Exchange of Performance Assessments EPAProject State, Outlook

Urs Hassler – Project leader ETH Zurich

urs.hassler@id.ethz.ch

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Project Background

Students register for a programme at a home university and follow courses at partner university.

Performance assessments will be taken at partner university and the results must be reported to the home university.

Examples: Joint-master-programs, e.g. ETHZ – EPFL: Nuclear Engineering Exchange students Courses taken at neighbouring universities:

EPFL – UNIL, ETHZ – UZH

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Project Goal

Define a data structure which allows to identify a performance assessment together with results / grades, credits taken at some university

Define and implement an electronic exchange platform for documents corresponding to this structure

Run a pilot exchange between EPFL and ETH Zurich Invite other universities to participate in the exchange

network.

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Definition of the Exchange Process

Each university has a release process for performance assessments.

A partner university has the duty to inform a student‘s home university about performance assessments

A home university has the duty to acknowledge that the performance assessment message was correctly received.

The home university will not confirm that the data has been processed and integrated into the own information systems.

EPFL

Technical Analysis: Core Components

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ETH Zurich

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Component: Node

An EPA Node will be operated by every participating university.

It is responsible for sending / receiving performance assessment messages.

Main deliverables: Web Service interface definitions for receiving/sending messages to

other nodes and for communicating with the local environment. Web interface for administration tasks: Manage identity of local and

remote nodes, suspend / continue message delivery, view node status and transaction logs (example screens below).

Enterprise application running on a JEE5 compliant application server.

Usage of the WSIT standard in order to achieve the reliable and secure exchange of data.

EPA Node Admin Console: Status overview

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EPA Node Admin Console: Exchange partners

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EPA Node Admin Console: Local Node Config.

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EPA Node Admin Console: Server Config

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Component: Adapter

Integration component: Implements data conversion between local performance assessments and EPA performance assessment messages.

Uses an EPA node’s Web Service interface definitions to pass messages for the transfer to a remote EPA node or to request received messages for the further processing.

Adapter implementations can build on top of a Generic Interface written in Java that hides the complexity of the Web service interface. Examples: ETHZ Adapter, Web Adapter.

Adapters can bind directly to the EPA node’s web service interface. Example: Local IT env. does not build on Java.

Outlook: Final Milestones

21.02.2010: Start pilot exchange between EPFL and ETH Zurich.

Q3 2010: Start exchange between ETH Zurich and University of Zurich, faculty of mathematics and natural sciences.

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Outlook: Possible Improvements

Implemented Message structure allows to adopt software in other contexts. Message envelope: Sender University, Receiver University,

Transaction Times Message content: Currently only 1 supported content: Performance

assessments. Support for other contents can easily be implemented.

Extend AAA/SWITCH to support Ids of universities together with trust information (PKI Infrastructure). Configuration in node console gets easier, since possible partners

and trust information will be maintained centrally.

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