AtlasPro Learning Management System

1
AtlasPro Learning Management System

• Managing a Government Off The Shelf (GOTS)
  software program

This document is confidential and is intended
solely for the use and information of the client
to whom it is addressed.
2
How do you manage a GOTS software program to get
the best results for all clients?
Problem Statement

• AtlasPro is a Learning Management System that has
  been developed for the government by Booz Allen
  Hamilton
• It is a Government Off The Shelf (GOTS) product
• There are multiple government clients or users of
  the system

Lets make this interactive! We solicit your
questions and ideas.
3
During this session we will discuss

• Problem statement for Managing a Government Off
  The Shelf (GOTS) software program
• Software management techniques that we are using
  to manage our program
• The Agile Software Management ProcessThe way I
  do it
• AtlasPro Users group
• Results that the program has seen over the last
  six months
• Questions that I have for youand you have for me

4
Here are my questions to you

• Is anyone using Agile? How have you implemented?
• Does anyone have experience with open source
  projects? Your thoughts?
• Is there any interest in the AtlasPro users
  group?
• Can I answer any of your questions?

5
The Agile process assumes the best people, proven
processes, and the right technology are used to
ensure quality
Agile Process

• People
• The right people with strategy and technology
  skills
• The right experience with recent tasking
  involving SCORM and ADL
• Process
• Agile Planning and Management Process
• Communications is the key to success
• Technology
• The technology must fit the task at hand

6
Agile planning guides delivery and helps
eliminate waste
Agile Process

• Features
• The Agile Planning Process
• Client strategy is captured and reflected in the
  program management plan
• Release schedule is set by the Work Breakdown
  Structure (WBS)
• Iterations plan work and review in two-week
  increments
• Daily 15 minute stand-up to review work

• Benefits
• Agile ensures close collaboration between client
  and developer
• Immediately communicates status across the
  government/contractor team
• Eliminates surprises
• Improves productivity right the first time
• Very responsive to clients needs

The Agile Process reduces risk by increasing
communication
7
The user story is the basis of Agile Planning
Agile Process
8
Agile processes can be implemented easily and
quickly User stories and iterations for a task
Agile Process
9
Agile processes can be implemented easily and
quickly The product backlog shows remaining work
Agile Process
10
Agile processes can be implemented easily and
quickly Each team member is given specific
tasks for an iteration
Agile Process
11
Agile processes can be implemented easily and
quickly Management approach charts daily
progress
Agile Process
12
What the AtlasPro Users Group is and is not.
Users Group

• The Users Group is
• Information sharing
• Examine new requirements for each client
• Demo new products and services to all clients
• Booz Allen will brief the group on investment
  work (adding functionality) to support proposal
• Booz Allen will brief the group on marketing and
  proposal work regarding AtlasPro

• The Users Group is not
• Not an approving body
• Not a maintenance vehicle
• Not a CCB

13
Tasks taken on by the AtlasPro User Group
Users Group

• Quarterly Meetings
• Review new functionality requirements for all
  clients
• Perform demonstrations of newly added
  functionality
• Create implementation schedule(s)
• Establishment of any cost sharing if two or more
  users desire the same or similar requirements

14
User Group Membership Requirements
Users Group

• Membership is available for any organization
  using or evaluating AtlasPro (or is otherwise
  interested)
• Members will not be required to pay for inclusion
  into the group

15
AtlasPro User Group Organization is administered
by Booz Allen and the members
Users Group

• The administration and operation of the group
  will be managed by Booz Allen
• Booz Allen staff will
• Prepare Agenda
• Provide demonstration environments
• Perform demonstrations as required
• Provide cost, schedules, and technical briefings
  on any new requirements
• Provide risks and mitigation plans (if required)
• Government users will provide briefs on any new
  requirements
• Government users will provide any information on
  systems to be integrated into AtlasPro
• Third party members may be called upon to brief
  their systems and potential integration into
  AtlasPro (e.g. COTS products)

16
Atlas Users all help improve the learning
environment
Users Group

• Army Training Support Center (ATSC)ATIA
  interface
• Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC)Certification
  using Curriculums
• Booz Allen TEPSLearning Object Repository
• Defense Acquisition University (DAU)Certification
  and continuous learning
• Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA)On Windows
  using IIS web server
• Future Combat Systems (FCS)Atlas Mobile
• Joint Knowledge Development and Distribution
  Capability (JKDDC)NIPR, SIPR and Internet
• Singidumum UniversityAtlas in Serbian
• Transcom (Trac2es)user guide

17
In the last quarter we have completed
Results

• Second generation ATRRS interface (JKDDC)
• New DAU Branding (DAU)
• Blackboard Integration (DAU)
• AtlasPro Mobile with Scorm 2004 courses (FCS)
• Scorm 2004 (DMDC)
• DKO (AKO) Single Sign On (JKDDC)
• CAC Login at a load balanced (with SSL
  acceleration) environment
• SIPRNET implementation (JKDDC)

18
Completed New Functionality
Results

• Quick enrollment (JKDDC)
• User Interface Translation ( Singidumum
  University) and Unicode support
• Timed tests (Singidumum University)
• Scheduler Upgrade Quartz Scheduler
• Atlas Properties (configuration files)
  refactoring
• AtlasPro Architecture extended to user new
  frameworks (ie. Spring and iBatis)

19
Second Generation ATRRS Interface
Results

• Web service based registration and status update
  interfaces using the new ATRRS services
• AtlasPro has tools to monitor the ATRRS
  transactions during the whole web service
  interaction

20
New DAU Branding
Results

• The DAU branding changes have been completed
• The LMS is conformant to the approved DAU styles
  and DAU portals.
• Currently new menus and desktops are being
  designed. Booz Allens usability engineering
  group will review some of the high traffic areas
  in the application and come up with
  recommendations.

21
Real time interfaces to Blackboard
Transparent Sign On to Blackboard
22
AtlasMobile
Results

• AtlasMobile is an offline LMS, which could play
  and synchronize student data with the AtlasPro
  enterprise.
• Has 2 components
• MobileCommunicator
• MobileOffline
• Currently supports both Scorm 1.2 and 2004
  content
• Runs on both Linux and Windows operating systems
• Configurable work with any AtlasPro enterprise
  installation.
• The screenshots that demonstrate end to end
  capability of AtlasPro Mobile can be seen in
  Appendix A

23
Scorm 2004 V3
Results

• Status
• Scorm2004 V3 courses can be uploaded to AtlasPro
  (If you want to use this capability, please
  contact AtlasPro team a new course type (Scorm
  2004 V3) needs to be added to the course_type
  reference table. )
• ADL self-test suite is being used to test the
  Scorm2004 V3 engine
• Whats next
• Once the self-testing is completed, AtlasPro will
  be submitted to ADL Wisconsin for official
  testing (August 2007)

24
Defense Knowledge Online (DKO) Single Sign On
(SSO)
Results

• User access DKO Portal. User is challenged for
  his credentials and presents them to the DKO
  SiteMinder Web Agent.
• User credentials are passed to the DKO SiteMinder
  Policy Server.
• The Policy Server authenticates the user against
  the DKO Sun One LDAP Directory.
• Policy Server evaluates users entitlements,
  grants access to the user and sends an encrypted
  session cookie back to the Web Agent.
• The Web Agent sets the cookie in the users
  browser, along with custom user attribute
  information needed for AtlasPro.

• User access AtlasPro LMS through the DKO Portal.
  The session cookie, along with custom user
  attribute information is transmitted to the
  AtlasPro SiteMinder Web Agent.
• The AtlasPro SiteMinder Web Agent forwards the
  session cookie to the Policy Server to ensure the
  user is already authenticated and entitled user
  access to AtlasPro.
• User is granted access to AtlasPro.

25
User Interface Translation
Results
26
CAC Login with SSL acceleration
Results

• Problem SSL accelerators do not support PKI
• Solution SSL accelerator software is fixed to
  pass the SSL session from the accelerator
  hardware to the application servers
• Status
• AtlasPro team worked very closely with DAU
  Network Security and Operations Center (NSOC) and
  F5 to resolve the problem
• Problem solved, tested on one single server
• Whats next
• DAU NSOC requested a port for another server to
  be opened
• Load balanced CAC with SSL acceleration will be
  tested once the servers port is opened by the
  Army

27
NIPRNET and SIPRNET Implementations
Results

• At JKDDC, AtlasPro is currently operational on
  NIPRNET and SIPRNET. All required authority to
  operate (ATO) documentation has been completed

28
Atlas in Serbian using Cyrillic Alphabet
Results
29
Timed Tests
Results

• AtlasPro test engine has now the capability to
  set a time limit for a test.
• Once the time is up for a test attempt, AtlasPro
  automatically submits the learners test.

30
Quartz Scheduler
Results

• What is a scheduler The AtlasPro component that
  initiates and runs scheduled events like
  deregistering learners, 5-10-15-30 day emails,
  data feeds to external systems, etc.
• Old scheduler was a Unix cron job running on one
  server on each server farm. The downside of this
  program was implementation for each operating
  system was slightly different and Atlas team had
  less control on the operations of the jobs.
• New scheduler AtlasPro team implemented a Quartz
  based scheduler.
• What is Quartz Quartz is a full-featured, open
  source job scheduling system that can be
  integrated with, or used along side virtually any
  J2EE or J2SE application - from the smallest
  stand-alone application to the largest e-commerce
  system. Quartz can be used to create simple or
  complex schedules for executing tens, hundreds,
  or even tens-of-thousands of jobs jobs whose
  tasks are defined as standard Java components or
  EJBs. The Quartz Scheduler includes many
  enterprise-class features, such as JTA
  transactions and clustering. Quartz is freely
  usable, licensed under the Apache 2.0 license.

31
Future Advancements

• Usability Upgrades (This upgrade has started and
  will continue as we work on different AtlasPro
  modules. The known problem desktops are first.)
• Human-Compute Interaction (HCI) based User
  Interface (UI)
• Face Lift Menus, Desktop usability upgrades
• Web 2.0 technology infusion
• Scorm 2004 V3 Certification (Projected complete
  August 30. We will then submit to Co-Lab.)
• ADL-R interface implementation (Projected
  complete August 30)
• AtlasMobile on Linux workstations (Projected
  complete August 30)
• ROCCE Project AtlasPro content authoring
  component ( Implementation within Atlas and
  standalone) (6.5 months from start. Project
  start on August . IOC after 4.5 months.)

32
Future Advancements

• DSpace Project AtlasPro Learning Object
  Repository (LOR) implementation (no projected
  date)
• DoD Password implementation (no projected date)
• Training Management System (Facilities, resource
  management) (no projected date)
• Calendar (Class, learner, instructor, etc) (no
  projected date)
• ATIA interoperability (Projected September 30)
• Continued technology infusion ( ie AJAX, REST,
  JSON, Google Web Toolkit, Open Flex,
  scriptaculous, ) (continuous update)

33
Here are my questions to you

• Is anyone using Agile? How have you implemented?
• Does anyone have experience with open source
  projects? Your thoughts?
• Is there any interest in the AtlasPro users
  group?
• Can I answer any of your questions?

34
If you wish to contact us

• Bob Faulk
• Defense Acquisition University
• [phone]
• bob.faulk_at_dau.mil

• Bill Hall
• Booz Allen Hamilton
• [phone]
• hall_william_at_bah.com