{"id":25722,"date":"2024-11-18T10:05:10","date_gmt":"2024-11-18T10:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hfd.phee.dev\/experiences-and-insights-into-the-development-of-an-it-infrastructure-for-learning-and-teaching-in-the-university-alliance-unite\/"},"modified":"2024-11-18T11:40:04","modified_gmt":"2024-11-18T11:40:04","slug":"experiences-and-insights-into-the-development-of-an-it-infrastructure-for-learning-and-teaching-in-the-university-alliance-unite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hfd.phee.dev\/en\/experiences-and-insights-into-the-development-of-an-it-infrastructure-for-learning-and-teaching-in-the-university-alliance-unite\/","title":{"rendered":"Experiences and insights into the development of an IT infrastructure for learning and teaching in the university alliance “Unite!”"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]The university alliance Unite! has been promoting student mobility through the development of various IT platforms since 2019. A comprehensive review by Martin Ebner and Sandra Sch\u00f6n (both from Graz University of Technology) offers exciting insights into the current challenges of setting up a shared IT infrastructure for learning and teaching – and also provides cross-cutting insights and solutions. <\/strong>[\/vc_column_text]

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About the university alliance Unite! and the “Digital Campus” work package<\/h2>\n <\/div>[vc_column_text css=””]More than 60 university alliances currently exist in the European Union, and they all share the goal of promoting student mobility and intensifying joint teaching and research activities. One of these alliances is <\/span>Unite!<\/b>which includes the following universities: Darmstadt University of Technology (Germany, management), Aalto University (Finland), KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden), Politecnico di Torino (Italy), Universidade de Lisboa (Portugal), Universitat Polit\u00e8cnica de Catalunya (Spain), Grenoble INP – Institut Polytechnique de Grenoble (France), Graz University of Technology (Austria) and Politechnika Wroc\u0142awska (Poland).<\/span><\/p>\n

In November 2022, Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) took over the management of the “Digital Campus” work package as part of the second Erasmus+ funding for alliances (11\/22-10\/26). In this context, we would like to report on the developments, results and experiences to date. <\/span><\/p>\n

The <\/span>Unite!<\/b><\/a>-Alliance was launched in 2019 with seven founding members. Key IT platforms were created and put into operation during the first Erasmus+ funding period, including a cloud system<\/strong> for internal data exchange, a website<\/strong> and a basic installation of the Moodle learning management system<\/strong>. Since the beginning of 2023, all members of the nine partner universities have had access to the joint course offerings via the “federated” learning management system Moodle called “Metacampus” without additional registration thanks to EduGAIN. <\/span>[\/vc_column_text]

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How do you get an overview of the IT infrastructure for learning and teaching within an alliance?<\/h2>\n <\/div>[\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_column_text css=””]In view of the two new partners, the work plan provided for a comprehensive inventory of the IT infrastructure. As part of a requirements analysis, the existing IT infrastructures for learning and teaching of the alliance and all partners were to be presented in detail, including the progress of the implementation of the European Student Card<\/a><\/strong>. <\/span><\/p>\n

This analysis took 15 months, during which various methods and approaches were combined. A crucial point was to obtain visualizations and detailed descriptions from all partners in order to be able to quickly draw conclusions about special features of the individual partners or possible problem areas or additional challenges in future developments. This proved to be particularly important, as there is practically no university where a single person can provide comprehensive information about the entire IT infrastructure. For many of the partners, this project was also a first attempt to systematically document their own infrastructure. <\/span>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_single_image image=”24659″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”custom_link” css=”” link=”https:\/\/repository.tugraz.at\/records\/36yen-0wy21″][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]The requirements analysis<\/a><\/strong> was published in January 2024 (see Figure 1). We drew in part on existing publications on the IT infrastructures of other alliances that we found helpful (e.g. Lagoudakis et al., 2023), and hope that our work will also be useful – for contributions such as that of Berger, Galati & Witteler (2023). <\/span><\/p>\n

How we methodically arrived at the standardized visual representations was presented at the 2024 EUNIS conference (Ebner et al., 2024b). The process involved interviews with all partner universities, followed by the presentation and discussion of initial drafts in several iterations. Feedback was incorporated in these iterations until a presentation method was found that was suitable for all partner universities. <\/span><\/p>\n

One particular challenge was that there were no predefined questions for the representations (e.g. “Which partner has an OER repository?” or “How is authentication carried out?”). Instead, we had to develop a generic and at the same time flexible representation that would do justice to the diverse IT infrastructures and potential use of the representations. <\/span><\/p>\n

The IT infrastructure for learning and teaching at TU Graz is presented below. The full report contains corresponding descriptions of the systems as well as a student perspective on the systems for each partner university (see Figure 2). <\/span>[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”24663″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” css=””]

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Differences and similarities in the IT infrastructure for learning and teaching<\/h2>\n <\/div>[vc_column_text css=””]Although the path to these overviews and descriptions was time-consuming, it is considered a success: many partner universities have produced detailed descriptions of their IT infrastructure for the first time, which were perceived as helpful and required the involvement of several people and working groups. And the exchange of information about the descriptions and the joint discussion helped to gain a better understanding of where similarities and special features actually lie: It became so clear that there are partner universities that do not have a centralized IT infrastructure for learning and teaching, while others have a clear open source orientation. Some partners are located in countries with national student directories, while other institutions prefer to purchase software and services externally as required, rather than hosting everything themselves. <\/strong> Although not all details have always been fully recorded, it is now much easier to create tabular overviews, such as an overview of the learning management systems used in the alliance (see Table 1).<\/span>[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”20px”][vc_column_text css=””]<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\nMain LMS<\/b><\/td>\nOpen source<\/b><\/td>\nSecondary LMS<\/b><\/td>\nLTI interface<\/b><\/td>\nMOOC platform<\/b><\/td>\nEduGAIN<\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
TU Graz<\/b><\/td>\nMoodle<\/span><\/td>\nYES<\/span><\/td>\n–<\/span><\/td>\nYES<\/span><\/td>\nMoodle<\/span><\/td>\nYES<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
ULisboa<\/b><\/td>\nFenix Platform<\/span><\/td>\nYES<\/span><\/td>\nMoodle,<\/span>
\n<\/span>Open edX<\/span><\/td>\n		NO <\/span>
\n<\/span>(Moodle: YES)<\/span><\/td>\n		Open edX<\/span><\/td>\nYES<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
UPC<\/b><\/td>\nMoodle<\/span><\/td>\nYES<\/span><\/td>\n–<\/span><\/td>\nYES<\/span><\/td>\n–<\/span><\/td>\nYES<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PoliTO<\/b><\/td>\nDIDATTICA<\/span><\/td>\nYES<\/span><\/td>\nMoodle<\/span><\/td>\nYES<\/span><\/td>\nOpen edX<\/span><\/td>\nYES<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
UGA-INP<\/b><\/td>\nMoodle<\/span><\/td>\nYES<\/span><\/td>\nChamilo<\/span><\/td>\nYES<\/span><\/td>\n–<\/span><\/td>\nYES<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
TUDa<\/b><\/td>\nMoodle<\/span><\/td>\nYES<\/span><\/td>\n–<\/span><\/td>\nYES<\/span><\/td>\n–<\/span><\/td>\nYES<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Wroclaw Tech<\/b><\/td>\nMoodle<\/span><\/td>\nYES<\/span><\/td>\n–<\/span><\/td>\nYES<\/span><\/td>\n–<\/span><\/td>\nYES<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
KTH<\/b><\/td>\nCanvas<\/span><\/td>\nNO<\/span><\/td>\n–<\/span><\/td>\nYES<\/span><\/td>\nOpen edX<\/span><\/td>\nYES<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Aalto<\/b><\/td>\nMoodle<\/span><\/td>\nYES<\/span><\/td>\n–<\/span><\/td>\nYES<\/span><\/td>\nMoodle<\/span><\/td>\nYES<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Table 1:<\/strong> Learning management systems in use at the university partners of the university alliance “Unite!”. Source: Ebner et al., 2024, Table 16, p. 100.<\/span>[\/vc_column_text]

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Changes and the introduction of a technical commission<\/h2>\n <\/div>[vc_column_text css=””]In 2023, another platform was also added to the Allianz-owned platforms: Allianz Unite! was offered another platform (called Agora<\/strong>, based on the business management system Odoo) for use, as some of the partner universities are project partners in the EU project aUPaEU. The tool’s capabilities are currently being used primarily as a content management system<\/strong>. <\/span><\/p>\n

In order to keep these and other requirements and developments in view and within the decision-making scope of all partners, a process and a so-called “Technical Commission” were introduced in mid-2023. In the meantime, all inquiries are recorded centrally; for all questions that cannot be solved directly by the support team or require major technical intervention, these questions are discussed by a specially created committee, the so-called “Technical Commission”, and jointly decided by consensus<\/strong>. The committee, which is made up of representatives from all partner universities, is primarily concerned with technical (and financial) feasibility and passes on decisions that have further implications to the alliance management. One such request is, for example, the admission of external users to the federated learning management system. <\/span>[\/vc_column_text]

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Requirements from the perspective of the “Digital Campus” work package <\/h2>\n <\/div>[vc_column_text css=””]The aim of the report presented here was to formulate requirements in order to structure and support the group’s further work. It turned out that these were essentially typical IT requirements that were defined (Ebner et al., p. 109 ff): <\/span><\/p>\n