Brockenhurst e-Registers Toolkit
The project successfully built an open source software toolkit to support the standards-based implementation of a lightweight, web-based attendance registration and monitoring system. The project team used and evaluated a range of tools and a new approach to software development (sometimes called “agile processes”), and this report draws conclusions about their experiences which should be of interest to any college currently pursuing an MLE strategy or engaged in partnerships with other providers.
Background
Brockenhurst College has been using its own in-house developed registration and attendance system (“Emily”) for all Sixth Form classes since September 2003. The system carries details of 2,700 students and typically registers around 1.2 million unique attendances in an academic year. All registers at the college are taken by staff using either desktop PCs in the classroom, or via wireless Tablet PCs. The system also provides individual attendance reports to students and parents via a personalised web portal (“My.Brock”). The system has attracted interest from other Further Education institutions who see the advantages of implementing their own web register systems rather than undertaking large-scale, vendor-led MIS transformation projects which are both disruptive and costly. The project aims to distil this success into an open source software toolkit which would be of real value to Further Education institutions and the wider community as well. Attendance registration and tracking is of particular importance to Further Education colleges for a variety of reasons, principally meeting funding requirements, payment of Educational Maintenance Allowance to students, and meeting the needs of personal tutors, parents and legal guardians.
Aims and Objectives
- Define a data model (operations, messages and corresponding web service definitions) which enable the production of attendance registers, their completion, storage, editing and retrieval
- Implement the data model in the form of a web service toolkit for the .NET platform: code libraries, data storage, and web service endpoints
- Evaluate a contract-first approach to web service design using current free and commercial tools
- Support e-learning interoperability standards (where appropriate), in particular for the transport of learner, group and timetable data from an existing Management Information System (MIS)
- Develop a client application which can form the basis of a usable registration system
Methodology
The project was managed by the Brockenhurst College MLE Team. Functional requirements were solicited by consulting with a range of staff including lecturers, managers and MIS staff, who commented on the existing Emily system, suggested improvements, and tried out prototypical new user interfaces. Further research was carried out via an open electronic survey which was submitted to several JISC mailing lists and received a good response.