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Managing a Large Scale Student Environment:

Managing a Large Scale Student Environment:. A Case Study. Francisco López – E-Learning Operations Director, ITESM Carlos García – Logistics and Support Director, ITESM Jorge Salinas – Educational Technology Director, ITESM. Describing the Environment. What is ITESM?

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Managing a Large Scale Student Environment:

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  1. Managing a Large Scale Student Environment: A Case Study Francisco López – E-Learning Operations Director, ITESM Carlos García – Logistics and Support Director, ITESM Jorge Salinas – Educational Technology Director, ITESM

  2. Describing the Environment • What is ITESM? • Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey • Founded by civil society in 1943 and supported by 27 non-profit organizations Jorge Salinas

  3. Describing the Environment

  4. Describing the Environment Tec de Monterrey 33 campuses • 8,200 faculty • 101,499 students • 140,829 alumni • 80,188 students • 12 programs Virtual University

  5. Describing the Environment Field Offices

  6. Describing the Environment • Students • Students from 66 countries • 59% in bachelor programmes, 30% in high school end 11% in postgraduate programmes • 32,768 students are in scholarship programmes and student loan programmes • Professors • Professors from 31 countries • 86.48% of professors have at least a masters degree • 61.28% of postgraduate programme have at least a doctoral level degree • 40% of professors have been trained in diverse teaching techniques Jorge Salinas

  7. Describing the Environment • Who are Our Users and How Many Are There? • We have several on-line courses (through our Virtual University System), most courses are a combination of on-line activities and in-classroom work • 14,000 + Groups in Blackboard Learning System last semester • 344,000 + Enrolled students last semester Jorge Salinas

  8. Blackboard Group Growth Jorge Salinas

  9. Blackboard Student Enrollment Growth Jorge Salinas

  10. Why Blackboard? • Educational Model • From Subject Focus to Student Focus • Previous Experience • Other technologies... • Growth Expectations • Fast implementation requirements • Organizational Strengths • From distributed operations to centralized management Jorge Salinas

  11. The Support Organization Academic Interface Layer Operations and Logistics Layer Operations Help Desk Course Space Management Course Logistics & Management Application Operation Layer Maintenance Mass Processing Course Mgmt Portal Systems Integration Infrastructure Layer Equipment Operating System Disaster Recovery Network Operations Directory Jorge Salinas

  12. Managing Student and Teacher Access • Working with Directories • Use of Central Directory for user authentication • One single password for all services • User account creation provided by administrative tasks such as • Student admission process • Involves creation of students user account in Blackboard • Human resources hiring process • Involves creation of teachers user account in Blackboard • Password set provided by a single Web page • Users set their password trough a Web for all services

  13. Managing Student and Teacher Access Working with directories

  14. Managing Student and Teacher Access • Managing Student Information Integrity • Student information • All student information is provided by Banner System (ERP) • Identification information • Enrollment information • One single point to modify student information • Integrated systems

  15. Managing Student and Teacher Access Managing Student Information Integrity

  16. Interfacing with Required Data Sources • Course, Student and Teacher Data • Courses : SCT Banner • Batch process, enrollment runs 3 times a day • 32 campi on 3 banner instances • Students and Teachers: SCT Banner, Novell NDS • Automatic account management through Banner - Novell Directory Service • Event driven process

  17. Novell Directory DDA & Teachers Blackboard Data Sources Bbscripts APP SERVER (Tomcat 4.1) Course Catalog extended Course statistics & reports Integration of Services DB SERVER Oracle 9.1 / Solaris WebTec APP SVR A P I Support Data integration Using Snapshot tools Data mgmt. Reports WT BD WebTec Course creation, archiving, copying & renaming. Student / Teachers Course Mgmt Portal • on-line services (jsp) • (JDBC, java beans) Lotus Notes / AIX (soon Oracle portal) Admin Blackboard APP SVR On-line services (enrollment, change passwd) BB A P I Course registration data files download BD Blackboard FTP repository Registration data files Crontab enrollment Snapshot tool Course catalog LDAP Account Management (event driven) • Provisioning • Students • Teachers • Employees Banner 3 instances 32 campi ITESM / February 2006

  18. Managing BB Infrastructure • Resources • BB 6.1.5, Oracle 9i, Solaris 9 • 6 webservers v880 (4 cpu 8 GB RAM each) • 1 appserver v880 • 1 chatserver Netra X1 • 1 database server 15K (32 CPU, 48 GB RAM) • 1.8 TB Filesystem (Disk Mirror) • 150 GB Database (Disk Mirror) • 34K courses (14K in production) • 1 loadbalance switch • 3 ISP redundancy • Akamai cache service • 3 server test enviroment • 1 development server, 1 integration server • 24,000 concurrent users peak, 16,000 avg. • 60% cpu-utilization on webservers, 40% cpu-utilization on db server

  19. ITESM BB infrastructure

  20. BB Infrastructure • Capacity Management BB Performance and Capacity Maturity Model • Phase 4: Business Process Optimizing • ITESM Capacity Management :

  21. BB Infrastructure Data Protection and Recovery DATABASE • Disk Mirror (150 GB) • On-line phisical data replication • On-line back-up system replacement • Logical (Export) • Enables isolated restore of individual tables • Reading each table can detect corruption • May wish to restrict other activity • Runs daily, TSM 30 day history • Cold ( Offline ) • Must shut down database. • Only on upgrades or OS maintenance • Hot ( Online ) • no shutdown, run anytime, for 24 x 7 ops • BACKUP and RECOVERY using SQL-BaskTrack from BMC Software. • Oracle Archive Mode • TSM, 30 day history FILE SERVER • Disk Mirror (1.8 TB) • On-line phisical data replication • On-line back-up system replacement • Async Mirror, 10 minutes delay • TSM backup every 72 hrs. • 26 million files • 30 day history

  22. Connecting with Academia • Experience Improvement Strategies • Educational Techniques • Experience Surveys and Studies • Usage Statistic Analysis • Knowledge Transfer Strategies • Usage Enforcement Strategies • Strong Competencies Oriented Training • Core Subject Requirements Jorge Salinas

  23. Connecting with Academia • Enhancing the Platform's Value for Academia • Different Technologies for Different Subjects • Understanding our teacher population

  24. Planning for the Future • Next steps • Content administration strategy • Improved process automation • Enhanced teaching and learning experience • New features • More flexibility (process, tools)

  25. Recommendations • Communication strategy • What?, How?, Who?, When? • Integration with academy • What do they need?, What are they ready to use?, Are we ready to provide them with that? • Training strategy • Teachers, Students, Support people • Content administration strategy • Too many copies vs. One single copy for all • Support infrastructure • People, process and systems

  26. Thank You! Francisco López – E-Learning Operations Director, ITESM – flopez@itesm.mx Carlos García – Logistics and Support Director, ITESM – carlos.garcia@itesm.mx Jorge Salinas – Educational Technology Director, ITESM– jsalinas@itesm.mx

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