Integration of Student Services & Business Practices with WebCT Vista

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Thursday, July 13, 2006
This presentation is part of 3: Poster Sessions
Integration of Student Services & Business Practices with WebCT Vista

Description: How do you take multiple systems run by various administrators and make them all work together? By integrating systems, such as Portal, SIS, application servers, and WebCT, the combined product is more powerful and robust than the systems are individually. This poster session will show how having integrated systems allows students, faculty, and staff to move seamlessly throughout the course experience.
Presentation Format: Poster
Topic: Integrating the campus: Technical solutions and extended uses
Target Audience: Course Designers, Faculty and Other Instructors, System Administrators, Senior Administrators, E-learning Managers, K-12 Educational Staff
Appropriate Audience Level: Experienced WebCT users
WebCT Version: WebCT Vista
Abstract Text: Over the course of our migration to Vista, we had the opportunity to re-evaluate and advance the integration of our systems. We envisioned the end result for our students being a seamless transition from course inquiry to enrollment, to course participation, to final grade posting. With this integration, we have created a conglomeration of processes that is stronger than each system standing alone. We'd like to share our diagramed relationships of these systems and lessons learned along the way.
Using Oracle Portal technology, prospective and enrolled students can search for open courses in their field of study from our internally-developed SIS (Student Information System) course library. From there, students complete course registration and are automatically added to Vista and enrolled into their specified course.
Students login to our Portal website and are directed to their own customized homepage. Here, they can link directly to their courses, orientations and various other students services housed in Vista. If students choose to go to the larger orientation, or "forum" courses, they are enrolled in the section in Vista "on-the-fly" to keep numbers down and help maintain the course more easily.
Once students are participating in a credit-bearing course, other student service applications begin to play a role in the students' experience. Some of our courses utilize Citrix and media streaming servers to give students access to multimedia and virtual computer labs. We've used PowerLinks to bridge other applications such as WebSurveyor with Vista.
After the instructor posts final grades in the Vista Grade Book, our SIS extracts these grades from a customized column, and posts the grades on the SIS course rosters. At this time, SIS sends code to Vista that denies the student access from that particular course. Students can then view their grades on their transcript on their Portal homepage.

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Description:	How do you take multiple systems run by various administrators and make them all work together? By integrating systems, such as Portal, SIS, application servers, and WebCT, the combined product is more powerful and robust than the systems are individually. This poster session will show how having integrated systems allows students, faculty, and staff to move seamlessly throughout the course experience.
Presentation Format:	Poster
Topic:	Integrating the campus: Technical solutions and extended uses
Target Audience:	Course Designers, Faculty and Other Instructors, System Administrators, Senior Administrators, E-learning Managers, K-12 Educational Staff
Appropriate Audience Level:	Experienced WebCT users
WebCT Version:	WebCT Vista
Abstract Text:	Over the course of our migration to Vista, we had the opportunity to re-evaluate and advance the integration of our systems. We envisioned the end result for our students being a seamless transition from course inquiry to enrollment, to course participation, to final grade posting. With this integration, we have created a conglomeration of processes that is stronger than each system standing alone. We'd like to share our diagramed relationships of these systems and lessons learned along the way. Using Oracle Portal technology, prospective and enrolled students can search for open courses in their field of study from our internally-developed SIS (Student Information System) course library. From there, students complete course registration and are automatically added to Vista and enrolled into their specified course. Students login to our Portal website and are directed to their own customized homepage. Here, they can link directly to their courses, orientations and various other students services housed in Vista. If students choose to go to the larger orientation, or "forum" courses, they are enrolled in the section in Vista "on-the-fly" to keep numbers down and help maintain the course more easily. Once students are participating in a credit-bearing course, other student service applications begin to play a role in the students' experience. Some of our courses utilize Citrix and media streaming servers to give students access to multimedia and virtual computer labs. We've used PowerLinks to bridge other applications such as WebSurveyor with Vista. After the instructor posts final grades in the Vista Grade Book, our SIS extracts these grades from a customized column, and posts the grades on the SIS course rosters. At this time, SIS sends code to Vista that denies the student access from that particular course. Students can then view their grades on their transcript on their Portal homepage.