TCC's Next Generation Integration Challenges

and Success StoriesDr. John Kontogianes – Executive VP and CAO

Randy Dominguez – Dean of Distance Learning

Jennifer Campbell – Instructional Design

About Tulsa Community College Brief History of TCC

Established in 1970 4 Campuses

27,000 students in Credit Courses and Degree Programs

5,000 Annually in Continuing Education Courses

15th Nationally – out of 1150 Community Colleges in Degrees Awarded

Ranked 2nd in degrees awarded to Native Americans by Community Colleges

Technology at TCC High Degree of Web Presence Online Registration “First Stop” and Orientation 20+ student labs across the college Wired Multimedia Classrooms Institutional and Student email WiFi in Student Areas Online access to LRC resources 176 Online Courses, 28 degree/certificate

programs

Technology Plan Initiatives• Information Access• Electronic Communication will

become primary at the college• Available Anytime/Anywhere• Real time data integration and

reporting• Focus on needs of the learner• Ease of use

CMS Platform History at TCC• Web Course in a Box – 1997• Lotus LearningSpace – 1997/1998• Blackboard 3.0 – 1998/1999• Blackboard 4.0 – 1999/2001• Blackboard 5.0 Enterprise – 2001/2002• Blackboard 5.5 - 2002/2003• Blackboard 6.0 – 2003/2005• Blackboard 6.3 Academic Suite 2005• Blackboard 7.0 – May 2006

Immediate Future

• Real-Time data updates– Event Driven data integration

• Single Sign On– SCTPlus, Luminis and Blackboard

• Role Based Access to Web Services– Push specific content to Luminis and

Blackboard Portals based on Roles of users at Sign in

Challenges

• Complexity of integrating Event Driven with Snapshot model

• Juggling Timeline of changes around Academic Calendar

• Relying on outside entities (internal and external) to see the project through

Transitions

• System Integration Planning with Bb Professional Services and TCC Staff

• Establishing timeline– Instructional Designers prepare training

materials and training agenda– Programmers and Server administrators

work on Snapshot and Event Driven integration

• Keep Communications Active

Why do this?• Benefits

– One ID and Password– Real Time Enrollment updates– Seamless access to major Web services– College integration rather than fragmentation

• Issues– System upgrades can cause problems– Network performance can cause slowdown– Data errors can be difficult to isolate– Team effort to make upgrades or changes

Reality Check

• Planned Event Driven by April 1st

– Put off until Fall due to upgrade to 7.0

• Single Sign On by Summer 2006– SCT staff accounts not available to

Blackboard until Fall 2006

• Success– Single ID on Blackboard– Modified Snapshot with Roles

Questions you should ask

• Is this the right thing to do?• What expectations do your users have?• What outcome measures are you using?• Is this cutting edge or mainstream in

academia?• Do the benefits outweigh the challenges?• Does anyone really care?

More Information

Email for more information or copies of the presentation– rdomingu@tulsacc.edu– jcampbel@tulsacc.edu