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.