Brown University
Infrastructure Support for Teaching and Learning Applications at Brown
University
John SpadaroSept. 24, 2008
Instructional Applications
• WebCT
• Course Web Pages
• Course Bulk Email
• ITunes
• Wiki (Confluence)
Problem: Course Roles
• Faculty frustration with lack of access for edge cases.
• Registrar’s list doesn’t match faculty needs.– Vagabonds– TA’s – Departmental technical staff– Departmental administrative staff– Faculty colleagues
4
MACE Grouper: Course Group Schema
• Course : [ Subject ] : [ Number ] : [ Term ] : [ Section ]– All
• Administrator– Instructor (Provisioned)– TeachingAssistant– Manager
• Contributor– ContentDeveloper– Mentor
• Learner– Student (Provisioned)– Auditor– Vagabond
[ brackets ] indicate dynamic dataBold indicates eduCourse/IMS compatible role
• Schema is flattened to provision LDAP– 12 groups per course provision hasMember attribute in Groups ou– Person objects get isMemberOf pointers to groups
Application Role Mapping
• Documented how Grouper groups map to application roles• Application integration characteristics allow some flexibility• Mapping highly dependent on user feedback
MACE Grouper Course Groups iTunes Majordomo Confluence WebCT
All Recipient list, Discussion Sender Can Use
Administrator Instructor Broadcast Sender Space Admin
Instructors (provisioned) Instructor
Managers
TAs TA and Designer
Contributor Instructor Space Admin
Content Developers Designer
Mentors
Learner Student
Auditors Auditor
Students (provisioned, read only) Student
Vagabonds Auditor
Other, outside MACE Grouper Super Admin Super Admin(s)
Problem: Enabling Faculty
• Faculty unaware of array of instructional applications available
• Faculty demands for last minute setup.
• Faculty shouldn’t need to understand underlying infrastructure