NTER Complete System Setup Overview
Setting Up a Complete NTER System
Table of Contents
- Overview
1.1. Institutional Servers
1.2. Central Servers
- Installation Information and Source Code Links
2.1. Institutional Servers
2.1.1. Portal Servers
2.1.2. LMS Servers
2.2. Central Servers
2.2.1. Login Server
2.2.2. Registry Server
2.2.3. Search Server
2.2.4. Student Progress Server
- Overview
To install a complete NTER system, there is a basic configuration of a single set of Central Servers. Each institution that connects to that NTER system runs a Portal Server and a Learning Management System server. Those two servers comprise the set of Institutional Servers needed to create and run courses.
All of these servers can run under either Linux or Windows. They can also run on cloud services or you own local hardware.
1.1. Institutional Servers
The Institutional Servers are run by each institution that participates in an NTER System. There are two Institutional Servers:
• Portal Server
The Portal Server is where students generally go to login to the system. It provides to the students a list of courses that are drawn from all of the institutions participating in the NTER System. The Portal also handles most communications with the Central Servers.
• Learning Management System (LMS) Server
The LMS Server is where the courses are actually run after the Portal directs the student to a course. Course authors can login to the LMS and create courses, or use other authoring software to create courses which can then be uploaded to the LMS as SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model) modules.
1.2. Central Servers
For each complete NTER setup there is one set of Central Servers. The Central servers provide the following services:
• Login
The Login Server uses Shibboleth to implement single sign on. This means that a student or educator must only login once even though they will be sent to another server to take courses, or do searches.
This allows moving between servers to be transparent to the user.
• Registry
The Registry Server keeps track of all of the Institutional Servers in the system so that the Portals can keep an up to date course catalog of all courses on all servers.
The Registry Server also stores student ratings of courses (one to five stars), and averages them.
• Search
The Search Server builds a central database of key word terms that can be searched to help students find courses they are interested while logged into any Portal Server.
• Student Progress
The Student Progress Server takes reports of student progress in a course as the student works through the course. It pushes those reports out to the portals so that a student logging into any portal can see which courses they have started or completed.
- Installation Information and Source Code Links
2.1 Institutional Servers
2.1.1 Portal Server
Manual install instructions: http://sourceforge.net/p/nter/wiki/NTER%20Portal%20Manual%20Install/
Code for Portal Portlets: https://code.google.com/p/nter/source/browse/?repo=portal-core-devel#hg%2Fportlet
2.1.2 LMS
LMS Installer on SourceForge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/nter/files/ http://sourceforge.net/p/nter/wiki/Installing%20and%20Using%20Jasper%20Reporting/
Code for the LMS: https://code.google.com/p/nter/source/browse?repo=ilms-devel#hg%2Fsrc%2Fnwtp
2.2 Central Servers
2.2.1 Login
The Login server is a standard Shibboleth Identity Provider. There are some addition custom web applications that provide utilities for adding Shibboleth metadata and managing users.
Instructions for manual installation: https://wiki.shibboleth.net/confluence/display/SHIB2/IdPInstall http://sourceforge.net/p/nter/wiki/NTER%20Login%20IdP/
Code for custom web apps: https://code.google.com/p/nter/source/browse?repo=user-mgmt-devel#hg%2Fcommon%253Fstate%253Dclosed
Code for Shibboleth Identity Provider custom web apps and services:
https://code.google.com/p/nter/source/browse?repo=idp-metadata-devel
2.2.2 Registry
NTER Registry Information:
http://sourceforge.net/p/nter/wiki/NTER%20Registry%20Service/
Code for Registry Services: https://code.google.com/p/nter/source/browse?repo=registry-devel
2.2.3 Search
The search server uses the SOLR web front end for the Apache Lucene search engine.
Information on the Search Server: http://sourceforge.net/p/nter/wiki/Search%20on%20NTER/
Source code for SOLR setup: https://code.google.com/p/nter/source/browse?repo=solrsearch-devel
2.2.4 Student Progress
Student Progress Service information: http://sourceforge.net/p/nter/wiki/LMS%20Integration%20Points/
List of Services the Registry Server provides: https://registry.nterlearning.org/registry-service-1.1/services/?wsdl
