Software for Higher Software for Higher EducationEducation

Economics, Innovation, and Open Source Economics, Innovation, and Open Source as Transformative Forcesas Transformative Forces

Brad Wheeler

Assoc VP for Research & Academic ComputingAssoc Professor of Information Systems

Indiana Universityhttp://wheeler.kelley.indiana.edu

bwheeler@indiana.edu

Two Challenges for IT in Higher Two Challenges for IT in Higher EdEd

Delivering sustainable economics to satisfied users

Serving the frontiers of innovation for user expectations

IU StrategyMaintain control of our destinyConsolidate redundant services via integrationCreate economies of scale via standardsPartner with like minded institutionsUse/develop open source products

IUB Oncourse Growth

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

Spr99 Fal99 Spr00 Fal00 Spr01 Fal01 Spr02 Fal02 Sp03 Fa03

Semesters

Percentage

Courses facultyX2 StudentsX2

Fall 2003 SemesterFall 2003 Semester

Faculty   7,531

Faculty logins   5,657

Percent Usage   75%

     

Students   95,272

Student logins   78,721

Percent Usage   83%

All Campuses

IUPUI Faculty 86%Students 91%

Bloomington Faculty 75%Students 83%

>88,000 Distinct Users this Semester

Annual Cost Measurement

Units Activity

Measurement Unit Cost User Satis-

faction

$ 862,246

82,747 Users $ 10.42 94.7%

ActivityActivity-based Costs for CMS-based Costs for CMS

Total unique users 2001-02

Source: UITS Report on Cost and Quality of Services, 2001-02

Changes in How Oncourse is Changes in How Oncourse is UsedUsed More storage/retrieval of files

43% growth from ‘02 to ‘03 in bytes transferred

More time in Oncourse62% growth from ‘02 to ‘03 in number of

minutes logged on (even with faster hardware)

1 December 2003

Challenge: Innovation Challenge: Innovation FrontiersFrontiers

Library Integration

Special Character SetsMath/Languages/Sciences Sophisticated Assessment

Streaming Multi-media

Direct Manipulation User Interfaces

Textbook Integrationw/ Publishers

Current CMSOngoing Maintenance

IMS/SCORM

Self-pacedTutorials

Research/CommitteeSupport

E-Portfolio

How will Higher Ed meet these growing requirements for CMS functionality in a period of relatively flat resources?

Workflow

Integration/Leveragew/Enterprise Services

Greater Personalization

Where are we todayWhere are we todayLibrary SIS Oncourse UITS, etc.

www

Users must know the path to each silo…one size fits all

Silo’d data/services not integrated…user must consolidate and find related information and services

Redundancies abound, interface inconsistencies, expensive maintenance… it will get worse.

Services:

Data:

Portal to IU services/informationPortal to IU services/informationLibrary SIS Oncourse UITS

onestart.iu.edu

PortalAuthenticationCustomization

WorkflowDelegation

Services:

Data:

Post-PC future of mobile Post-PC future of mobile computingcomputing

Portal

Services connect to the Portal and the Portal connects to the evolving plethora of wireless, mobile

computing devices headed to campus. Connecting each service is infeasible.

Fit withRequire-ments

AcquisitionCost

MaintenanceCost

SupportOptions

Control ofDestiny

Build

Tailored to requirements

Full cost Expensive

permanent staff or contract

Discretionary Full costs for

changes No on-going fees

Institution Very high Own the code

Buy(vendor)

Standardized Tailored via

add-ons

Shared cost + vendor profit as license fee

Mandatory Shared costs +

vendor profit via annual license fees

Vendor(s) Warranties

and service level agreements

Very low Limited/no

access to modify the code

Extensive add-ons may complicate upgrades

Borrow(open

source)

Assembled from standardized and tailored

Nil, minimal, or shared

Discretionary Nil, minimal,

shared, or full

Institution For fee

vendors Partners Community

Very high Full access to the

source code

Oncourse-Next Generation Oncourse-Next Generation StrategyStrategy Partner with U. Michigan, MIT,

Stanford to develop a standards-based Course Management System

Designed for integration with OneStart Portal

Personalization, Integrated calendar, etc.

Foundation for discipline-specific innovation

Open SourceOpen Source

….the answer or the question?

‘‘Code Mobility’ is the Code Mobility’ is the essential economic bet essential economic bet

for higher educationfor higher education

GartnerGartner

By 2007, 80 percent of e-learning platform functionality will be available through open source (0.7 probability).

16 Dec 03

Gartner: e-Learning Meets Gartner: e-Learning Meets OSOS

E-learning is emerging as the focal point of higher education's rising interest in open-source applications. Nevertheless, it will be several years before commercially supported open-source software e-learning products will become available. In the short term, enterprises that pursue OSS initiatives will have to weigh the benefits of OSS vs. potentially high internal support costs.

16 Dec 03

Gartner: Strategic Gartner: Strategic AssumptionsAssumptions By 2005, e-learning will emerge as the first

mission-critical application in which Type A institutions experiment with open-source solutions (0.8 probability).

By 2007, 80 percent of e-learning platform functionality will be available through open source (0.7 probability).

Through 2006, colleges and universities adopting open-source e-learning systems will need the ability to address urgent system failures entirely with internal staff resources (0.8 probability).

Seventy percent of current academic e-learning open-source product initiatives will fail by 2006 (0.8 probability). 16 Dec 03

Gartner: Open Source Gartner: Open Source MobilizationMobilization Tight budget times in the United States, which

have focused attention on software acquisition costs

A growing resentment of vendor power, particularly in the wake of price increases and licensing changes that many institutions felt powerless to reject

Political pressures in some parts of the world to favor local software industries and to pool government software development costs

The strong cultural appeal of OSS in academia, where a vocal part of the cyberculture participates in the movement

16 Dec 03

Some Recent Open Some Recent Open Source ProjectsSource Projects

Mellon Foundation GrantsMellon Foundation Grants

uPortal, 2001, $3M Open Knowledge Initiative, 2001,

$3M Fedora, 2001, $800k Assessment Manager, 2002, $250k VUE, 2002, $450k Chandler/Westwood, 2003, $1.5M + LionShare, 2003, $1.2M ePortfolio, 2003, $500k Sakai, 2003, $2.4M

Model Features Examples

Lead Institution

Institution takes lead in writing an application for its own needsDevelops for code mobility using a framework/standardsMay lead a community that becomes more of a consortium model over time

CHEF Project - U of Michigan

Partnering

Formal or informal agreements among a small group of institutions to write toolsTools integrate as part of a planned application framework

Navigo Assessment Project - Indiana, Michigan, StanfordFedora – U. of Virginia, Cornell

Consortium

Extra-university entity that coordinates application requirements, standards, and releasesCoordinates a community

uPortal– JA-SIGePortfolio Project - Open Source Portfolio InitiativeChandler Project - Open Source Application FoundationSakai Project

Consumer

Institutions or vendors that implement open source systems with minimal/no participation in its development;Waiting to adopt code from others

Any institution that downloads and implements open source application softwareMost institutions will consume open source code for some needs as that is part of their sourcing strategy

Open Source Development Models

Software for Higher Software for Higher EducationEducation

Economics, Innovation, and Open Economics, Innovation, and Open Source as Transformative ForcesSource as Transformative Forces

Brad Wheeler

Assoc VP for Research & Academic ComputingAssoc Professor of Information Systems

Indiana Universityhttp://wheeler.kelley.indiana.edu

bwheeler@indiana.edu

Application Development Application Development GuidingGuiding PrinciplesPrinciples1. Standards:

IU will enhance our opportunities for code mobility among universities by architecting on a common layer of OKI services (OSIDs) as our baseline infrastructure for new IU applications. The complementary data standards will be based on IMS specifications (or other applicable data standards groups) whenever applicable. J2EE, AIX/Linux, and Oracle are the standards for enterprise-scale application development.

2. Sourcing: For in-house developed systems, whenever possible, IU

will participate in open source approaches – both importing existing solutions and exporting IU solutions. IU will partner with like-minded institutions whenever goals and resources align to share costs.

Application Development Application Development GuidingGuiding Principles Principles (cont.)(cont.)

3. Delivery: IU will focus on personalized delivery of

information services and activities via the OneStart Portal through an unbundled, Web services approach to application development.

4. Leverage: IU will aggressively seek efficiencies in

consolidation of redundant application services whenever feasible.