Using Snapshot to Manage Enrolments for Sites with Non-Traditional Enrolment Criteria

1. Using Snapshot to Manage Enrolments for Sites withNon-Traditional Enrolment Criteria Cathy Colless & Anthony Leonard Durham 2007

2. Snapshot Consulting Engagement (first attempt) • System installation 2005 • Standard engagement questions • Consultant asked us to identify an institutional data source for: • Users • Courses • Enrolments • Replied PeopleDB, SITS, SITS

3. Engagement Outcomes • Course categories and user institutional roles • 5000 course sites with automated enrolments created and ready for use • Course ID format:2004-T2-2020001-A

4. Implementation approach ..pilot project bids • 5000 course sites created. Ready to roll ! • Resisted the temptation to walk around campus tossing course sites at passer-bys • Small scale pilot implementation approach (bids) • No enrolment constraints mentioned, approach may have encouraged constraint free proposals • Expected manual sites to be small minority

5. Diabetes Care Combined modules for diploma and degree level students • 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

6. Robotic TelescopeAny student taking an Astrophysics programme • Control the robotic telescope • Share digital images • All Astrophysics student at all levels use the telescope • Unable automate enrolments

7. Health Economics PG Dip Café BaristaAll students in certificate & diploma programmes • 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

8. Chemistry college based small group tutorialsall undergraduate chemistry students • 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  • Started using CSV files generated with SQL

9. Politics – Graduate Submissionall postgraduate students in Politics • Politics site managed by Post Graduate Programme Administrator for plagiarism detection purposes only • Individual modules leaders did notuse the site • One site used for submission of all Politics post graduate students • Revert to csv files again

10. Some other general issues • SITS codes and terms change regularly due to scheduling and assessment changes • 2004-T2-2020001-A to 2004-T2-2020001-B • Mid term changes cause a major crisis • Course is disabled and disappears if a SITS code changes • Cannot “restore” to an existing course

11. Reality – End of Pilot Status • Thousands of manual & “CSV file” enrolments • Technology/systems driving practice • 40% of Pilot module sites had complex requirements for enrolment criteria • Other 60% represented the less innovative/creative of the bids • Trying to sell what we had in stock instead of what staff actually wanted

12. 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

13. Windows Active Directory

14. Digital Repository - Group Based Access Model

15. Community System Portal Module or Tab Institutional Role User

16. Role Based Access Control Permission Privilege Resource List Group Role User

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

18. The Separation Process – Implementation Options • 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

19. Original snapshot process People DB Blackboard user snapshot users users SITS extra courses course snapshot VLE Admin modules (MAV) courses SITS Admin extra user enrollments Students !! enrollment snapshot enrollments (SMO) user enrollments Lecturer

20. New snapshot process People DB Blackboard user snapshot users users group users SITS user snapshot VLE Admin modules (MAV) courses SITS Admin Students group user enrollments }  enrollments (SMO) enrollment snapshot user enrollments Lecturer Blackboard group user enrollments

21. A simple one-to-one case example • Example SITS Module 0280111-T1 • What happens: • a module site Y2007-000123 is created • a “group user” group.sits.module.0280111-t1 • enrolment of the group user onto the module site Y2007-000123 • 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

22. Example Data This slide is probably not needed?

25. The next step….Groups based on user attributes • User attributes in People Database • Departmental Association • Level Classification Attribute • First Year • Second Year… • Academic Staff • Support Staff • Potential for other systems in the future

26. People Group User examples • group.people.dept_0011.atree_01 • All staff in the Biology Department • group.people.dept_0011.atree_09 • All first years in the Biology Department • group.people.dept_0014.atree_01 • All staff in the Chemistry Department • group.thingspeoplelike.food_fishandchips • All people who like fish & chips

27. Rolling out the new snapshots 07/08 year • Every project from the pilot phase successfully changed to snapshot based enrolments ! • New round of project • Even higher level of proposals with non-traditional enrolment criteria

28. In Practice – Biology Welcome • All new Biology students • Induction, catch-up and welcome content • Blog • group.people.dept_00nn.atree_nn

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

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

31. Some conclusions • An inflexible snapshot model stifles creative and innovative use of Blackboard • The system will drive the practice if the system is not flexible • When news spreads that snapshot can provide automated enrolment to meet complex criteria demand for this will quickly grow. • Flexible model avoids the need for two parallel systems

32. “Don't decide how big to build the bridge by counting the number of people swimming across the big river” Keith Moala - Tonga

33. Your questions please.

34. Enrolment Snapshot Script to extract list of Group User enrolments in the BB enrolment table from the Bb database

35. Creating the Enrolment Snapshot 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 Y2007-0001|1055|student Y2007-0001|1138|student Y2007-0002|1139|student