APS1: Integrating CMS and CRM at Gettysburg: An Open Source Vision Realized

PRESENTERS: Paul Redfern, Gettysburg College
J. Todd Bennett, Dotmarketing Inc.

This session is scheduled for Mon, Oct 15, from 9:45 AM to 10:45 AM.

A finalist for Best Postsecondary Course/Content Management Solution in the 2007 SIAA CODiE Awards competition, the Gettysburg Integrated CMS/Portal solution has again broken new ground. See how Gettysburg College and their partner Dotmarketing are creating a seamless Web experience for prospective students through alumni by blurring the lines between portal and website. Starting with the open source dotCMS/CNAV portal solution launched last year, they are developing a customized admissions CRM and alumni community that's completely integrated with the institution's website.

APS2: ApplyTexas: One State, One Application

PRESENTERs: Mary Kay Barber, University of Texas at Austin
Dana Vance, University of Texas at Austin

This session is scheduled for Mon, Oct 15, from 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM.

There are over 100 public institutions of higher education in Texas, and they all accept admissions applications through ApplyTexas. Currently, the online system handles over 600,000 applicants each year and is maintained by the University of Texas at Austin on behalf of the State of Texas. Though the application was initially conceived to handle U.S. freshman and transfer applications, it has expanded over the years to encompass international, graduate, and community/junior college admissions as well as scholarship and housing applications. Its goal is to provide "one stop shopping" for prospective students. Our presentation will cover the initial inter-institutional collaboration that went into creating the application, how the system has grown with only a small technical staff to maintain it, and how our ApplyTexas User’s Group bridges everyday users, ever-changing legislative demands, and rather limited technical resources to help manage change and growth.

APS3: Development of an In-House Tool for Creating Online Surveys and Forms

PRESENTERS: Danny Harvey, Eastern Illinois University
Ryan Gibson, Eastern Illinois University

This session is scheduled for Mon, Oct 15, from 1:30 PM to 2:00 PM.

A tool for creating online surveys and forms is being developed at the Center for Academic Technology Support at Eastern Illinois University using PHP and a MySQL database. The features of the survey tool consist of forms to create and edit questions for online surveys, a script to automatically generate a database that corresponds to the form fields in the survey, results output in comma separated variable format, and the generation of SPSS syntax files to automatically label questions and values for a data analysis file. The survey tool has been used to create research surveys for faculty and graduate students. This presentation will include a demonstration of the survey tool as well as a review of the technical details of the PHP scripts and database structures.

APS4: The Ongoing Saga: my.geneseo.edu Year 2

PRESENTERS: Kirk M. Anne, SUNY Geneseo
Paul Jackson, SUNY Geneseo

This session is scheduled for Mon, Oct 15, from 2:15 PM to 3:15 PM.

As a followup to last year's presentation, we will present what we learned over the past year in developing and upgrading our portal. We will cover our basic design and implementation, how we used focus groups and feedback, project management issues, usage statistics, and our upgrade path. We will also present a demonstration of our portal, my.geneseo.edu.

APS5: Lightweight Campus Portal

PRESENTER: Matthew Winkel, The College of New Jersey

This session is scheduled for Mon, Oct 15, from 3:45 PM to 4:45 PM.

Portals emerged to provide users, often segmented by audience, with a personalized and customized Web experience. The latest breed of portals, called personalized or AJAX homepages, provide users with personalized content and Web services (e.g. tools, widgets, gadgets). This presentation will showcase both the user-interface and technical design aspects of TCNJ’s lightweight campus portal.

APS6: Extreme Makeover: Columbia's Online Directory

PRESENTER: Carol Kassel, Columbia University

This session is scheduled for Mon, Oct 15, from 5:00 PM to 5:30 PM.

In late 2005, Columbia University made the decision to stop printing the annual Faculty and Staff Directory to save trees, time, and money. To facilitate the transition to an online-only offering, Columbia University Information Technology (CUIT) conceived of and built an enhanced presence with features that made it easier than ever to find people and departments at Columbia. The new online directory of faculty/staff as well as students offers a faster and more powerful search engine, a "browse" function (by name or by department), and an aggregation of information previously available only in print. Because the directory is such a visible presence, and something people use every day, making this project happen involved a coordination effort among a variety of departments and individuals. Along the way, we held a focus group, convened an advisory committee, considered security concerns, tested the new application extensively, and invited pilot testers from various communities to give their feedback before rollout. We deployed the new directory in January 2007 and the overall response has been positive. Now we're gearing up for Phase 2, with a variety of further enhancements we'd like to make. If you are considering either a paper-directory elimination or an enhanced online offering, you may benefit from our experience.

APS7: Haptic Perception in a Web-based Environment

PRESENTER; Michele Adams or Felix Hamza-Lup, Armstrong Atlantic State University

This session is scheduled for Mon, Oct 15, from 5:45 PM to 6:15 PM.

Multimodal Virtual Environments (MVEs) can be defined as interfaces between humans and complex data processed by computers. High-power computing, real-time graphics, and haptics (the science of applying touch sensation) have spawned revolutionary human-computer interfaces in multiple domains. Such multimodal interfaces (combining 3D graphics, sound, and haptics) have the potential to advance new methods for teaching and learning in an online environment. In this presentation we explain the haptic paradigm and its potential for distance learning. We show how the haptic feedback has the potential to augment traditional teaching material, offering: enhanced student motivation, potential increases in retention level, and more importantly, intellectual stimulation. We also introduce HaptEK16 (Haptic Environments for K-16). HaptEK16 is a multimodal haptic simulator designed to assist students in understanding difficult concepts related to hydraulics. A recently completed pilot study shows that students exposed to the haptic paradigm have a better understanding of difficult concepts. We show how educational websites can take advantage of the haptic paradigm by embedding such components in 3D Web pages using various standards (e.g. X3D).

APS8: Using Standards to Increase Usability in Web Applications

PRESENTER: Mary Carmen Garduño Campos, ITESM-CEM

This session is scheduled for Tue, Oct 16, from 8:15 AM to 9:15 AM.

In 1997, the TEC-CEM decided to invest in defining standards for making in-house information systems in order to satisfy the local requirements to automate business process. After we decided to use Java as the developing platform and Oracle as a database and application server, we decided to use a hybrid between Microsoft Solution Framework (MSF) and Rational Unified Process (RUP). At this time the user interface was functional: not pretty, but the applications worked. Usability was not a concept handled well by system engineers whose main purpose was to make information systems that will meet the requirements of the clients, but without taking care of the look and feel. The evolution of information development techniques such as User Centered Development, prototyping, agile methodologies and most recently the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) make it possible for software engineers to know and apply concepts based on human behavior. We decided to introduce ITIL best practices in our IT areas to make our developing process meet usability requirements. In the application management lifecycle, ITIL establishes that requirements are divided into functional, non- functional, and usability requirements. The great advantage of using standards — especially ITIL — is that they make the develop process easy to accomplish and systems are delivered on time and with little or non corrections.

APS9: Using iTunes U to Extend a University’s Brand Beyond Its Website

PRESENTERS: Blake Haggerty, New Jersey Institute of Technology
James Robertson, New Jersey Institute of Technology

This session is scheduled for Tue, Oct 16, from 9:45 AM to 10:45 AM.

NJIT launched its public NJIT on iTunes U site in January 2007 as a key strategy in its website redesign project. NJIT has public and private course content available, which includes podcasts of university events, student and faculty interviews, informational talks on a variety of subjects, and information geared towards prospective students. This talk will explore NJIT’s experience, with an emphasis on the strategic and marketing decisions. The talk will also touch on some technical aspects, content implications, and publicity. NJIT’s efforts to extend its brand outside its own website was expanded when Apple released iTunes 7.2 in May 2007, making iTunes U content available across the entire iTunes store interface. NJIT public face is accessible at http://itunes.njit.edu or at the iTunes U tab within the iTunes store.

APS10: Podcasts: A 360-degree View

PRESENTER: Janet Sedgley, University of Montana

This session is scheduled for Tue, Oct 16, from 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM.

With our population aging, the standard age of college students rising, and the need to work around busy people’s schedules, distance education and supplemental education needs are also rising. Podcasting presents itself as a great alternative or addition to reading or non-interactive Web content and a potential source of just-in-time-learning. But what are the issues that surround the use of podcasting on our campuses and particularly our Web servers? It is one of the fixes that we need in higher education? I will address these questions from the multiple roles I have filled in my 21 years in campus information technology - IT support staff, adaptive technology coordinator, online instructor, student, and Web server backup administrator. I will provide a 360-degree view of the potentials and pitfalls of podcasting related to learning, education, websites and servers in the higher education setting. The presentation will move through the issues, include tips and tricks, and work toward the conclusion of a set of campus podcasting best practices.

APS11: Are You Buzzword Compliant? Changing Web 2.0 from Passing Fad to Development Methodology

PRESENTER: Kyle Bowen, Purdue University

This session is scheduled for Tue, Oct 16, from 2:15 PM to 2:45 PM.

We’ve heard it all before. Web 2.0 is “an attitude, not a technology.” While it’s true that the idea of Web 2.0 is based on existing technology, it has also served as a breeding ground for new and innovative techniques for user interaction, contribution, and site management. Now that we have seen examples of what works well (and what doesn’t) within the Web 2.0 space, there are lessons learned that can be applied to our own development projects. By leveraging concepts from Web 2.0, we can offer services that engage the unique culture of Web users within higher education. This presentation will explore several examples in the areas of internal communication, rapid prototyping, and performance management where applying concepts from Web 2.0 helped to solve “real-world” problems. Changing how we think about new development projects can expand our role from Web developer to service provider.

APS12: Google Analytics and Higher Education Web Development

PRESENTER: Lester Jones, Baltimore City Community College

This session is scheduled for Tue, Oct 16, from 3:00 PM to 3:30 PM.

Google Analytics is a free application that Google provides to allow Webmasters to track visitor activity on the sites that they administer. It utilizes a piece of JavaScript that is embedded into individual pages, and this code sends statistics to the “Googleverse” where it magically organizes the data collected into a very usable set of information. For administrators of higher education websites, this can be used to significantly improve the quality of the services that we provide to our stake holders. It is free, easy to implement, and even without any of its myriad of customizations, it offers vast potential for data collection and website improvement. Google Analytics offers the higher education webmaster to the ability to develop and deploy the following:

• Changing contextual navigation — Information can gathered and used to develop a supplementary navigation system that changes from time to time and always maintains links to content that are in demand for the particular time.
• “Politics-resistant” navigations schemes — Objective data are gathered and used to organize information in a logical manner that can be strongly defended before stakeholders.
• Return on outreach investment analysis — The effect of outreach in different geographic areas can be measured in terms of increased Web traffic and online enrollment from the targeted locations.
• Objective view of the ebb and flow of the site during the academic year — Webmasters can use Google Analytics to develop an objective annual work flow cycle. This would enable them to plan their project, develop the least objectionable upgrade and maintenance cycle etc.

APS13: Web Security and Service: Finding a New Balance (Year 4)

PRESENTER: Dale B. Grady, University of Rochester

This session is scheduled for Tue, Oct 16, from 3:45 PM to 4:15 PM.

Ten years ago if your server went offline or the Iranian hackers defaced your homepage, the administration might not have noticed. Today the phone rings before the crash or the hack is complete. The deans and the president notice immediately. You get email from alumni on the far side of the planet. The server must stay online! At the last three HighEdWeb conferences, we have discussed the evolution of the University of Rochester's "Deploy" solution to protecting the server, controlling access, screening code, and blocking selected code deployment. The system and services continue to develop across two servers. This presentation will provide a demonstration of "Web Publisher Services," a secure utility that includes "Deploy" for moving pages and entire sites from development to production, blocking restricted code, providing code advice, controlling restricted actions, and notifying publishers; "Watcher" for watching for content hacks, servers outages, and database operation; and "Web Publisher Database" for controlling user accounts. I will describe, demonstrate, and review the technical specifications of a development/production server system implemented in a university environment, and examine security issues, vulnerabilities, and solutions. Real incidents will be discussed. Among this year's additions are:

• The ability to monitor and deliver database credentials over SSL.
• A monitor for file protections and enforcement of strong security on connection scripts and other sensitive files for databases.
• A locator and monitor for .htaccess files.
• A locator and reporter for PHP code strings.