managing a large scale student environment:

Managing a Large Scale Student Environment:

A Case Study

Francisco López – E-Learning Operations Director, ITESMCarlos García – Logistics and Support Director, ITESM

Jorge Salinas – Educational Technology Director, ITESM

• What is ITESM?– Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios

Superiores de Monterrey– Founded by civil society

in 1943 and supported by 27 non-profit organizations

Describing the Environment

Jorge Salinas

Describing the EnvironmentCampuses 33

Graduate Programs: Medical specialties Specialties Master Doctoral

1265010

Professional Programs: Traditional International

3529

Undergraduate Programs 7

Students: Master Professional High School Other Programs

10,22851,58525,6937,347

Faculty and Staff: Full time professors Partial time professors Administrative staff

2,9565,08113,057*

* Note:1,187 of this group are full time assistant professors and 411 are part time professors,

all of them are classified in “Full time and partial time professors)

Graduated professional and master alumni Total Professional Certificates Total Academic Diploma

155,556128,08727,469

Describing the Environment

• 8,200 faculty• 101,499 students• 140,829 alumni

• 80,188 students

• 12 programs

Tec de Monterrey33 campuses

Virtual University

Describing the Environment

Field Offices

Describing the Environment• Students

– Students from 66 countries– 59% in bachelor programmes, 30% in high school end

11% in postgraduate programmes– 32,768 students are in scholarship programmes and

student loan programmes

• Professors– Professors from 31 countries– 86.48% of professors have at least a masters degree– 61.28% of postgraduate programme have at least a

doctoral level degree– 40% of professors have been trained in diverse teaching

techniques

Jorge Salinas

Describing the Environment

• Who are Our Users and How Many Are There?– We have several on-line courses (through

our Virtual University System), most courses are a combination of on-line activities and in-classroom work

– 14,000 + Groups in Blackboard Learning System last semester

– 344,000 + Enrolled students last semester

Jorge Salinas

Blackboard Group GrowthYear Semester Groups

2002jan 1,251

aug 3,000

2003jan 5,342

aug 9,720

2004jan 9,667

aug 11,350

2005jan 12,953

aug 14,093

Number of Groups

02000400060008000

10000120001400016000

jan aug jan aug jan aug jan aug

2002 2003 2004 2005

Jorge Salinas

Blackboard Student Enrollment Growth

Year Semester Enrolled Students

2002jan 32,814

aug 88,794

2003jan 130,634

aug 256,316

2004jan 301,285

aug 291,756

2005jan 314,578

aug 344,348

Enrolled Students

-50,000

100,000150,000200,000250,000300,000350,000400,000

jan aug jan aug jan aug jan aug

2002 2003 2004 2005

Jorge Salinas

Why Blackboard?• Educational Model

– From Subject Focus to Student Focus• Previous Experience

– Other technologies...• Growth Expectations

– Fast implementation requirements• Organizational Strengths

– From distributed operations to centralized management

Jorge Salinas

The Support Organization

EquipmentOperating

SystemDisaster

RecoveryNetwork

OperationsDirectory

Infrastructure Layer

MaintenanceMass

ProcessingCourse Mgmt

PortalSystems

Integration

Application Operation Layer

OperationsHelp Desk

Course SpaceManagement

Course Logistics& Management

Operations and Logistics Layer

Academic Interface Layer

Jorge Salinas

Managing Student and Teacher Access o Working with Directories

o Use of Central Directory for user authenticationo One single password for all serviceso User account creation provided by administrative tasks

such aso Student admission process

o Involves creation of students user account in Blackboard

o Human resources hiring processo Involves creation of teachers user account in Blackboard

o Password set provided by a single Web pageo Users set their password trough a Web for all services

Managing Student and Teacher Access

Working with directories

Managing Student and Teacher Access

o Managing Student Information Integrity– Student information

• All student information is provided by Banner System (ERP)

– Identification information– Enrollment information

– One single point to modify student information

– Integrated systems

Managing Student and Teacher Access

Managing Student Information Integrity

Interfacing with Required Data Sources

oCourse, Student and Teacher Data oCourses : SCT Banner

o Batch process, enrollment runs 3 times a day o 32 campi on 3 banner instances

oStudents and Teachers: SCT Banner, Novell NDS

o Automatic account management through Banner - Novell Directory Service

o Event driven process

Blackboard Data Sources

API

Novell Directory

LDA

P

Data integrationUsing Snapshot tools

Provisioning-Students-Teachers-Employees

Support

API

BD WebTec

BD Blackboard

DDA &Teachers

Admin

Course Mgmt Portal

on-line services (jsp)

(JDBC, java beans)

Course Catalog extended

Data

mg

mt.

Rep

ort

s

DB SERVER Oracle 9.1 / Solaris

Lotus Notes / AIX(soon Oracle portal)

Bbscripts APP SERVER (Tomcat 4.1)

Course statistics & reports

Banner3 instances 32 campi

Crontab enrollment Snapshot tool

WT

BB

Course creation, archiving, copying & renaming.

Course registration data files download

On-line services(enrollment, change passwd)

Account Management (event driven)

FTP repository

Registration data files

WebTec APP SVR

Blackboard APP SVR

ITESM / February 2006

Student / Teachers

Cours

e

cata

log

Integrationof Services

Managing BB Infrastructure • Resources

– BB 6.1.5, Oracle 9i, Solaris 9– 6 webservers v880 (4 cpu 8 GB RAM each)– 1 appserver v880– 1 chatserver Netra X1– 1 database server 15K (32 CPU, 48 GB RAM)– 1.8 TB Filesystem (Disk Mirror)– 150 GB Database (Disk Mirror) – 34K courses (14K in production)– 1 loadbalance switch– 3 ISP redundancy – Akamai cache service– 3 server test enviroment– 1 development server, 1 integration server– 24,000 concurrent users peak, 16,000 avg.– 60% cpu-utilization on webservers, 40% cpu-utilization on db server

ITESM BB infrastructure

BB Infrastructure

•Capacity ManagementBB Performance and Capacity

Maturity Model – Phase 4: Business Process

Optimizing

• ITESM Capacity Management :

BB InfrastructureData Protection and Recovery

DATABASE• Disk Mirror (150 GB)

– On-line phisical data replication– On-line back-up system replacement

• Logical (Export)– Enables isolated restore of individual

tables – Reading each table can detect

corruption – May wish to restrict other activity– Runs daily, TSM 30 day history

• Cold ( Offline ) – Must shut down database. – Only on upgrades or OS maintenance

• Hot ( Online ) – no shutdown, run anytime, for 24 x 7

ops – BACKUP and RECOVERY using SQL-

BaskTrack from BMC Software. – Oracle Archive Mode– TSM, 30 day history

FILE SERVER• Disk Mirror (1.8 TB)

– On-line phisical data replication– On-line back-up system

replacement– Async Mirror, 10 minutes delay

• TSM backup every 72 hrs.– 26 million files– 30 day history

Connecting with Academia

• Experience Improvement Strategies– Educational Techniques– Experience Surveys and Studies– Usage Statistic Analysis– Knowledge Transfer Strategies

• Usage Enforcement Strategies– Strong Competencies Oriented Training– Core Subject Requirements

Jorge Salinas

Connecting with Academia

• Enhancing the Platform's Value for Academia– Different Technologies for Different

Subjects– Understanding our teacher population

Planning for the Future

• Next steps– Content administration strategy– Improved process automation– Enhanced teaching and learning

experience• New features• More flexibility (process, tools)

Recommendations • Communication strategy

– What?, How?, Who?, When?

• Integration with academy– What do they need?, What are they ready to use?, Are

we ready to provide them with that?

• Training strategy– Teachers, Students, Support people

• Content administration strategy– Too many copies vs. One single copy for all

• Support infrastructure– People, process and systems

Thank You!Francisco López – E-Learning Operations Director, ITESM – flopez@itesm.mx

Carlos García – Logistics and Support Director, ITESM – carlos.garcia@itesm.mxJorge Salinas – Educational Technology Director, ITESM– jsalinas@itesm.mx