Completion Report
Project Summary:
| Business Objective 1 To ensure that we continue to provide a VLE service | Achieved |
| BO 2 To transfer students and course organisers from WebCT to Learn 9.1 with minimum disruption | Achieved |
| BO 3 To transfer at specific dates in the academic calendar: August 2012 | Achieved |
| Project Deliverable 1
Plan and Implement any hardware & software changes required for the upgrade to Learn 9.1, to at least maintain the current levels of resilience & robustness. This will include separate development, test and production environments. Learn 9.1 to be in place by June 2012 to allow the input of new courses, or the migration of courses from WebCT | Achieved |
| BD 2 Identify additional functionality currently available (such as VLE Helpdesk application and WebCT PowerLinks) which needs to be replicated in Learn 9.1. | Achieved |
| BD 3
Agree & manage the migration of any data to be transferred from the existing WebCT service into Learn 9.1 Data Migration Process in place to allow course content migration | Achieved |
| BD 4
Plan, implement & document how data will be transferred from EUCLID, IDM and other central datasets to populate Learn 9.1 appropriately Data Feeds in process to integrate with university feeds for users, courses and enrolements | Achieved |
| BD 5 Training and familiarisation opportunities to all VLE users | Achieved |
| BD 6 Establish and OLA to clarify support roles in Apps, USD and TELS, and to set out capacity and performance and availability requirements | Achieved |
| BD 7 All users and data in place by June 2012 | Partially Achieved - all migrated data and users by June All courses for 12/13 session by September |
| BD 8 Archive Existing Data in WebCT Implement a connection between Learn 9.1 and WebCT for continued access to old courses; or develop a new policy for maintaining access to courses after their completion. | Achieved |
| BD 9 Retaining access to the new VLE via MyEd | Achieved |
Breakdown of Project Tasks for Deliverables
System launched on 12th June, three days slippage caused by extended period needed to complete the automated migration of courses from WebCT. Deliverables from these work packes delivered for June release as originally planned, except where otherwise stated.
The Core System comprised the Work Packages and associated Deliverables as set out in the BRDs, WorkPackages (WP) from WP1-10.
The Core System allowed Academics to prepare their courses in line with their schedule over the Summer.
WP1 - Infrastructure - Load Testing, DR, Resilience - delivered Final stage of DR with Users was completed at End of June WP2 - Data Feeds from IDM/Eugex - delviered The Data Feed for Students from EUCLID was completed at end of July, as it was decided to add Mearn Data Feeds rather than re-use the WebCT. WP3 - Building Blocks - 3rd Party - not delivered Bespoke blocks should have been delivered for June but due to resourcing issues the work was pushed back to June-July. WP4 - Migration of Courses from WebCT - delivered WP5 - WebCT Maintenance after Learn 9 Deployment - agreed by Project Board - delivered WP6 - Authentication and MyED Channel - delivered WP7 - Configuration of Learn 9 - delivered WP8 - User Training and Communications - delivered WP9 - Demo/Sandpit environment - delivered
WP10 - VLE Helpdesk VLE Helpdesk like-for-like functionality delivered on existing code and existing server.
Work continued beyond June to address issues found during deployment, and to complete work needed for the start of term - drop-dead date Monday 20th August. The June-July work packages were :-
- WP3 Building Blocks Web Form Tool Block delivered Server Connect Blocks delivered Wiki Building Block delivered
- WP11 Campus Mobile changed to interface with Learn and moved to a supported I/F and rewritten in CF9. Descoped from the project with agreement from team and board and to be completed as Service
- WP12 Full MyED channel Delviered.
- WP13 Stats/Reporting/Capacity/Monitoring Delivered.
- WP17 CCAM changes Delivered.
A Survey was sent out to team and board and other stakeholders. All replies received set out in the linked document https://www.projects.ed.ac.uk/project/lat010/page. Also available from Bristol Surveys if you have access https://www.survey.bris.ac.uk/?surveyid=123057&op=results.
Some comments highlighted here :-
| Were the Objectives for this project met? -- If you score a section less than a 4, please indicate why to help us improve this aspect of our projects. | ||||
| Good all round, some concerns from service teams that the scope had to be cut too tight e.g. not delivering the communities functionality | ||||
| I think that it is always possible to think that more could have been achieved, but it seems that the objectives set had the virtue of being realistic, and the outcome has been really positive. |
| Was the Resourcing for the project effective? -- If you score a section less than a 4, please indicate why to help us improve this aspect of our projects. | ||||
| I have no view on the overall resourcing, for building blocks the initial resourcing was problematic | ||||
| One or two scares along the way particularly around conflicts on building blocks where having a priroity ZERO did not seem to win the debate that easily. | ||||
| Resourcing for some aspects of the project, specifically communications and development of staff support, were de-scoped and were not fully adequate. This impacted back into the main project because detailed specifications for settings and the impact of some decisions for end-users were not fully understood. | ||||
| some issues around recruitment of java developer | ||||
| There seemed to be a very good feeling of different piece of the system working together. In that respect, the project seems to have been very successful. | ||||
| Yes on the whole. The comms took a while to get going but were very good once established. The board and project manager were effective, although some of the College reps were more engaged than others. |
| What was the Quality of the product delivered? -- If you score a section less than a 4, please indicate why to help us improve this aspect of our projects. | ||||
| Again, difficult to say without some extended experience working with the system. But it *is* only a VLE - how good can it *be*? | ||||
| See above, not perfect but very good indeed given the scale of project and constraints on resouce and timing. |
| Was the Communications within IS and to Users effective? -- If you score a section less than a 4, please indicate why to help us improve this aspect of our projects. | ||||
| Bit slow to start with due to uncertainty of roles and responsibilities and uncertainty of delivery dates. But became a strength as the project progressed - not aware of any complaints from user communities on this front. | ||||
| One area where resourcing and timescales made work less than perfect. This impact of this is ongoing. | ||||
| Seemed so. |
Other issues, from Project Manager.
- A Development environment that is usable when developing against IDM. Feedback from Config and Dev teams is that current IDM Dev is not fit for purpose, with any meaningful testing not possible until code is in TEST.
- IDM TEST environment needs to be improved, with change notifications in IDM taking days to filter through (to other systems), plus data in TEST out of date, and integration with other key systems problematical. Resulting in delays, some extra budget required, replanning, risk to delivery and risk to production environment.
- Double-booking resource from the same team to provide cover and more depth within the team was not successful, as the cost and time involved in booking two folk from Tech Mgmt was outweighed by not being clear who was the lead at time, and only one resource would sometimes turn up.
- As ever, resolving load balancer and firewall issues take longer and cause delays, but there seems to be no easy cost-effective way to approach the planning for this, both in TEST and LIVE.
Other issues arising from the project - some have already been dealt with and resolved/improved by end of the project, or have been noted as needing review
- review of the Deployment Checklist to be clear on those tasks that need completion before Delivery and those needed for DSOR (actioned)
- review of new and large scale service going into operation - TEST environment does not reflect the LIVE environment enough to remove risk of a new application impacting on other service sharing the same (virtual) hardware (actioned)
- some issues around team communication with PM and other teams (actioned)
- DR documentation is not satisying Dev Tech or Tech Management
Analysis of Resource Usage:
Staff Usage Estimate: 740 days
Staff Usage Actual: 760 days
Staff Usage Variance: -2.7027%
Other Resource Estimate: 25000 days
Other Resource Actual: 63160 days
Other Resource Variance: -152.64%
Explanation for variance:
Key Learning Points:
Outstanding issues: