A Comprehensive WebCT Integration System

1. A Comprehensive WebCT Integration System • Rob Phillips • Teaching and Learning Centre, Murdoch University • James Strong • NetSpot • Onno Benschop • ITmaze • Mark Hallam • WebCiTe

2. History • 1998: Adoption of WebCT at Murdoch • 1999-00: Murdoch Online Mainstreaming Project • to establish WebCT as a mission-critical application • to integrate WebCT with other University systems

3. Murdoch Online Mainstreaming Project Objectives • 9,600 (of ~12,000) students now use WebCT • ~255 units in WebCT • WebCT is integrated with other corporate systems • Callista student records system • Concept 1 human resources system • Murdoch’s own MAIS authentication and identification system

4. WebCTMan • Integration achieved through WebCTMan • Middleware WebCT management application • mySQL database • suite of operator tools and data transfer scripts • Collates student and staff information from multiple sources • Enables the flow of students in and out of WebCT

5. Overview • Conceptual issues around Murdoch’s implementation of WebCT • Design and Functionality of the system • Demonstration

6. ConceptualIssues • Course categories • Parent IDs • Unit offerings • Course Naming

7. Categories • Murdoch has four teaching ‘divisions’ • One WebCT Category for each division • When a course is in use, it’s available through: • the Course Listing screen • MyWebCT • When a course is in not in use: • in hidden category (Under Development) • not visible to students

9. ParentIDs • Each category has an associated globalID, known as a “parent ID” • The parent ID is owned by the WebCT team • assigned as the primary designer • allows access to all courses • enables quality assurance • Teaching staff are shared access designers

11. Unit Offerings • Units are offered flexibly at Murdoch • at different campuses/ locations • externally, internally and/or online • in different teaching periods (semester, trimester…) • Callista uses the concept of a Unit Offering

12. Administrative Issues • Managing cohorts is an issue • whole cohort in one WebCT course? • different cohorts in different courses? • Managing semester breaks • when to remove students?

13. Course Naming Policy • A WebCT course exists for each offering of a unit in a distinct teaching period • Naming convention • A123s1: Unit A123 offered in semester 1 • A123t3: Unit A123 offered in trimester 3

14. Overview • Conceptual issues around Murdoch’s implementation of WebCT • Design and Functionality of the system • Demonstration

15. Overviewof WebCTMan

16. CallistaIntegration

17. Course Mapping • demo

18. Course Mapping Summary • Students can be allocated to WebCT courses in any way desired • Non-Callista students can be added manually • e.g. first-year students at Murdoch’s partner institution in Malaysia • Student details from multiple sources combined in one place

19. WebCT Integration

20. Course Status • which WebCT courses should be populated with students? • e.g. students enrol early but the unit lecturer isn’t ready for them to use WebCT • Concept of course status • active • static • inactive

21. Active Courses Callista Callista Upload WebCT Man Populate WebCT global DB WebCT course DB • Courses being used by students • Data updated daily

22. CallistaUpload • Perl script loads data into WebCTMan daily • Get all active unit offerings • Get all students in Callista who are enrolled in these unit offerings • For each student: • Add or update student details • Get student’s unit offerings from Callista and update these in WebCTMan

23. Populate into WebCT • Perl script loads data into WebCT daily • Get all students in WebCTMan • For each student: • Look up courses for this student • For each active or static course: • Make up WebCT API call to add or update global database • Check for orphans and reconnect • Update personal details in each course database

24. Static Courses WebCT Man Populate WebCT global DB WebCT course DB Callista • Stop getting Callista data for this course • Enrolment data not updated • If student in any active course then personal data updated

25. InactiveCourses WebCT Man WebCT course DB Callista • Students’ enrolments records are deleted for that course in WebCTMan • The API call to WebCT for that student will not contain that course • The student will be orphaned • The course data remains, but students cannot access it WebCT global DB

26. Course Status Interface • demo

27. Integration with Other Systems

28. WebCTMan Admin. Interface • With the addition of staff data, WebCTMan had the potential to fully manage WebCT • circumventing the Administrator Interface • adding more functionality to manage staff and courses • demo

29. Wrap Up • Conceptual issues around Murdoch’s implementation of WebCT • Design and Functionality of the system • Demonstration

30. Summary • WebCTMan • Comprehensively integrates WebCT with other systems • Provides extra administrative functionality • allows for management of students, courses and staff roles • Authoritative source of data which controls how WebCT behaves

31. Major Features • Parent IDs - primary designers of categories • facilitates the management of multiple client groups on the one server. • Unit Offerings - many-to-many mapping between unit offerings and WebCT courses • Course Status - active, static and inactive courses

32. Wider Application • Applicable to other WebCT installations? • Multiple WebCT installations hosted on a single server • Enables migration away from WebCT • if the feature/cost nexus indicates that another system is preferable

33. Questions?? Rob Phillips Murdoch James Strong NetSpot Onno Benschop ITmaze Mark Hallam WebCiTe Software design Automation scripting Admin. Interface WebCT internals