News Conference Papers

Conference Papers

At the 2002 WebCT Conference in Melbourne, Dr Rob Phillips and Industry Partners presented two papers:

1. A Comprehensive WebCT Integration System

Murdoch University, in collaboration with industry partners, developed a sophisticated middleware application (WebCTMan) between WebCT and other corporate systems, such as Callista student records system, the Concept 1 human resources system and Murdoch's own authentication system. This paper describes the architecture and functionality of the system.
WebCTManV2a.rtf

2. Global Database Oddities: Orphans and Reconciliations

This paper discusses problems that occasionally occur between the WebCT global database and individual course databases. When the linkage between the global and course databases becomes corrupt, both students and designers can become "orphaned", resulting in their access to the course becoming compromised. These problems can be difficult to resolve, unless the underlying architecture of the WebCT global database is understood.

An overview is given of the file structures which make up the global and course databases, describing the key files and what they contain. In this context, we discuss problems, such as orphan students and disconnectted students. We describe how these occur, and how to fix them, either manually or using simple scripts. We also discuss the distinction between primary designers and shared designers, and how to change these. The difference between Version2.x and Version3.x are highlighted in each case.
GlobalDBOdditiesV2.rtf