— EARLY DRAFT ONLY ----
JA-SIG Newsletter - July 2008
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2 JA-SIG Project Updates
2.1 Central Authentication Service (CAS)
2.1.1 CAS 4 Roadmap Planning (Call for Participation)
2.1.2 CAS 3.2.1.1 Release and CAS 3.3-RC2 Release
2.1.3 Spring Security 2.0.3
2.1.4 phpCAS
2.2 uPortal
2.2.1 uPortal Roadmap and Vision
3 Around JA-SIG
3.1 Community Profile - Chris Myers and RJ Podeschi (Millikin University)
3.2 140 Participants Attend Sixth ESUP-Portail Conference in Paris
3.3 JA-SIG Web Redesign RFP
3.4 uPortal Steering Committee
3.5 JA-SIG Election Results
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REGISTER NOW FOR THE JA-SIG FALL 2008 UNCONFERENCE at UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON
- Registration fee for the October 2008 JA-SIG Unconference: $175/Members, $225/Non-Members
- Nightly rate at the historic Edgewater Hotel: $129
- Two-and-a-half days talking, learning, teaching, planning, coding, and hanging out with your peers - and with the uPortal, CAS, Fluid, JSR-168, SpringMVC experts: Priceless!
DATES:
October 6, 2008, 9 am to October 8, 2008, noon
October 9-10, developer meetings and optional post-conference activities
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"An unconference is a conference where the content of the sessions is
driven and created by the participants, generally day-by-day during
the course of the event, rather than by a single organizer, or small
group of organizers, in advance."
-Wikipedia
JA-SIG has always been about people coming together to share and learn
in an open environment, and this is what an "unconference" is all
about. Many attendees at last year's unconference said it was their
favorite event of the year.
The October event will provide both spontaneous and planned
opportunities to collaborate on community initiatives and
topics.
WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?
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- Lightning Talks - Volunteers talk for up to 10 minutes. Any topic goes.
- Code Clinics - Bring your uPortal, portlet, or CAS code or problem
and work on it with Core developers - Screencast Factory - Show off your work while a facilitator captures
it to share with the community. - Designer/Developer collaborations
- Strategic Planning - What should JA-SIG be focused on next year? In
three years? Join the conversation. - How-to's. How-not-to's. Tips and techniques.
- See a list of ideas for activities and add your own:
http://www.ja-sig.org/wiki/x/BBTP
As part of the un-conference format the final schedule will be
determined in real-time, interactively with the attendees.
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1. Register for the Unconference right here:
https://www.concentra-cms.com/register/start.action?confId=34
2. Visit and Add your Name on the Unconference Planning Site on
the JA-SIG wiki. This is a great place to indicate your
interests ---— what you'd like to discuss, learn, share or teach:
http://www.ja-sig.org/wiki/x/DRTP
3. Call the Edgewater Hotel to reserve a room: 800•922•5512
Mention the JA-SIG room block and rate
4. Make travel arrangements. Tips are available here:
http://www.ja-sig.org/wiki/x/wRjP
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2.1.1 CAS 4 Roadmap Planning (Call for Participation)
We have assembled a draft agenda for the roadmap planning call which is included below for your information. If you are interested in participating but have not yet let me know (benjamin dot oshrin at rutgers dot edu), it is not too late to do so.
1 - Direction & Requirements
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The CAS community has started CAS4 roadmap planning! A conference call will be held this Friday (July 25, 2008). The draft agenda is as follows:
1 - Direction & Requirements
- Next Steps for the CAS 3.x branch
- What are we looking for in a CAS4?
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- <http://www.ja-sig.org/wiki/display/CAS/CAS+Vision+and+Roadmap>
- Integration with Existing Systems
- Features / Use Cases
- Relationship to Existing Architecture
2 - Project Resources
- How the to-do list gets done
- Implementers
- Sponsors?
- Grants?
- Support
- Mailing lists
- Documentation
3 - Governance Model
- Comments on/discussion of model
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~benno (Rutgers University)
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It's not too late to get in on the conference call. If you are interested in participating, let me know (benjamin dot oshrin at rutgers dot edu).
Benn Oshrin (Rutgers University)
2.1.2 CAS 3.2.1.1 Release and CAS 3.3-RC2 Release
We've released a minor point release of version 3.2.1.1 which addresses an opportunity to inject HTML into the logout page via the url parameter. You can't hijack CAS sessions or anything with it, but you can create some really interesting HTML pages which could trick your users if they're not paying attention. If you've based your logout page at your local institution off of the "example default" pages then you should update your logout page (just to be safe we also updated the "confirm view"). Thanks to Romain Bourgue for identifying this. There are no other changes in the 3.2.1.1 release.
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You can download both releases from http://www.ja-sig.org/products/cas/downloads/Contributed by: Scott Battaglia (Rutgers University), Lead Developer, JA-SIG Central Authentication Service
2.2 uPortal
2.2.1 uPortal Roadmap and Vision
We are currently working on a "Roadmap and Vision" similar to the one being developed by the CAS team. Our efforts to date can be found at:
http://www.ja-sig.org/wiki/x/zRjP
The Roadmap includes information on current versions of uPortal (2.6 and 3.0) and yet-to-be-released versions (3.1 and 3.2).
3 Around JA-SIG
3.1 Community Profile - Chris Myers and RJ Podeschi (Millikin University)
I met Chris Myers and RJ Podeschi from Millikin University at the Portals 2008 Conference at Gettysburg College in June. Millikin is an independent, four-year university in Decatur, Illinois with approximately 2,500 students in traditional and non-traditional undergraduate and Masters degree programs.
I was impressed to hear that Chris and RJ successfully implemented uPortal at Millikin from the ground up with relatively little outside assistance. I asked them to describe how they did it, and what follows is their reply.
Jonathan Markow
JASIG Executive Director
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2.1.3 Spring Security 2.0.3
If you've haven't been keeping up with Spring Security, they've recently released their version 2.0.3. Spring Security is a Spring subproject related to authentication and authorization. It includes the most recent JASIG CAS Client for Java. If you're doing anything beyond simple authentication, we recommend you take a look at the more full-featured Spring Security which builds on the JASIG CAS Client for Java foundation. http://static.springframework.org/spring-security/site/index.html
2.1.4 phpCAS
The phpCAS team has been hard at work making phpCAS PEAR-installable, adding Single Sign Out support, and more! Check it out http://www.ja-sig.org/wiki/display/CASC/phpCAS
Contributed by:
ScottS (Rutgers University), Lead Developer, JA-SIG Central Authentication Service
2.2 uPortal
2.2.1 uPortal Roadmap and Vision
We are currently working on a "Roadmap and Vision" similar to the one being developed by the CAS team. Our efforts to date can be found at:
http://www.ja-sig.org/wiki/x/zRjP
The Roadmap includes information on current versions of uPortal (2.6 and 3.0) and yet-to-be-released versions (3.1 and 3.2).
3 Around JA-SIG
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3.1 Community Profile - Chris Myers and RJ Podeschi (Millikin University)
I met Chris Myers and RJ Podeschi from Millikin University at the Portals 2008 Conference at Gettysburg College in June. Millikin is an independent, four-year university in Decatur, Illinois with approximately 2,500 students in traditional and non-traditional undergraduate and Masters degree programs.
I was impressed to hear that Chris and RJ successfully implemented uPortal at Millikin from the ground up with relatively little outside assistance. I asked them to describe how they did it, and what follows is their reply.
Jonathan Markow
JASIG Executive Director
---------------------------Honestly, -------------------
Honestly, the implementation was very interesting, and has been an awesome learning experience. Before we got started with implementing uPortal, Chris only had minimal experience with Linux and Tomcat, and none with Java (none of our staff had much experience with Java programming either.) Our boss made uPortal the top priority for Chris to work on, so he was able to dedicate a lot of time to the project, learning these technologies as he went along. He started out reading the documentation and trying the deployment step by step. Whenever he would find an error message or a problem, he would do research (primarily on Google and the JA-SIG website,) and would be able to resolve it, sometimes after a few minutes, sometimes after a few days. He documented everything as he went along (even the most basic commands, and about 30 websites he referenced) so that he could replicate the process exactly in the future. After about four weeks of working on it on and off, many Google searches, and a lot of answered prayers, he had an instance of uPortal 2.5 and CAS 3.1 up and running on SLES 10, Tomcat 5.5.25, and MySQL, connected to Millikin's Novell eDirectory system via LDAP and using automatic group creation with the JITLDAP plugin. It didn't do too much just yet, but it worked.
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We went live with a soft rollout with uPortal to students in late April and faculty in May, after 6 months of implementation and development, and have continued adding new functionality as time has progressed. This fall, we will be training our incoming students how to use the portal during their technology session, which will save us approximately an hour per student in training, and will allow us to have only one password change and one place to log in, instead of the five we have currently.
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Chris Myers (CMyers at mail dot millikin dot edu) is the User Services Specialist in the Information Technology department at Millikin, where he supports the GroupWise email system, NetWare fileservers and user accounts, iPrint system, Moodle, and uPortal. Chris is also very involved in his church, where he supports the IT efforts and is a youth leader.
RJ Podeschi (rpodeschi at mail dot Millikin dot edu) is the Sr. Database Administrator in the Information Technology department at Millikin, as well as a Millikin alum. RJ supports Oracle databases, the Banner administrative system, Touchnet Payment Gateway, and Resource 25 campus scheduling system for Millikin. He is active in his church on the administrative council, and enjoys running, playing golf, and cooking.
3.2 140 Participants Attend Sixth ESUP-Portail Conference in Paris
One hundred and forty participants recently attended the "ESUP-Days" conference in Paris (June 30, 2008) organized by the ESUP-Portail consortium.
Some highlights of the conference were the following presentations:
1. The new legal structure for the consortium, effective July 2008
2. The distribution of the new version of Esup-Portail packaging with uPortal 2.6 and CAS 3.0
3. The new web-site of the consortium, which is based on the Confluence wiki
4. User-experience feedback, always an important part of these events
5. The ESUP-Helpdesk application, version 3
6. The new release of the ORI-OAI project and an example of its integration with the portal
Finally, this conference, with representatives from our entire community of 80 French universities, was an opportunity to discuss our increasing collaboration with JA-SIG.
Alain Mayeur
University of Valenciennes
http://www.esup-portail.org
3.3 JA-SIG Web Redesign RFP
JA-SIG's websites have been growing for the past seven years with essentially the same information architecture they started out with. At this stage in our evolution as an organization, we have decided to redesign our sites with the following goals in mind:
Create a new information architecture and website re-design that make it much easier for users to understand what JA-SIG is and does, for JA-SIG website maintainers to add to and edit the site's content, for users to find the information they need, and for JA-SIG to present itself to the world. Scoped deliverables will also include the following:
- Enhancement of the JA-SIG brand and visual identity
- Design and development of new logos
- Adoption of new content management system that simplifies site maintenance
- Improved information architecture that will optimally organize existing content and provide for new content that will help achieve the goals of this project.
Following a recent open requirements process, we have drafted an RFP for this work, and we invite vendors to submit proposals prior to August 10th. The RFP, "JA-SIG Web Redesign RFP Final.pdf" may be found on the following JA--------
Chris Myers (CMyers at mail dot millikin dot edu) is the User Services Specialist in the Information Technology department at Millikin, where he supports the GroupWise email system, NetWare fileservers and user accounts, iPrint system, Moodle, and uPortal. Chris is also very involved in his church, where he supports the IT efforts and is a youth leader.
RJ Podeschi (rpodeschi at mail dot Millikin dot edu) is the Sr. Database Administrator in the Information Technology department at Millikin, as well as a Millikin alum. RJ supports Oracle databases, the Banner administrative system, Touchnet Payment Gateway, and Resource 25 campus scheduling system for Millikin. He is active in his church on the administrative council, and enjoys running, playing golf, and cooking.
3.2 140 Participants Attend Sixth ESUP-Portail Conference in Paris
One hundred and forty participants recently attended the "ESUP-Days" conference in Paris (June 30, 2008) organized by the ESUP-Portail consortium.
Some highlights of the conference were the following presentations:
1. The new legal structure for the consortium, effective July 2008
2. The distribution of the new version of Esup-Portail packaging with uPortal 2.6 and CAS 3.0
3. The new web-site of the consortium, which is based on the Confluence wiki
4. User-experience feedback, always an important part of these events
5. The ESUP-Helpdesk application, version 3
6. The new release of the ORI-OAI project and an example of its integration with the portal
Finally, this conference, with representatives from our entire community of 80 French universities, was an opportunity to discuss our increasing collaboration with JA-SIG.
Alain Mayeur
University of Valenciennes
http://www.esup-portail.orgSIG wiki page: http://www.ja-sig.org/wiki/pages/viewpageattachments.action?pageId=8716350
We will be asking for feedback on various design options during the summer. To participate in this process, subscribe to the
jasig-webpresence working group list: http://www.ja-sig.org/wiki/x/SoBO.
Thank you,
Jonathan Markow
Executive Director
3.4 uPortal Steering Committee
The uPortal steering committee is excited to see the JASIG web presence re-implementation RFP released, having worked to define the uPortal aspects of that RFP and looking forward to working with the successful respondent to improve the uPortal website. While that effort will more generally update the website, the committee most recently has been specifically looking at the CAS project roadmap page and effort with jealousy and is working to implement a similar roadmap page and effort for uPortal. While uPortal's issue tracker already presents a technical roadmap, you can look forward to there soon being available a more articulate roadmap page as well.
Andrew Petro
uPortal project steering committee
3.5 JA-SIG Election Results
The JA-SIG Elections Committee is pleased to announce the results of the 2008 JA-SIG elections. Member organizations were asked to select five positions on the JA-SIG Board of Directors.
Joining the Board of Directors are Benn Oshrin of Rutgers University, John Lewis of Unicon, Katya Sadovsky of UC Irvine and Robert Sherratt of University of Hull. Barry Walsh, of Indiana University, was re-elected to the board for another term.
These positions become official on September 1, 2008.
The JA-SIG Elections Committee extends thanks to all who participated in the nomination and election.
Carl Jacobson - University of Delaware, Chair
Dave Koehler - Cornell University
Deb Smith - CONCENTRA-CMS, JA-SIG Administrator
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The next JA-SIG Newsletter will be published on or about August 15th, 2008. Articles for that edition of the newsletter should be submitted no later than Thursday, August 14th, 2008. Thanks!
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