Using Snapshot to Manage Enrolments for Sites with Non-Traditional Enrolment Criteria Cathy Colless & Anthony Leonard University of York

Snapshot Consulting Engagement System installation 2005 Data-centric approach Consultant asked us to identify an institutional data source for: –Users –Courses –Enrolments Replied PeopleDB, SITS, SITS

Engagement Complete Courses, Users and Enrolments created DSK’s, categories and roles With all boxes checked the consultancy concludes I’m left holding the baby

Small Scale Pilot 20 Pilot Modules Opportunity to test the processes and assumptions Fortuitous we did not take a big bang implementation approach or would have to live with the mistake.

Reality Diabetes Care Diabetes Care module taught as a combined group of both diploma and degree students. Two separate SITS module codes/credits. Two BB course sites created and built to avoid manually managing enrolments for large cohorts of students Announcements, discussion boards, blogs all common to the entire group Less than ideal situation having two sites

Reality Robotic Telescope Control the robotic telescope Share digital images All Astrophysics student at all levels use the telescope. Unable automate enrolments

Reality Health Economics PG Dip Cafe Fully distance education Café site in addition to individual module sites Tutors not enrolled in Café site Could not provide automated enrolments based on a programme affiliation

Reality Data Analysis 1&2 Semester 1 SPSS intro module Semester 2 SPSS advanced module Wanted one continuous site running over two semesters with students enrolled on EITHER the intro or advanced module enrolled Could not combine enrolments from two SITS modules

Reality Chemistry College Based Small Group Tutorials All undergraduate chemistry students divided into groups based on residential college All undergraduate chemistry students in one site Could not provided automatic enrolments for the site 

Politics – Graduate Submission Politics site managed by Post Graduate Programme Administrator for plagiarism detection purposes only Individual modules leaders did not use the site One site used for submission of all Politics Post Graduate

Reality Other General Issues Instructors expectations of rollover was that content would be rolled forward to the new year Copying content into an existing site frequently results in corruption of the destination site SITS codes and terms do change. The codes contain meaning (eg term and level) and these change regularly.

Reality – End of Pilot Status Technology/systems driving practice 40% of Pilot module sites had complex requirements for enrolment criteria It seemed that my role as application manager was primarily to pour cold water on innovative module ideas.

Flawed Assumptions/Decisions Majority of BB course sites will be for a single SITS module Once setup SITS module codes will not change.

Back to the Drawing Board First attempt relied on intuition More systematic/evidence based approach for second attempt Look at solutions from other system addressing similar requirements.

User Access Solutions Other systems with similar requirement to provide different users with personalised access: –Windows Active Directory –Digital Repository –Community System Portal –Business Information Systems –ETS Support Ticket System –Business Information Systems

Windows Active Directory

Digital Repository Group Based Access Model

Community System Portal User Institutional Role Module or Tab

Role Based Access Control User List Group Role Permission Privilege Resource

Undocking SITS Module Groups from Course Sites 1 BB Course Site 2 BB Course Site 3 BB Course Site SITS Module 1 SITS Module 2 SITS Module 3 4 BB Course Site 5 BB Course Site SITS Module 4 SITS Module 5 SITS Module 5T2

Changes to Snapshot Process SITS Module (MAVS) PeopleDB SITS Enrolments Blackboard User Blackboard Course Blackboard Course Enrolment Nightly User Snapshot Nightly Course Snapshot Nightly Enrolment Snapshot

The Separation Process Considered a separate database table Wanted to use BB without customisation Decided to create special “group users” This would allow us to use the enrolment tools to manage the association between course and a group user. No need to write a building block or stand alone web application to manage flexible enrolments

Enrolment Snapshot Script to extract list of Group User enrolments in the BB enrolment table from the Bb database BB CourseGroup User Y group.sits.module_ t1-a Y group.sits.module_ t1-a Y group.sits.module_ t2-a

Creating the Enrolment Snapshot BB Course Group User Y group.sits.module_ t1-a Y group.sits.module_ t1-a Y group.sits.module_ t2-a Script works through the list of group enrolments, looking up the student enrolments from SITS for each module building up a Snapshot file. external_course_key|external_person_key|role Y |1055|student Y |1138|student Y |1139|student

A simple one-to-one case Example Module T1 Snapshot creates: –a module site Y –a “group user” group.sits.module t1 –enrolment of the group user onto the module site –enrolment of “real” users based on SITS module group user The initial result of this is the same as hard coding the link between the module site and the SITS module

Group Users Module Group Users Departmental Association Level Classification Attribute –First Year –Second Year… –Academic Staff –Support Staff

In Practice – Biology Welcome All new Biology students Induction, catch-up and welcome content Blog group.people.dept_0002.atree_18

In Practice - Plagiarism Awareness Pan University course Small changes to contextualised content by each department Enrolments important to gradebook Different enrolments for departments

Sociology PG&Staff Seminar Series Termly programme of seminars Enrolment of academic and research staff and PG students

“Don't decide how big to build the bridge by counting the number of people swimming across the big river " Once the bridge is up, many more who couldn't swim the distance will want to cross.