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Drexel University Deploys Mobile Web Portal Based on Microsoft .NET Technology

Challenge

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Drexel University prides itself on a pioneering approach to the use of technology in education. In 1983, the Philadelphia university became the first to require all incoming students to have and use microcomputers. In 2000, it was the first major university to complete a fully-wireless campus network indoor and out—requiring Drexel to install some 300 antennas across its three primary campuses. It completed a campus Web portal in 2002. Combined, the wireless network and portal make it possible for students and faculty to access online course resources, conduct online research, and pay their bills at any time from anywhere on campus. Indeed, recognizing the benefits of pervasive information access, the Drexel University College of Medicine, the largest private medical school in the United States, now requires its students to have notebook computers with wireless networking capabilities. Drexel's innovative spirit has facilitated education and administration on campus, while also giving students experience with the technologies they'll find in the workplace upon graduation.

"Being an innovator means always staying ahead of the curve," says John A. Bielec, Vice President for Information Resources and Technology at Drexel. "After completing the Web portal in 2002, we started looking to the future—the next thing people would ask us for to maximize the cutting-edge capabilities we'd put into place."

The answer that Drexel's technology team developed was a marriage of wireless networks and its Web portal—that is, giving users ubiquitous wireless access to the Web portal on campus or away. But that answer also generated a host of additional requirements. As with its other technology projects, Drexel was interested in cost-effective return on investment, not on extended and expensive technology expenditures.

"We do not even consider technologies that we cannot deliver to our constituents within a six-month timeframe from inception to implementation," says Bielec. Beyond rapid time to benefit, Drexel wanted a mobile Web solution that would give users their choice of mobile device—and make it easy for Drexel developers to give users that choice.

"Drexel has 16,000 students and 3,000 employees. With such a large and diverse community, we didn't want to dictate devices to people," says Kenneth Blackney, Director of Core Technology Infrastructure, who headed the development team. "We wanted them to be able to use Blackberries, Web phones, PDAs, laptops—whatever. At the same time, we didn't want to deal with programming for all of those devices, taking into account the different-size screens, markup languages, networks, and so on. We didn't have the time, budget, or interest for that. We wanted an abstraction layer that would allow us to write the solution once and have it work with any device users were likely to have."

Solution

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Drexel addressed its requirements by turning to a solution based on Microsoft .NET connected software. Drexel's solution, called DrexelOne Mobile, enables students to retrieve personalized information from virtually any Web-enabled handheld device.

Users who've registered their mobile devices can have relevant personal announcements pushed out to them automatically, without having to browse to find the information. Because the student information system can access the personal announcements capability of the mobile portal, students can get their grades as soon as they're posted, learn of last-minute classroom changes, get updates to their schedules, and find out about holds placed on their records (e.g., for late tuition payments). These capabilities are distinct advantages of mobile access, because they bring information to users when and where they need them, rather than requiring the users to wait until they're back at their primary desktops.

The university can use the announcements feature to disseminate news to the entire campus community easily and quickly. And the headline news service is updated every 10 minutes with the latest sports, entertainment, and general news. The solution includes a searchable university phone directory—that operates phonetically, so users don't need to know correct spellings—and password-protected access to personalized information.

.NET Communicates Seamlessly with the Existing Infrastructure

Although DrexelOne Mobile was born after the Web portal was completed, Blackney and his colleagues did not need to replace any of their existing investment to make it a reality. The .NET software that makes the solution possible is a complementary extension that communicates seamlessly with the pre-existing components—including UNIX software running SCT's Banner and Campus Pipeline announcements and various information services on the Web portal.

"That's one of the great things about .NET," says Blackney. "It can communicate with any software, .NET or not, that supports standard SOAP protocols."

The DrexelOne Mobile portal consists at its core of two servers running Microsoft Windows© 2000 Server and Microsoft SQL Server™ 2000—one to support the mobile interface to the university's Web portal, the other to support authentication Web services for mobile users. Drexel created a .NET Web service to enable the authentication of mobile users. It authenticates against the existing LDAP directory for the Web portal, so that mobile users don't need to remember a separate password for their mobile access. The solution also included Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server for calendaring and email.

Benefits

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.NET Enables Fast, Cost-Effective Development

Using the .NET Framework, Mobile Internet Toolkit, and Visual Studio® .NET development environment, Blackney and one colleague had the "core guts" of DrexelOne Mobile up and running in 10 days.

"It's absolutely amazing to me that we got DrexelOne Mobile up in just 10 days," says Blackney. "I would have thought this was a two- to three-month project. .NET made it that easy." The time savings not only meant having the mobile portal ready for announcement at commencement, but also saving approximately $35,000 in salary and benefits for the staff developers and quickly freeing them to work on other projects.

Blackney attributes that speed to several factors. Of key importance, the Mobile Internet Toolkit provided exactly what he and his colleagues were seeking: an abstraction layer that eliminates the need for them to code—or even understand the coding—for every mobile device from which users might access DrexelOne Mobile. They wrote their code once and the Mobile Internet Toolkit provided the "translation" for the specific screen sizes, protocols and other specifications of each mobile device type. The .NET Framework similarly provided libraries that eliminated the need to worry about low-level code enabling interaction with Drexel's existing server environment.

Blackney also praises Visual Studio .NET. "I'd worked with older versions of Visual Studio, but not with Visual Studio .NET," says Blackney. "It wasn't a problem. Features such as IntelliSense® technology really guide the developer through the maze without the need for extensive training. Doing a rush job on a tight deadline is workable. This is the seventh version of Visual Studio and it's a very robust development environment."

Visual Studio .NET also gave Blackney and his colleague their choice of development languages—something they wouldn't have had with an alternative such as Java, he notes. The choice of programming languages with .NET means Blackney can use the language he prefers—and even use different languages, as he deems best, to solve different parts of a development challenge.

.NET is "the Best Choice for the Future"

Blackney says that .NET wasn't just the best choice for today—it's "the best choice for the future."

That's because .NET gives Drexel the most flexible range of options to extend DrexelOne Mobile as it sees fit with new functionality. The .NET Framework can communicate with any third-party software using standard protocols. And in Blackney's view, the range of tools, support, and services for .NET software, from both Microsoft and third-parties, is now taking off "at a phenomenal rate, just like the Visual Basic® market took off. A lot of the things we might otherwise have had to build ourselves, we can just pick up off the shelf," he says.

Last updated: Monday, March 03, 2003

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