Monday, 4 July 2011

MUSAC Commits to SMS-LMSv2.2

Following the beta release of our SMS-LMS v2 implementation (incorporated into MICC) has been the requirement to address a number of issues:
  • Data validation
  • Performance
  • Batch uploads
  • Scheduling
Underlying those issues (which are MUSAC ones) has been a couple of more fundamental ones associated with the schema which doesn't allow for 2 degrees cellphone numbers, for example. These are addressed in v2.2 of the SMS-LMS interoperability schema. MUSAC has committed to making the necessary software changes to comply with version 2.2. We're going to kick the additional development work off shortly, but to provide better assurance the teams from KnowledgeNET and UltraNET will work closely with us to enable a stronger end-to-end test bed. We expect to do the integration testing within a month.

Thanks also to Paul from the Ministry for providing enabling assistance.

Some schools are probably asking why it has "taken so long". The short answer was that MUSAC deliberately did not take a leading edge position with version SMS-LMS v2 interoperability. MUSAC did so with KnowledgeNET with version 1 of the schema and rewrote a lot of software many times. While the Ministry provided some assistance we absorbed a lot of cost to, in hindsight, essentially develop a proof of concept.

This iteration we waited until the dust had settled a bit, but even then an update of schema v2 was released about a month after we'd pushed it out to all MUSAC schools. The feedback I've been getting is that you would prefer us to take a more leading role. So we shall.

7 comments:

  1. Well done guys! Looking forwards to using Musac with our Ultranet!
    www.plateau.school.nz

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  2. Is MUSAC doing any work around how it handles IAM/IDE requirements that school are now looking for as we move towards Single Single On.
    Is MUSAC doing anything around being able to handle Single Sign On requests on it Library webOPAC?
    How is MUSAC taking a more leading role as SMS schema v3 is being developed?

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  3. The feedback I've been getting is that you would prefer us to take a more leading role. So we shall.

    So when will it be working?

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  4. Has this testing happened yet... We expect to do the integration testing within a month.

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  5. Target date is first week of October.

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  6. We're working with MoE and sector on a potential 2.3 as a pragmatic way forward with other issues that have been highlighted, rather than throw everyting out and start again. All vendors have had a bumpy ride.

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  7. We believe v3 needs to be radically different and provide schools with better capabilities rather than what is currently suggested which appears to be a repackaging of parts of v2.2 data. Some support for a broader schema rather than the bespoke approach, analogous to say SIF.

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