EQUELLA offers a range of professional services
that deliver structured, methodical, and successful
deployments of EQUELLA.
Our proven methodology, adopted and refined by
EQUELLA teams around the globe, maximises the
effectiveness and benefits from institutional use of
the EQUELLA digital repository.
The EQUELLA methodology incorporates best
practices from deployments to university, vocational,
school, government, and corporate clients.
The high quality services the EQUELLA consulting
team delivers include:
Strategic
Implementation
Content Migration
Training
Production Monitoring
Hosting Solutions
Introduction
n Strategic
n Implementation
n
Content Migration
n
Training
n
Production Monitoring
Strategic
Services
Overview
Institutional repositories can be a challenge to implement
as such solutions can require involvement, assets, and
cooperation from a variety of teams, including teaching
and learning, library, research, IT, content production,
academic departments, marketing, and various others.
It is critical to gain the support and cooperation from
all institution wide teams – and a clear communication
strategy can greatly assist with this important process.
A key to the successful deployment of EQUELLA is a
strategic approach to its implementation. Whether an
institution is implementing EQUELLA for the first time,
or is looking to re-evaluate and expand their existing
educational technology architecture, a Strategic Planning
Workshop will provide a clear pathway to ensure a
balance in interests and objectives for the institution’s
digital repository.
Benefits
Experienced EQUELLA consultants will lead an onsite Strategic Planning Workshop covering a variety of topics ranging from current content management practices, institutional objectives, content auditing, content life-cycle, change management, to staffing requirements, and more. In addition to the best practices shared and worksheets completed during the engagement, the EQUELLA consulting team will create a formal recommendations document based on the workshop discussion and outcomes.
A Strategic Planning Workshop will enhance the institution’s central management of digital resources, and develop selective consolidation for all users. Strategic planning and analysis of an institution’s individual and tailoured implementation of EQUELLA builds a solid foundation for the institution to continue to build upon with the EQUELLA consulting team throughout their implementation of EQUELLA. This process also enables the institution to follow on from a successful pilot and strategically plan to minimise risk and incorporate feedback, leading to various benefits including reduced overall system maintenance costs, increased consistency across the institutional systems, and greater value for student, academic and research communities.
Inclusions
nReview of Current Content Management and Future Content Management Objectives
nEQUELLA Overview
nContent Management Lifecycle Review
nExploration of Content Migration Alternatives
nLMS Integration
nUser Interface Customisation
nTraining Requirements
nImplementation Planning
TAFE/FE/Community College Sector
A leading TAFE Institute established a clear long-term vision for transforming the delivery of teaching and learning across the Institute, through replacing a legacy learning management system with an integrated platform including EQUELLA, Moodle, and Wimba. The Institute and the EQUELLA consulting team have developed a strong long-term relationship, recognising the importance of an integrated team and approach incorporating strategy, change management, technology, and other aspects. The engagement was launched with an on-site strategic workshop, eliciting the institution’s online teaching and learning objectives and business outcomes, whilst ultimately mapping these back to EQUELLA functionality. The engagement continued with a variety of remote and on-site activities, including installation, configuration, content migration, load testing, disaster recovery planning, EQUELLA certification, and documentation. The EQUELLA consulting team have also deployed remote application monitoring, which includes 24/7 monitoring and response on their EQUELLA servers. The relationship incorporates feedback from the Institute into our EQUELLA solution as well as the dynamic integration with Moodle.
Case Studies
HE/University Sector
A well established university conducted a current content management review, which involved an analysis of an existing repository, and their other institutional systems, coupled with a review of their EQUELLA pilot, with the goal of intelligent consolidation of platforms. The EQUELLA deployment objectives focused on content authoring requirements, workflow processes, content sharing, federated searching, copyright management, reporting, training and staffing requirements. The university’s Strategic Planning Workshop explored EQUELLA architecture design: load considerations, scalability, review of system architecture options, and disaster recovery. It also featured content migration, current content locations, migration mechanisms and lifecycle, workflow requirements, and contribution lifecycle and participants. The university also emphasised search capabilities, federated search, Blackboard integration, and developing an implementation plan for consolidating a number of content management needs into an integrated EQUELLA platform.
Technical University
An acclaimed technical university’s goal was to ensure their EQUELLA repository would contain a wide variety and high quantity of materials, to meet a range of requirements across the university. The content areas that were addressed were: the Institute’s Images collection, iTunes U content, multimedia learning content created by the university’s various media production groups, the library’s eReserve and CAL content, and other institution wide content. Core to the Strategic Planning Workshop was to identify key business requirements – such as enabling easy and rapid content discovery – and then demonstrating to academics how EQUELLA could provide a solution. The Strategic Planning Workshop focused on the way the institute would support media-rich content, eReserve and copyright materials, academic-created content online, as well as with the encouragement of academic contribution into EQUELLA, incorporating change management and additional content types, course outlines, and research materials.
Change Management
Overview
Change management is key to the successful deployment
of a digital repository. The most successful EQUELLA
deployments balance individual and institutional needs to
provide easy access to valuable resources, while enabling
broad overviews and more effective management of
content. The introduction of new processes, systems
and approaches to content management can be met with
resistance – as is often encountered during a change
process. Clear communication, education, training and
other mechanisms are required to properly convey the
benefits of the rollout and provide proper support to the
community to benefit the institution, the educators, and
ultimately the students.
Case Studies
TAFE/FE/Community College Sector
There were a wide variety of change management processes implemented within a state-wide TAFE institute prior to the official deployment of the institution’s EQUELLA repository, including a formal Change Readiness Audit, official EQUELLA certification for the Institute, further EQUELLA configuration and optimisation, configuration for EQUELLA installation, and project management. The value of EQUELLA increased for the TAFE institute as additional sources of content and delivery mechanisms were added to the repository and other institutional systems. An integrated architecture delivered greater value from each individual system as well as introducing an overall solution that will continue to grow and evolve. The addition of various sources of content included both internal resources, such as library and SharePoint content, as well as external collections, repositories, and systems. This rollout provided a wealth of valuable resources but also significant changes to processes. The initial reception, adoption, and success of the platform were all improved as a result of the formal change management program.
Benefits
Change management can be a critical factor in maximising the effectiveness of the rollout of an institution’s EQUELLA repository. There are multiple aspects of change management required for this particular project: strategy, communications plan, sponsorship/champions, training, support, as well as reporting and feedback processing. While the scale of the change management required for the pilot may differ across various institutions, it is still worth considering change management formally, and envisioning how it will scale for future phases of the deployment. Given the indepth nature of change management, EQUELLA typically partners with institutions for joint planning and delivery of change management.
Inclusions
nConducting a Change Readiness Audit
nDevelopment of a Communications Plan
nProject Management
nEQUELLA Direct and Train-The-Trainer Certification
nCreation of Administration Videos
nEstablishment of On-Going Communication and Change Management Regime
nDocumentation
HE/University
A client university achieved a successful deployment of EQUELLA by building upon the strengths of the repository in accordance with the strategic evaluation of the solution. Through the extensive integration of the institution’s LMS, and the development of research collections, users across the university will now benefit from continuous research collaboration and wider dissemination. The strategies utilised, including efficient training, a fully supported deployment, and detailed reporting, alongside CLA enabled the university to extend their research capabilities and achieve further search outcomes, including external/ national library systems.
Overview
EQUELLA Agents enable institutions and partners to
extend the EQUELLA platform to fulfil additional business
requirements. The EQUELLA Agent Design engagement
was developed to enable organisations to best architect
their extension to the platform. Experienced EQUELLA
consultants will work with the institution’s team to clarify
the requirements and design a solution using EQUELLA’s
flexible APIs. The EQUELLA Agents Framework is the
suite of services that make it possible for third parties
to integrate and build applications utilising EQUELLA
functionality. The types of EQUELLA Agents include the
EQUELLA integration interface, the SOAP interface, and
the Advanced Script Control. EQUELLA Agents connect
EQUELLA to additional content and other services in an
integrated, seamless manner.
EQUELLA Agent Design
Benefits
EQUELLA Agents, including Advanced Scripting Controls, present the institution with the following benefits:
n Leverage powerful scripting libraries to solve a variety of challenges
n Enables users to search and consume from external sources
n Introduces custom functionality, either integrating external systems or new capabilities inside EQUELLA
n Provides users with strong support from documentation and other client usage examples
Inclusions
nEQUELLA Agent Design Session
n Requirements and Approach Recommendations Document
n As Required, Proof-Of-Concept Development
TAFE/FE/Community College Sector
Seeking to provide greater access to teachers to online resources, a TAFE Institute desired an integration between EQUELLA and Gale – a robust online collection of reference content. The EQUELLA consulting team identified and documented the integration requirements, and developed a proof-of-concept integration with Gale via an Advanced Script Control (ASC). Following prototyping and initial deployment, the Gale ASC has been refined and rolled out across the institution – providing a seamless integration between the two systems that enables the linking of Gale resources inside of EQUELLA, and ultimate delivery through a LMS.
Case Studies
University
Similar to the TAFE example above, a university required tighter integration between EQUELLA and EBSCO, the research database service. The EQUELLA consulting team prototyped the integration and developed an Advanced Script Control providing the required functionality. The seamless integration eliminates the requirement to log in to EBSCO before searching and contributing the linked content into EQUELLA.
Implementation
Services
Overview
As an enterprise-wide solution, EQUELLA provides a
diverse range of deployment capabilities to address the
varying requirements of different client institutions.
These may include the following:
n Pilot: The EQUELLA consulting team combines high level experience in the education sector with product expertise. This service guides our clients through the entire life-cycle of deployment, from an initial kick-off workshop, requirements gathering, system configuration, training, staffing requirements, content conversion planning, deployment, and documentation.
n Full Deployment: The EQUELLA implementation is inclusive of the various installation and configuration requirements the individual institution has chosen to deliver their content, and may include a range of consulting processes that relate directly to each institution’s deployment objectives.
n Copyright Compliancy: EQUELLA provides a convenient method for institutions to manage content they access and reuse, and fully supports copyright licensing agreements, including CLA (UK) and CAL (Australia). EQUELLA automatically tracks content usage of the activated items and produces the appropriate reports, reducing the reporting work load for institutions.
n Research Repository: EQUELLA can be utilised as an open access repository for research collections, allowing for new research information systems, providing institutions with open access publications, research administration and management information.
EQUELLA Deployment
Benefits
n Allowing the institution to share best practice, EQUELLA deployment is based upon numerous clients who have successfully implemented the solution, and fully supports the installation of any new system, which can be complex
nInstitutions can utilise the experienced EQUELLA consulting team who can quickly train the institution’s staff in how the solution works on the server, providing the team with the skills to avoid the need to invest largely in future support
n While on site the EQUELLA consulting team provide log file locations and troubleshooting techniques, ensuring the institution is only required to dedicate a small amount of time early on to save large amounts of time on future support
n EQUELLA deployment enables integration with other enterprise-wide systems, the EQUELLA consulting team are highly experienced in installation, and have the knowledge base to determine the best process of connecting disparate systems
Inclusions
EQUELLA Deployments typically include the following key elements:
Activity
Description
Project Management and Planning On-going project management, coordination, status reporting
On-site Kick-off Workshop On-site workshop to initiate the engagement, incorporating strategic planning, requirements gathering, knowledge transfer, and planning
System Installation Installation of EQUELLA for locally-hosted clients
EQUELLA System Configuration Configuration of EQUELLA to meet the business requirements, including aspects such as the metadata schema, collection definitions, workflow, taxonomies, power search and hierarchy model
EQUELLA Identity Management Establishment of a scalable security model including users, groups and roles, and integration with an external authentication scheme
Design Look and Feel Customising various aspects of EQUELLA, including Dashboard portlets, navigation links, menu headings, graphics, CSS changes and language packs
Data Migration Conducting a content audit, analysis, and migration of data from a variety of sources. Refer to the Data Migration section below for additional details
Custom Reports Creating custom reports to deliver customised business reporting
Certification Formal EQUELLA training and certification courses. Refer to the Certification section below for additional details
Documentation Formal documentation on the platform and the engagement for handover to the client
Testing Coordination and support during testing, which is often directly performed by the client team to ensure fulfilment of business requirements as well as knowledge transfer to the client.
Deployment Production launch of EQUELLA
System Architecture Design and
Implementation
Overview
Organisations typically deploy EQUELLA as an
enterprise-wide digital repository and plan to source hardware to
deliver a robust, scalable experience for their user base.
The goal is to design and deliver an extensible platform
that will scale appropriately and can be augmented as the
client chooses to deploy additional content collections and
release the system to a broader user base.
EQUELLA supports a number of different operating
environments, with clients successfully deployed using
each of our core supported platforms. While there
are many variables to consider in system architecture,
ultimately the EQUELLA consulting team recommends
that any EQUELLA architecture leverage client expertise,
parallels existing architectures for other systems, and also
integrates with existing disaster recovery plans.
System architecture components may include:
n
Load-balancing switches
n
Various operating systems
n
Database server(s)
n
EQUELLA application server(s)
n
Utility server(s)
n
SAN or other storage devices
Benefits
n High level of availability and performance with service management
n Maximum flexibility through clustered architecture
n Knowledge transfer to the client team for optimal performance and stability
n Improved management and business continuity
Many of the successful EQUELLA clients across all market sectors engage the EQUELLA consulting team for installation mentoring endeavours, including architecture design, hardware sizing, disaster recovery planning and performance testing. Installation mentoring is a service that efficiently and cost-effectively facilitates additional or consequent planning that may arise as the implementation of EQUELLA further progresses. This will often include complex upgrades of EQUELLA, and ensuring there is no functionality or data loss during or after this process. This service can also aid the process of integration with a wide, diverse range of CMS/LMS/VLE solutions, which many EQUELLA clients have discovered to be highly valuable addition to this service.
Case Study
Advanced Configuration Assistance
Program (ACAP)
Overview
The advanced configuration options presented within
EQUELLA enable our clients to achieve the maximum
benefits when implementing a digital repository in a
complex environment, whilst acquiring the level of
customisation required. EQUELLA is a highly flexible
solution, and the EQUELLA consulting team provides
highly skilled training for the institution’s technicians,
to overcome challenges in order to reach the optimal
results and leverage expert solution knowledge that will
support the institution’s implementation.
When trying to achieve the maximum benefit of
implementing a digital repository in a complex
environment, sometimes to get to the level of
customisation desired requires further investigation,
and using the advanced configuration options present
within EQUELLA. Strong flexibility can present challenges
in gaining access to the right highly skilled technicians
with expert solution knowledge that can support you
in your implementation. Such skills are often needed on
an on-demand basis as implementation progresses by
members of an institution’s implementation team.
Benefits
n ACAP provides flexible support to an institution during their implementation of EQUELLA.
n ACAP allows an institution to allocate a particular set of hours for either general tasks or specific requirements, by ensuring these needs are met without being time or project schedule bound, but rather being adaptive towards the actual deployment’s outcomes and progression.
Inclusions
Members of ACAP can access advanced configuration specialists that can assist you in the following areas:
n LDAP and Active Directory Configuration and Tuning
n Development of XSLT Templates for Display Purposes
n Re-Branding of the User Interface
n Advanced Scripting Within the Administration Console
n Development of Bulk Upload Scripts
n Integration Assistance with Learning Management Systems such as Blackboard, Moodle
n Development of Federated Search Plug-Ins, Customisation of User Management Schema
n Assistance in Creation of Complex Hierarchies, Power Searches or Collections
n Assistance in Implementing Access Control Policies
n Server to Server Data Migration
n Report Design and Creation
The ACAP service has enabled many client institutions to advocate specified and targeted professional service hours, that specifically and actively target project objectives and required outcomes including scripting, load testing, and LMS integration. EQUELLA’s flexibility and customisation goes beyond the software solution and can be seamlessly included within any institution project. ACAP is a highly versatile offering of the EQUELLA consulting team, which can be easily and readily applied to any configuration of the solution, and any associated infrastructure within the timeframe an institution has set, or in direct response to an occurrence during the deployment.
Content
Migration
Overview
As organisations seek to enhance
their content management, content
stored within learning management
systems is often a major focus:
by extracting the content into
EQUELLA, the content can be
easily and efficiently discovered,
contributed, shared, managed and
reused. The EQUELLA consulting
team has experience extracting data
from, and delivering linked content
to, a number of LMS platforms.
Benefits
n Flexibility: The EQUELLA tools provide flexibility by working directly from the LMS or course export packages, allowing for the process to be run at any point for any number of courses. This enables an institution to deploy the integrated solution in phases across the institution, as well as performing periodic “clean-up”, should some courses with local content require the migration at a future point in time.
n A robust solution: Current EQUELLA client feedback has been very positive, with the solution’s application across multiple clients resulting in the tools becoming increasingly robust. While the tools actively facilitate the migration between LMS platforms, and extraction of content into EQUELLA, the EQUELLA consulting team recommends a review of the updated courses, to ensure increased leveraging of the target LMS tools, as well as for quality assurance.
n Client driven process: The content migration process enables clients to drive the structure and strategy behind the procedure, as while the existing tools provide the underlying functionality, there are always local decisions to be made about specific business rules. There are various issues that the EQUELLA consulting team would work through with an institution during the consulting engagement involving the migration process as part of the EQUELLA implementation.
n Ongoing, customised success: Automated content migration from LMSs to other LMSs, or even to integrated EQUELLA-LMS environments has been highly successful. The EQUELLA team can extend our technology to meet specific content migration requirements.
A typical content migration process flow, working from course backups, is as follows:
nInterrogate the LMS course backup file
nExtract all content files that are linked within the course nUpload those content files to EQUELLA
n Replace the reference to the files with links to EQUELLA nRemove the files from the LMS course backup file nUpload the revised LMS course backup file
For selected LMSs, live extraction and conversion is available, which can streamline the content migration process.
Case Studies
TAFE/FE/Community College Sector
A client TAFE institute recognised from the beginning of their implementation the importance of content migration to the success of their deployment. The initial migration of 2,000 courses from their previous LMS to Moodle, with the EQUELLA Moodle harvester successfully processing 25,000 content items, following an iterative development process to ensure appropriate content conversion in accordance with the institute’s business rules. Following the initial strategic workshop with the institute’s key stakeholders, the EQUELLA consulting team developed tools that harvest content from Moodle courses, upload the content into EQUELLA, and update the Moodle course with links to EQUELLA. The team harvested two semesters of courses in mid 2010, providing a new platform for educators and staff at the institute to build upon.
HE/University
A client university received additional value with content migration during their implementation of EQUELLA. The EQUELLA consulting team’s aim was to facilitate the process of formulating the design of common high level standards for courses across the university colleges, by completing the proof-of-concept in order to publish all content in the test course from the EQUELLA repository environment into the LMS environment. The EQUELLA consulting team configured the solution to accommodate migration of courses from the institution’s previous LMS into EQUELLA for publishing into the new LMS. This procedure also enhanced the packaging of media elements and centralised content, with the additional production of blended and online courses, while the deployment of the
Inclusions
The EQUELLA team utilises the following iterative methodology during a content migration engagement: nRequirements Gathering Session
n LMS Content Mapping Exercise (when migrating between LMSs)
n EQUELLA Configuration Planning (when migrating content into EQUELLA, and linking to the LMS) nProof-Of-Concept Migration of Selected Courses n Customisation of the EQUELLA Content Migration
Tools to Meet Client Requirements nTest Content Migration
nClient Review of Migrated Contact
nAs Required, Revision to Content Migration Tools nProduction Migration
EQUELLAizer
Overview
The EQUELLAizer is a Moodle Content Harvester
that allows users to utilise the EQUELLA SOAP API
to read a Moodle course backup. The user can upload
local Moodle content to EQUELLA as items with
attachments, adding metadata nodes and values as
required. The EQUELLA-izer has the ability to harvest
Moodle backup files for learning content, contribute
that content into EQUELLA, then modify the backup
to reference the newly contributed content. The tool
is able to locate attachments, including PDFs, Word
documents, PowerPoint, Excel, images as well as HTML
content, content created by the Moodle book Module,
and Moodle quizzes. Contributing these attachments into
the repository, it creates a new backup file within Moodle
where all of the previously local objects reference the
newly created EQUELLA items.
As part of a consulting engagement with a Moodle course
review, the EQUELLA consulting team determine which
content needs to be migrated out of a course, and what
metadata will be applied to the content. Those involved
in the review also decide which metadata rules will be
applied, and scripts are then prepared for this to suit the
institution’s course review requirements.
Benefits
n Upload Moodle resources into a centralised system n Develop an automated process for converting mass
courses
n Move local content from Moodle to the repository n Limit the duplication of resources
Inclusions
The EQUELLA consulting team can assist you in the following areas:
n Uploading of local file resources (PDF, doc, images, video files) and local IMS packages
nConversion and uploading of Moodle Book Modules into EQUELLA navigation nodes with editable HTML pages (each chapter)
n Parsing local HTML pages and converting them into EQUELLA items with attachments for local links, images and video files
Case Study
In various client institutions, EQUELLA has been used as the platform to contribute Moodle backups, marked for conversion by the EQUELLAizer.
The EQUELLAizer searches EQUELLA for available backups across all collections. The tool then downloads these backups: for each backup it extracts the collection it was uploaded to, the owner’s details, as well as the core metadata for that item. It then converts/uploads the content selected in the configuration file as new items for the collection, linking these items as attachments to a parent course item, to enable all uploaded items to be easily identified. A new Moodle backup file is created (with EQUELLA links), and creates a new version of the EQUELLA item for the Moodle backup file. It then uploads the EQUELLAized Moodle backup file as an attachment
Training
Overview
The EQUELLA Certification
Program is designed to equip users
with the skill set to interact with
EQUELLA effectively. The EQUELLA
Certification Program focuses
on effective functional use and
management of EQUELLA, in the
context of educational technology
theory on learning management and
learning content management.
EQUELLA Certification Program
Benefits
n The EQUELLA training team delivers a consistent, validated and structured set of content through a series of interactive, hands-on workshops.
n Certification courses benefit individuals in client organisations by recognising their skills and extending those with EQUELLA, enabling those staff to develop expertise and serve as a resource to other staff members.
n A certificate that incorporates an examination provides a level of validation to organisational management, confirming that the institution’s staff have successfully achieved the required competencies and knowledge from their EQUELLA training.
n Certification courses can be used within the institution as training tools for both new and existing staff.
n Marked certification courses can identify high quality individuals with the potential to become involved in further EQUELLA developments and projects at the institution.
EQUELLA Certification Courses
n
EQ101 – EQUELLA Digital Repository Certification (Core Principles)
This base level certification provides a standard EQUELLA user (i.e. contributing educator or student) with a detailed look at the core functionality of the product through the web interface and through a LMS
n
EQ201 – EQUELLA Content Administrator Certification
Builds on the base digital repository certification to ensure full understanding of:
nHow to manage copyright collections in EQUELLA
nBulk modification and management of EQUELLA items (Item management, Advanced item management, Activation management)
nReporting (running reports with parameters, exporting to Excel, PDF)
nAdvanced workflow (i.e. rejecting, commenting, editing within workflow)
Please Note: Successful completion of the EQ101 examination is a pre-requisite for this course.
n
EQ301 – EQUELLA Application Administrator Certification
This level of EQUELLA training is recommended for participants who have a high level of competency as a user and administrator of all basic EQUELLA functionality, including Collections, Schemas, Workflows, Hierarchies and other fundamental elements of the solution. During the course the participant with be required to set up a basic configuration demonstrating their understanding of the basic principles of educational content management using EQUELLA. On completion the participant will be fully aware of the wide range of solution features and configuration possibilities, extending their EQUELLA expertise within their institution.
Please Note: Successful completion of the EQ101 examination is a pre-requisite for this course.
n
EQ302 – EQUELLA Advanced Application Administrator Certification
The 3-day certificate course is designed for staff responsible for the day to day administration and application support of EQUELLA. This course provides the participant with the ability to understand and manage the more technical elements of EQUELLA. This includes an understanding of the EQUELLA security model, advanced scripting, SOAP APIs, BIRT reporting and EQUELLA Data management. EQ302 presents participants with the practical knowledge to troubleshoot issues that the user base may encounter, providing a basis for a support model to be rolled out in the target institution.
Please Note: Successful completion of the EQ101 and EQ301 examinations is a pre-requisite for this course.
n
EQ401 – EQUELLA System Administrator Certification
A 2-day certificate course designed for an EQUELLA System Administrators and or Second/Third level support staff.
This course provides participants with the knowledge to manage EQUELLA as part of their own institutions IT strategy and frameworks, enabling an understanding of how to install, configure and backup EQUELLA within standalone and clustered environments. Participants in EQ401 training will also complete training on how to effectively troubleshoot issues in EQUELLA and be able to restore EQUELLA as part of a Disaster Recovery Programme.
Please Note: Successful completion of the EQ101 examination is a pre-requisite for this course.
TAFE/FE/Community College Sector
A prominent TAFE institute that has extended their implementation of EQUELLA recently completed a high level of EQUELLA Certification courses in 2011 to further expand the capabilities and technical EQUELLA knowledge of their project team members. Those who recently completed EQUELLA Certification courses in 2011 stated the training was beneficial to the performance of their work, and that an added benefit was the discovery of unexpected techniques and abilities the user may not have encountered individually. Various participants believed the training involved a high level of EQUELLA Administration knowledge and expertise, and that the included exercises were not only useful for their experience with EQUELLA, but the process of being tested was very worthwhile for extending their knowledge base. The training institutions created by EQUELLA have also been well received and utilised during training.
Production
Monitoring
Overview
The EQUELLA repository has been deployed within
institutions around the world and increasingly serves
as a mission-critical repository for learning content and
other materials. Given the integrated nature of EQUELLA
with LMSs and various institutional systems, it is
important to effectively manage the entire infrastructure.
The EQUELLA consulting team has significant experience
with the optimal configuration and management of the
EQUELLA digital repository. This service is uniquely
positioned to offer a cost-effective service for remotely
monitoring and managing upgrades for our solution,
where clients have opted to host the platform within
their network.
Remote Application Monitoring
Benefits
nExpert Administration: The EQUELLA Remote Application Monitoring team is specially trained and staffed to provide advanced administration and monitoring of EQUELLA.
n Reduced Risk: Through engaging an expert team that take a proactive approach to monitoring your EQUELLA application, while on-going risks to your platform are mitigated.
n Controlled Expenses: The EQUELLA Remote Application Monitoring service reduces variable costs from system monitoring, upgrades, restoration of data, and other activities to enable organisations to properly budget and plan for EQUELLA management.
n Off-Hours Management: EQUELLA’s global team streamlines the application management – facilitating upgrades and other activities during off-peak hours.
n Supported local hosting: The team that delivers EQUELLA provides a highly supported and responsive environment during the deployment of EQUELLA , which enables those staff working directly with the repository to have a stronger involvement in, and understanding of the infrastructure in place.
Inclusions
nUpgrades and Patching: this service includes the application of any applicable Quality Assured releases, hot fixes, or major releases of EQUELLA. This service will be applied on the development, staging, and production environments, as requested.
nMonitoring and Reporting: the EQUELLA consulting team will perform weekly monitoring of the application log files and system usage, identifying minor issues before they can develop into more significant issues. We will deliver a regular report to the client with our findings.
nPerformance Tuning: based on the above monitoring and client usage profile targets, the EQUELLA Remote Application Monitoring team may periodically recommend and adjust, in conjunction with the client team, server-side parameters in EQUELLA configuration files to enhance performance to better fulfil client business usage requirements.
nRestoration of Data: The EQUELLA consulting team will provide advice on the setup and scheduling of regular backups of EQUELLA, including the database and file store, and will assist in the restoration of content from client-maintained backups to restore lost data up to four times a year.
nCommunication: The EQUELLA consulting team will conduct regular communication with the client covering the above activities. Protocols will be established on the client approval process prior to the EQUELLA Remote Application Monitoring team applying any changes to the client environment.
nProactive Monitoring and Response: 24 x 7 proactive monitoring and response
TAFE/FE/Community College Sector
A TAFE institute is utilising the EQUELLA Managed Application Service, and receive 24 x 7 monitoring and response, extensive log analysis, server upgrades, and server fault response. The EQUELLA support team receives SMS and call notifications, as well as an email for alert monitoring services, and also applies the EQUELLA Service Monitoring of application log files and system usage to identify minor issues and deliver regular reports to the institute on the outcomes. Any configuration change is passed through a detailed change request process, and are approved by the client before the EQUELLA team proceeds.
HE/University
Complementing the work the EQUELLA consulting team has completed for a client university leading up to their deployment, the institution is now benefiting from the supported management of their EQUELLA installation. The remote application monitoring services are proving valuable for the university that still needs to host locally, but does not currently have all the staff or the expertise required to manage EQUELLA directly. The university receives a weekly log report and associated remediating actions, upgrades to EQUELLA, and other assistance.
Hosting
Solutions
Overview
To support the implementation of
EQUELLA within an institution, the
EQUELLA hosting partners provide
a range of managed hosting solutions.
As an institution-wide repository,
it is important that EQUELLA is
hosted in a secure and supported
environment. The EQUELLA team
recognises that institutions require
certain infrastructure support to
successfully implement EQUELLA,
and via our hosting partners the
company can provide an institution
with various options to host
EQUELLA. The flexible options
provided will remove the need for
the institution to invest heavily in
dedicated staff and infrastructure.
Hosting Solutions
Benefits
n Maximise the availability of the EQUELLA repository while mitigating the risk associated with implementing complex systems.
n EQUELLA hosting solutions can be deployed with limited lead time and allow for custom branding of EQUELLA – to comply with the client requirements.
n EQUELLA hosting partners have specialised knowledge in EQUELLA managed hosting, based upon well established relationships with the EQUELLA team, ensuring a highly resilient service.
n EQUELLA hosting partners offer a stable technical team providing institutions with a constant point of contact, which eliminates the recruiting burden caused by internal staff turnover.
n EQUELLA is hosted at secure facilities around the globe, guaranteeing high application availability, fewer outages and more consistent uptime.
n By engaging with EQUELLA managed hosting, the client organisation will have a lower and stable total cost of ownership.
n The ability to utilise and work closely with a team that has extensive EQUELLA knowledge and experience who present high quality technical services reduces the risk of adopting a new system, and disrupting other institutional projects.
n Extend the quality of service to the institution’s end users with a team that has established best practice for a scalable solution.
Inclusions
The hosting solutions available have been developed to suit a range of institutional requirements including: n EQUELLA Pilots
n Production Level EQUELLA Hosting n Development / Test Server Hosting
HE/University
A university decided to further enhance the quality of its online assessment and learning by developing collaborative systems in which a core learning environment could be extended through an advanced set of eLearning tools. Everyone at the University with access to this hosted solution is set to benefit from its highly resilient service, its scalable solution, pricing predictability, and access to EQUELLA and LMS expertise for higher education.
The hosted environment will eliminate the need for large investments in staff and infrastructure and in licensing and hardware fees associated with the maintenance of the previous LMS, allowing the University to achieve significant cost savings. This provides the University with the additional advantage of discovering new eLearning outcomes. These include an upgraded Library Reading List system and pilot Apple Podcasting system, increased technology specifications for all teaching rooms and ePortfolio systems, advancements in digital literacy initiatives, as well as media streaming, and corporate document storage. The partnership with EQUELLA will expand the possibilities of the learning environment for both educators and students, creating stronger opportunities for their future digital education and improve control and ownership of institutional content.
