Masaryk university Information system

Information Technology Centre

Head: Ing. Michal Brandejs

Botanická 68a, 602 00 Brno

In its second year of operation, the development of the MU information system (is.muni.cz) continued mainly in the direction of new application packages and responses to the users’ requests. We succeeded in implementing the system in a number of the school's administrative procedures, and in accessing wider academic public. As of December 31, 2000, the information system had 14,177 users who regularly worked with the system and 18,113 users who logged on to the system occasionally. Soon after the start of the school year, it became obvious that a limiting factor of further development of the system is the growth in demand on the server became and the consequent slow-down of the system response that exceeded the acceptable level. Therefore, the original configuration (Sun Microsystems Ultra 450 server with 4 processors, 2 GB of real storage and 32 GB of disc memory) was expanded by a set of PC platform configured computers which distributed user demand. We believe that this technology will be sufficient for the operation of the system in 2001.

General information

Number of log-ins in 2000: 14,493,632

Maximum server response rate: 15,482 requests per hour

Number of scripts (individual programmes) of the systems: 482

Number of registered data types: approx. 1620 (in 295 database tables and approx. 40 categories)

Number of publication records: 23,000 (of which 18,318 for the national Research and Development Information Register)

Number of queries answered at the contact address: approx. 1300

Length of time for which the server was not accessible: 26 hours (23 hours of scheduled shut-downs and 3 hours breakdowns)

 

List of Important Applications Implemented in 2000

Because a number of applications are accessed by different groups of users from different access points and with different access rights (e.g. for viewing or editing); the following classification into categories is only auxiliary. Only those applications that were produced completely or for the most part in 2000 are listed (for the total summary see the 1999 Annual Report).

 

Catalogue of courses:

• formatted course data, bulk printout option

• complete course listing and acquisition of data accuracy confirmations

• bulk processing of all basic data on a course

• bulk processing of teachers' data

• survey of changes in the Catalogue of courses

• survey of planned system loads

• surveys of optional attribute use in external courses/faculties

 

Administration of seminar groups:

• definition, adjustments and administration of courses for division into smaller groups

• lists and surveys of seminar groups

• export and import of seminar groups

• capacity limits sharing among seminar groups

 

Teacher’s notes:

• creation, editing, administration and validation of notepads (teacher-defined administration of information on students and their work, etc.)

• processing student information on notepads

• distributing and publishing the contents of the blocks

• block summaries for point evaluations, point evaluations, transfer of evaluations

• statistics, graphs, notepad printouts

• evaluation statistics and average evaluation of courses

• transfer of students among seminar groups

• history of log-ins to seminar groups

• list of problematic course registrations, student cancellation requests

• notepad configurations: other selections/ student restrictions

 

My course of study:

• enrolment in and withdrawal from seminar groups

• information from notepad blocks

• grades for the whole study programme, credits obtained and grade averages

• publication of study programme results

• student data history

 

Personnel Agenda:

• list of work positions

• printouts of defined groups of persons

• lists of workplaces

• pages of workplaces, lists of their staff

Study register

• tuition fees and courses at Czech schools of higher education

• list of tuition fees, register of fees  

• proposed list of disciplines where tuition fees are to be charged

• bulk updates (titles, study groups, completion of term)

• recognition and transfer of courses among study programmes

• register of students’ final tests

• registration and enrolment text and graphic print-outs

• printing of certificates, survey of grades (text and graphic print-outs)

• printing of Final Exam Reports

• printing of diplomas, final certificates

• printing of replacement Student ID Cards

• registration of annual extensions of ISIC cards

• cancellation and renewal of chip cards

• application for ISIC cards, queue of print applications

• statistics of ISIC cards printed

• mailings of notices to teachers about inadequately completed evaluation forms

• record of grades

• history of changes in registration and enrolment

• imports of students from entrance exams

• list of long-term running applications

• new types of search queries

• number of current responses of requests to deans' offices and upgrades of current applications

 

Research & Development

      New versions of programmes for the administration of publication activities and for structured CVs have been developed in response to users' requests and according to new programming standards. They offer the same (slightly expanded) functionality as last year in a more user-friendly formats, i.e. a record of one’s own or someone else’s CV, printouts, exports, publications, lists and CV searches). Registration of publication activities also includes searching applications, acquisition and checking of data for Research and development Information Register, and full list of one’s (or otherwise important) publication and their publication histories.

 

Contacts and Presentations:

• basic and detailed register of buildings

• register of contact addresses to people

• register of contact addresses to offices

• viewing, creating and printing of telephone and other directories

• requests for data changes, resolving queries

• documentation server (notice board groups for internal and public documents)

• general Notice Board (a possibility for anyone to address a particular segment of the university community)

 

Other administration software packages

• passes and chip cards: cancellation and renewal

• access points administration

• permission and temporary blocking of access

• registration of passage through permitted access points

• user design of IS pages: selection, creation and modification

 

The above-mentioned sets of applications have made the MU IS a comprehensive tool that is useful at all levels of the academic community. Currently MU IS administration software packages cover all the basic spheres of school administration in the field of study, with overlaps into other areas. In 2001, administrative tools developed on users' requests (e.g. system for student projects and papers, means for the internal evaluation of faculties, timetable registration) are to be implemented. 

 

The impact of the Information System on the organisation

The fact that the use of the information system is not limited to appointed staff only but has become a tool used by the academic community at large is considered a significant success in its development and operation. This helps us to fulfil some of the aims set for the IS in its development: e.g., the registration and presentation of objective and verified data, support of inter-faculty approach to study, significant improvement of MU personnel and student computer literacy, smoother and easier communication and co-operation within each faculty and amongst the faculties, appropriate presentation of information on the details of the study to non-university parties and those interested in study.

It is only natural that some software packages are used more frequently than others.  

 

How the system is generally used

In 2000, the system was used at least once by 18,113 registered users, and over 14,177 people logged-in over 100 times (MU has approximately 20,000 students in various types of courses and about 3,000 employees.) Six hundred and fourteen people listed a reference to their home web pages outside the MU IS on their People at MU web page, and 616 people can be searched for under key words. A total of 9,219 people read messages on the Notice Board; 4,413 people verified their registered personal data throughout the year 2000.

 

Science and Publishing Activities

The system's database of publications includes 266,681 records of which 23,147 were modified or entered by the system users. There are 1539 people who personally work with the data (the remaining records are entered by authorised personnel, mostly the secretaries). At least 747 CVs worked on by 529 people have been entered into the system. A total of 4315 people looked at a minimum of one CV.

 

Data quality in the Catalogue of Course

In the spring 2000 term, the system registered 5,685 courses taught by 1791 teachers, and 5,776 courses taught by 1909 teachers in the autumn 2000 term. In the two terms, 2258 and 3304 courses used English annotation or syllabus, respectively.

Recommended literature is listed for a total of 3409 courses (in total this represents 5080 titles). There are 543 and 775 subjects in which teachers give additional information, including instructions and advice for students, i.e. data provided by teachers in addition to obligatory data. Basic information on subjects (titles, number of credits) is administered by approximately 200 people at MU.

 

Use of the Teacher’s notes

Teacher’s notes is a key administration software package for users whose positive approach to the IS can provide a wide range of services for the largest university target group, i.e. the students. If the teachers use the IS, we can expect improvement in the development of e-mail communication, the quicker publication of grades, recommended literature and additional materials. The availability of powerful tools for teachers who have mastered IT and simplification of the basic administrative software for teachers have resulted in a great percentage of teachers who use the system.

In 2000, 1022 teachers personally entered grades into the IS. Students can electronically register for exams in the case of a total of 906 courses (a feature greatly appreciated by students). This agenda is mostly used at the Faculty of Science, followed by the Faculty of Arts, the Faculty of Economics and Administration, Faculty of Informatics and the Faculty of Law. Notepads (suitable mainly for the ongoing registration of the study programme during the semester, and subsequent administrative procedures) is not commonly used; it is used by only 81 teachers.

 

Inter-faculty programmes of study

The simplification administration of students who want to enrol in additional subjects from external faculties and include them as a part of their studies is one of our many ongoing goals. In 2000, there were 1659 applications for courses in external disciplines (the real enrolment numbers are, however, lower). Students can also make a request for an exception if they are formally not entitled to enrol in a course but have a justifiable interest in the external course, either within their faculty or externally. A total of 494 of such requests were not granted.

 

Conclusion

Experience from the second year of the existence and operation of MU IS shows that thanks to the wide range of services, a large portion of the university community has been involved. We succeeded in overcoming concerns that there will be a shortage of IT equipment or that working with the Internet is too intellectually demanding. It seems that the users have got to like the system and are quite able to use it.

Similarly, the applied concept of co-operation with the users and our (as quick as possible) responses to their requests have proved to be mutually beneficial, and gradually a new class of users came into being at the faculties who are able to perceive the system, more or less, as a whole and whose comments and ideas are extremely valuable.

Thanks to the optimisation of the whole system, we managed to solve the biggest problem so far – the slow system response time during busy periods. Currently (at the end of 2000), about 4000 people work with IS daily and smoothly, even at peak hours. The users carry out up to 165,000 operations a day. No operations that can be performed at MU at the end of 2000 are capable of overloading the system.