms with data on the facilities and a link to the room timetable is now included. This is data is maintained mainly by John Mathews and Matt Smith.

Staff Timetables
There is a search box on FOLD to link to a staff members timetable which requires entry of the UWE staff id. This could be directly linked from a staff page on FOLD and we support voluntary opt-in of this feature.

Books

We have re-done the links to books in a module specification in StudentsOnline. Now clicking on an ISBN (if one has been entered) in the list of sources goes to a page in which some of the details of this book are presented. These include some data gleaned from Amazon, links to the library and to Amazon (and whatever other book retailers we would like to include) and the list of modules which include this text.

Julian Humphries has been working through booklists to add the ISBNs. Coverage however is still partial. Here is one module where ISBNS have been added:

http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/exist/shortmodspec.xql?moduleCode=UFIEKG-20-2

and here is a typical book page:

http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/exist/bookdetail.xql?ISBN=0321193687

Groups and implicit members

We have added the ability to include 'virtual' or implicit members in a group i.e. those who are not explicitly members but are implicitly members because of what they do. The best examples are Fields, where all module leaders of modules in the field are implicit members.

All groups in FOLD also link to the photo gallery and to an email list of the members of the group. As always it is a challenge to keep this data up-to-date so if you notice any mistakes on a page, use the mail link in the page footer to tell the FOLD team.

Displaying the Faculty Structure

We added a couple of pages to FOLD last week as part of our effort to represent the structure of the Faculty. FOLD holds a description of the purpose, membership and interrelationships of all groups in the Faculty. The relationships are complex and not easy to understand by looking at one group at a time.


There are two views of the Faculty

• the staff structure (subgroup relationship between staff groups)
  
• the committee structure t(reporting relationships between committes)
  

Both graphs are clickable, leading to a photo gallery of group members, from where you can navigate to the group information.

Technical Note.
These graphs are dynamically generated from the descriptions of groups held in FOLD. The graph layout uses the AT& T program 'dot', part of the Graphviz suite. The graphs are generated as GIFs with client-side maps generated to provide the linking.

Coursework return

StudentsOnline now includes details about courseworks for each module. Included in this information are the dates for hand-in by students and the anticipated date of return of assessed work 20 workings days hence. We have included a new feature which it is hoped will save time for students and get feedback to students more quickly. Against each element, there is the date at which marked coursework is actually ready for collection by the students. We plan to use this data to create a display of the new courseworks ready for collection and we are looking into the possibility of using the SMS system to advise students on a module when coursework is ready for collection. We think this will be a major advance on last year's system in which students had to go to N block to see a list of returned work.

Director of Information Architecture

A couple of weeks ago I was appointed to a new post - Director of Information Architecture. The remit for this post is broadly to coodinate information systems development within the Faculty. 'Information system' covers web-based systems such as FOLD, StudentsOnline and the CEMS external web site but it also includes other standalone systems which have and are being developed and systems which interface with central ITS. While the main emphasis is on computer-based information systems, the brief is to coordinate the use of Information in whatever forms it takes physically.

For this post, I have a nominal 50% timetable, which also covers project managing the current XML database project, FOLD and the Plone CMS. I report to and am part of the Faculty Senior Management Team and I chair a group called the 'Information Systems Architecture group' ISAG, which takes over from the WEBIS project steering group. The membership of this group has yet to be agreed. Initial thoughts were to make in a committe of representatives of the interest groups, but sincel these are well represented in the Senior Management Team, there seems little point in replicating that structure. I am also now a member of GOFL/GOAD since a main function of the information systems is to support the modular scheme.

My personal preference is to gather a group of faculty staff who are involved in the production and use of information in the faculty and who are passionate about improving our information systems and can contribute effort to making this happen. Outputs from the committee would include reports on the state of the various IS projects, recommendations for setting priorities for projects, information policies and the communication of good practice. Planning clearly needs to be undertaken in the light of changes afoot and the need for better liason with the Centre and the other faculties in the super-faculty.

Right now, I see that there is work to be done in a number of areas:

• Review of on-going projects and their facilities for integration
• Policy for transparency of information - access to timetables, staff photos in StudentsOnline
• Single-signon for all UWE students on all UWE systems including CEMS
• Development of a single Programme document covering the needs of students, academics and marketing

I'd like your views on the consituency of the group and offers of time and effort to work with the group to improve information provision.

FOLD in Public

Yesterday, I presented the work we are doing on this project as part of a one day conference at RAL on XML Access languages organised by XML UK and W3C UK.

Several other speakers mentioned the eXist Native XML database which underpins FOLD with enthusism and my session, the only one reporting on the user experience of these lanagauges and technologies when down well. Michael Kay talked about XSLT2 - his free Saxon engine will be incorporated into eXist when we next update the version ofthe software. Mark Birbeck from ( the developers of FormPlayer) talked about XForms persuasively and Andy Seaborne from HP Labs Semantic Web Group described SPARQL - a query langauge for RDF triples - an appraoch we had initially in mind for modelling organisational relationships.

Module Timetables

Access by students to module timetables - yes or no? Opinions vary but the little response I've had so far would indicate that access does more good than harm. This is especially so at the start of the academic year when timetables are being sorted out. At least students can see when the lecture is on. On the other hand, there are concerns that:

a) if students know when other tutorials are on, perhaps at a more convenient time, they will ask for a timetable change and this will overwhelm the timetablers, and in any case will usually be impossible.

b) students will be able to simply attend a more convenient tutorial without making a formal request to change and this will disrupt classes, especially if staff arnt quite sure who should be in the tutorial and who should not.

At present, I've adopted a rather weasly compromise - they are available in FOLD but not in the public StudentsOnline. This doesn't help anyone trying to figure out what to do from home of course. The main problem s that it doesnt provide a point at which to intervene with advice on our policy on tutorial changes. I'm planning to add the links to StudentsOnline but would welcome comments.

Earlier this year I started work on a wiki to address the general probloem of transparancy i.e who can see what data where. I'd like to resume this work.

Module Specifications on the UWE site

At long last, we have set up the mechanism to link the UWE CEREUS system to FOLD. When you search for module specifications on the UWE site, it will be using FOLD to supply the specification. At long last the need to provide word documents to ITS for conversion to HTML has gone.

The specifications on the UWE site are however not as informative as those on FOLD or studentsOnline, since for example there are no links to pre-requisite modules, but we have to conform to a standard. Use FOLD or StudentsOnline in preference.

Contributes to..

I've added a page in StudentsOnline to show the programmes which a given module contributes to, either as a core module or an optional module. The public studentsonline site is slowly acquiring much of the functionality of the FOLD intranet for readers, in a better designed interface we feel.

RSS feeds

I've added a couple of RSS feeds from FOLD - one for changes to Module Specifications, the other for changes to Programmes. Links to these can be found in the about page on studentsonline - thery have tobe here because RSS feeds must be publicly accessible to be readable by aggregators like Google Reader and Bloglines. Adding these feeds was straightforward - about 20 lines of XQuery for the module feed.

The basis of these feeds are EditEvents. Currently only ModuleSpecifications and Programme Structures have EditEvents, but the concept can to be applied more generally, so that changes in, say Organisational Structures - membership of schools for example, can also be RSSed. A more difficult case is that of the base programme data - this is currently in a spreadsheet but that format is creaking and we need to consolidate that data with descriptive data into a singel programme document, whence Edit trails can be added here too.

'Post-requisites'

Students and Staff need to be able to see the consequences of choosing a module. The Programme of Study checker in FOLD checks the choices made over a whole programme - it still needs some work before full release. However it should be possible to just reverse the pre-requisite relationship. So if you are looking at module X, which modules have Module X amongst their pre-requisites. Peter has now added this functionality to StudentsOnline.

Once more into the breach, dear friends

Thanks to the efforts of Peter, Julian and most of all Andrew Hart, Studentsonline has worked well over summer, option choice forms are, well perhaps 'flooding' is too strong, into the timetablers and there have been no howls of protest at the site.

We still have much to do, both in structure and content but Julian and Peter are pretty much up to speed on the system and software now. Peter Chapman is based in 2P50 as part of Claire's team, Julian Humphries in N-Block as part of Sandra's team, each taking prime responibility for content in their respective areas. Both will also be working on the development of the system.

Julian is currently working his way through the module specifications, tidying up the formatting (lists, tables) and helping Jon Algate enter Reading Strategies. In the process he is also adding ISBNs to books. This is to facilitate links to the UWE library and to Amazon for reviews and perhaps purchase. I'm wondering if we should participate in Amazon's affiliate scheme with the proceeds going to a selected charity- what do you think?

Peter is working on setting up the Events calendar for the new year. Let him know of any forthcoming events.

As we move towards induction, the public site (StudentsOnline)is getting most attention to ensure it can provide students with the relevant information. Alison Eastwood has been working on the glossary and FAQs for this site, so contact her if you have any input to this material. It is actually edited on a separate collaborative wiki, so you could also become a contributing editor - let me know.

We now have a number of staff (about 80 ) who have short biographies on the site now. I would like to encourage you all to write up something about yourself and your research interests. These might be coordinated through Heads of school or sent directly to fold@cems.uwe.ac.uk.

Changing the guard

Amit and Nick have come to the end of their stint on the project, Peter and Julian take over. Thanks guys, for all the work, the project wouldn't be the same without your efforts over the past year.

Julian and Peter have quite an awesome task, taking over, supporting a live system, trying to follow the sometimes quirky decisions I've made in the architecture, and pressing on with its development, while I swan off to the USA. But they are sensible and able guys and I've every confidence that I'll come back to a better system.

Studentsonline ready to go live

The public version of FOLD is nearly ready to go live.

As usual, the core problems are data quality. Data in some areas is still a bit poor as we collect data on the next year's operations, so we have to use last year's data. We don't yet have all the sections on module advice that we need and the introductory sections on programmes is still wanting. We still have a major job todo on general advice to students.

However these will be fixed over tiome, and its more important to get it out there and viewed by staff and friendly students before the big rush in mid August.

Tutor Blog

I've just started a blog for tutors to write about the new year for the sake of incoming students. Not quiet sure how to get this to work, or who is most likely to write for it, but it could be a nice channel for news if it works.

http://cemswelcome.blogspot.com/

Its currently on my account and I will add members as required, but perhaps it would look better if we set up a new blogger account for this.

Glossary and FAQs

We need a glossary of our jargon and a section on Frequently Asked Questions for the student portal (and maybe even for us!). I've set up a wiki so that this can be developed collaboratively. Authorship is restricted so let me know if you would like to contribute and I'll send you an invitation.

There's not much in there at present, just a few examples. Some terms will need to refer to the official student handbook - I think we need to get that into XML so we can reference into it.

This hosted wiki could be used in-situ in the student portal in the first instance, but it can also be exported as XHTML, which means we can drop it into the FOLD and then integrate it as part of our interface. However it would be an advantage to keep this as a wiki for a couple of reasons: it provides a commenting facility so students can raise questions themselves and it demonstrates the use of a widely-used communicative medium. The wiki can be skinned as we wish to give it a CEMS look-and feel.

CEMS student portal

In order to enable first year students to make their selection of optional modules before they arrive, where this is required in their programme, we have committed to providing a site which will present a student-friendly view of the FOLD data, which generates an option form specific to the programme taken.

The site must contain appropriate student views of:

• programmes - overview, contacts, links to Cereus PDF programme spec [? but it is often very out date]
• programme structures
  
• modules (simplified and perhaps enhanced)
  
• teaching staff
  
• an option selection form for a specific stage of a programme
• The ILP option form
• specific guidance on dissertations (with a table of past dissertation titles and their supervisors)
  

In fact this turns out to be a rebirth of some aspects of the ill-fated logging-in project which was canned when the central Admit project was announced. Since all students will be made aware of this site in their welcome packs, it's an ideal place to put additional information and links.

Here are some of the ideas for this site:

• additional guidance to students on why they should or should not take an optional module - at programme and module level (gives module leaders somewhere to express informally what background is helpful and what careers it will help with)
• short biographies of staff to give the place a more personal feel
• staff research interests to assist students starting dissertations and projects
  
• the programme of study checker under development
  
• FAQs of significance to incoming students, including definitions of some of our terminology (What exactly is a pre-requisite - does it mean you have to have passed the module or merely taken it?)
• links to the most relevent parts of the CEMS external web and the UWE site
• a diary of key dates for the 2006/7 year (with iCalendar export)
  

Whilst the core functionality of supporting option choice is top priority, this site provide a great opportunity to add some 'cool' stuff. I have in mind:

• a blog - this blog on the development of the site itself might be interesting to the information systems and computing students, but it would be great to find a few staff - an admissions tutor, a student advisor, a first year tutor to share the writting of a blog. A shared blog would also be one way for students, via comments, to interact with staff.
• a podcast welcome talk from the dean
  
• maps. I've played around with CommunityWalks, Google Earth and made an 'Arts in Bristol' overlay, but Google coverage for the Frenchay site is poor. Just the other day, Microsoft's Live Local was launched and this is terrific. Here's a demonstration overlay for the Frenchay site. Not only is the aerial view better than Google's but we have these wonderful oblique bird's eye views from 4 directions. Editing an overlay is straightforward.
• Discussion board. Probably use the Student Union for this
  

Checking a programme of study

The prototype study programme checker is now available from the programme page. This checker allows a user to select the modules already taken, and the script will then check the pre-requisites, co-requisites, excluded combinations for each selected module, showing the remaining unsatisfied conditions (if any). It also checks on the credit limits for options and for the programme overall.

There are a few problems with the prototype:

• Multiple ILP modules on a programme (fixed with a fudge)
  
• Included Options
• Credit-based constraints on a module ( these need to be encoded in the module specitication but otherwise working)
  
• Programmes which are not 3/4 year (fixed)
  
• No distinction between modules taken and being taken ( and hence no difference between pre-requisites and co-requisites) - needs radio buttons in place of the checkbox
  

and some user interface issues:

• linking from constraints to the modules in the structure somehow (DHTML?)
  
• the color-coding and text
• clearing the selections
  

A future possibility would be to extract a student's record, to pre-select modules passed and to show the mark gained. This would include modules taken which are not on the programme being viewed, for students who have switched programmes.

If the user can entering expected marks, a grade prediction could be done.

This page could also act as the option collection form next year, or perhaps just use the new stage option form required for the student portal now.

A complication is that the rules which apply to both the programme and each module for a given student are not those in the current year, but are those which pertained at the time of the student's registration. Since all versions are in the database, this is possible, although our history is only back to 2005. Modules are fine since the mechanism is therre already, programmes a bit trickier since it's not clear how to determine which version applies to what. I wonder if such changes are always in the student's favour - i.e. could previous conditions be applicable which would now make a choice which is legal in the current programme/ module illegal ? Seems unlikely, so that the only cases where such history is relevant is where conditions were more relaxed in the past - so using the current situation only will err on the cautious side (for UWE).

I also wonder if the conditions and excluded cominations should be filtered for modules on the programme - its confusing to be alerted to exclusion of modules not on the programme, or to the possibility of satisfing a prerequisite with a module which is not on the programme - the ability to add or import modules taken from a previous programme would allow apparently unsatisfiable conditions to be met, but what then is the status of exclusions - presumably the problem is that credit cannot be gained from both, rather than that the student cannot take the module at all?

Events and Calendars

Thanks to Amit's work, FOLD can now generate iCalendar files for an event or a group of events. iCalendar is a format which is accepted by Microsoft Outlook and many other diary managers.

A single event can simply be added to Outlook by clicking on the link and confirm that you want the file opened in Outlook (if thats the default for text/calendar files on your computer). This opens up a window where you can save the vent.

For sets of events, you have to save the file and then open it up in Outlook to add all the events at once.

Faculty Forum

I had the opportunity to do a brief presentation at the end of Wednesday's faculty forum. A bit rushed at the end of a long session on strategy. Given slightly more time, I would have mentioned the great support for the project given by Andrea, Jon and Tracey.

Highlights: The generation of GoogleEarth overlays from data about students on programmes worked well. Generated some interest in the interface design.

Midlights: Questions asked about
data protection - the GE overlays revealed student names - I've since removed them
data integrity - a better answer would have been about the principle of allocating responsibility for data to those responsible for the task.

Lowlights: Didn't really get the timing right and forgot to check the display resolution of the projector the room - I guess thats a piece of data it would be handy to hold in a resources database.

Session Powerpoint slides

Where do the students come from?

Patrick has pulled postcode data from ISIS for all our students. I now have a script which selects the students on a specific programme and for each, finds the district part of the UK postcodes
looks it up in a table of postcodes latitudes and longitudes and generates a kml PlaceMark so the whole set can be viewed as a layer in GoogleEarth.

Not sure what to make of the results, except that our students come from all over Britain.

I think the resolution of the locations (there are around 3000 districts in the UK) should not be a enough to be a breach of privacy. At present, only a plain marker is displayed- in future you could imagine a link to that student's data.

Inspired by Chris McEvoy's Simply Google page, I've decided to bring more of the searches directly onto the home page - this means programmes, modules, module titles, staff, groups and roles should be directly searchable from this page - a simple change but I believe an effective one. But perhaps this makes the index page look rather daunting - over to the users - what do you thing about this interface?

I've also added shortcuts here - if there is only one match, that page will be displayed. If not, the search page with the list of alternatives is shown. Perhaps this too is a bit confusing?

Events

Events on FOLD have been improved somewhat. In addition to viewing the calendar of events, events can now be located by group and by person. The list of personal events includes the events of all groups of which the person is a member.

We have also extended the event handling so that exams and courework deadlines are now treated as events. They are now included in a person's list of events.

Further work is required to enhance the integration with Outlook. Currently only group events will generate a vcal entry to add to Outlook, but we intend to be able to add a whole set of events, including module-related events. We also plan to support icalendar, the later version of vcal as well. At present we cant seem to get the file generated correctly with XQuery and have to use a small PHP script. It is a challenge to use Xquery/XSLT for everything.

Exam timetable

The latest exam timetable has been incorporated into FOLD. So far this data appears in a couple of places:

• the module run screen
• the list of future events for a person

Full integration of exams , or more generally - Controlled Conditions elements - is proving tricky because:

• there is no agreed identifier of the individual elements elements
• elements are not one for one with examinations - multiple exams for a single element in the specification
  
• even if this relationship was cleaned up, there are cases of multiple exams for different groups of students - students on different awards
  

Basecamp

Over the past weeks, we have been experimenting with a web application for lightweight project management. The application is Basecamp, provided by 37Signals. Our project is here. Anyone who is playing an active part in the project can be a member.

Goings-on in CEMS Information Systems

Today we launch a new channel of communication about progress (and the inevitable setbacks) in the delivery of information systems within the CEMS faculty.