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The Strategic Importance of Web Services

The Strategic Importance of Web Services

EDUCAUSE Conference

November 5, 2003

Richard Spencer, Executive Director, e-Business

Ted Dodds, CIO

University of British Columbia

Copyright Spencer/Dodds, 2003. This work is the intellectual property of the author. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is by permission of the author. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission from the author.

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Key Themes

Aligning technology with institutional goals

Keeping an end user point of view

Open standards

Web services in practice

Systems thinking

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Aligning IT initiatives

A university’s key goals:

learning and development

scholarship and discovery of knowledge

transmission of knowledge

community engagement

people are a university’s most important

resource

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People

Faculty and students need

– less time on administration, and better service

– technology that enables research and learning

– opportunities to be more productive

Staff need

– shared information and knowledge improved processes (Web self-service) access to multiple systems (Web services)

– more time for value added work

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UBC’s e-Strategya guiding framework to align UBC’s technology initiatives with the University’s strategicgoals

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Web services

“Any piece of software that makes itself available over the Internet and uses a standard XML messaging system”

“Improve end-user productivity and convenience by tying together heterogeneous systems so that application silos disappear while underlying processes and data become visible”

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Portal Framework

Business process view, not application silo view

Publish and subscribe, not static content

Integrate, personalize and customize, not transaction-centric

Finance H/RStudentAdmin

WebCTCourses

Back Office

Web Access

MyUBCMyUBCPortalEnd UserPerspective

(circa 2001)

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FinanceFinance H/RH/R StudentAdmin

StudentAdmin WebCTWebCTLegacy Silos

Portal – Single Sign-onPortal – Single Sign-onPersonalizedAccess

Web Services

CustomerFacing

Utility

…

…

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What others have said

About standards, not about infinite choice (Walsh, 2002)

Seductive but fuzzy, the next evolutionary step (Oblinger, 2002)

Most promising aspect is ability to resolve differences among shared networked applications (Jacobson, 2002)

The capabilities of Web Services will expand and a new generation of service applications will emerge –designed and built by business integrators, not programmers. (Gleason, 2002)

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Mainstream will find XML/SOAP-based solutions to be more appealing and do not need services registry (UDDI). (Gartner, 2003)

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Separating Presentation and Data HTML

– Web page as a single aggregated data entity– Focus is on presentation

XML– Identify data elements and types in a web

environment– Focus is on data

Tuition amount Learning object Journal citations

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The standards

Data XML

Validation Schema

Transport SOAP (real-time)SMTP (batch)

Security SAML

Discovery/Description WSDL

Directory UDDI

Portlet JSR 168

Transformation XSLT

Source: Jim Farmer, Japan Education and Research Conference, Nov. 2002

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System silos ERP systems– Finance– Human Resources

Other systems– Student admin– Course management– Continuing studies– Library– Residence and

conferences– Food services– Advancement– Land and building

management, etc.– Parking

our systems reflect our paper based organizational structure

– filing cabinets– separate departments– compliant customers

different, incompatible technologies

lack of networks

no demand for real-time service

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A shift in perspective

From

An application

A function

My department

To

A person

A process The integration of functions

My customerMy institution

Systems Thinking

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Systems thinking

work on small pieces

only build each piece once

tie the pieces together

keep the pieces aligned with the vision

only store information once

let customers enter and update information

align service delivery toward the customer

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Consolidated billing

StudentServiceCentre

Consolidatedbilling

Admission fees

Tuition fees

Residence fees

Meal plan

creditcardauth Accounting

EFTfrom bank

EFT tostudent

a/c

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UBC CV – Overview and Demo

Granting Agency(NSERC, SSHRC,

CIHR)

• Use Common CV

Researcher

• Populate personal activities from external data sources

• Enter data once or never• Retain control• Construct multiple views• Store granting council data

remotely• Store UBC data locally

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Observations

Well-suited to academic environment– Loose coupling Decentralization

Enabled by power of open standards– XML is license free

Publishing and discovering– Control rests with end user

Effective between or within institutions– Personal agreement within institution

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Evolution on campus

Build a community to support the model– May be more successful if left informal at first– Could be built around a single important service

Establish trust – Iterative dialogue between clients and builders

Develop governance– To formalize “how we do things”

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Thanks for listening!

Questions?

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