Integrated University Information Systems Thomas Kudrass Leipzig University of Applied Sciences (Germany) ICEIS 2006 Paphos, Cyprus May 2006

Integrated University Information Systems

Thomas Kudrass

Leipzig University of Applied Sciences

(Germany)

ICEIS 2006

Paphos, Cyprus

May 2006

22

© Thomas Kudrass, Leipzig University of Applied Sciences, ICEIS 2006

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Outline

1. Motivation: Why Integration?

2. Sample Business Process

3. Requirements Analysis

4. Sample Environment (HTWK Leipzig)

5. Design of a Target Architecture

6. Current and future work

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Why Integration? Today´s information systems characterized by

Interoperability Examples

– Health Care IS Electronic Medical File

– Integration of ERP and office software Example: SAP + MS Office

– Integration of DMS and CMS Enterprise Content Management (ECM)

Why not in universities?

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Motivation am 20.09.2005:

„Akademische Servicewüste“Datenchaos zwingt Unis in die Knie!

Academic service desert. Data chaos pushes down universities!

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Requirements at a first glance Autonomy of faculties / departments

no global services (e.g., email addresses) Modularization of study coursesavalanche of data: exams, prerequisites, scheduling

of lessons and exams IT strategy for teaching and administration

centralization at the university

New innovative systems online services better information quality

Student as customer (paying fees) increased requirements to the organization

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Current State at German Universities

IT usage at German universities– historically grown system environments– loosely integrated systems– incomplete support of business processes– mainly support of organization-specific tasks – administration and academic stuff separate

No standards– HIS software widespread, no default software at

German universities– No document standards for data exchange

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New IT Requirements at Universities Bologna Process

– Modularization of study courses– Introduction of consecutive study courses

Development of IT Technologies→ Evolution of the IT system environment at university

New Software Systems for Education– E-Learning Systems (authoring systems, LMS)– Digital Libraries (e.g., Master Theses) – Evaluation (E-Questionnaires & Voting)– Proprietary software (e.g., PLANet, jexam)– Extended functionality of commercial university software (HIS)– OpenSource Systems (Stud.IP)

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Integrated Information Management

Overall IT Concept for University Administration (Source: Department of Science, Bavaria, 20001)

Characteristics:– Unique data input at the primary data source– Cross-media processing of the data– End-to-end support of business processes

Either evolution of existing systems or introduction of an integrated system

Evolutionary approach bases on integration of systems at a data level

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Outline







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Sample Scenario (Current State) Introducing a new course

Request toexam board

accepted

Create new subject

Publish in the course list

Add it to the course catalog

Web AdminDepartment

Head of the Study Course

Exam OfficeDepartment

Professor

PLANet

LaTex, HTML

Word

yes

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Sample Scenario (Current State)- 2-

Create new course

# of participants> n

Create new course

Scheduling & PlanningUniversity

Administration



LIPSAdmin

E-Learning

HIS-POS

EnrollmentParticipant List

Capture participants

Participant List Professor

S-PLUS

yes

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Sample Scenario (Current State)- 3-

Evaluation

Create new course

Publish exam results


ElevaEvaluation

Officer

Edit exam results

yes

HIS-POS

Examination List Exam OfficeDepartment

no

End

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Outline







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Perspectives of Integration E-Learning Platform with portal characteristics

– Ubiquituous access to relevant information and services

Centralized identity management New service and infrastructure offerings for

students Coupling with systems of the university

administration Combining information from different sources Publication and distribution of course materials

and documents (theses)

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Students

Advanced TrainingParticipants

CooperationPartners

Companies

Governmental Department

University

Employee Relationship Management (ERM)

Management Information System (MIS)

Information Management

Universities

EmployeesProfessors Staff

Stud

ent R

elat

ions

hip

Man

agem

ent (

SRM

)

Supp

ly Ch

ain

Man

agem

ent (

SCM

)

Users and Components of an Integrated University System

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Benefits of Integration: Example E-Learning

Integration of all component systems required

3 Aspects

– online-enrollment w/o links to the administrative system co-operation with the existing HIS software

– separate editors connection to existing authoring systems

– collection of documents (project reports, theses) integration of digital libraries and other archives

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Requirements (1) Communication

– dynamic definition of groups (e.g., mailing lists)– active notification (push) vs. publication (pull) ?

Content Management and Publishing– access to many documents: master theses, work

placement reports, experience reports from abroad – presentation of the course catalogue (different

channels and formats) e-learning system brochure (PDF) web appearance of the departmen

– HTML output in commercial system ?

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Requirements (2) Self-Service Functions

– e.g., online enrollment, registration for examination– definition of platform-independent interfaces

Combination of heterogeneous databases for Information Extraction– example: individual timetable = enrollment (HIS) +

course schedule (S-PLUS)

Reporting and Statistics– required by university management / supervisory

body (department), e.g., teaching repor– integration of digital information (course evaluation by

e-voting and polls)

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Requirements (3) Security and Data Protection

– centralized rights management (definition of user groups), using directory services

– some groups only useful at the level of a single application (e.g., proficiency levels virtual courses)

– uniform identity management single sign-on (SSO) user provisioning

– data protection person-related data differentiate services in the internet vs. intranet (e.g.,

students‘ work placement reports)

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Requirements (4) Management of Industrial Partner

Relationships– DB for internships in the region– DB sponsors and cooperation partners / contacts

Alumni Relationships

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Outline







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IT Environment at HTWKAdministrative Systems

HIS (Hochschul-Informationssystem)– SOS: Management of Student Master Data– POS: Management of Examinations– ZUL: Admissions – LSF: Publication of Course Information– QIS: Self-Service Functions– ISY: Statistics

S-PLUS (Course Scheduling System) PLANet (proprietary extension to S-PLUS) Online-Enrollment System

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Innovative Applications at HTWK LIPS: E-Learning System

– LMS on top of ZODB (Zope Object Database)– authoring system C4K

Eleva: Online Course Evaluation University Knowledge Online Digiboard Usage of Smartcard Technology Web Pages

– manual maintenance (HTML)– heterogeneuous presentation styles – additional information islands: e.g. department

calendar (MySQL

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Outline







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Application-to-Application (A2A)Spaghetti Architecture [Source: Pezzini, Gartner Research]

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CommonView

Application View

Application View

Transform Transform

Design TimeModeling of integration scenarios among the applications by a central representation instead of point-to-point approach

Hub-and-Spoke Technology

App2App1 SpokeSpoke SpokeSpokeHUBHUB

JMS

JMS

XML XML

RuntimeThe adapters communicate with a hub to propagate events to other adapters.Adapters are responsible for the execution of the transformation.

AV CV CV AV

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Idea: Generic Data ServiceProject-Independent Logical Access

LayerExtensible Set of Physical Data Source

TypesDecoupling of Business Logic and Data

LayerAccess to the Generic Data Service –

instead of the Data Source

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Layered Architecture

Business Logic

Generic Data Service

Data Access Layer

Ora

cle

SQ

L

PL/

SQ

L -A

PI

LD

AP

Web

Se r

vice

-Framework

Presentation Layer

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Integration Goals Preserve Global Consistency (Deal With

Redundancy) Avoid Unneccessary Data Maintenance Reduction of Manual Activities by Update

Propagation Combining of Data to Implement New

Functionalities, e.g.:– Generation of Teaching Reports– Generation Personalized Schedules

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Sample: University Master Data

PLANetPLANetPLANetPLANet

DigiboardDigiboardDigiboardDigiboard

LIPSLIPSLIPSLIPS

VIRPRAKVIRPRAKVIRPRAKVIRPRAK

Online Online PublishingPublishingOnline Online

PublishingPublishing

HISHISHISHIS

S-PLUSS-PLUSS-PLUSS-PLUS

Digital LibraryDigital LibraryDigital LibraryDigital LibraryElevaElevaElevaEleva

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Webservice

Webservice

Webservice

W

S

W

S

W

S

W

S

Maintenance of Master Data

Back EndApplication

Back EndApplication

LIPSLIPSLIPSLIPS

ElevaElevaElevaEleva

HISHISHISHIS

S/PLUSS/PLUSS/PLUSS/PLUS

Transport Layer

• Master Data Pool

•Study Courses

•Courses

•DepartmentsWebservice

Webservice

Webservice

Master Data Hub

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The Way to Application Integration: Business Processes

Business ProcessAnalysis

Runtime Engine

Integration Broker

App. 1

Business Rules

EAI/Technical Rules

Process OutputInput

EAI/Technical Rules

App. 2 App. 3

Quelle: nach Gartner

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Analysis of Business Processes Identification of Primary Data Sources (Master)

– Informations systems in central administration and the departments

Data Extraction for New Applications– E-Learning System– Metadata for Digital Library– Web Content Management System

Loose Coupling of Systems Modelling using ARIS Toolset (IDS Scheer)

– Integrate different views: Organization, Data, Functions, Processes

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Outline







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Summary Incremental Integration Approach Development of Generic Data Services =

Building Blocks for Web Presentations– guarantees consistent data usage– prerequisite for better reporting

Services as Process Steps in Workflows Task: Definition of Standards for Data

Exchange (cf. similar effort in E-Government) Important: Overall IT Strategy for University

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Current & Future Work „Virtuelles Praktikantenamt“ (Administration of

Obligatory Work Placements)– Linking to HIS system

admission information student master data

Evaluation of Integration Software– OracleAS InterConnect (part of the future Oracle

Fusion middleware)– Cache Ensemble (Integration Suite)

Modelling and Implementation of Reconciliation Processes for Master Data using Middleware– HIS <-> LIPS

HIS <-> PLANet

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Last Slide

Questions ?

Comments ?

Further Ideas ?

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Additional Slides

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Basic Terms of Integration EAI: Enterprise Application Integration

– cooperation of heterogeneous applications (E)II: (Enterprise) Information Integration

– virtual distributed database system (federated database)

Integration Levels– interface integration– data integration– function integration (via API)– process integration

Coupling Degrees – loosely vs.tightly coupled systems

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EAI Architectures Application-to-Application (Point-to-Point) Bus Architecture Hub & Spoke Architecture

Business Processes Service-oriented Architecture (SOA)

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Bus Architecture

Publish-Subscribe Forward the Messages to the Subscriber Usage: Dissemination of Identical Mass Data

– 1 producer - n consumers– n producers – 1 consumer

Data-oriented Integration

Service Bus

Services

sender and receiver distributed subscribe

publish

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Hub & Spoke Architektur Hub: Controls and monitors the data exchange Business Rules in Workflow Separation of

– System-specific connectors (to connect local systems at technical level)

– Workflows (map the business logic)

Advantages:– supports process-oriented approach– simpler implementation than bus architecture– suited for complex data dissemination – integration of legacy systems beyond organization borders

Disadvantages– central hub can become the „bottleneck“

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App1:S-PLUS

App3:HIS

App2:PLANet

App4:ELEVA

HubCommon

View

Enterprise Service Bus

AV CV

AV CV AV CV

AV CV XML

XMLXML

XML

Services

Client-Applikationen(z.B. Personalisierter Stundenplan, Lehrbericht)

Zielarchitektur eines Hochschul-Informationssystems

Kombination aus Bus und Hub&Spoke

Documents

Integrated University Information Systems Thomas Kudrass Leipzig University of Applied Sciences (Germany) ICEIS 2006 Paphos, Cyprus May 2006