1. ICON homepage
replacement
Thursday, February 19, 2009
2. Original idea
• customer requests for improved widgets
• more control over placement (movable
widgets)
Thursday, February 19, 2009
3. First try
• Got pulled into discussion of:
• ITC homepage redesign
• portfolio project
• DIY project
Thursday, February 19, 2009
4. Portal frameworks
• Investigation reveals: they all kind of suck
• uPortal-based portfolio also kind of sucks
Thursday, February 19, 2009
5. going their own way
• portfolio, DIY are both lovely projects by
themselves, with their own scope
Thursday, February 19, 2009
6. Second Try
• ICON-specific
• widget oriented
Thursday, February 19, 2009
7. goals
• look & feel similar to current homepage
• incremental change, not revolution
• basically the current homepage with a few
improvements
Thursday, February 19, 2009
8. tech background
• liked the iGoogle method of widget
production
• Google released OpenSocial spec, Shindig
widget engine
Thursday, February 19, 2009
9. did it!
• Xin and Uttam produced a working site with
iGoogle-style widgets
• D2L login/logout integration
• release conditions & private widgets based
on directory attributes from MetaPeople
• widget management interface
• flexible announcement / alert system
Thursday, February 19, 2009
10. but we’re not going to
show it to you
Thursday, February 19, 2009
11. wrong metaphor
• slightly-improved D2L homepage concept
was the wrong target
• tying for D2Lish homepage interface did not
address a newly-important sub-goal
Thursday, February 19, 2009
12. putting D2L at arm’s
length
• was a sub-rosa motivation, originally
• is now arguably the most important goal
Thursday, February 19, 2009
13. limitations of D2L-ish
homepage
• would have been juuuust a bit confusing for
all 50k users
• small interface benefit with big engineering /
ops costs
• weak branding
Thursday, February 19, 2009
14. Third try
• “best ICON possible” rather than “slightly
better D2L”
• use strong ICON branding
• use Ken’s work on the login/docs site
Thursday, February 19, 2009
15. ICON application
• login/docs site is no longer a jumping point
into D2L
• instead it is ICON itself
• logging in keeps you at the same site, just the
logged-in view instead of the anonymous
view
Thursday, February 19, 2009
16. ICON means?
• Iowa Courses Online
• entry point into all ITS services that revolve
around courses
Thursday, February 19, 2009
17. Course-focused
• “courses I’m taking” screen
• each course has a collection of tools
Thursday, February 19, 2009
18. D2L is just one tool
• D2L site is the most prominent tool, and
always pre-provisioned
• but it is just one tool!
• fits a “private site” spot in the tool
ecosystem
Thursday, February 19, 2009
19. Other tools?
• Wikis
• Blogs
• Elluminate! sessions
• static sites (like divms)
• external sites (publishers, WebAssign?)
• Media collections (SUMIT?)
• stuff we haven’t thought of yet
Thursday, February 19, 2009
20. prepare to wean
• users are trained to think of D2L as just one
of the available tools
• less jarring if D2L is phased out
Thursday, February 19, 2009
21. verrry simple
• small feature set
• brutally simplified interface
• let us not confuse 50,000 users pls!!
Thursday, February 19, 2009
22. “courses I’m taking”
• list of courses for this semester, each with
one or more associated tools
• ‘recent updates’ list
• MAYBE email/calendar stuff as well
Thursday, February 19, 2009
23. “courses I’m teaching”
• adds a provision/deprovision workflow
• D2L site is pre-provisioned
Thursday, February 19, 2009
24. “courses I’m adminning”
• ??? undefined for now
• depends on API, MAUI, blahblahblah
Thursday, February 19, 2009
25. site admin stuff
• impersonation (incl. for help desk)
• editing interface for the online help pages?
Thursday, February 19, 2009
26. conserving work from
phase 2
• login/logout with D2L
• data sourcing work (news, updates, etc. from
D2L)
• SSO stuff
• hardware shuffling
• directory/MetaPeople integration
Thursday, February 19, 2009
27. Prereqs
• Web SSO improvements
• rich ecosystem of course-oriented services!
Thursday, February 19, 2009
28. Web SSO
• Spent time investigating CAS2, Shib, talking
to other campuses
• pushpushpushpush
• movement happening now w/DnA, AIS,
Security Office
Thursday, February 19, 2009
