Virtual Campus Hub

Frank VercoulenEducation and Student Service CenterEindhoven University of Technology (TU/e)

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Virtual Campus Hub − Participants

Institute Acronym Leading staff

Technical University of Denmark DTU Søren SalomoMerete Badger

Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden KTH Torsten Fransson

Politecnico di Torino, Italy Polito Laura FarinettiFulvio Corno

Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands TU/e Frank Vercoulen

Context: Cross-border collaboration in education, research and innovation

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Examples in the energy field: • KIC InnoEnergy, a virtual organization of universities and SMEs• SEEIT: Strategic partnership for sustainable energy• Explore Energy: Gateway for life-long learning

Context: Cross-border joint programs

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Example is Select MSc:• Network with many partners,

incl. industry• Students change location in Y2• Integrated project: Student

groups with members from all locations

• Optional courses at other locations through distance learning

Other example: Post educational course on wind energy (WAsP) by DTU.

Problem

Universities have an increasing number of and increasingly diverse relations with the outside world, but ICT is still inward looking Barriers for access, collaboration and data exchange across

institutions and companies Everybody has plenty of tools available, but using them across an

institution’s border is cumbersome Labour-intensive workarounds offer far from perfect solutions

Change in ICT strategy needed: From outsiders as ”aliens” toward varying levels of access, depending on what you know about someone.

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Virtual Campus Hub − Objectives

Why? To boost integration of research, innovation and education in sustainable energy.

How?Through delivery of a working concept for a Virtual Campus Hub ready to be implemented at partner universities, research organizations with links to industries, businesses, and innovation parks.

Virtual Campus Hub − Components

1. A technological concept for the virtual campus hub2. A pilot platform to demonstrate how a virtual campus

hub might work in practice3. A set of documented best practices4. An inventory of staff competence and experience in

supporting international collaboration with ICT

What does a Virtual Campus Hub consist of?

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Virtual Campus Hub:• Functionalities• Infrastructure• Presentation in portal

VCH functionalities: Collaboration environment and conference room

Collaboration environment / conference room (TU/e)• Meeting room (videoconference / desktop conference)• Sharing and storing files• Presence info: who can be contacted?• Calendaring: when can meetings be planned?• (Organization of support)

Infrastructure challenges in cross border collaboration:• Access collaboration applications of each other (e.g. Sharepoint, Lync)• Enable external group management across borders• Exchange presence info from different sources (Adobe Connect, MS

Lync, Facebook, etc.)• Exchange calendar info

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Conference room processes and functionality

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Process Functionality SubfunctionOrganization and planning Calendar

AnnouncementRegistration

Video lecture or conference Video LivestreamOn‐demand streamDownload file

Desktop sharingInteractivity Voice

Chat / messagingMaximum number of usersPresenter in control

Attendee requirements ClientAccountSmartphone access

Attendee invitation functionAfter the lecture or conference

Upload lectures / presentations

Upload other course materialsAccess lectures / presentationsAccess other course materialsGeneral discussionCollaborate on assignments Not in realtime

In realtime

VCH functionalities: Access to learning materialsAccess to learning materials (KTH, DTU)• Interactive learning materials• Exercises

Infrastructure challenges• Access to learning management systems of each other• ID-mapping needed when LMS is integrated with administrative

systems• (possibly) Enable external group management• For participation in post educational courses and for coaching in

regular courses by people from industry, access for company employees is needed

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The remote laboratory is operated and monitored on-distance for real-timeexperiments and collection of measurement data.

The exercise is combined with on-line self-assessments and pre-tests, all100% automatically corrected.

No need for teachers to provide supervision or correction of exercises.

Experimental Setup

NetworkCamera

Exp. ControlWeb Server

WWW

Remote laboratory (KTH)

Control and monitoring of the

experiment

Examination Tools (KTH)

On-line examination tools for 100% automatic correction throughLMS (KTH Bilda)

Post educational course on wind energy (DTU)

Course materials and interaction through LMS (It’s Learning from external SP)

VCH functionalities: Virtual coffee house

Virtual coffee house (TU/e, KTH)• Online meeting environment / social network for distributed

population (cf. Select MSc program)• Members want to use their “work account”, not their “private

account”

Infrastructure challenges:• Enable federated authentication for social networks (cf. Google Apps

pilot by Surfnet)

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Virtual coffee house for Select MSc

Example of experiment with virtual coffee house for Select MSc

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VCH functionalities: Exchange of program data

Exchange of program data (TU/e)• Course information• Scheduling information• Grades• News

Infrastructure challenges• Design of an exchange and routing mechanism• ID-mapping for non-public data• Define exchange standards (functional and technical, e.g IMS)

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VCH functionalities: Virtual incubator

Virtual incubator (PoliTo)• Enable close contacts between universities and industry• Stimulate entrepreneurship and “matching”

Infrastructure challenges• Involve industry in research and education activities• Access for people in industry to VCH is needed

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Virtual Campus Hub Infrastructure

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Virtual Campus Hub Infrastructure:• Federated authentication• Group management• ID-mapping• Exchange of presence and

calendaring info• Exchange of program data

VCH Presentation: Coherent view in portal with reusable components

Portal• Services from partners and external SPs must be presented as a coherent

whole to the end user• Partners often involved in different partnerships, so components must also

be used in other partnership portals and/or be embedded in the own home portal

Presentation layer challenges• Setup portal based on general standard (in this case OpenSocial)• Services presented through (reusable) gadgets (cf. Surfconext portal)

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Challenges

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• Enable federated authentication across borders• Enable value-added services (VAS) across borders

Group management ID-mapping Exchange of presence and calendaring info

• Provide identities across borders via NRENs (IdP)• Connect applications to the national hub (SP)• Enable applications for relevant VAS• Develop (simple) reusable gadgets for own VCH

applications

• Setup demo portal and incorporate (reusable) gadgets developed

• Design of a exchange mechanism for program data (e.g. course information, student results)

Géant infrastructure:EduGain, SurfFederatie, WAYF, Swamid, IDEM

Local institutions or companies:DTU, KTH, PoliTo, TU/e

TU/e (but others may setup own portals as well)

Local institutions with Géant as hub?

Enabling cross border collaboration

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Possible architectures to realize cross border connections for VCH through NREN federations and eduGAIN

Crossing institutional borders with data exchange (3TU experiment

Student UTTeacher UT

DLWO GUI

DLWO ESB

Local systems

Student TU/eTeacher TU/e

DLWO GUI

DLWO ESB

Local systems

Student TUDTeacher TUD

DLWO GUI

DLWO ESB

Local systems

DLWO UT DLWO TUD

DLWO TU/e

3TU Exchange

Federative 3TU concept

3TU experiment

• Pilot with exchange of course information• Local systems seen as “black box”• Communication between TUs based on standards• Scaling up via router / hub function

Demo