OpenACS applications at the UCLA School of Medicine

1. OpenACS applications at the UCLA School of Medicine Avni Khatri Computing Technologies Research Lab

2. Overview • History and background of CTRL • OpenACS @ UCLA • Faculty Database • Problem, requirements, design • Weekly Message Digest • Problem, requirements, design • Calendar of Events • Problem, requirements, design • Room Reservation • Problem, requirements, design • Issues • Performance under load • Permissions & request processor • Single sign on • Customizations

3. Background • Since 1995, NaviServer 1.0. • Illustra, Solid, Sybase, now Oracle. • Research data collection, management, and reporting applications. • Infrastructure applications at School of Medicine: Shared Resources, school and department web sites, etc.

4. Faculty Database • Too many places where information needed to be updated. • Need for single point of management. • Flexible heterogeneous presentations (for each departments, divisions, center, institute, etc.) • Support distributed administration (departments can manage their faculty, etc). • Marketing tool.

5. FDB Design • Uses OpenACS • objects & permissions • Users, persons, parties and groups • Research data include: • Publications • Lay and Technical Research Interest statements • Title, degrees, awards, affiliations • Contact data • Other features: • Data source for NIH & NSF Bio-sketch builder

6. Data Model

7. FDB

8. Example Query select personnel_id, first_names, last_name from inst_personnel psnl, persons p where p.person_id = psnl.personnel_id and (psnl.status_id is null or psnl.status_id in (category.lookup('//Personnel Status//Active'), category.lookup('//Personnel Status//Accepting Patients'))) and (psnl.start_date is null or psnl.start_date < sysdate) and (psnl.end_date is null or psnl.end_date > sysdate) and exists (select 1 from vw_group_member_map elms where exists (select 1 from acs_rels rels where rels.rel_type = 'subsite_for_party_rel' and rels.object_id_one = :subsite_id and rels.object_id_two = elms.ancestor_id) and elms.child_id = p.person_id ) order by last_name_initial, last_name, first_names

9. DRC

10. Digest - Problem

11. WMD - Solution • Person at UCLA wishes to add an item to the Weekly Message Digest.

12. Weekly Message Digest

13. Technical Details

14. Implementation Strategy • Weekly email digests to drive traffic to other services. • Single sign-on to several applications: • FDB • Room Reservations • Calendars of Events • NIH Bio sketch builder • more…

15. Calendar Engine

16. Calendars of Events • Central clearinghouse of DGSOM events. • Accept DGSOM community postings. • Support import into desktop calendars (Outlook & iCal). • Provide notification options (email). • Provide “pull” options (RSS).

17. Room Reservations Online • Common solution to room reservation. • Supports local control and autonomy. • Provide new capabilities.

18. Room Reservations Online • Browse rooms by characteristics. • Search by specific requirements. • Submit room reservation request. • Administration of rooms. • Support for “skins”

19. Issues • Performance - permissions & request processor. • Performance - AOLServer tuning. • Single sign on • Customizations