JISC

This Project proposes a short, focused workplan to explore the detailed activities required to put in place a web services approach to system integration. These developments are key facets of the JISC FSD programme as they open up the way to interoperability and services re-use in a loosely coupled software environment.

Aims and objectives

The project will focus on web services exploitation of a vendor provided “Services Layer” which Unit4 have made available with their Curriculum Management Module (ACMS). This Services Layer is already a component of the ACMS Module.
The project will:

• increase, significantly, the understanding of how a “Services Layer” provided by a vendor can be exploited. 
• clarify and document how the vendor services layer is built and how it can be used. 
• clarify the standards required to enable users to benefit from the presentation of data in this way 
• demonstrate how web services operate in this context, where they are positioned in the systems architecture 
• open the door to the increased use of web services, re-usable and loosely coupled computer code which is the foundation for the development of Service Oriented Architecture 
• establish standards by which web services can be developed to consume data presented by vendors in this way. 
• produce real web services and the extent to which these can be run on different user sites and databases will be explored and documented. If possible, this will produce truly interoperable services. If not, then the project will illuminate the problems to be overcome to achieve this.

Project methodology

The project is structured over 6 months. It will involve the appointment of a Project Officer who will work peripatetically at all the consortium sites. The project time span will allow the project officer up to 4 weeks on each of the sites involved, including at the Unit4 Offices. Because of the importance of full documentation, a period of 3 weeks is allowed for this at the end of the project. This project structure is reflected in the attached Gantt Chart and will enable the Project officer to become fully aware of the “services layer” supplied with the Agresso Curriculum Management System (ACMS). Equally the time spend on University sites will facilitate the development of Web Services to exploit the “Services Layer”, to explore the interoperability between sites and over different databases and architectures.

The Key Stages of the Project are:

• Initiation: acceptance and sign-off of PID / membership of Project Board 
• Development of Project Plan 
• Unit4 ACMS Module exploration 
• Site Visits to the Consortium Universities / web services development 
• Testing 
• Documentation

Anticipated outputs and outcomes

The deliverables of the project will be:

• Documentation on how the “services layer” is defined and built and the validation that it is a truly “open” access to the data contained in the Module 
• If this is not the case, recommendations as to how this can be achieved 
• Developed software and documentation to ensure that the layer is truly and comprehensively accessible to the users to enable them safely and accurately to consume the data. Unit4 have agreed to make systems and staff available for the Project officer at their site. 
• Descriptions of the business, application and infrastructure architectures which are crucial to the use of web services in this context 
• Developed web services which can consume the data presented by the vendor services layer and subsequently offer this data for “consumption” by Users e-Learning systems, timetabling systems and on-line module selection. The project will be operated with a consortium of Universities offering different approaches to curriculum data and different databases. All 4 users have agreed to allow the Project Officer to work on their sites. The use of Blackboard/Webct Vista, Moodle and some Web 2.0 systems such as Wordpress are common to all four universities.
• Documented issues involved in the development of web services which will be re-usable across different user sites. 
• Full documentation of any outstanding problems or issues which are fundamental to the concept of web services development in this context