Frank Vercoulen op de SURFnet Relatiedagen 2012

1. Virtual Campus Hub
Frank Vercoulen
Education and Student Service Center
Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e)
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2. Virtual Campus Hub − Participants
Institute Acronym Leading staff
Søren Salomo
Technical University of Denmark DTU
Merete Badger
Royal Institute of Torsten Fransson
KTH
Technology, Sweden
Laura Farinetti
Politecnico di Torino, Italy Polito
Fulvio Corno
Eindhoven University of Frank Vercoulen
TU/e
Technology, Netherlands

3. Indirect partners: NREN federations
NREN’s involved:
• SURFfederatie (Surfnet, NL)
• WAYF (Forskningsnettet, DK)
• SWAMID (SUnet, SE)
• IDEM (GARR, IT)
+ eduGAIN (inter-federation)
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4. Context: Cross-border collaboration in
education, research and innovation
Examples in the energy field:
• KIC InnoEnergy, Virtual organization of universities and SMEs
• SEEIT: Strategic partnership for sustainable energy
• Explore Energy: Gateway for life-long learning
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5. Context: Cross-border joint programs
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.
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6. 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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7. 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.

8. Virtual Campus Hub − Components
1. A technological concept for the virtual campus hub
2. A pilot platform to demonstrate how a virtual campus
hub might work in practice
3. A set of documented best practices
4. An inventory of staff competence and experience in
supporting international collaboration with ICT

9. What does a Virtual Campus Hub
consist of?
Virtual Campus Hub:
• Functionalities
• Infrastructure
• Presentation in portal
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10. 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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11. Conference room processes and
functionality
Process Functionality Subfunction
Organization and planning Calendar
Announcement
Registration
Video lecture or conference Video Livestream
On-demand stream
Download file
Desktop sharing
Interactivity Voice
Chat / messaging
Maximum number of users
Presenter in control
Attendee requirements Client
Account
Smartphone access
Attendee invitation function
After the lecture or Upload lectures / presentations
conference
Upload other course materials
Access lectures / presentations
Access other course materials
General discussion
Collaborate on assignments Not in realtime
In realtime
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12. VCH functionalities: Access to learning
materials
Access 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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13. Remote laboratory (KTH)
The remote laboratory is operated and monitored on-distance for real-time
experiments and collection of measurement data.
The exercise is combined with on-line self-assessments and pre-tests, all
100% automatically corrected.
No need for teachers to provide supervision or correction of exercises.
Experimental Network
Setup Camera
WWW
Control and
monitoring of the
experiment
Exp. Control
Web Server

14. Examination Tools (KTH)
On-line examination tools for 100% automatic correction through
LMS (KTH Bilda or Moodle)

15. Post educational course on wind
energy (DTU)
Course materials and interaction through LMS (It’s Learning from external SP)

16. 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)
• (possibly) Enable external group management
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17. Virtual coffee house for Select MSc
Example of experiment with virtual coffee house for Select MSc
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18. 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 (e.g RS3G, IMS)
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19. 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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20. Virtual Campus Hub Infrastructure
Virtual Campus Hub
Infrastructure:
• Federated authentication
• Group management
• ID-mapping
• Exchange of presence and
calendaring info
• Exchange of program data
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21. 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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22. Example of demo portal with reusable
components (gadgets)
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23. Challenges
Géant infrastructure: • Enable federated authentication across borders
EduGain, SurfFederatie, • Enable value-added services (VAS) across borders
WAYF, Swamid, IDEM  Group management
 ID-mapping
 Exchange of presence and calendaring info
Local institutions or • Provide identities across borders via NRENs (IdP)
companies: • Connect applications to the national hub (SP)
DTU, KTH, PoliTo, TU/e • Enable applications for relevant VAS
• Develop (simple) reusable gadgets for own VCH
applications
TU/e (but others may • Setup demo portal and incorporate (reusable)
setup own portals as well) gadgets developed
Local institutions with • Design of a exchange mechanism for program data
Géant as hub? (e.g. course information, student results)
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24. Enabling cross border collaboration
Possible architectures to realize cross
border connections for VCH through
NREN federations and eduGAIN
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