This poster sets out the process undertaken when preparing an off-the-shelf Web-based Course Management System (WBCMS) for use within an institution.
This is an outline of the 12 month journey undertaken by the Online technical team at Southern Cross University (SCU) when tasked with the implementation a Web-based Course Management System (WBCMS) - Blackboard CourseInfo (BBCI) 4.08 Level 1 as the University’s recognised and supported WBCMS. Level 1 was, at the time of purchase, the basic level WBCMS offered by Blackboard (BB) [HREF1] and did not include in-built interoperability with existing University database systems.
It should also be noted that when implementing a WBCMS, there are two distinct systems involved: the software’s learning environment and its in-built administration tools. This poster addresses the use of the in-built administration tools of BBCI 4.08, Level 1, our use of open source software to administer the software at the database level and establishment of semi-automated interoperability with existing University database administration systems as well as SCU’s successful integration of the WBCMS with our own student portal.
Using the minimum specifications provided by BB (Pentium 300+ processor, 256M RAM, 9 Gig hard dive) a single server was purchased for use as a test bed and the software was downloaded from the BB website. The Online technical team (consisting of two individuals who were acting as server administrators to the existing WBCMS used by SCU - Lotus Notes Learning Space) was responsible for the administration of the WBCMS and the Unix team responsible for the administration of the operating system and hardware maintenance. It should be noted that during this 12 month period the structure of the Online technical team shrunk to one and then grew to three.
Due to available IT infrastructure resources, Linux was selected as the preferred operating system rather than Microsoft Windows NT. It should also be noted that the Unix team had minimal experience using Linux and the MySQL database software packaged with Linux by BB, and that the University uses Oracle as its database software. Therefore the Online team took on the responsibility of learning as much as possible about Linux and MySQL in order to provide support to the Unix team. Additional consideration in selecting Linux as the operating system was to allow the use of SCU’s existing Kerberos authentication tool for security of the data. Kerberos is not supported by Windows NT/IIS software.
Time frames and strategies for software implementation and testing were mapped out, with the ‘go-live’ date for online unit delivery to be second Semester 2000. Learning how to administer BBCI; developing systems and processes to create and maintain user accounts, enrolments and unit creation; preparing academic and developmental staff to use the software to create and to deliver online courses; as well as preparing all users for second Semester ‘go-live’ date was carried out concurrently with the Unix team’s creation of a virtual server system for the actual delivery of the online learning units.
The stand-alone server was designated as the test-bed or ‘crash and burn’ box which would allow the application of BBCI upgrades and patches to fix software bugs without adversely affecting online units being delivered live. A second stand-alone server was purchased as a development/production server where staff could develop online units in readiness for online delivery in a safe and protected environment. Before commencement of Semester 2 2000, the unit was moved at the request of the unit creator/developer, to the ‘live’ server (a cluster of six Linux servers providing both fail over and load balancing) where the unit would be populated with students using data pulled from the University’s student administration system (Student One).
Determining and applying the default software settings and options to be made available institution-wide
Prior to purchasing BBCI, some time was spent exploring the features of the learning environment, using the USA-based Blackboard server to create and develop online courses in preparation for using and then administering our own software. Administration documentation was downloaded and assimilated in parallel.
Once the software was downloaded and installed on the test server, some time was spent exploring the various settings, applying changes and reviewing the results. Once default functionalities were explored, features were enabled or disabled according to University security requirements and test user’s suggestions. Changes to settings included the disabling of guest access and self-enrolment, as well as turning off the ability of users to change their own personal details. The entry portal was set to the default MyBlackboard portal page. Accounts were then created for test users who were first familiarized with the features of the online learning environment and then provided with units to develop and to explore the learning environment’s various functionalities. Figure 1 illustrates the Administration Panel of BBCI.
Figure 1 - Administration Panel of BBCI
While test users were exploring the functionality of the learning environment, software for automated daily back-ups were explored and implemented by the Unix team to ensure the data was fully restorable should an outage occur. In keeping with the use of open source software, Advanced Maryland Automatic Network Disk Archiver (Amanda) was used. [HREF2]
Consultation with end users of the WBCMS prior to its purchase resulted in the need to make some colloquial changes to the learning environment. A special addendum to the license agreement was negotiated to allow SCU to change American to Australian spelling and to use Australian vernacular when identifying online units of study, e.g. using the word unit rather than course. These changes were documented and then implemented on the test server prior to access by test users. Documentation was necessary to ensure the application of future software patches and updates did not overwrite these changes.
With the parallel development of the virtual server environment created by the Unix team, security of the data on the servers was of utmost importance. TCP wrappers were employed to control FTP and telnet access to the server; also employed was the encapsulation of critical features of the system, e.g. critical features were placed within a private address space, making four of the six servers invisible to the outside world; and a Linux software firewall was used to deny or restrict direct access to the servers.
SCU’s existing authentication tool was Kerberos [HREF3], which allowed a single log in (authentication) for multiple web-based activities by creating a domain-wide cookie (which is discarded at the end of each browser session) to allow dial-up access to modem banks, access to SCU email hosts and proxy servers. The use of these domain-wide cookies to store authentication information allowed users to switch across different web intranet servers without the need to re-authenticate.
By putting BBCI inside the scu.edu.au domain, only enrolled students (and staff members) with an authentic Kerberos account were given access to the online units and to the peripheral value added areas, such as the personal calendar, task management system and community discussion forums.
Just prior to the ‘go-live’ date of semester 2 2000, a decision was made to provide access to the online learning environment to all students enrolled at the University regardless of whether their unit of study was taught online or not. This meant that in addition to creating a user account for each and every student enrolled at the University, an online instance of every unit delivered by the University was to be created and made available to every enrolled student.
Software used for integration of the WBCMS and the student portal was an open source software known as PHP [HREF4], which in essence ‘pulled’ the links to the WBCMS server onto the student portal page. The focus of the companion poster ‘Creating a personalized, online homebase for students’ explores the development of the student portal.
Integrating account administration with existing University systems
Due to the volume of user accounts and unit shells (approximately 700 units -- comprised of unit shells, online units, school based units and training units and 16,750 user accounts) to be created and maintained, it was quickly discovered that the basic administration features of the WCBMS were quite inadequate for the volume and, we were to discover, the complexity. For instance, in order to create the unit shells necessary at the beginning of Semester 2 2000 using the existing administration software, we would have to first create a batch file to create the unit shells, then follow this by manually accessing each unit to turn off the buttons and close off unit functionality.
The use of PHP Admin [HREF5] allowed direct access to the MySQL database underpinning the WBCMS using a web browser interface that both simplified and speeded up the creation of these unit shells. PHP Admin became the first step toward an integration of account and unit administration with existing University systems. Figure 2 illustrates the phpMyAdmin interface.
Figure 2 phpMyAdmin interface
Although the use of PHP Admin allowed a view of, and resulted in an understanding of the database structure of the WBCMS, its limitations become obvious fairly quickly. These included locking databases when copying large tables, unreliable SQL queries and time-consuming procedures to export to CSV data from one system to another using MSAccess as the data manipulator. PHP Admin did however, provide us with a better picture of how we could automate the processes required for updating student accounts and student enrolments with data obtained from existing University systems using Oracle.
The discovery of a MySQL ODBC (Open Database Connectivity) driver that allows the use of MSAccess to connect directly to the MySQL database allowed us to streamline an otherwise unwieldy process of student account creation, unit enrolment updates and unit maintenance. Working closely with administrators of the Student One system, an Oracle database holding all student administration data was created for our use. This database is automatically updated each night, with fresh data available for account and enrolment updates each morning. By using an Oracle driver to link MSAccess directly to the Oracle database and the MySQL ODBC driver to link MSAccess directly to the WBCMS database, the process of software administration of the WBCMS has been significantly streamlined. Figure 3 shows the queries used to process raw data from the Oracle database.
Figure 3 Queries used to process raw data from Oracle database
By first semester 2001, with the population of users developing units for online delivery growing rapidly, the need for managing multiple modes of online delivery to multiple student cohorts grew exponentially. 'School/Faculty-based' units were created in order to provide a method of delivering timely information to a large group of students without duplication of effort. All students enrolled in at least one unit offered by a School/Faculty would have access to this School/Faculty-based unit from the portal page, and thus access to School/Faculty specific information and discussion forums. Each School/Faculty-based unit contains basic information for help in navigating through online units as well as details about specific school contacts. Additionally, special units were created online to allow School staff to use the BBCI environment as a work collaboration tool.
The creation of a set of SQL queries to deal with these complexities when updating the WBCMS to massage the data before each update has been essential in ensuring both the quality and integrity of data. Using the system of MySQL ODBC to MSAccess to WBCMS database with specific MySQL queries, it is now possible for one person to update account and enrolment data for 15,000+ users in under an hour. Obviously there is room for improvement and further automation. The solutions are being explored in parallel with the software administration. Figure 4 illustrates the queries built to cope with the complex nature of enrolments and unit structure.
Figure 4 Queries used to process complex enrolments
Throughout the year, minor software updates, bugs and fixes were provided as a matter of course by Blackboard's own courseware developers. In fact BBCI 4.08 became 4.10 within a few months of purchase. Processes for the application of these updates were developed to ensure their application did not affect the environment adversely or significantly change the functionality of the software midway through a teaching period. Rigorous testing and evaluation prior to implementation was undertaken at each update before they were applied to the delivery environment. As mentioned previously, a special addendum to the license was negotiated with Blackboard to allow Southern Cross University to conform with Australian English rules and grammar and meaning. To this end, each time a patch was to be applied, all previously made changes had to be isolated from or reapplied after the application of each patch.
Keeping a separate test bed server or ‘crash and burn’ box is crucial in expediting the application of any software updates, or patches to fix known bugs as well as for evaluation newer versions of the WBCMS prior to acceptance and implementation.
No off the shelf software will ever satisfy all the needs of an institution. Whilst the actual learning environment may meet most needs of most users, the administration features of the software may not be adequate for large scale use, or complex use by an institution. The ability of administrators to explore and implement other options to the administration of a WBCMS is essential to the success of the WBCMS and should be encouraged by the institution and the software provider.
Hypertext
References
HREF1 http://www.blackboard.com
HREF2 http://www.amanda.org
HREF3 http://web.mit.edu/kerberos/www/
HREF4 http://www.php.net
HREF5 http://phpwizard.net/
Copyright
Schelly Gardner @ 2001 assigns to Southern Cross University and other educational and non-profit institutions a non-exclusive license to use this document for personal use and in courses of instruction provided that the article is used in full and this copyright statement is reproduced. The author also grants a non-exclusive license to Southern Cross University to publish this document in full on the WWW and on CD-ROM and in printed form with the conference papers and for the document to be published in mirrors on the WWW.
AusWeb01 the Seventh Australian World Wide Web Conference, Opal Cover Resort, Coffs Harbour, 21-25 April 2001 Contact: Norsearch Conference Services +61 2 66 20 3932 (from outside Australia) (02) 6620 3932 (from inside Australia) Fax (02) 6622 1954