AthensDA University of Ulster case study (screen shots)

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Purpose

Campus One is the online campus of the University of Ulster, offering a range of high quality distance education programmes to students all over the world. It is also used to support campus-based courses by offering all staff and students online access to library resources along with flexible teaching and learning opportunities. Recent development work has produced a high degree of systems integration between University of Ulster's institutional Virtual Learning Environment (WebCT) and Library systems (Talis) and they are using Athens Devolved Authentication to implement ‘single sign on to courses and resources’. Upon logging into WebCT an AthensSSO session is established for accredited users who can then follow the customised Library links from each individual course area without being challenged for further usernames or passwords to access online learning resources.

Implementation

The University of Ulster was granted JISC funding under the 07/02 programme to further develop its VLE-Library systems integration and provide VLE users with personalised contextual linkages to library resources and services along with seamless access to protected resources. The 4i Project (Interoperable, Institutional, Integrated, Implementation) explores the impact of institution wide VLE-Library system integration on library business processes and the user experience. Findings will also inform further development of technical integration methods to facilitate better interoperability between diverse systems and platforms.

Seamless authentication using LAA mode of AthensDA, along with other local integration developments, was launched at Ulster for all users and courses in February 2003. Students are still registered with 'central' Athens to allow them to access Athens resources directly from a DSP website (e.g. ScienceDirect) without logging into any local institutional system. Further developments, including the implementation of HDD mode of AthensDA, will be explored in 2003/4.

Registration and Authentication

Each student who registers with the University for any course is given a student number by the institutional Student Records System and is automatically registered in their LDAP Directory, in WebCT, and in the Library system. The key to all these authentications is the unique student number. In WebCT, the user is authenticated against WebCT's own authentication system and then against the LDAP directory, before using Athens Local Authentication Assertion AthensLAA to establish an AthensSSO session.

Technical Details

Ulster are using WebCT version 4.1
Sun's iPlanet LDAP directory service, EduPerson-like schema
Talis LMS and TalisList v 2.1

Scale

24,000 students
5500 active modules in WebCT
>1000 module resource lists in TalisList
17 online Masters programmes plus a series of short professional development courses

Next Steps

Establishment of further institutional LAA points
Implementation of HDD mode

Visibility

View the presentation AthensDA Implementation at University of Ulster delivered at recent Athens Devolved Authentication seminars (March/April 2003). This includes screenshots to illustrate how students can navigate from their course area (in WebCT) and gain seamless authenticated access to their Athens-protected library resources via online module resource lists (TalisList), along with a range of other customised support and service options.

Further Information

The processes described above are documented in more detail in a paper Integrating VLE and Library Systems: opportunities and challenges presented at the EUNIS 2003 Conference. This will shortly be published in the conference proceedings and in a special issue of Informatica. The 4i Project website also offers further information on the development work undertaken.

Clare Uhomoibhi (4i Project)
JISC 07/02: DiVLE Programme