Spark Web 2'0 Tools for Communication and Collaboration

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David Grogan Manager, Curricular Technology
Group UIT Academic Technology Tufts University
Spark Web 2.0 Tools for Communication and
Collaboration

• What is Spark?
• What do we hope it will be?
• How is it used?
• Whats under the hood?
• Whats next?
• Questions

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What is Spark?
Spark Web 2.0 Tools for Communication and
Collaboration

• An extensible suite of highly flexible, web-based
  tools for communication and collaboration that
  support teaching, learning, research, and other
  co-curricular activities.
• A little history APT Grants

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What is Spark?
Spark Web 2.0 Tools for Communication and
Collaboration

• Freely available to entire community.
• Tool set currently includes
• Wikis (Confluence)
• Blogs (MovableType)
• Podcast Publisher (homegrown)
• Forums (JForum)
• Maps (Google Maps/homegrown)
• Media Annotator (homegrown)
• SparkMeetings (Adobe Connect Pilot)

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What is Spark?
Spark Web 2.0 Tools for Communication and
Collaboration

• Launched in August 2006.
• Continues to grow in features and use.
• Won a Campus Technology Innovators Award in 2007.
• Core project team includes
• Project manager
• Lead developer
• Interactive media designer
• All sharing support roles

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What is Spark?
Spark Web 2.0 Tools for Communication and
Collaboration

• Baseline features of the commercial/opensource
  products we use
• Must allow for LDAP integration.
• Must allow for customization of interface.
• Must have robust API.
• Must have access to source code and database.

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What is Spark?
Spark Web 2.0 Tools for Communication and
Collaboration

• Common features across tools as implemented in
  Spark
• Single sign on using Tufts LDAP directory.
• Easy one-click creation of new items.
• Tufts directory integrated for setting individual
  permissions.
• World, Tufts-wide, and private permissioning.
• Tagging

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What is Spark?
Spark Web 2.0 Tools for Communication and
Collaboration
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What do we hope Spark will be?
Spark Web 2.0 Tools for Communication and
Collaboration

• A Tufts-based localized network of people and
  ideas.
• (getting there slowly)

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How is Spark being used?
Spark Web 2.0 Tools for Communication and
Collaboration
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How is Spark being used?
Spark Web 2.0 Tools for Communication and
Collaboration

• Some Interesting Recent Use Cases
• Wikis Workflow and social networking for citizen
  scholars.
• Blogs Anthropology of Media
• MediaMarkup Feedback on patient examinations.
• SparkMaps Mapping Tufts conservation medicine
  projects.
• Podcasts Podcasting biology lectures.

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What is under the hood?
Spark Web 2.0 Tools for Communication and
Collaboration

• Evolution of our systems infrastructure
• Started small, using VMWare for 3 dev systems and
  3 prod systems (wikis, blogs, spark)
• Expanded incrementally, adding dev and prod VMs
  for new services as needed
• Using central resources whenever viable (network
  storage, authentication)

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What is under the hood?
Spark Web 2.0 Tools for Communication and
Collaboration

• Virtualization is one of our keys to staying
  agile, keeping costs low, and maximizing
  scalability within our constraints.

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What is under the hood?
Spark Web 2.0 Tools for Communication and
Collaboration

• Next generation infrastructure
• Greater utilization of central resources
• Better support for dev-test-staging-production
  workflow and automation
• Explore opportunities for improvements in
  performance, load balancing, availability, change
  management using advanced VMWare functionality

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What is under the hood?
Spark Web 2.0 Tools for Communication and
Collaboration

• Typical Tool Development Effort
• 5 Pages, 3500 Lines of Code

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What is under the hood?
Spark Web 2.0 Tools for Communication and
Collaboration

• Development Approach
• 1.5 Programmers, Designer, Manager, Sys. Admin
  Support.
• 2 Calendar Months
• JSP, Tomcat, MySQL, YUI, JIRA, SVN, etc.
• Secret release

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What is under the hood?
Spark Web 2.0 Tools for Communication and
Collaboration

• Development Challenge Always Something New!
• MediaMarkup uses Adobe Flex
• SparkMaps uses Google Map API.
• Always incorporating JavaScript libraries.
• Drag and drop, Ajax tables, etc.
• Impacts Schedule, Plan, Design, Staff

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What is under the hood?
Spark Web 2.0 Tools for Communication and
Collaboration

• Future Directions
• Ajax is good
• For the user and the code.
• Focus on reducing LOC for tools.
• Shared Java database layer.
• Shared JSP files.
• Stick with existing technology suite.
• Automated testing?

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Whats difficult?
Spark Web 2.0 Tools for Communication and
Collaboration

• Supporting people beyond the basics.
• Finding ways to market the site to students.
• Competition from freely available 3rd party sites
  (e.g. Google, Wordpress etc.)

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Whats Next for Spark?
Spark Web 2.0 Tools for Communication and
Collaboration

• A new user interface.
• Bring activity to the front.
• Start connecting people and content.
• Better communication and outreach.

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Whats Next for Spark?
Spark Web 2.0 Tools for Communication and
Collaboration
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Any Questions?
Spark Web 2.0 Tools for Communication and
Collaboration

• Contact David Grogan (david.grogan_at_tufts.edu)
• Some of my own
• What are you doing with these tools?
• How have you been successful in marketing tools
  to your students?
• How have you been successful in scaling support?