IT Spotlight: OpenEd Information Systems and Development Team

What they do:

The Applications & Development (App Dev) team develops custom applications in the teaching and learning space, that might include stand-alone apps or plug-ins and widgets for established systems. The App Dev team is primarily involved in the design-build-test-release-support cycle, creating teaching and learning tools (CourseLink extensions), business productivity tools (Destiny One extensions) and major system integrations.  

Who they are:

The App Dev team includes the following members:

Rich Couto is a solution architect, business analyst and project manager. Clients come to Rich with problems requiring a technical solution, and with his expertise and longstanding institutional knowledge, Rich then imagines solutions that will solve the immediate challenge and will often address potential broader issues as well, resulting in a positive impact for a wider group. Rich has been with U of G for more than 20 years, and along with being the creator of the Peer Evaluation, Assessment and Review (PEAR) tool, his primary focus is on CourseLink and other teaching and learning applications. 

Rick Ford works primarily as a business analyst and project manager, taking care of the business side of things. Rick’s focus is on Destiny One, a student information system for continuing education students (who do not typically have identities in Colleague like regular full-time students). Rick has almost 10 years’ experience at U of G, and his domain includes modifications, extensions and integrations related to Destiny One. 

Jeremy Burkhart is the technical powerhouse of the team, working as a full-stack developer and database administrator. He is the team member who builds the tools. With more than 20 years of experience, Jeremy has deep technical knowledge and development capabilities, is a .NET developer, has extensive knowledge of the Microsoft environment, networking and server configuration, and understands technical architecture, best practices and coding techniques. Jeremy also provides tier two support as part of the OpenEd help desk.  

Dave Wilson supports the App Dev team by managing the portfolio of projects and jumping in as needed with solicitation, capturing requirements and determining scope. Dave generally supports team members and ensures they have what they need to move forward.  

“This is a very strong and competent group of individuals who work very well as team. Their dynamic is admirable, and they hold each other to a high standard. It works very well for us.” – David Wilson, Manager 

App Dev team in action:

The development process for the ISD team can often look like this: 

1. Client presents a technical problem related to CourseLink or Destiny One to Rich or Rick, respectively. 

2. Rich or Rick imagine potential solutions to solve these user issues, often considering how the new applications might benefit a broader pool of users.  

3. Once the application scope is agreed upon with clients, Rich/Rick provide the requirements to Jeremy, who then builds the first iteration of how the tool might look/function (widget, middleware, API, etc.).  

4. Rich/Rick perform testing of the application. 

5. Once everyone is confident in the tool, it is provided to the client for user acceptance and testing, and if everything is working as desired, it is released to production. 

6. The ISD team provides a point of escalation support for the application moving forward. 

Examples of tools built by the ISD team include: 

Grade transfer tool: CourseLink has a method of exporting grades, and Colleague has a method of importing grades, but they do not work together. This custom-built application allows grades to be extracted from CourseLink in the correct format so they can be ingested by Colleague without further processing.  

Middleware for Destiny One: When learners have a home in Destiny One but also have an account in Colleague/LDAP, middleware is needed to apply several business rules and put everyone from Colleague and Destiny One into CourseLink without creating duplicate records.  

PEAR (Peer Evaluation, Assessment and Review): The first version of PEAR was built from scratch by Rich about 15 years ago in response to a professor requiring a tool to allow students to iteratively evaluate each other using a defined workflow. This tool has evolved significantly over time and is used by dozens of courses each semester. PEAR has also garnered significant interest from other institutions across the country and beyond.  

The team also maintains more than 30 custom applications and platforms. 

What they do: 

The multimedia team is involved in a design-build-test-release-support cycle related to various multimedia development, including: 

• Teaching and learning assets including video, audio and animation  

• Marketing and promotional assets including video, audio and animation 

• Standalone custom learning objects 

• Client support tool animations.  

Who they are: 

Jakub Hyzyk is the multimedia project coordinator. Jakub provides videography support including video production planning, equipment and personnel sourcing, filming, editing, review, final production and delivery.  

Multimedia assistant (currently unfilled) supports the multimedia project coordinator in all their endeavors. This role is typically filled by someone fresh out of college who has all the modern knowledge and tools to keep the work of this team current and on the leading edge.  

“There is a saying that not all who pick up a brush are artists. The same can be said for generally available creative technologies. Many people feel that because the tools are readily available, the skills to use them must be as well. They are surprised at the impact that considered composition, lighting, movement and editing can make when performed by the hands of skilled professionals. Jakub is such a professional.” – David Wilson, Manager 

Multimedia team in action:  

Up until the recent past, ISD multimedia development was performed almost exclusively in support of distance education – creating digital assets to support online courses. The team was very busy during the COVID pandemic as courses moved from in-person to an online format. However, with distance education diminishing in recent years, both the demand and funding model to support its multimedia assets have changed at U of G. The team gets surges of activity throughout the year, which can include requests from faculty to turn courses into videos, helping faculty use the lightboard tool to demonstrate concepts, multi-person interviews, podcasts and more. They can also coordinate contractors for studio-level and/or remote video production. The future of this work will likely be dedicated to continuing education, an area marked for future growth by the University.  

What they do: 

This team works with the CCS Managed Servers team to do the following: 

• Configure and maintain redundant web application servers, control server and SQL database server. 

• Develop and evolve SQL databases for applications.  

Who they are:  

Jeremy Burkhart is the application developer (overlaps with his work on the App Dev team) and works with the Managed Servers team to perform the above tasks.  

Dave Wilson, the team manager, helps with systems and administrative functions. 

Systems and Database team in action:  

On the systems side the team is responsible for configuring and maintaining the servers received from CCS Managed Servers, which requires a degree of skill and attention that necessitates its own team. On the Systems and Database Team, Jeremy is the primary and Dave is the backup. This involves overseeing IIS, data exchange apps, ColdFusion administration, etc.  

On the database side, in addition to the need to store and retrieve the significant quantity of data they collect, Jeremy has also developed a sophisticated collection of database jobs, stored procedures and functions that allow OpenEd to automate daily and hourly mission-critical operations.   

• Migrating 40+ .NET applications to .NET core, moving up to the most recent versions. This will avoid having to move things to new platforms when the new orders come down. 

• Moving 30+ databases to SQL server 2019 (the most up-to-date version). 

• Moving all server infrastructure to Windows server 2019 (newer machines requiring minimal attention). 

• Developing skills and framework to map key business processes, enabling them to map their own processes and help other OpenEd IT teams do the same. The team anticipates that new leadership may want to have these processes documented for straightforward review. In creating this documentation, the dependency on any one person is eliminated.  

• Developing advanced skills and insights in the use of AI and leveraging large language models in applications development. The team aims to build some proof-of-concept applications, allowing them to get up to speed on how Microsoft (and other) tools could be leveraged.  

• Creating office productivity solutions with PowerAutomate and developing advanced skills in this area.  

• Continuing to develop process maturity and interoperability around securing and organizing digital assets such as central file service, SharePoint, Azure DevOps and third-party tools.  

• Together with the CCS Identity Management team and the vendor, they are migrating the process of new student creation in Destiny One through the modification of onboarding processes.