Shared Services Update August 2011

      Collaborative Educational Services

I wanted to take an opportunity during this ‘relatively’ quiet period to provide you an update on BCcampus shared services.

It has been almost a year that I have been working with institutions on BCcampus shared service initiatives. In that time, the BCcampus team supporting shared service initiatives has worked to:

  • continue to raise awareness of educational shared services as a means to meet enterprise and/or local institutional needs as well as systemic educational technology needs,
  • update business processes related to shared services,
  • convene shared service and user group meetings,
  • promote user communities related to shared services,
  • update infrastructure and support services, and
  • better integrate shared services with collaborative programs, the BCcampus Connector, and other BCcampus systems and processes.

The reason for this note is to provide:

  1. a summary of past year by educational shared service
  2. indicate proposed plans for the coming year
  3. introduce Michelle Glubke, Client Services Manager who started with BCcampus recently and works primarily in the educational shared services area.

Educational Shared Services Summary

2010-11 Participation – We’ve recently updated the summary on institutional participation in shared services to include level of participation, status of participation and related status of participation to the BCcampus shared service business process. Please have a look at the most recent Shared Services Report to get a sense of the current shared services landscape and advise us of any changes or suggestions.

Current shared services:

Desire2Learn – The D2L shared service was maintained in terms of operating model and at previous levels of participation with slight to moderate upgrades in version, support and coordination with collaborative programs.

  • Renewal of master agreement and participation agreements (license) for a 3 year period from April 1, 2010
  • Updated and distributed letters of commitment and agreement
  • Assignment of new senior system analyst to support D2L (Dan Henigman)
  • Shared service meeting November 5, 2010
  • D2L user group meeting February 15, 2011
  • Provision of a version 9.0 test environment
  • Upgraded to version 9.1 May, 2011
  • BCcampus portal integration related to version 9.1 upgrade
  • Reinstatement of monthly D2L Administrators meetings
  • Updated support matrix for collaborative programs (6501 registrations in D2L collaborative courses) with enhanced BCcampus Help Desk role

Moodle – The Moodle shared service was enhanced significantly in terms of operating model, with very significant increased levels of interest and participation, and a major upgrade in terms of infrastructure, version and support.

  • Shared service meeting November 5, 2010
  • Moodle user group meeting February 17, 2011
  • Updated and distributed letters of commitment and agreement
  • Infrastructure was upgraded to a new high-performance clustered environment May, 2011 (ongoing due to unforeseen RedHat bug; resolution expected August, 2011)
  • Moodle 2.0 upgrade planning initiated
  • Datatel portal integration achieved
  • Several enterprise and local migrations to the shared service were planned or initiated
  • The updated shared service business process has been piloted on Moodle shared service migrations and new participants
  • Renewal of Lambda Solutions agreement for services for support for the Moodle shared service

Blackboard Collaborate (Elluminate) – The Blackboard Collaborate (Elluminate) shared service was maintained in terms of operating model and at previous levels of participation with slight upgrades in version.

  • Shared service meeting November 5, 2010
  • Elluminate user group meetings February 8 and March 15, 2011
  • Maintenance of BCcampus referral partner status
  • The Blackboard Collaborate development strategy and roadmap presented to user group February 8, 2011
  • Negotiation of higher education provincial pricing for institutional licenses (ongoing – more information to follow soon)
  • Consultation with LearnNowBC, OpenSchoolBC and HEITBC in license renewal negotiations

Adobe Connect – The Adobe Connect shared service was maintained in terms of operating model and at previous levels of participation with slight to moderate upgrades in version, central authentication, user resources and support.

  • Shared service meeting November 5, 2010
  • Upgraded to version 8.02
  • Development of user resources by system partner Langara College

Note however, that in July, 2010, the Adobe Connect shared service missed a cycle in terms of annual updating of letters of commitment and agreement, and invoicing. Additionally, a user group meeting was not scheduled. A user group meeting, and 2010/11 invoicing will be dealt with as soon as possible along with distribution of letters of commitment for 2011/12.Please watch for communication in this regard shortly.

AskAway – The AskAway shared service was maintained in terms of operating model and at previous levels of participation.

  • BCcampus provided funding for the 2011/12 fiscal year in response to a funding request and report of 2010/11 activities from ELN.

New shared services – Requests or expressions of interest were received for new shared services for which we’ll continue planning and development.

Kaltura – based on institutional interest, a Kaltura shared service model has been proposed. Various means of meeting the model have been considered.

Shared service meeting – November 5, 2010

        • Ongoing liaison with Kaltura since April, 2011 and Lambda Solutions since June, 2011 for models and pricing for a BCcampus On Premises or Community Edition Kaltura shared service. More information will be distributed soon.
        • Discussion with system partners and vendors as optional models of a Kaltura shared service.
        • Lawrence Parisotto, lparisotto@bccampus.ca, 604-4127715
        • Michelle Glubke, mglubke@bccampus.ca, 250-405-4003
        • updated business processes and introduction of business models for shared services with a balance between incentives for participation and contributions from participating institutions for ongoing operations which will occur over the year
        • Implementation of shared service business process for Moodle and Kaltura shared service, and updating of business processes for Adobe Connect shared service.
        • continued development of new shared services dependent on available funding,
        • New shared services such as Kaltura and WriteAway will continue development
        • Further integration of shared services with:
        • Collaborative programs and collaborative program business models and processes
        • BCcampus Connector transactions
        • Federated identity initiatives
        • Consult with other system agencies and organizations to achieve efficiencies in shared services (e.g., LearnNowBC, HEITBC, etc.)

Kaltura – user group meetings February 7 and April 29, 2011

WordPress – a limited production environment is available; organizations like ETUG are currently using this environment, with limited requests from other institutions.

WriteAway – a proposal and initial work has been done on an online tutoring service for writing.

Plan for the Coming Year – We’d appreciate any input you may have regarding educational shared services for the coming year so don’t hesitate to contact us:

Otherwise, consultation with stakeholders typically occurs at shared service and user group meetings.

Shared service meeting – Once again, we’re planning on a broad shared services meeting in conjunction with the ETUG Fall workshop; date yet to be confirmed but November 3, 2011 has been suggested.

Individual user group meetings will once again be scheduled after the broader shared service meeting to deal with action items and proposals for shared services. These will likely be in late November, late January or February as schedules permit. An Adobe Connect meeting will occur earlier to deal with outstanding items.

Our plans for Adobe Connect include:

Client Services Manager, Shared Services

I’m pleased to announce that we had a new staff member join BCcampus June 6, 2011 in a Client Services Manager position (60% to March 31, 2012) to work in shared service initiatives. Michelle Glubke, previously a Senior Business Analyst at OA Solutions in Victoria, has joined BCcampus in this capacity.

Michelle has over 6 years experience in a similar role at OA Solutions and brings excellent skills and expertise in working with post-secondary educational institutions in BC and Canada in the roles of client service management, project management, business analysis, and requirements and process development. Michelle also has supported the BC post-secondary institutions involved in the Administrative Systems Consortium Society over this time.

We look forward to further collaboration and work with institutional stakeholders and staff over the coming year.