IT Staff Convention 2007:Developing Web-based Applications

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Developing Web-based applications at Penn

4/28/2007 – 10:15-11:15 am, Ben Franklin Room, Houston Hall

Moderators: Jason Lehman and Terrence Ryan, Wharton

Notes: Mayumi Hirtzel, ISC


Appropriate technologies (technologies being used, pros and cons, emerging trends standards, what factors taken into consideration)

What technologies are you using? What are some of the things that you like and dislike about these technologies?

  • E-learning: development and integration with LMS(?). Product “Articulate” similar to presentation software. Looking to streamline the process to have more interactions.
  • Blackboard: Huge install base for Blackboard.
  • WebCafe: Wharton’s Blackboard-type interaction tool.
  • Adobe Connect: Online synchronous and asynchronous meeting platform. Also uses phone conferencing. (WEMBA uses.) Breeze Connect: It’s not “real” videoconferencing.
  • Course Portal (LAW) developed in Cold Fusion with Oracle background.
    • Putting applications in one platform is advisable.
  • A lot of Oracle, SQL, MySQL being used for applications coding.
    • Problems are old code/inherited code that needs to be checked for security, etc.
  • We don’t have a “SourceForge” for Penn, per se.
    • Development is difficult: not technically, but getting people to understand it and use it.
    • ISC could possibly make available XML, RPC (subscription services) in a SourceForge session.
    • PennForge could become a great learning tool, if the right people participate.
    • Many times when we develop for education, we’re not thinking about distribution. We need to rethink that, where it should be more distributable, and have good documentation.
  • All sharing speeds up development eventually; i.e. PennCommunity.
    • Too much replication of work done here at Penn that could be reduced by having some central source of information.
      • Might help to come up with 6-10 key applications that are useful to people, to get people involved and working together.
  • It’s not only internal development, but development beyond campus – with Ivies, with Philadelphia, with vendors.
  • Lots of decentralization between organizations. ISC seems to be separated from what is going on with the central schools.
    • A quarterly or monthly meeting would be helpful. This would review vendor opportunities or contacts, etc., since ISC is so heavily entrenched in the services/vendor side of things.
    • Political issues – some people don’t want to share, while others are very willing to do so.
    • Language requirement barrier – PHP, SQL, ColdFusion, etc. Many of the centers/schools use different languages, so centralized use can be difficult.


Tools and resources – pros and cons, what tools cannot you not do without? What resources are available at Penn, external to Penn, etc.?

  • What kind of help is available to us now?
    • Penn Guide to Design (web templates) helpful to some.
  • Design becomes problematic when the end-user is confused or frustrated.
  • Having a non-developer test the application is invaluable for usability of the site.
  • Divorce design from data, view from information. As applications keep evolving, it’s not the information that is changing, necessarily, but the way that the user interacts with that information.
  • Design with interoperability from the beginning, rather than working backwards.
  • Penn training? (IT training)
  • Design and usability? Our programming is only as good as our design.
    • What are some emerging trends among clients?
    • What does Web2.0 mean to us as a university or higher education environment?
      • Web2.0 is buzz-word, but also signifies application interoperability. Sharing information between sources, consumers, or applications is becoming more and more important.
  • Mobile webmail.
  • What type of languages will be used in the future?
    • Using CSS for media style sheet.
    • What standards are around campus?
    • What sort of platform and browser standards should we be using? Most centers and schools have one set standard (e.g. PCs and IE6), and the rest are best efforts. That seems to be the common consensus.

Authentication and authorization – pitfalls? There is a team at Penn that has online documentation.

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