ANU launches myANU, the staff and student portal

The Australian National University has launched myANU, the staff and student portal, based on uPortal 3.2.4 from Jasig.

https://my.anu.edu.au

Complementing this launch, ANU are also releasing the ANU Secure Login service, based on the Central Authentication Service (CAS) 3.4.10, also from Jasig.

I have been the architect, evangelist and lead developer on both of these projects since late 2009. As anyone in the University community knows, the wheels turn slowly, however it is a fantastic day to have both of these projects finally out the door!

Congratulations also to my development team, David Clarke and Osama Alkadi and previous developers Denny and Jiang Chao as well as the testers and BA’s involved. And not forgetting all of those people in the community I have bugged on email and IM!

myANU, together with CAS, will pave the way for a truly integrated online experience for staff and students of the Australian National University, well into the future.

More posts to follow about what services we are offering through the portal. Stay tuned!

Basic LTI Portlet 1.3.0 released

I am very pleased to announce that the Basic LTI Portlet has had an update and is released as version 1.3.0.

This is a portlet that implements the IMS Basic Learning Tools Interoperability specification and allows you to render any Basic LTI enabled application inside uPortal (or any other JSR-168 compliant portlet container). Possibilities include Sakai tools, Peoplesoft components, tools from other LMS’s, collaboration and learning tools, blogs, forums, wikis, the list is endless.

This release includes additional adapters for connecting to Noteflight and Chemvantage, an improved Basic LTI launch when using uPortal, as well as some other minor UI improvements.

This portlet is running in production in the Australia National University‘s portal, my.anu.edu.au, based on uPortal 3.2.4.

For downloads, configuration, screenshots and all other information, head to the Jasig wiki:
https://wiki.jasig.org/display/PLT/Basic+LTI+Portlet

Sakai connector portlet 1.4.0 released

I am very pleased to announce that the Sakai connector portlet has had an update and is released as version 1.4.0.

This portlet allows you to render tools from your Sakai environment inside uPortal. It is completely configurable, and each user can choose a tool from any of their Sakai sites to display in the portal. It uses a combination of web services and and implementation of the IMS Basic Learning Tools Interoperability specification to connect you to Sakai from within uPortal.

This release includes an improved Basic LTI launch, as well as an improved editing UI for when multiple connector portlets are on screen at once.

This portlet is running in production in the Australia National University‘s portal, my.anu.edu.au, based on uPortal 3.2.4.

For downloads, configuration, screenshots and all other information, head to the Jasig wiki:
https://wiki.jasig.org/display/PLT/Sakai+connector+portlet

Simple RSS portlet 1.1.0 released

I am very pleased to announce that the Simple RSS portlet has had an update and is released as version 1.1.0.

This portlet simply renders RSS/Atom feeds, but can support a wide range of media and configurations.

This release includes support for media attached to an RSS feed, the ability to lock individual preferences by an administrator and an improved UI for reading the feeds.

This portlet is running in production in the Australia National University‘s portal, my.anu.edu.au, based on uPortal 3.2.4.

For downloads, configuration, screenshots and all other information, head to the Jasig wiki:
https://wiki.jasig.org/display/PLT/Simple+RSS+Portlet

Screenshots:

Profile2 1.4.6 released

Profile2 1.4.6 has been released.

This is a minor feature release for the 1.4 series adding the ability to disable certain aspects of the profile depending on institutional requirements. It also adds the ability to set a user’s profile image based on their user type. This allows for better multi tenancy support – just give a user a different user type and then they can get a default image for that institution.

The notes for this release are available on Jira:
https://jira.sakaiproject.org/browse/PRFL/fixforversion/12590

As always, everything is configurable, so check the settings:
https://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/PROFILE/Profile2

Upgrading is as simple as bumping the version in master/pom.xml and rebuilding (then removing the old jars from shared/lib). If you are upgrading from a release prior to 1.4.5 you will need to check for any required database conversions:
https://source.sakaiproject.org/svn/profile2/tags/profile2-1.4.6/docs/

Happy networking!

Roster2 1.0.0 release

The brilliant folks at Lancaster University have re-written the Sakai CLE Roster as a Javascript/HTML application (using trimpath) and it has now been released as 1.0.0.

Roster2 has the same feature set, permissions and UI as Roster classique, but with a much improved integration with Profile2.

There are also a number of settings you can use to configure it.

Available as a binary (indie release) and as a source tag.

https://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/RSTR/Roster2