XCRI-CAP Course Data: making the most of course information Approach The approach Teesside University adopted was to extract the required data from contributing source data systems and consolidate it into an intermediate database. This approach would build on existing in-house technologies including Microsoft SQL Server, .NET 3.5 framework and using VB.NET, LINQ and XmlDOcument. This utilises existing staff skills. rd
The contributing systems are a mix of in-house and 3 party systems, e.g. SITS.
Source Systems
Implementation SITS
Marketing CMS
Programme Catalogue
This allowed the data from all contributing systems to be compared using an in-house developed .NET application. This gave an additional opportunity to check the quality of the data, especially where the same data element existed in more than one contributing system. Any discrepancies are then reported back to the relevant contributing system manager.
Collection / Consolidation
Staging Database Approval
Generate XML Feed
The tool used to extract the data from the contributing systems is Microsoft Sequel Server Integration Services (SSIS). Elements from the XCRI-CAP specification that are available from one or more of the contributing systems are stored in a ‘staging’ area of the database.
Once the data has been validated, it is then approved for inclusion in the Course Data feed and at this time is marked with a date timestamp. Full versioning and offline validation is being considered for a later date. An application running on the web server is used to generate the feed.
For more about the project contact: XCRI-CAP XML Feed
Mike Gettings M.Gettings@tees.ac.uk Stephen Waterhouse S.Waterhouse@tees.ac.uk Project Website extra.tees.ac.uk/xcri-cap/blog