Building a Better (Campus) Map (DPA1)
Wayfinding and map data: so many (conflicting) data sources out there, so little time - but so much potential for losing your future students before you’ve even made the pitch. We’ll briefly review ways to correct your campus data in major mapping systems, and then we’ll use that data to form the building blocks of a fairly easy to build, inexpensive, mobile-friendly interactive map for your campus.
Inside the Black Box: Open Source and Higher Education Systems (AIM1)
Modern applications are not built from scratch. Instead, we combine together a variety of open-source components, frameworks, and libraries to efficiently create products that meet our users' needs. But when it comes to higher education, the open-source landscape feels sparse: where are the components to process government file formats? Where is the framework for creating a campus tour? Why don't we have libraries for common financial aid calculations? In this session, we will explore how institutions can embrace the open-source development of their core systems, from student information systems to financial aid management, by breaking open these black box systems and viewing them as a composition of parts, parts that can be shared and developed across schools. Through this more granular perspective, higher education institutions don't have to view participating in open-source as a daunting "all or nothing" prospect. Instead, by sharing pieces of our systems, we create an open, collaborative ecosystem that allows us to leverage the contributions of our fellow campuses to remain flexible to the needs of our users. At the end of this session, you will have a better understanding of, and tangible strategies for, how your institution can participate in and benefit from a higher education open-source ecosystem.
At Your Service: The Next Generation of Offline Websites (AIM2)
Lets face it. There are more devices out there than you can support with dedicated native apps. And except for very specific cases, most of what you’ll want to do with your app is available through web API’s. And yes, this includes offline support. Whether it’s a loss of cellular connectivity or lousy wi-fi at a conference, there will be times when a site can and should be available when the network is not. During this presentation we’ll take a look at Service Workers, which can be used to store data in the client browser, and how you can leverage them.
Get Hooked on Integrations With Github (DPA2)
Github service hooks are awesome tools for developers to integrate Github into the systems their organization uses. Even though there are over 75 items listed in Github’s integrations directory, this presentation will highlight just a few of the interesting ones. Also, we will look at a case study where Loma Linda University leveraged Github’s webhooks, a way to integrate with systems not in the integrations directory, to implement an automated deployment process for their in-house developed intranet portal platform.
Mastering Person Data: Making the Data About You, Work For You (AIM4)
If you were to ask three different business units what information about a person is key to them, there would most likely be three different answers with some commonalities. Take this example and apply it to the real world where it's not only university business units need information about a person, but also all of the cloud applications that exist or are on the horizon. Leveraging the EIP (Enterprise Information Platform), Ohio State was able to bring ALL of the important data points about a person to a single location. HR (appointments, hire dates, position info, department info, addresses), IAM (affiliations), Student (academic info), Building (space management link), and Research (KM Data link). This information flows from varying databases through EIP to a load process that builds the person documents and loads them into an Elasticsearch type and in turn exposed via EIP. Some notable consumers of this data currently are the Ohio Board of Regents, BuckeyeLearn (a cloud-based administrative LMS), and varying workflows in our Electronic Document Management (EDM) system. Within the next year, Ohio State’s move to WorkDay Financials will be leveraging the Person Master source for various data points. As a developer, you no longer have to manage a plethora of endpoints for varying data points about a person. Through the EIP, each developer or team can have one endpoint that serves the elements they need by the parameters they require. As the underlying data store is Elasticsearch the performance is enhanced immensely. The entire employed population , ~65k people, with HR data, affiliations, appointments, addresses, academic info, department info, building API link, and research data API link returned in minutes.
“Forming” an Online Data Collection Strategy (AIM6)
In 2014, Illinois State University took their online forms to the next level by implementing a new form/survey system that supported data workflow. The biggest requirements that had to be addressed were to implement something that worked with our current web technology, was mobile friendly, and empowered users to manage their own forms and data flow. Big questions had to be answered along the way: Who will run it? How do we make it work with our web CMS? How do we train users? What policy will be enforced/created to support its implementation? How will we maintain it in the long run? Find out how Illinois State answered these questions when they implemented Formstack for data collection needs on their campus — and why having a plan matters.
"Give it a REST" (AIM7)
WordPress is ubiquitous. It powers small sites, large sites, blogs and just about everything else you can imagine, partially because it's so versatile. With the advent of the WordPress REST API, the platform became even more flexible. Depending on how things are configured, the REST API can be used to syndicate content from a WordPress-powered site to myriad other platforms, or it can be used to send and update content from an external source to a WordPress-powered site. In this session, we'll explore some of the ways the REST API is being used, and we'll talk about the possibilities that have been opened up as a result.