System modernization1

System Modernization

16/05/2013

16/05/2013

Per ZettervallRandy BruceIgor DrvodelićGeir AndersenElaine Wenn

System modernization2

• 10.45-11.45 Presentations from Sweden (Swedish Council for Higher Education) Canada (BCCampus) Croatia (Agency for Science and Higher Education) Norway (Samordna Opptak) Australia (Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre) Oman (Higher Education Admission Centre)

• 11.45-12.10 Discussions in smaller groups

• 12.10-12.30 Round-up, conclusions

16/05/2013

Agenda

System modernization3

• Ca 10 min presentation from each of the contributing orginizations

• Example of topics: How much is invested every year in your system? What issues/functionality are you focusing on developing now and in the

future? With which organizations/companies etc do you exchange data? In which

format? Is the demand for exchanging data, tighter integration etc increasing? I f

so, who is pushing this development forward? Do laws and regulations in your country support data exchange with

others? How do you handle Service Operations, are you thinking about moving

data to the cloud?

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The presentations and topics

System modernization4

Do you provide services to exchange transcripts (and/or documents such as e-portfolios)?

Do you provide convenient ways to grant access ( e g high school students applying in February, but their final transcrips will not be available until July.

Are you planning/offering a service for applicants to attach scanned images /documents to accompany their application? i. e. a document repository.

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More topics….

System modernization5

Sweden and NyAA very short introduction to the swedish admission system and to the hottest topics of today

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System modernization6

•NyA – the National Admission System

•Developed by Swedish universities and university colleges in cooperation with UHR

•Used spring term 2007 for the first time

•Now used by 36 universities and university colleges on a contract basis with UHR

•Used for admission to study programmes and courses at first and second cycle level (bachelor’s and master’s level)

•The fee for each HEI is based on the amount of applicants that they have

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The system at a glance

System modernization7

• Application deadline for the autumn term: 15th of April

• High School transcripts available in June Transcripts/data are uploaded by the schools and we load them into the

admission system

• 1st selection round takes place in (early) July Applicants need to answer by 31st of July

• 2nd selection round takes place in August

• Between 15th of April and June, admission officers handle applicants with older transcripts, foreign transcripts etc

• Since all newer high school transcripts are handled automatically, evaluated automatically etc, there is enough time

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The Application process and transcripts

System modernization8

• Yearly, about 1,8 million € (2.2 million $) spent on further development, new functionality

• About 4 million € (5.1 million $) spent on maintaining the system

• About 1,6 million € (2.1 million $) spent on Service Operations

• …a lot of money but costs are shared between HEI…

• …complex regulations = a complex and expensive system…

• …covers virtually all kinds of admissions (single subject courses, study programmes, summer terms, admission to higher levels etc )

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Costs…

System modernization9

• A brand new national student records system, Ladok3, is being developed right now and discussions are ongoing what functionality should be in which system.

• The need for (mostly foreign) applicants to be able to attach scanned documents to their application.

• Improvements of the application web site regarding accessibility

• New system/database for High School certificates

• Automated tests, improved logging

• System stability issues

• New regulations, more complexity added

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What´s on the table right now?

System modernization10

Data exchange

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School Qualifications database

Scholastic Aptitude Test

Tax Agency

Student Records System etc Admission

System

Student Records System

Postal Service

Study Support

Statistics Sweden

System modernization11

• The Admission system has its own law regarding what information can be shared with others, with whom it might be shared and for what purposes

• The above can be changed by the government, but it takes time

• Privacy Protection Law requires that applicants approves that their information can be handled electronically

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The law, problems and possibilities

System modernization12

• Service Operations are outsourced to CGI

• We are using “cloud components” like Google Maps, some text parts in the CMS is handled as a cloud service.

• However, we are moving away from cloud solutions because: We cannot stress test solutions like Google Maps Support issues, problems needs to be addressed quickly It is essential to have full control

• But then again, regarding Service Operations, it is of course possible that our provider has such services “behind their walls”

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Service operations and “The cloud”

BCcampus.ca

13

Systems Modernization

IAAO 2013

Randy Bruce

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Technical Infrastructure

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Application Process

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★Transcript exchange•BC Post-secondary•BC High School•Pan-Canadian/USA★Federated Identity★Personal data exchange•BC School records•BC Financial assistance★Supplementary documents★Increased reporting

Functions under development/considerationGenerally, ApplyBC is the driver of change

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Spatial Reporting

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Lessons Learned

★Incremental improvement

★Herding cats

★Keep at it•2 years to add cell phone #s•Software release approach

★Hard to maintain standardization

Agency for Science and Higher Education

Flexible web application design

Content

Current state Challenges Proposed design Software stack Features Data interchange

Current state

Most of our budget (~130.000 €) is spent on system maintenance

Changes can be done only by the outsourcing company that developed the system (source code)

Changes required by HEI often cannot be implemented fast enough

The system is shared with the organization responsible for the national high school leaving examination

We are not able to monitor all changes in the system

We are not sure if the statistical reports are completely correct

Features we want to change

Temporary rankings – candidates can see ranking for every study program from the start of the application process

Applications are possible from December to July for the first round of the enrollment – because high school final exams and study programs are applied to simultaneously

Sending user information by SMS The high school electronic identity is used for

authentication and authorization

Planned

We are in the process of implementing applications to master programs

Shared nature of the system makes changes difficult Small budget

Development of the new system in-house

Challenges

Applications have to adapt to HEI’s needs

Changes can happen between two enrollment turns

Implementation deadline can be shorter then 1 year

Current interface

Proposed design

Problems Each page represents only the current state Changes require page refreshing or synchronization (AJAX) Problems with maintaing an active session Heavy load on server

Design based on desktop interfaces

Separation of features into applications

Proposed interface

Software stack

Separation of layers Presentation Application logic Database

Abstract layers in between Separate internal

structure from interface

Features

Individual features are organized into „applications”

Adding new features means adding new „applications”

Any change made in component A does not effect component B (feature decoupling)

Easy access control granulation (users are given access only to the features they require)

Data interchange

JSON XML

- less overhead - high markup overhead

- native support in JavaScript - strong semantics

All communication between layers conducted through JavaScript Object Notation

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><faculty> <name>Veleučilište u Rijeci</name> <type>Javno veleučilište</type> <city>Rijeka</city> <url>www.veleri.hr</url></faculty>

165 characters107 markup characters (65%)

{ "name": "Veleučilište u Rijeci", "type": "Javno veleučilište", "city": "Rijeka", "url": "www.veleri.hr"}

98 characters40 markup characters (40%)

Thank you for your attention

igor@azvo.hr

The Norwegian UCAS

System improvement

Mr. Creosote

Technical debt

• The NUCAS IT-system has been developed over a period of nearly 20 years by different developers using partly different programming languages, different and partly insufficient standards of documentation, different philosophies, and with changing demands from central authorities and lawmakers.

• The result has been a well functioning system. But it has reached its performance peak, and is now very costly and nerve-wrecking to modify. We do not dare to feed it any more new features.

SO 3.0

• To meet this challenge we will over a period of three years get extra funding (5 million USD in total) from the government, and add to this by internal reallocations of resources, to lay the foundations for a better system.

Themes

• Change in basic architecture• Modification of the data model• New applications portal• New access control system• New documentation system• Deciding which old applications to keep• Integration with existing system (?)

Insert title hereInsert subtitle here

Systems Modernisation

Elaine WennVictorian Tertiary Admissions Centre

May 2013

VTAC Unincorporated association acting as an agency

for its member institutions

Administers applications and offers on behalf of Victorian tertiary institutions

Calculates the ATAR (Australian Tertiary Admissions Rank) for Year 12 school leavers (47,000)

Established in 1966 as a universities admissions committee with two tasks

◦ A single application process for the 3 universities◦ Provide a common scoring formula for Year 12 results

From simple beginnings ....

65 institutions◦ 12 universities◦ 12 TAFE institutions (training and further education)◦ 14 private providers◦ 14 associate institutions

3000 courseso Certificate/Diploma/Degree

83,000 applicants◦ Year 12 (59%) and non Year 12 (41%)

To .....

Tertiary admission tests Scholarships Special Entry and Access Scheme Mid Year admissions Information services and publications Exclusively online applications and selection services 120,000 registrants

... and

A divergent state Incremental growth Back office and online applications Multiple “point solutions” and data sources Numerous technologies platforms interfaces Same data stored in multiple locations Extensive use of text files for data storage

Evolution of systems

Tipping point IT systems stretched to operational limit Aging hardware – high maintenance Expensive licences Inefficient and error prone Heavy reliance on knowledge of individual IT staff Systems not integrated with each other Unable to meet future needs Significant risk

From

To

Back-Office Front-Office (Internet)

APE Courselink Omega MyInfo SEAS

HTML (“thin client”) user interface

CourseDB

VOICES

Application Server (program logic components)

Single Database and Server OS standard

3-tier Web Architecture

System Integration Middleware

Considerations Continue co-location

◦ New hardware and licences◦ Additional staff dedicated to database/systems administration

Outsource IT infrastructure and management◦ Easier to budget, hardware does not suffer aging◦ No risk in loss of expertise◦ Higher set up costs◦ Less “control” by VTAC◦ Vendor stability/continuity

Decision

Chose ‘cloud’ solution which ◦ Reduced the number of specialty licenses◦ Services able to be scaled both up and down◦ Met Australian security of data requirements◦ Provided state of the art disaster recovery solution◦ Allowed trialing with a testing environment first◦ Enabled concurrent redevelopment of software◦ Was affordable

VTAC cloud environment

Current solution Red Hat enterprise Linux on virtual servers

◦ Web tier◦ Application tier

MySQL cluster DB on physical servers Multi-level firewall and DOS protection NAS and SAN storage Backup daily/weekly/monthly DR environment in Sydney (hot backup) Testing environment scaled ver of production

Challenges Timing of delivery Getting accustomed to lack of direct control Enforcing new programming architecture Integration of redeveloped and legacy code Continuing federated systems until port complete Synchronising new and old systems Turning off old systems

Use of social media Apps and mobile devices, tablets Shift from hardcopy publication of course information

to online Electronic submission of applicant documentation? Electronic results transfer – beyond Australia?

Other modernisations