AAA/SWITCH final publication

AAA/SWITCH
SUC innovation and cooperation project 2008 – 2013, final publication
Front and back cover: Christoph Witzig, Petra Kauer-Ott, Christoph Graf
Contents
Overview
E-Learning
All the projects at a glance������������������������������������������ 3
Introduction to the domain���������������������������������������� 21
The sample projects:
ITSI������������������������������������������������������������������������ 22
Drei Buchstaben im Dienste der Kooperation
PLE����������������������������������������������������������������������� 23
Ein Projektfazit���������������������������������������������������������� 5
SEB����������������������������������������������������������������������� 24
Trois lettres au service de la coopération
DICE���������������������������������������������������������������������� 24
Conclusion du projet��������������������������������������������������� 6
Mobile Uni App�������������������������������������������������������� 25
Tre lettere al servizio della cooperazione
Moodle Extensions��������������������������������������������������� 25
Bilancio del progetto�������������������������������������������������� 7
VO
AAA
Introduction to the domain ��������������������������������������� 27
Introduction to the domain������������������������������������������ 9
The sample projects:
The sample projects:
ShanghAI Lectures�������������������������������������������������� 28
Kerberos ��������������������������������������������������������������� 10
SWITCHtoolbox������������������������������������������������������� 29
A4mesh����������������������������������������������������������������� 11
B-Fabric����������������������������������������������������������������� 29
AMAAIS����������������������������������������������������������������� 12
StrongAuthN���������������������������������������������������������� 13
Interview with Raymond Werlen, Rectors’ Conference of
the Swiss Universities (CRUS)
Grid
«SWITCH manages projects professionally.» ��������������� 31
Introduction to the domain ��������������������������������������� 15
The sample projects:
Ausblick����������������������������������������������������������������� 32
SMSCG������������������������������������������������������������������ 16
Perspective������������������������������������������������������������ 32
Selectome�������������������������������������������������������������� 17
Prospettive������������������������������������������������������������ 33
VM-MAD���������������������������������������������������������������� 18
Grid Data Management�������������������������������������������� 18
MUSIC������������������������������������������������������������������� 19
Thanks ����������������������������������������������������������������� 34
Publication details
Published by SWITCH; Manager and Editor: Anja Eigenmann ([email protected]); Editorial Committee: Roland Eugster (roland.
[email protected]), Petra Kauer-Ott ([email protected]), Christoph Witzig ([email protected]); layout: Carmen Schickli,
Zurich; photography: Domink Aebli ([email protected]), (p. 5, 32), Frank Brüderli, Stallikon (p. 1, 8, 14, 20, 26, 30, 34); illustrations
Julien Eichinger, Fotolia.com (p. 23), Christoph Frei, Bern (p. 3-4), Institut für Schnee- und Lawinenforschung SLF (p. 16), remaining pictures
supplied by the corresponding projects; printed by Sihldruck AG, Zurich; lithography: Roger Bahcic, Zurich; English editing/translation:
Barbara Evans, Landquart, and Mark O’Neil, Zurich; French and Italian translation: Agentur der Dolmetscher- & Übersetzervereinigung,
Zurich.
Print run: 3,100 copies
Address: SWITCH, Werdstrasse 2, P.O.Box, CH-8021 Zurich, phone +41 44 268 15 15, fax +41 44 268 15 68,
US ER NA M E
** ** ** ** *
LOGIN
AAA projects
by domain
AAA
Monitoring & Accounting
AMAAIS (Accounting and Monitoring of AAI Services)
Allow inter-institutional monitoring and accounting
A4-Mesh (Authentication, Authorisation, Accounting
and Auditing in Wireless Mesh Networks)
Develop a wireless mesh infrastructure
Exchange performance data
Exchange assessment results between institutions
WC3 (Web Campus Card Charging)
Recharge campus cards via web interface
leihs
Allow inter-institutional rent of equipment
CINDOS (Cross INstitutional Document Output System)
Develop concept for inter-institutional use of campus cards
for printing
AAA Printing
Allow inter-institutional printing
Authentication Methods & Assurance Levels
StrongAuthN
Add assurance levels and strong authentication methods
Portal MyUNIL
Enable delegation within AAI
Kerberos
Develop new login handler for Shibboleth IdP
Grid
National Grid Infrastructure
SMSCG (Swiss Multiscience Computing Grid)
Establish and operate a national grid infrastructure
SwissEx integration in SMSCG
Enable the environmental sciences project SwissEx
to access SMSCG
Multi-Site ARC services
Extend SMSCG with new node, integrate XtremWeb-CH
platform and deploy applications
Virtual EZ-Grid
Provide secure and inexpensive PC grid
infrastructure with high availability
Condor infrastructure
Interface Condor campus grid to SMSCG
Ubelix Grid
Expand cluster and make it accessible to grid users
Grid Data Management
Create a grid service for analysing images for medical
and physics sciences
Campus Grid Development & Connecting to National Grid
GridUNIL
Establish campus grid covering multiple scientific
departments
UZH Grid
Establish campus grid infrastructure
USI Desktop Grid
Establish desktop campus grid
USI Virtual Grid
Provide persistent & sharable pool of virtual machines
Grid Application & Cloud Support
Swiss Grid Portal
Offer a fully functional grid portal user interface
VO
Communication & Collaboration Support
B-Fabric
Extend/generalise B-Fabric and make it available to other
institutions
ShanghAI Lectures
Test and apply tools and processes for global teaching
Evaluation of VO Tools
Evaluate tools for distributed workgroups
TINA (Tools for Innovation Actors in Living Labs)
Specify requirements of inter-institutional living labs
RSNA (Research Social Networking Applications)
Evaluate existing and define requirements for a research
social networking application
MUSIC (MUlti-Disciplinary DiStributed Computing)
Provide support and framework to gridify, deploy and
execute scientific applications
Chemistry-Grid integration
Provide dynamic access to applications services
for chemistry
Selectome
Positive Darwinian selection on the grid
RSNAS (Remote Scalable Network Attached Storage)
Develop & test remote storage setup
VM-MAD (Virtual Machines Management and Advanced
Deployment)
Establish repository of virtual machines and related
meachanisms
Academic Compute Cloud
Explore cloud extensions of clusters
The different project phases for the individual projects are summarised in these presentations.
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5. 5
E-Learning
E-Assessment
Creation & Exchange of Metadata and Content, Portals
SIOUX (Secure Integrated Online eXam)
Provide secure exam environment
Annotating Academic Video
Develop video annotation service
MEASURED
(Media-rich Electronic Assessment with Secure Delivery)
Expand secure modular and flexible exam environment
Individual Video Training
Provide automated and flexible video recording & visualisation
system
SEB (Safe Exam Browser)
Allow secure exams in kiosk mode, with different applications
and on student laptops
Création de cours multimédia (multimedia course creation)
Record lectures & media
e-OSCE (Electronic Registration of Objective Structured
Clinical Examinations)
Offer mobile app for examiners
OSCE Manager
Improve and facilitate exam management
QualiAss
Develop assessments with quality assurance
movo.ch (Mobile Voting)
Develop e-voting solution for the classroom
academe (acadima.ch)
Provide flashcard application (learning cards)
Aufgabenbörse (Task exchange)
Allow flexible work with questions/exercises & solutions
nanoo.tv
Offer platform for digital TV recording
Educast
Exchange audiovisual content, build video portal
Claroline2LOR
Exchange learning objects
Echange d’objets pédagogiques complex
(Complex pedagogical object exchange)
Enable inter-LMS exchange of learning objects
Sharepoint-Moodle e-learning platform
Facilitate login, interconnect platforms
Didactics and Technology for the Distributed Classroom
Give advice for distributed classrooms
LMS Extensions & Additional Functionalities
New Learning Environments & Knowledge Management
ITSI (IT-Service Integration)
Integrate IT services in studies and teaching
PLE (Personal Learning Environment)
Build personalised learning environment
PIIK preliminary study
Create social network for e-learning information
ELBA 2 (Erweiterter E-Learning-Baukasten – Extended
e-learning toolkit)
Improve usability, offer LMS tools in kiosk mode
ILIAS AdobeConnect Plugin
Offer AdobeConnect functionality for ILIAS
Dateihandling in ILIAS (File handling in ILIAS)
Optimise file handling in ILIAS
E-Portfolio preliminary study
Specify needs & expectations
GISMO (Graphical Interactive Student Monitoring System
for Moodle)
Visualise tracking data
Mobile Uni-App
Develop concept and prototype for mobile apps
MOCLog (Monitoring Online Courses with Logfiles)
Analyse logfile data of Moodle
ScienceWISE
Offer ontology-based platform
Moodle CustHome
Provide customisable personal Moodle page
LLL transfer (Life-Long Learning transfer)
Develop guidelines for lifelong learning strategy development
Moodle Notifications
Enable notification functionalities
Skill Profiler
Develop tool for individual soft skill management
Moodle Offline
Provide offline mode for Moodle
GADEMAVO (GAme about DEcision MAking Adapted to
Various Learning cOntexts)
Implement serious game template
Moodle SMS Gateway
Offer SMS functionality
SELIN (Système E-Learning inductif – Inductive e-learning
system)
Develop system for inductive learning
Konzeptstudie E-Book und Tablet (e-book and Tablet
Concept Study)
Evaluate e-book production and use
Moodle TextClouds
Add text cloud functionality
Common Infrastructure & Knowledge Bases
DICE (Digital Copyright for e-learning)
Support copyright management
E-xcellence.ch
Support e-learning quality management
UHU (Universities Hosting United)
Host a common LMS
AAA/SWITCH 4
«Der Nutzen des Gesamten ist grösser als die Summe aller
einzelnen Projekte. Zwischen den Partnern der Projekte gab
es Wechselwirkungen und Rückkoppelungen.»
Christoph Witzig, Projektleiter AAA/SWITCH (links), und Andreas Dudler, Geschäftsführer SWITCH.
Drei Buchstaben im Dienste
der Kooperation
AAA/SWITCH, auch Triple A genannt, steht für Innovationsund Kooperationsprojekte zwischen den drei Sektoren des tertiären Bildungsbereichs: den Schweizer Universitäten, den
Fachhochschulen und den Institutionen des ETH-Bereichs.
Der gemeinsame Nenner der Einzelprojekte waren die vier
Domänen E-Learning, Grid-Middleware, virtuelle Organisationen und AAA (Accounting, Auditing, Assurance), das
gleichzeitig Namensgeberin für das Gesamtprojekt war. Letzteres startete im April 2008 und dauerte bis April 2013. Am
Schluss umfasste AAA/SWITCH 116 Einzelprojekte.
Ein kleiner Rückblick: 2004 – 2008 lief das Programm AAI.
Dieses hatte die Einführung einer Authentisierungs- und
Autorisierungsinfrastruktur zum Thema. Es hat sich äusserst
erfolgreich entwickelt und ist heute eine flächendeckende, anerkannte Dienstleistung. Ein System, das den Hochschulangehörigen das Leben, Lernen und Lehren erleichtert. AAI
ist quasi durch alle Ritzen des Hochschulnetzes gedrungen.
Es hat fraglos Nachhaltigkeit bewiesen. Für AAA/SWITCH
konnten wir auf die Erfahrungen und Strukturen von AAI zurückgreifen.
Beim AAA/SWITCH-Projekt hatte SWITCH verschiedene Rollen inne. Wir hatten einerseits Koordinatorinnen- und
Enabler-Funktion. Wir haben die Community organisiert, uns
aber auch an einzelnen Projekten beteiligt. Wir haben uns
stark engagiert – aber auch viel profitiert von den neuen Erfahrungen und Kontakten.
5 AAA/SWITCH
Was bleibt nun aber nach Abschluss von AAA/SWITCH? Wie
nachhaltig ist das Programm?
Sicher ist: Der Nutzen des Gesamten ist grösser als die
Summe aller einzelnen Projekte. So stehen z.B. die Projektergebnisse allen Hochschulen zur Verfügung. Zwischen den
Partnern der einzelnen Projekte gab es Wechselwirkungen
und Rückkoppelungen. Manche Projekte wiederum haben
eine weitergehende Ausstrahlung, denn die Zusammenarbeit
der beteiligten Hochschulen reicht über das Projektende hinaus. Wir denken, es gibt kein schöneres Zeichen für Nachhaltigkeit.
Im Namen von SWITCH möchten wir ein grosses Kompliment an die beteiligten Hochschulen aussprechen. Sie haben Grosses geleistet, denn ein wesentlicher Teil der Inhalte
für AAA/SWITCH wurde von ihnen beigesteuert. Sie haben
Projekte verwirklicht, die ihnen wichtig waren, deren Resultate aber der ganzen Gemeinschaft zur Verfügung stehen. Dadurch war AAA/SWITCH so erfolgreich.
Ein herzliches Dankeschön richten wir an die Projektpartner, Kontaktpersonen und die Bundesbehörden. Die Zusammenarbeit war effizient und fruchtbar. Und dann an das Projektwettbewerbs-Evaluationsgremium PWEG: Es bestand aus
neun Experten. Es hat sich als Evaluationsgremium für die
Projekte sehr bewährt. Ganz herzlichen Dank!
Andreas Dudler
Christoph Witzig
«L’utilité du tout est plus que la somme de tous les projets.
Il y a eu des interactions et des échanges entre les partenaires
des différents projets.»
Trois lettres au service
de la coopération
AAA/SWITCH, également appelé «Triple A», désigne des projets d’innovation et de coopération entre les trois secteurs du
domaine de la formation tertiaire: universités suisses, hautes
écoles spécialisées et institutions du domaine des EPF. Le dénominateur commun des différents projets était constitué des
quatre domaines E-Learning, Grid-Middleware, Organisations Virtuelles et AAA (Accounting, Auditing, Assurance),
qui a donné son nom au projet global. Celui-ci a débuté en
avril 2008 et a duré jusqu’en avril 2013. Pour terminer, il comprenait 116 projets individuels.
Brève rétrospective: le programme AAI a couru de 2004 à
2008. Il avait pour objet l’introduction d’une infrastructure
d’authentification et d’autorisation. Ce programme a connu
un plein succès dans son développement et est actuellement
un service partout reconnu. Un système qui facilite la vie, l’apprentissage et l’enseignement aux membres des hautes écoles.
AAI a quasiment pénétré toutes les fentes du réseau des hautes
écoles et a indubitablement fait preuve de durabilité. Pour
AAA/SWITCH , nous avons pu, chez SWITCH, avoir recours
aux expériences et aux structures d’AAI.
Dans le cadre du projet AAA/SWITCH, SWITCH a eu différents rôles à jouer. Nous avions d’une part une fonction de
coordinateur et de catalyseur. Nous avons organisé la communauté tout en participant à des projets isolés. Nous nous
sommes fortement engagés – mais avons aussi largement profité des nouvelles expériences et des nouveaux contacts.
Mais que reste-t-il après l’achèvement d’AAA/SWITCH ? Dans
quelle mesure le programme est-il durable?
Une chose est sûre: l’utilité du tout est plus que la somme
de tous les projets. Par exemple, les résultats du projet sont à
la disposition de toutes les hautes écoles. Il y a eu des interactions et des échanges entre les partenaires des différents projets. Et bien des projets produisent des effets qui vont plus loin
car la coopération des hautes écoles participantes va au-delà
de la fin des projets. Nous pensons qu’il n’y a pas de plus beau
signe de durabilité.
Au nom de SWITCH, nous aimerions faire un grand compliment aux hautes écoles participantes. Elles ont fait de
grandes choses, ayant apporté elles-mêmes une grande part
des contenus pour AAA/SWITCH . Elles ont réalisé des projets qui étaient importants pour elles mais dont les résultats
sont à la disposition de toute la communauté. Voilà pourquoi
AAA/SWITCH a si bien réussi.
Et nous adressons un grand merci aux partenaires de projet,
aux personnes de contact et aux autorités fédérales. La collaboration a été efficace et fructueuse. Et au comité d’évaluation
du concours de projets PWEG qui se composait de neuf personnes et a fort bien fait ses preuves comme comité d’évaluation pour les projets. Merci beaucoup!
Andreas Dudler, directeur de SWITCH
Christoph Witzig, chef du projet AAA/SWITCH
«I vantaggi dell’intero programma sono più grandi di quelli dei
singoli progetti. Tra i partner che hanno cooperato ai diversi
progetti si è istaurata una fitta rete di interazioni e riscontri.»
Tre lettere al servizio
della cooperazione
L’acronimo AAA/SWITCH, detto anche tripla A, indica i
progetti di innovazione e cooperazione condotti dai tre settori dell’istruzione terziaria: le università svizzere, le scuole
universitarie professionali e le istituzioni del Politecnico. I
vari progetti avevano quattro campi in comune: E-Learning,
Grid-Middleware, Organizzazioni Virtuali e AAA (Accounting, Auditing, Assurance), che ha dato il nome all’intero
progetto. Quest’ultimo è iniziato nell’aprile 2008 e si è concluso nell’aprile 2013. Alla fine includeva ben 116 singoli
progetti.
Una breve retrospettiva: dal 2004 al 2008 si è svolto il programma AAI. Il suo scopo era l’introduzione di un’infrastruttura di autenticazione e autorizzazione. Questo sistema si è
sviluppato con successo fino a diventare un servizio capillare
e riconosciuto, che oggi facilita la vita, l’apprendimento e l’insegnamento a tutti gli attori del ramo universitario. AAI permea praticamente l’intera rete e ha dimostrato la sua incontestabile sostenibilità. Per il programma AAA/SWITCH,
SWITCH ha potuto far leva sulle esperienze e le strutture di
AAI.
Nel progetto AAA/SWITCH, SWITCH ha rivestito diversi
ruoli. Innanzitutto avevamo la funzione di coordinatori ed
«enabler». Abbiamo organizzato la community, ma abbiamo
anche partecipato a singoli progetti. L’iniziativa ha richiesto
un grosso impegno da parte nostra, ma ci ha apportato anche
nuove esperienze e interessanti contatti.
Cosa rimane di AAA/SWITCH ? Quanto sostenibile è il programma? – Una cosa è certa: i vantaggi dell’intero programma sono più grandi di quelli dei singoli progetti. Per esempio,
i risultati dei progetti sono a disposizione di tutte le università. Tra i partner che hanno cooperato ai diversi progetti si è
istaurata una fitta rete di interazioni e riscontri. In alcuni casi,
la collaborazione tra le università coinvolte prosegue anche
oltre la fine del progetto, assicurandogli così una portata più
ampia del previsto. A nostro parere, queste sono prove più che
sufficienti di sostenibilità!
A nome di SWITCH vorremmo rivolgere i più vivi complimenti alle università partecipanti. Hanno svolto un lavoro
eccezionale, perché sono state loro a fornire gran parte dei contenuti per AAA/SWITCH . Hanno realizzato dei progetti che
erano importanti per loro, ma i cui risultati vanno a vantaggio dell’intera comunità. È questo che fa il successo di AAA/
SWITCH.
Un sentito ringraziamento va a tutti i partner del progetto, le
persone di contatto e le autorità federali. La collaborazione è
stata efficiente e fruttuosa. E infine vogliamo ricordare l’organo di valutazione del concorso, che era composto da nove
esperti, il cui lavoro di esame dei progetti è stato molto apprezzato. Mille grazie!
Andreas Dudler, direttore generale di SWITCH
Christoph Witzig, capo progetto AAA/SWITCH
AAA/SWITCH 7
«AAA/SWITCH transforms visions into reality:
the A4-Mesh project, examining a number of use cases
for wireless mesh network technologies, is one example.»
Almerima Jamakovic-Kapic
Project Leader A4-Mesh, researcher, Institute of Computer Science and Applied
Mathematics, University of Berne.
8 AAA/SWITCH
AAA
The three As provide the name for both the project as a whole and
a single domain dealing with the accounting and auditing side of
the Authentication and Authorisation Infrastructure (AAI).
Text: Christoph Witzig, Project Manager AAA/SWITCH
The Swiss University Conference’s SWITCHaai cooperation and innovation project from
2004 to 2008 firmly established the federated Authentication and Authorisation Infrastructure (AAI) in the higher education sector in Switzerland. Today, almost all students of Swiss
universities use SWITCHaai for secure access to several hundred services. However,
SWITCHaai lacks important functionalities in terms of accounting, auditing, assurance levels and strong authentication. The purpose of the projects in this domain was to address
Swiss universities’ particular needs in this area.
16 projects were approved in the AAA domain. AMAAIS (see page 12) has developed a generic monitoring and accounting infrastructure for AAI, which is now ready for deployment.
A4-Mesh (see page 11) has set up an AAI-compatible meshed network with accounting functionalities, to be used in environmental studies or as an extension of campus networks. The
ETHZ and EPFL have worked out a secure solution for exchanging students’ performance
data, and the University of Lausanne has evaluated and introduced a strong authentication
system for its critical services (see page 13). Several smaller projects have been conducted,
mostly by the IT services departments, and their results are now available to all the Swiss
universities. Projects meriting particular mention are «bridging the log-ins» between Windows desktops and AAI services by FHNW (Kerberos – see page 10) and a project by the
University of Neuchâtel which allows students to load credits to their campus card through
an AAI-enabled portal.
Today, the AAA/SWITCH projects in the AAA domain are adding valuable functionalities
to SWITCHaai for users and infrastructure operators alike. The IT services departments at
the Swiss universities have been closely involved in most of these projects, and they also typically integrate the deliverables into their campus IT infrastructure – leading to a high
level of sustainability.
AAA/SWITCH 9
AAA Kerberos – FHNW
The guard-dog holds the key
The Kerberos Login Handler gives users password-free access to AAI-protected
resources on the web.
Text: Tom Gross, FHNW
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ferred authentication protocol of Microsoft Windows. Mac OS
X and Linux also support Kerberos and can make use of the
handler if they are properly configured.
The Kerberos Login Handler for the Shibboleth Identity
Provider was developed as an AAA/SWITCH project at the
University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW) with the support of the SWITCH AAI team.
The goal was to provide a user-friendly single sign-on mechanism for all staff members. All internal web resources should
be accessible with just a single click. The project was successfully concluded in May 2011 and has sparked interest from
other universities. Meanwhile, the handler is used by several
organisations, including Newcastle University, Deakin University and VeriFone.
Works together with default login handler
Another advantage of the Kerberos Login Handler is that it can
be used together with the default username/password login
handler. Users who do not have or are unable to use the Kerberos protocol can still provide their password as usual.
Further information:
The AAI login screen of the University of Applied Sciences and
Arts, Northwestern Switzerland.
Kerberos is a network authentication protocol developed at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It works on the basis of «tickets» to allow nodes to prove their identity without
needing to send passwords through the network. It is the pre-
10 AAA/SWITCH
A more detailed presentation of the project can be found
here: www.switch.ch/aai/support/presentations/
opcom-201105/AAI-OpCom-KerberosLoginHandler.pdf
Kerberos Idp project page: https://wiki.shibboleth.net/
confluence/display/SHIB2/Kerberos+Login+Handler
Here you can find more information about the Kerberos
protocol: http://kerberos.org
AAA A4-Mesh – UNIBE, UNINE, SWITCH
Wireless mesh network for environmental research
Many research projects in different areas could benefit from an easily deployable outdoor
wireless mesh network that supports SWITCHaai-based functionalities: authentication,
authorisation, accounting and auditing (A4).
Text: Almerima Jamakovic-Kapic, UNIBE
Installation of an infield mesh node for environmental research in the Valais region.
The A4-Mesh project and its currently ongoing project extension are looking into several application scenarios for wireless
mesh network technologies. The applications deployed are focused on environmental research support. The MontanAqua
project uses the A4-Mesh network to continuously transfer the
environmental data measured by several sensors in the CransMontana-Sierre region in Valais. The A4-Mesh network solution produces various benefits, such as lower maintenance costs
and a reduced risk of losing data. A further application for the
A4-Mesh network solution is currently being installed: a new
pilot network for environmental research in the Emmental
area. For this, the A4-Mesh infrastructure is being coupled to
a database feeding a hydrogeological modelling and simulation system so as to make the environmental research process
more efficient.
To allow easy access to the A4-Mesh network, special care was
taken to seamlessly integrate authorisation and authentication
into the organisation’s own infrastructure (AAI), grouped into
a federation: in our case the Shibboleth-based SWITCHaai.
Furthermore, the accounting function provides specific traffic statistics which are channelled into the traffic-based charging module. It operates in a SWITCHaai-compatible wireless
mesh network, which allows the network administrator to have
full visibility of the forwarded traffic, including the source,
destination and forwarding nodes (organisations) involved.
Using this data means that the organisation can be charged
correctly for its network usage.
Further information:
https://a4-mesh.unibe.ch
AAA/SWITCH 11
AAA AMAAIS – UZH, ETHZ, SWITCH
Accounting and monitoring of AAI services
AMAAIS enables Shibboleth-based federations to aggregate, process and store
accounting and monitoring information.
Text : Martin Waldburger, UZH
IdP Accounting
Application
Service-specific
Accounting Application
Accounting Client
Accounting Client
Accounting
Server
Accounting
Server
AMAAIS core components
AMAAIS Accounting Application
HTTP Request
SWITCHaai, the Swiss Authentication and Authorisation Infrastructure, lacks a comprehensive monitoring and accounting system. The goal of the AAA/SWITCH project AMAAIS
was to add this missing functionality in a generic fashion.
AA and AMAAIS interacting with each other
AMAAIS can obtain and process the usage of the Identity Providers as well as the Service Providers of the SWITCHaai federation. Service-specific Accounting Applications (AAs) and
12 AAA/SWITCH
AMAAIS core components interact with each other: AAs parse
log files or databases and create events. The AA invokes the
common Accounting Client (AC), and the event will enter the
AC pipeline. After passing along the AC pipeline, the event will
be transmitted to either one or multiple Accounting Servers
(AS), going through the respective AS pipeline(s), and will
eventually be stored in a database for further analysis.
Events may be queued, filtered etc.
Pipelines are composed of sources and sinks. Sinks receive and
process events, while sources produce events. Pipelines can be
constructed by combining source and sink components in any
desired order, so that events may be queued, filtered, persisted or transmitted, for instance.
Highly configurable pipelines make for immense flexibility. This is especially beneficial in federations, where different
services are managed by different organisations, but with a
need for interoperable accounting and monitoring.
Three use cases, the monitoring and accounting of a printing service, an SMS Service Provider and an Identity Provider, were realized as part of the project.
Further information:
www.csg.uzh.ch/research/amaais.html
AAA StrongAuthN – UNIL
Tighter security at the University of Lausanne
How should a university protect critical services? The University of Lausanne
investigated and implemented strong authentication solutions.
Text : Alexandre Roy, UNIL
In a series of AAA projects, the University of Lausanne looked
systematically into the protection of critical services through
improvements in the campus authentication and introduced
corresponding solutions. One of the projects was aimed at introducing assurance level within the UNIL’s authentication
and authorisation system. The user account management system was renewed in this way, implementing the SAP Identity
Management solution. An evaluation of several authentication methods was also conducted with the ultimate goal of improving the protection of access to critical UNIL services
(administrative VPN, finance management system, AAI resources etc).
Solution: one-time password
This evaluation took the following main aspects into account:
use in a multiplatform and open environment, cost, security
level, compatibility with Shibboleth and with the radius protocol and integration with SAP Identity Management. The
choice fell on a «one-time password» system.
The University of Lausanne’s new Campus Card.
First project: Juniper
The introduction of such a system was the topic of another
AAA project. The first service protected in this way is the administrative access to the Juniper VPN, which has about 65
users. To connect to it, users must enter their password and
the «one time password», which is obtained either by SMS or
from the new Campus Card (see figure).
A project extension will allow the users to record a software token on their smartphones, which will have the advantage of being free of charge.
Further information:
www.switch.ch/aaa/projects/detail/UNIL.2
www.switch.ch/aaa/projects/detail/UNIL.7
www.switch.ch/aaa/projects/detail/UNIL.8
AAA/SWITCH 13
«Besides the technology, the AAA/SWITCH program
has contributed to establishing a network of relationships,
people, skills and trust that hopefully will endure beyond
the end of the programme.»
Sergio Maffioletti
Project Leader Swiss Multi-Science Computing Grid (SMSCG) and Member Executive Board
Swiss National Grid Association (SwiNG), Project Director Grid Computing Competence
Center, University of Zurich.
14 AAA/SWITCH
Grid
Distributed computing has been the main focus of the grid AAA/
SWITCH projects. In addition to implementing components for
distributed computing infrastructures, these projects have succeeded in actively involving scientific users from many different
domains and have enabled the processing of thousands of computing jobs.
Text: Christoph Witzig, Project Manager AAA/SWITCH
The main thrust of the grid domain was to promote and lay the foundations for a stable and
secure infrastructure to support distributed scientific computing in Switzerland. Some 26
projects were submitted in this domain. These can be grouped into three categories: 1. campus
grids at individual institutions, which facilitate the sharing of computational power within
a single organisation, 2. desktop grids between several institutions (such as the projects EZGrid and MUSIC, see page 19) and 3. a computational grid shared by a large number of institutions, the «Swiss Multi-Science Computing Grid» (SMSCG; see page 16).
A common feature of all these projects was the active collaboration between infrastructure
providers and scientific users. A surprisingly wide range of academic disciplines submitted applications to run on the grid, including computational, environmental and life sciences, as well
as finance and art. This is one of the key successes of the projects in this domain, coupled with
the fact that the underlying infrastructure was able to handle thousands of computing jobs
a day.
Looking into the future, it can be said that the cloud computing paradigm has gained significant momentum over the past two years. This constitutes less of a disruption and more of a
natural evolution of the distributed computing paradigm. With the «Swiss Academic Compute Cloud» AAA/SWITCH project, an initial cloud computing project was conducted towards
the end of the project programme. In 2013, a bridging project between the grid/cloud domain
is being jointly run by most of the grid participants as a stepping stone between the two innovation and cooperation projects AAA/SWITCH and «Information Scientifique».
In retrospect, it is the active collaboration and exchange between resource providers and scientific users from many different domains that can be considered as the key outcome as well
as a prerequisite for sustainability of these grid projects – more so than individual IT components that evolve rapidly with technical progress.
AAA/SWITCH 15
Grid SMSCG – UZH, UNIBE, USI, CSCS, WSL, HES-SO, UNIL, EPFL, SIB/Vital IT, SWITCH
A collaborative spirit in distributed computing
SMSCG has established a model for collaboration between service providers and research groups.
The target was to implement and support computational science on a highly reliable distributed
infrastructure. The infrastructure can now handle 500 – 1,000 jobs every day.
Text: Sergio Maffioletti, UZH
The Swiss Multi-Science Computing Grid (SMSCG) project’s
aim was to establish a Swiss infrastructure and platform for
computational science. Through SMSCG, a reliable, distributed grid infrastructure has been built, linking infrastructures
from several Swiss universities. Research communities using
the platform have received collaborative, high-quality user and
application support from the project.
The main challenge of the SMSCG project was not a technical one. Instead, it consisted in coordinating resource providers, support teams and end-users. All in all, twelve universities and research institutions are contributing resources to
this project.
500 to 1,000 jobs a day
During its five years of operation, SMSCG has supported more
than 20 scientific use cases from scientific disciplines as diverse as high-energy physics, bioinformatics, computational
chemistry, environmental sciences and also finance. The production infrastructure is now capable of sustaining a work-
load of 500 – 1,000 jobs per day from each of them, lasting
from a few minutes to several hours or even days.
Users gain access to the SMSCG infrastructure using their
AAI credentials. This approach has helped to significantly lower the entrance barrier to the infrastructure for new users.
New challenge: cloud computing
The collaborative spirit is a particularly important achievement for the project – resource providers and computational
experts from all over the country have established a strong
partnership. The SMSCG project thus provides a very good
basis for the next generation of national distributed-infrastructure projects. The challenge now is to make the best possible
use of new technologies and processes in cloud computing.
The upcoming Swiss Academic Compute Cloud project will
make sure that the know-how and collaboration of SMSCG is
put to good use in the future too.
Further information:
http://www.smscg.ch
Height (cm)
Element Density (kg
m-3
)
Simulation of snow density
Snow density (color-coded z-axis) at Parsenn near Davos as function of time
(x-axis), snow height (y-axis). The simulation was performed on the SMSCG.
16 AAA/SWITCH
Grid Selectome – UNIL, UZH, SIB
Computer-accelerated evolution
Selectome provides a database of positive selection in the evolution of species. The
search requires a high computational outlay. A grid approach helps to make it faster.
Text: Marc Robinson-Rechavi and Sebastien Moretti, UNIL; Heinz Stockinger,
Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (SIB)
Genomic sequence: this type of data makes it possible to study the process of adaption at the molecular level.
The evolution of species is one of the main questions in
biology. To address this question, it is necessary to develop
mathematical models to estimate how different biological processes could have resulted in the current diversity of life. In
particular, there is a strong interest in assessing whether a
certain feature or function could be involved in the adaptation of organisms to their environment.
Goal: understandig adaptation on a molecular level
The force that promotes such adaptation is generally known as
positive or Darwinian selection (named after the biologist
Charles Darwin), and the current increase in genomic data
makes it possible to study the processes of adaptation at the
molecular level. Selectome is a database that provides information on such positive selection events. It is provided as an online resource that can be easily used by life science researchers.
However, the underlying computational steps are complex
and require large amounts of computational resources. In
brief, the computationally intensive parts are based on the
phylogenetic software package called PAML and in particular the codeml application.
Executing thousands of codeml jobs
Within the AAA/SWITCH project Selectome we focused on
a suitable computational engine called gcodeml that efficiently and reliably executes thousands of codeml jobs on both grid
(in this case the Swiss Multi-Science Computing Grid,
SMSCG, see page 16) and cluster environments.
Further information:
http://selectome.unil.ch
AAA/SWITCH 17
Grid VM-MAD – ETHZ, UZH, SWITCH
Like the conductor of an orchestra
The use of virtual machines in grid and cloud environments is attractive, since
it eases deployment issues. The VM-MAD project developed a solution for dynamically extending local clusters to clouds.
Text: Peter Kunszt, ETHZ
The availability of powerful computing hardware in «Infrastructure as a Service» (IaaS) clouds made its usage attractive
for computational workloads, which were up to now almost
exclusively run on HPC clusters. The Virtual Machines Management and Advanced Deployment Project (VM-MAD) developed a framework for the cloud-bursting of Linux-based
clusters into public or private clouds.
Written in Python
The tool is called the VM-MAD Orchestrator and is written in
the Python programming language. It is completely modular,
permitting flexible configurations for cloud-bursting policies.
It can be used with any batch system and cloud infrastructure,
dynamically extending the cluster when needed. The Orchestrator monitors the jobs queued in the batch system and selects
those that could run on cloud-based virtual machines (VMs)
on the basis of the configured policies. It starts and shuts down
VM instances in the cloud and adds or removes these resources as compute nodes to or from the cluster.
A distinctive feature of our Orchestrator framework is that
the policies can be tested and tuned in a simulation mode
based on historical or synthetic cluster-accounting data. We
have used the VM-MAD Orchestrator in a production environment at the Functional Genomics Center Zurich to speed
up the analysis of mass spectrometry-based protein data by
cloud-bursting to the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud. The
VM-MAD Orchestrator has also been used by the Swiss Multi-Science Computing Grid (SMSCG) project (see page 16): it
is possible to extend a local cluster with resources from
SMSCG. The Academic Compute Cloud Provisioning and Usage project similarly makes use of the Orchestrator.
Further information:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1302.2529
Grid Grid Data Management – UNIGE, UNIBE
Benefitting from interdisciplinary research
Large quantities of imaging data have been stored and analysed in a joint project
between researchers from the fields of physics and medicine. The data handling was
performed using grid technologies.
Text: Henning Müller and Marko Niinimaki, HES-SO; Sigve Haug, UNIBE
The Grid Data Management project is positioned midway between the medical and physics domains, both of which need
to store and analyse large amounts of visual information. For
the physics domain, automatic image analysis tools from the
medical domain have been adapted for automatically classifying images into various image types. This allowed a reduction in time for analysing the images. The medical imaging
domain has benefited from the grid knowledge available in
physics. An infrastructure was set up using several grid applications in order to permit the safe storage of medical image
data and the retrieval of this data, including also visual re18 AAA/SWITCH
trieval. All these tools are open source. The medical data used
was anonymous, since medical images taken from the scientific literature were used. The project relied on the Swiss grid
infrastructure as provided by the Swiss Multi-Science Computing Grid (SMSCG; see page 16). It highlights how different
research fields can profit from each other by sharing not only
infrastructure but also common tools and expertise.
Further information:
www.switch.ch/aaa/projects/detail/UNIGE.4
«Safe Storage and Multi-modal Search for Medical Images»
by Jukka Kommeri, Marko Niinimäki, Henning Müller. Medical
Informatics Europe 2011, IOS press, Oslo, Norway, 2011.
Grid MUSIC – HES-SO, UNIGE, HSLU
Simulation calculations at breakneck speed
The MUlti-disciplinary diStrIbuted Computing (MUSIC) project has brought
four new applications and several user groups onto the Swiss distributed computing
scene. This project has combined volunteer, grid and cloud computing.
Text: Marko Niinimaeki, Nabil Abdennadher, Mohamed Ben Belgacem, HES-SO
MUSIC brought together several Swiss institutes of higher education through a shared high-performance computing platform called Xtrem Web-CH. This was developed at the University of Applied Sciences, Western Switzerland, in Geneva.
The project delivered significant gains in computing power for
the research groups participating in it. The four targeted applications come from the fields of environment sciences, genetics and art.
Application 2: SELECTOR, also from the University of Geneva, estimates the migration of people in East Asia on the basis of genetic data. SELECTOR is used in testing two competing hypotheses: 1. The populations of South and North East
Asia originate from just one population; 2. They originate from
two different populations. Testing the hypotheses requires between 100,000 and 1,000,000 simulations for each hypothesis.
This would take 100-200 days on a single PC. After parallelisation in the MUSIC project, the runtime for the simulation
was cut to just a couple of days.
Runtime cut to a couple of days
In the course of the project, XtremWeb-CH’s computing nodes
were successfully launched in the Azure cloud. In addition,
MUSIC developed a bridge between XtremWeb-CH and the
Swiss Multi-Science Computing Grid SMSCG (see page 16).
The following four applications were ported to the XtremWeb-CH platform in the MUSIC project:
Application 1: CYCLONE from the EnviroGRID group at
the University of Geneva evaluates the impact of cyclones on
the environment using a parallel simulation. MUSIC considerably improved the analysis: it is now possible to analyse 800
cyclones in 1 hour 20 minutes, whereas previously only 50 cyclones could be analysed in that time.
Phylogeny inference and finder for similar pictures
Application 3: MetaPIGA, a genetic application, has benefited
from the distributed computing resources of MUSIC on a similar scale. MetaPIGA, developed by the Laboratory of Artificial and Natural Evolution (LANE) at the University of Geneva, is a robust implementation of several stochastic heuristics
for large-scale phylogeny inference.
Application 4: The University of Applied Sciences of Lucerne has developed an «Images Finding Images» application
for MUSIC, that takes an initial picture as its input and finds
similar ones from a collection.
Further information:
www.switch.ch/aaa/projects/detail/HES-SO.3
Cyclone paths as analysed on the grid by the MUSIC project.
AAA/SWITCH 19
«The AAA project was a great incubator of ideas, a
catalyst for livening up the eduhub community, and has
contributed greatly to the push towards educational
technologies of tomorrow.»
Pierre-Yves Burgi
AAA Project Leader and contact person, President Educational Technology Working Group
[ETWG], Head ICET Unit, University of Geneva.
20 AAA/SWITCH
E-Learning
In this domain, 68 projects were approved – an excellent indicator of the high level of interest that AAA/SWITCH attracted in
the e-learning community.
Text: Petra Kauer-Ott, Deputy Project Manager AAA/SWITCH
The manifold needs of e-learning today are reflected in the various project themes approved
for this domain. The five topic clusters are extensions to learning management systems (LMS),
improvements in production, distribution and access to media data, new learning environments, e-assessment and also general-purpose infrastructure elements for shared use.
Whereas some projects progressively aligned their LMS to the students’ needs (e.g. Moodle extensions – see page 25), others analysed their institutional processes in the e-learning domain
(ITSI – see page 22) or initiated new learning environments (PLE – see page 23). This highlights two facts. Firstly, the e-learning community will not only have to master rapid technological progress in future but will also need to put stronger emphasis on the individual through
learner-centric solutions, while similarly taking into account societal changes that affect both
the individual and institutional strategies and services. Secondly, with AAA/SWITCH, the
Swiss higher education institutions have started to tackle these challenges.
Mobile applications for the campus were the subject of «Mobile Uni-App» (see page 25), which
provides a framework for other mobile application developers to build on – thus avoiding the
dreaded reinvention of the wheel. Shared frameworks and solutions of this type were also provided by «Universities Hosted United» for the more efficient use of LMS installations, by
«E-xcellence.ch» with its quality framework, and by «DICE» in the legal domain (see page 24).
Improvements to the handling of media data were the focus of several projects, targeting lecture recordings, video annotations, e-books, and also projects that were more oriented towards
the didactic use of media, such as «Distributed Classroom».
Many projects addressed e-assessment by developing new or improved innovative services as
well as introducing them in real-life computer-based tests. Eight solutions (SEB – Safe Exam
Browser – see page 24, SIOUX, MEASURED, e-OSCE, OSCE Manager, movo.ch, Aufgabenbörse, academe) have now been released by five institutions – not in isolation but adopting a
comprehensive and complementary approach. These cover examinations that use web browsers and mobile devices, and also support the preparation of clinical tests and online voting in
the classroom, or assist students in preparing for exams through learning cards.
E-assessment, and also new working and learning environments, are the main focus of the
AAA/SWITCH sustainability project «Learning Infrastructure», which forms part of the «Information Scientifique» cooperation and innovation project – aimed at boosting the sustainability of these solutions in the Swiss academic sector. In short, the project has supported muchneeded work and has shown that the Swiss e-learning community can successfully develop and
deploy innovative solutions in a highly collaborative manner.
AAA/SWITCH 21
E-Learning ITSI – UNIBAS
Learning environments for tomorrow’s campus
Virtual and physical-learning environments need to keep pace with continually
evolving mobile technologies and communication media. The ITSI project studied
what needs to be done to meet students’ needs.
Text: Gudrun Bachmann and Tina Škerlak, UNIBAS
The students of the future are mobile learners and today’s campuses are not able to meet their needs. Tables are too small,
and no electric sockets or lockers are available. The campus is
all about the dissemination and acquisition of knowledge. It
offers little physical and virtual space for group work, scientific discourse or informal discussions. Admittedly, IT makes
good solutions available for this, such as the tools developed
as part of AAA/SWITCH, but the teaching and learning culture here is lagging behind the technical possibilities and the
opportunities opening up through innovative, media-based
teaching and learning resources.
Users must be involved from the start
As the first step towards the campus of tomorrow, IT experts,
educationalists, architects and interior designers should be
brought together as early as the initial concept phase and not
just at the building stage. Additionally, end users need to be
involved right from the start.
The University of Basel’s project – IT Service Integration
in Studies and Teaching (ITSI) – organised a series of workshops with internal and external experts working together to
a modern learning environment. Additional studies focused
on discovering students’ needs were also undertaken.
A summary of the project results will be available free of
charge on the Internet later this year.
Further information:
http://itsi.ltn.unibas.ch
The library of the Faculty of Architecture at TU Delft, Netherlands:
an example of an environment in which discussions and group work
can be conducted within the physical and virtual space.
22 AAA/SWITCH
E-Learning PLE – UNIGE, EPFL, UNIL, UNIFR, UZH, SUPSI
Made-to-measure learning environment
The personal learning environment (PLE), a flexible system focused on the
learner, has been developed on the basis of a preliminary study, a series of surveys
and pilot classes. This environment satisfies the needs of current students.
Text: Omar Benkacem, Pierre-Yves Burgi, Hervé Platteaux, Patrick Roth, UNIGE
The main aim of the PLE project was to develop an ecosystem
which promotes interaction between the formal and informal
worlds, without learning necessarily being an explicit objective. This ecosystem consists of a personalised learning environment that groups together a set of online resources, some
of which come from institutions and some not. In this way, it
ought to be possible to stimulate a new form of education, focused to a greater extent on the learner.
Two approaches
The project started with a preliminary study which was essentially aimed at assessing the interest in PLE among the 14,000
students at Geneva University, covering their practices and the
use they made of IT tools – and provoking considerations as
to the implementation of an environment of this type. Two approaches emerged here in particular: an educational approach
taking in technology monitoring, awareness raising and training, and a technological approach introducing PLE in the form
of a «Didactic Dashboard» that can be both personalised and
further refined.
Different PLE solutions were implemented and tested in
pilot classes at the departments of the five partners that worked
together on the project. The 3A interaction model (for Actors,
Activities and Artefacts) served as the underlying basis. In this
model, the students and teachers are the actors, the educational scenarios are the activities, and all the associated resources are the artefacts.
Facilitated cooperation
For the student, the PLE is an environment that requires commitment. The tool does, however, facilitate cooperation between students by allowing them to conduct group activities
on the basis of the 3A interaction model. One of the questions
that still remains to be answered after these pilot classes is
whether an ecosystem of this type should be set up by the individual institution, or whether the institution should adapt
to the student’s ecosystem.
Further information:
Site with open-access learning resources:
www.myple.ch
AAA/SWITCH 23
E-Learning SEB – ETHZ
Cheat-proof online exams
The Safe Exam Browser (SEB) makes secure and fair examinations possible.
Text: Daniel Schneider, Dirk Bauer, Tobias Halbherr, Brigitte Schmucki, Oliver Rahs,
Kai Reuter, Karsten Burger, Thomas Piendl, ETHZ
Online exams are an increasingly important means of assessing performance at universities. They deliver more efficient,
reliable and novel ways to measure students’ abilities. But how
to rout the bugbears of manipulation, downloading of information from the Internet, or cheating? Simple, efficient opensource SEB software provides a solution.
Tailored
SEB features a whole package of options: it works with both
Windows and Mac OS X and may be used on centrally managed university computers as well as student laptops. SEB displays the examination created in a learning management system such as ILIAS and Moodle or in another exam system and
deactivates computer functions that students ar not allowed
to use. Here it is easily adjustable: discipline-specific software
such as Matlab, R, Excel and SPSS may be permitted, virtual
desktops can be used, and access to functions, websites or networks can be regulated with precision. The result is a tailored
exam environment which is as limited or extensive as desired.
SEB has been in action at Swiss universities since 2009. It is
now attracting interest beyond German-speaking countries
in Europe and at universities around the world. SEB is fast becoming an essential tool for online examinations in a very
wide community.
Further information:
www.safeexambrowser.org
No cheating, please – fair online exams at the ETH Zurich with SEB.
E-Learning DICE – USI, FFHS/SUPSI, ETHZ, UNIGE
Digital copyright for e-learning
DICE aims to increase awareness of copyright issues in the use of digital technologies. It is currently setting up a competence center, which will make it possible to
develop new materials, provide training sessions and create an online community.
Text: Anna Picco-Schwendener, USI
The goal of DICE was to develop training and reference materials on digital copyright for e-learning for the Swiss higher
education institutions in order to increase awareness for copyright issues when using digital technologies.
The DICE methodology
The methodology applied is based on four questions. First, it
should be determined where the content is used, in order to
find out the applicable copyright law. Next, it should be established whether the content is protected by copyright law and
who the rights holder is. Finally, it should be taken into ac24 AAA/SWITCH
count what the content is being used for. Workshops were organised in order to present Swiss copyright law and the DICE
methodology, and also to discuss specific questions with legal
experts and DICE members. DICE was also asked to conduct
webinars and short publications on the topic.
The great interest in DICE showed the importance of the
topic of digital copyright in the higher education sector. The
decision was therefore taken to create a competence centre,
which will start its activities in the near future.
Further information:
www.diceproject.ch
E-Learning Mobile Uni-App – UNISG, USI, FHNW
The university on a smartphone
Thanks to smartphones and tablets, we are used to calling up the latest information
at any time and wherever we happen to be. Not surprisingly, students now expect
the latest information on their university studies to be optimised for mobile devices
too. But this is frequently not the case.
Text: Thomas Sammer and Andrea Back, UNISG
When it comes to applications for mobile devices, the challenge lies in the many different operating systems and different screen resolutions. The Mobile Uni-App project is taking
up precisely this challenge and is offering, on the basis of the
Kurogo framework, an adaptive mobile website for the university sector that supports a large number of transferrable
standard functions. It includes a map and location service, a
people directory, RSS reader, library access such as search and
reservations (ALEPH & EbscoHost), login procedures (including AAI), Moodle access, the public transport timetable, access to the current canteen menu, and other functions.
students and university employees. A release of the Uni App
is also planned for the University of Lugano in 2013.
In the light of the experience we have acquired, we would
like to motivate other educational institutions to deploy this
solution and thus similarly be in a position to offer their students information on a mobile basis without major investments. The source code is available for download as an opensource project on GitHub and can be run on conventional web
servers.
Further information:
Mobile service of the University of St.Gallen:
www.app.unisg.ch
Source code of the Mobile Apps: https://github.com/
Institute-of-Information-Management-HSG/Project_Uni-App
Highly popular mobile presence
The University of St. Gallen has been offering these services
since September and, for just a small outlay, has been able to
implement a mobile presence that is highly popular amongst
Project website: http://ccmb.iwi.unisg.ch/projects/
project-mobile-uni-app/
E-Learning Moodle Extensions – FFHS/SUPSI, USI, FHNW, BFH
Facilitating online teaching
ELab has developed a number of plugins for Moodle that make the learning
management system easier to work with.
Text: Riccardo Mazza, SUPSI/USI
The mission of eLab – the e-learning laboratory at USI – is to
improve the quality of teaching through the integration of digital technologies in an efficient and advantageous manner.
ELab has contributed a number of useful plugins and add-ons
for the Moodle learning management system (LMS) to the
AAA/SWITCH programme to this end. Some of the tools developed in this context are enjoying extensive global popularity and are not simply limited to Switzerland. GISMO and
MOCLog, for example, are two plugins that provide a monitoring system which helps in analysing logfiles of the Moodle
LMS more effectively and efficiently. Thanks to a graphical
representation of the logfiles, GISMO and MOCLog allow instructors, learners, study programme managers and admin-
istrators to benefit from feedback on the status of activities in
online courses. GISMO has been downloaded more than 570
times in the last 16 months.
Moodle Notifications is another tool that allows students
to keep up-to-date with new content, discussions and events
in Moodle courses. Moodle TextCloud is an additional block
for Moodle which generates a text cloud containing the most
frequent keywords of the course that have been automatically extracted from the course resources, enabling learners to
reach their desired resources in few clicks.
Further information:
http://moclog.ch
http://moodle-notifications.elearninglab.org
http://moodletextcloud.sourceforge.net
AAA/SWITCH 25
«AAA/SWITCH is a significant contribution to the
success of virtual organisations as well as real networks of
researchers, lectures and students in the Swiss academic
environment.»
Mario Gay
Project Leader VO Tools, AAA contact person, Head joint IT service of Università della
Svizzera Italiana / University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland (IT-EDU).
26 AAA/SWITCH
VO
In academia, researchers, teaching staff and well as members
of any project have to be able to cooperate across institutional
boundaries as a team. Such virtual organisations (VO) need
specialised tools for efficient collaboration.
Text: Petra Kauer-Ott, Deputy Project Manager AAA/SWITCH
Virtual organisations (VO) are distributed groups that work together for a specific period of
time. Although many tools are available for collaboration at Swiss universities, administering
them can be an unnecessary burden for project managers. Each external member has to be
added manually and each tool managed separately. Despite these needs, the effort temporary
teams are able to invest at an infrastructure level is limited. Thus, only five projects were approved in this domain: two projects which enhanced already existing productive systems and
three pre-studies:
«B-Fabric» (see page 29), a data and project management system, has been generalised. Now it
can also be used by other life science research groups – considerably facilitating the management and archiving of their scientific data. «ShanghAI Lectures» (see page 28) is a «global lecture hall» that has become quite popular over the past four years, as a model for successful distributed teaching and learning. In «Evaluation of VO tools» it emerged that document sharing, the organisation of online meetings and the management of distributed projects were the
most important functions for virtual teams.
The pre-study «Tools for Innovation Actors in Living Labs» shows that, for innovation processes, additional support is necessary for communication, social software, knowledge management, creativity, administration and secure authentication. «Research Social Networking Applications», on the other hand, identifies networking, funds finding and publishing as core elements for a research VO platform.
The «SWITCHtoolbox» (see page 29) is SWITCH’s contribution to the VO domain. It provides
a basic set of useful tools for cross-institutional collaboration.
AAA/SWITCH 27
VO The ShanghAI Lectures – UZH, UNISG, HSLU
Connecting continents in cyberspace
What was originally planned as a once-only experiment in global teaching – the Shangh
AI Lectures – turned into four years of SWITCH-supported international lecture series.
Text: Nathan Labhart, UZH
In the winter term of 2009, the Artificial Intelligence Lab (Department of Informatics, University of Zurich) introduced the
ShanghAI Lectures, a weekly lecture series on «embodied artificial and natural intelligence» that was transmitted to twelve
universities around the globe via videoconference. In addition
to the regular class held by Professor Rolf Pfeifer (UZH), there
were two guest lectures almost every week by high-profile researchers from around the world. Students who attended the
lectures in the participating lecture halls had the chance to interact with the lecturers, ask questions and discuss the topics
presented. In order to foster intercultural collaboration, a
three-dimensional collaborative environment (virtual world)
was set up, where students worked together on solving teamwork exercises. All the lectures were recorded and made available on the project website for anyone to call up free of charge.
The ShanghAI Lectures project not only provided a means
for students and lecturers to interact across university boundaries but also constituted a research platform for research into
virtual team behaviour, since the exercise groups were made
up of students from different cultures.
Planned as a once-only event
This experiment in global teaching has succeeded thanks to
the generous support received from AAA/SWITCH. Apart
from the initial funding, SWITCH also provided the infrastructure for the videoconferencing (SWITCHvideoconf and
SWITCHinteract) and the recording (SWITCHcast) and contributed many hours of support during the preparations and
deployment.
The ShanghAI Lectures were originally planned as a onceonly event. However, since they proved to be very popular with
the participating universities, we decided – given that the
know-how and infrastructure were in place – to continue every winter term, incorporating a number of modifications and
new features each time round, such as «Discussion Sessions»
in the 3-D world (2010), a new community website (2011), and
physical robot competitions (2012).
28 AAA/SWITCH
ShanghAI Lectures: a series of weekly lectures transmitted to twelve
universities around the globe.
Over the past four years, about 40 universities from all over
the world have participated in one way or other. The sites that
joined in every week ranged from Salford (UK), via Algiers
(Algeria), Zurich, Moscow (Russia), Abu Dhabi (UAE) and
Shanghai (China), to Hobart (Australia), and there were live
guest presentations from the US (at a very early hour of the
morning for the speakers), Thessaloniki, Budapest, and Singapore, as well as from many other locations.
The repository of recorded guest lectures has grown to over
100 entries, and we estimate that more than 1,000 students
have participated so far (due to different regulations at the participating universities, there is no central administration for
all the students involved). The fact that videoconferencing
technology allowed students to listen to (and discuss with) experts from around the world was highly appreciated – and the
lecturers themselves were excited to be able to interact with a
global audience.
Further information:
Project website: http://shanghailectures.org
Platform for research on virtual team behaviour:
http://shanghailectures.org/research
VO SWITCHtoolbox – SWITCH
Tools for virtual workers
SWITCH has developed a toolbox to permit cooperation in virtual organisations.
It has been available to the universities and individual AAA/SWITCH projects since 2012.
Text: Renato Furter and Christian Rohrer, SWITCH
For SWITCH, a virtual organisation is a heterogeneous group
of like-minded individuals who work together and share the
same objective but are not in the same geographical location.
It is also possible that they do not all come from the university environment. It was under these framework conditions that
the SWITCHtoolbox was developed.
Additional functions on demand
The practical outcome is now as follows: Members of the universities have access via their AAI login, while third parties
receive a guest login under any valid e-mail address. The centrepiece of the toolbox is a central database for managing
groups. The other tools it contains are a wiki, file storage, a
mailing list, Docendo for content compilation and SWITCHinteract for online conferences. The toolbox can also be
equipped with additional functions depending on the users’
requirements and the initiative of the universities.
At present, more than 10,000 members and more than 500
groups are using the toolbox. Collaborative projects such as
SWITCHtoolbox: Supporting project teams across Swiss universities.
«Learning Infrastructure» can also conduct their project work
with it in this way, as a virtual organisation.
Further information:
www.switch.ch/toolbox
VO B-Fabric – UZH, ETHZ, EAWAG
Handling the lifecycle of data
All research units and core facilities have to manage the entire life cycle of their data.
B-Fabric from the Functional Genomic Center Zurich is doing this for more than
1,250 projects.
Text: Can Türker, UZH
Project start, data collection, data analysis, data sharing,
project end, data archiving, and data discovery – all these are
aspects of the data lifecycle that an institution has to handle.
To overcome this challenge, a data management system is
required which captures not only the experimental data generated by instruments and applications but also scientific
metadata together with data on the data producers and consumers, i.e. the users and the projects. At the Functional
Genomics Center Zurich (FGCZ), our B-Fabric data management system has proven its usefulness in supporting the en-
tire data lifecycle in daily business for more than six years now.
B-Fabric is currently managing more than 1,250 projects and
2,700 users from more than 500 institutions. With «B-Fabric
for Switzerland», we opened up B-Fabric for a wider audience,
and users can now access the system using their SWITCHaai
accounts. Apart from that, external data sources can be easily coupled with the system at runtime and accessed via a rolebased model.
Further information:
www.bfabric.org
AAA/SWITCH 29
Raymond Werlen, Secretary General of CRUS.
«SWITCH constitutes a neutral platform for all the different
types of university. This makes it possible to develop horizontal
projects right across the university landscape.»
30 AAA/SWITCH
«SWITCH manages projects professionally.»
The Rectors’ Conference of the Swiss Universities (CRUS) had a major say in the allocation of funding
to the projects that were conducted in the framework of the AAA/SWITCH project. Raymond Werlen,
the Secretary General of CRUS, explains, why the coordination of the project was entrusted to SWITCH.
Text: Fiorenzo Scaroni, Secretary General of SWITCH
Fiorenzo Scaroni: How important are the cooperation
and innovation projects for Switzerland’s universities?
Raymond Werlen: The cooperation and innovation projects
are intended to promote cooperation between the universities.
In the case of AAA/SWITCH, it is infrastructure-based aspects of cooperation that are involved.
ensure the sustainability and coordination of e-learning in
Switzerland’s tertiary education sector and are supported by
SWITCH.
CRUS oversaw the project, but a large number of decision-making, financing and control bodies were involved.
Is that not a rather difficult line-up?
Why was it precisely SWITCH that was entrusted with
the coordination of the project?
For CRUS, professional project management is of key importance. This creates the basis for the fruitful and sustainable
deployment of the significant resources that are invested.
We were confident that the project was in good hands with
SWITCH.
What was SWITCH able to offer in conjunction with this
project that convinced CRUS of its competence?
SWITCH had already managed the AAI project from 2004 to
2007. The infrastructure that was created back then developed
into a key instrument for all the Swiss universities. That was
an argument for entrusting SWITCH with the coordination
of the new project. In addition, I consider one of SWITCH’s
strengths to be its competence in managing and coordinating
projects cleanly and efficiently and, in addition, SWITCH constitutes a neutral platform for all the different types of university. This latter aspect sets SWITCH apart from other organisations and makes it possible to develop horizontal projects
right across the university landscape.
One of the strengths of AAA/SWITCH is precisely that cantonal universities, universities of applied sciences and Federal Institute of Technology entities have all worked together
on the project. This also means, however, that the project
management has to deal with a large number of decision-makers. SWITCH has succeeded in giving the project a flexible
structure. It has done this by redistributing the funds and
making a distinction between university projects and competitive projects. The universities have doubtlessly benefited
from this.
Can you sum up the outcome of the project already?
That’s not so easy, but one thing I can say for sure is that the
financial resources that were available were certainly extensively exhausted. Just how sustainable the individual sub-projects are is something we cannot tell as yet.
Over the period from 2013-2016, AAA/SWITCH will
be undergoing further broad-based development in the
framework of the SUK programme on «Scientific Information: Access, Editing and Storage». This will be focusing on the supply of information – in which libraries
SWITCH’s application for the AAA/SWITCH project ini-
and archives have a major role to play. How do you see
tially related to three domains, namely the further de-
SWITCH’s position in this project?
velopment of the AAI, the grid and virtual organisations.
I have already mentioned SWITCH’s strengths. These strengths
make SWITCH the ideal organisation for taking on a key role
in the coordination of the technical aspects of this project. It
will do this in cooperation with further players in the universities and research institutes and, in particular, with the
libraries, the Swiss National Grid Association and the Educational Technology Working Group. The overall management
and coordination of the project, however, will be in the hands
of a steering committee deployed by CRUS.
CRUS added e-learning to this. Why?
The three topics put forward by SWITCH constitute the logical further development of AAI. The Swiss University Conference and CRUS added the e-learning domain to the project in order to secure the continuation of the services and
infrastructure of the Swiss Virtual Campus (SVC) programme, which ended in 2008. The SVC platforms of Eduhub
and the Educational Technology Working Group (ETWG)
AAA/SWITCH 31
«Im Zentrum des Folgeprogrammes
steht unsere wertvollste Ressource:
Information.»
Christoph Graf, Projektverantwortlicher AAA/SWITCH.
Ausblick
Das Projekt AAA/SWITCH hatte den Auf- und Ausbau von E-Infrastrukturkomponenten zum Ziel. Wie geht es nun weiter?
Im Projekt AAA/SWITCH haben Mitarbeitende des tertiären
Bildungsbereiches auf den Auf- und Ausbau von E-Infrastrukturkomponenten hingearbeitet. Mit Stolz konnte SWITCH in
einem Bericht zuhanden der CRUS im Herbst 2012 ausweisen,
dass die Mitarbeitenden von kantonalen Universitäten, von
Fachhochschulen und aus dem ETH-Bereich nachhaltige Strukturen geschaffen haben. In den Bereichen AAI und Virtual Organisations werden nun keine weiteren Förderaktivitäten benötigt. In den beiden Bereichen E-Learning und Grid dagegen werden spezifische Themen ausgesondert, bei denen 2013 weitere
Stützungsmassnahmen angezeigt sind. Die Beilage zum Bericht
enthielt zwei darauf zugeschnittene Anträge für Folgeprojekte.
«Learning Infrastructure» und «Academic Cloud»
Im Zentrum des Folgeprojektes «Learning Infrastructure» stehen personalisierte Arbeits- und Lernumgebungen und E-Assessment. Das zweite Folgeprojekt «Swiss Academic Compute Cloud» zielt primär auf die nachhaltige Stützung der wissenschaftlichen Nutzerinnen und Nutzer ab, in zweiter Linie
auf die Vergrösserung der Nutzerbasis. Wir durften noch im
Jahr 2012 mit Freude und Genugtuung den positiven Förderentscheid entgegennehmen. Inhaltlich und finanziell deckt
er sich mit dem beantragten Umfang.
32 AAA/SWITCH
Wichtig: Projektstrukturen
Ein Nebenprodukt von AAA/SWITCH dürfte sich als wichtig erweisen und für künftige Projekte entscheidende Vorteile bringen: Die aufgebauten Projektstrukturen. Im Vorgängerprojekt AAI wurde die Basis gelegt. Die Erweiterung des
Themenkreises bei AAA/SWITCH hat weitere Akteure in den
Hochschulen angesprochen. Diese mussten vernetzt werden.
Aufgrund des wesentlich grösseren Volumens musste zudem
die Projektleitung ausgebaut und professionalisiert werden.
Das Bewilligungsverfahren wurde überarbeitet, damit die
Qualität der Projekte sichergestellt ist. Anders als im Vorläuferprojekt AAI wurden gewisse Eingaben für Teilprojekte
einer Bewertung durch externe Sachexpertinnen und -experten unterzogen. Die Projekte unterstanden einem kompetitiven Bewilligungsverfahren. Künftige Projekte werden auf all
diesen Strukturen aufsetzen können.
Das Folgeprogramm «Information scientifique: accès,
traitement et sauvegarde» führt Themen und Akteure der
Projekte AAA/SWITCH und e-Lib zusammen. Im Zentrum
steht unsere wertvollste Ressource: Information. Wir sind
bereit!
Christoph Graf
Perspective
Le projet AAA/SWITCH avait pour but de constituer et de développer des composants d’e-infrastructure. Quelle sera la suite?
Dans le cadre du projet AAA/SWITCH, des collaborateurs
du domaine de la formation tertiaire ont travaillé à constituer
et à développer des composants d’e-infrastructure. SWITCH
a pu démontrer avec fierté, dans un rapport adressé en automne 2012 au CRUS, que les collaborateurs des universités
cantonales, des hautes écoles spécialisées et de l’univers des
EPF avaient créé des structures durables. Au niveau des «AAI»
et des «Virtual Organisations», de nouvelles activités de promotion n’étaient pas nécessaires. Dans les deux domaines
«E-Learning» et «Grid» en revanche, il a été dégagé des
thèmes spécifiques pour lesquels d’autre mesures de soutien
sont indiquées en 2013. L’annexe au rapport contient deux
propositions pour des projets de poursuite axés sur ces deux
domaines.
«Learning Infrastructure» et «Academic Cloud»
Des environnements personnalisés de travail et d’apprentissage et e-assessment sont au centre du projet de poursuite
«Learning Infrastructure». Le second projet de poursuite
«Swiss Academic Compute Cloud» vise d’abord à un soutien
durable des utilisateurs scientifiques et ensuite au développement de la base d’utilisateurs. En 2012, nous avons pu avec joie
et satisfaction prendre acte de la décision positive de promo-
tion. Du point de vue tant financier que de la teneur, celui-ci
correspond exactement à l’étendue proposée.
Important: structure de projets
Un produit secondaire de AAA/SWITCH pourrait s’avérer
important et apporter des avantages décisifs pour de futurs
projets, à savoir les structures de projets qui ont été constituées. La base en a été posée dans le projet précédent AAI.
L’extension de la série de thèmes dans AAA/SWITCH a attiré de nouveaux intervenants des hautes écoles. Il s’agissait de
les interconnecter. Etant donné le volume considérablement
augmenté, il fallait en outre étendre la direction du projet et
la professionnaliser. La procédure d’autorisation a été révisée
afin de garantir la qualité des projets. Contrairement au projet précédent AAI, certaines propositions de projets partiels
ont été soumises à une évaluation par des experts externes et
à une procédure compétitive d’autorisation. Les projets futurs
pourront bâtir sur toutes ces structures.
Le programme de poursuite «Information scientifique: accès, traitement et sauvegarde» rassemble thèmes et acteurs des
projets AAA/SWITCH et e-Lib. Au centre, notre ressource la
plus précieuse: l’information. Nous sommes prêts!
Christoph Graf, responsable du projet AAA/SWITCH
Prospettive
Il progetto AAA/SWITCH aveva lo scopo di creare e ampliare le componenti
dell’e-infrastructure. Quali saranno i prossimi passi?
Nel progetto AAA/SWITCH diversi collaboratori del settore
dell’istruzione terziaria hanno lavorato alla creazione e all’ampliamento delle componenti per l’e-infrastructure. In un rapporto presentato alla CRUS nell’autunno 2012, SWITCH ha
potuto annunciare con orgoglio che gli esperti delle università cantonali, delle scuole universitarie professionali e dei politecnici federali sono riusciti a creare delle infrastrutture sostenibili. Nei settori «AAI» e «Virtual Organisations» non sono
necessarie ulteriori attività di promozione. Nei due settori
«E-Learning» e «Grid» si sono invece individuati alcuni temi
specifici per i quali si raccomandano nuove misure di sostegno nel 2013. L’allegato al rapporto conteneva due proposte
per progetti di follow-up in questi due settori.
«Learning Infrastructure» e «Academic Cloud»
Il progetto di follow-up «Learning Infrastructure» si concentra sugli ambienti di lavoro e apprendimento personalizzati e
sull’e-assessment. L’altro progetto di follow-up «Swiss Academic Compute Cloud» mira in primo luogo al sostegno degli
utilizzatori che operano in campo scientifico e, in secondo luogo, all’ampliamento del bacino di utenza. Nel 2012 abbiamo
appreso con piacere e soddisfazione che i progetti sono stati
approvati. Le richieste sono state accolte sia nei contenuti sia
sul piano finanziario.
Importante: strutture di progetto
AAA/SWITCH ha prodotto un «effetto collaterale» che potrebbe rivelarsi importante e comportare vantaggi decisivi per
le iniziative future: la creazione di vere strutture di progetto .
Il progetto precursore AAI aveva gettato le prime basi. L’ampliamento dei temi in AAA/SWITCH ha coinvolto una maggiore cerchia di attori nelle università. Tutte queste persone
dovevano essere collegate tra di loro. Considerati i volumi notevolmente più grandi, c’era anche bisogno di una direzione
di progetto professionale. Per assicurare la qualità dei progetti, si è migliorata anche la procedura di autorizzazione. A differenza del progetto AAI, alcune richieste di progetti parziali sono state sottoposte a esperti esterni per una valutazione.
È nata così una procedura di autorizzazione competitiva. I progetti futuri potranno far leva su queste strutture.
Il programma di follow-up «Information scientifique: accès, traitement et sauvegarde» riunisce temi e attori dei due progetti AAA/SWITCH ed e-Lib. Al centro dell’attenzione vi è la
nostra risorsa più preziosa: l’informazione. Noi siamo pronti!
Christoph Graf, responsabile del progetto AAA/SWITCH
AAA/SWITCH 33
Contact for the AAA project:
SWITCH
P.O. Box, CH - 8021 Zurich
Phone +41 44 268 15 05
Fax +41 44 268 15 68
[email protected]
www.switch.ch/aaa