ISDA Key Initiatives

On this page:
Overview
Thalia
MIT Touchstone
Stellar 2.1.1
Managed Data Service

Overview

The following sections contain information on several key initiatives currently underway in the Information Software Development and Architecture group. This group is dedicated to create, maintain and promote a flexible software architecture based on an infrastructure that consists of components and interfaces that are easily usable (and used) by software developers across MIT.

Thalia

Thalia's purpose is to allow a DLC to upload images, assign meta-data to the images and organize them into albums for sharing. Phase 1 of the project is being tested by HS&T and will be installed on one of their servers. Phase 2 involves producing a sharable image repository service that would allow IS&T to offer a centralized Image Service to DLCs. This service would reside on a centralized server(s), allowing various DLCs to set up departmental repositories on the same server with a certain degree of customization for each repository.

Thalia currently has a rich web-based UI that uses Flash through Open Laszlo, an Image Management Engine and a REST-like web interface, and an OSID that allows external applications to search Thalia data. This project would increase Thalia's scalability so that multiple repositories can be supported within the same server, limited UI customization per repository is available, file storage efficiency is improved to handle large numbers of images, and redundancy and reasonably rapid recovery in case of system failure is provided; as well as its functionality by enabling access control via MIT's authorization system and not just individuals and supporting user ordering of images in albums for use in slide shows and presentations.

At least two customers would be involved in beta testing and a production deployment of the service to at least three customers would occur by May 2007.

The proposed Thalia service would fill the DLC's need for image management functionality at a reasonable cost. Thalia would be interoperable with other tools at MIT such as Dspace and Stellar and would allow images stored in a Thalia repository to be migrated to other institutional stores if necessary. For more information, see MIT Thalia.

MIT Touchstone

The objective of MIT Touchstone is to provide a single sign-on solution for MIT web applications requiring authentication. It will accomplish this by developing a central authentication service, to which users will be redirected the first time they attempt to access a protected page of a participating web server. Once users have authenticated successfully, they will be redirected back to the original web page. They will not need to authenticate again during the browser session, even when they visit other participating web sites. This service will support several ways for users to authenticate, and will leverage our existing Kerberos infrastructure.

What problem are we trying to solve?

Users of MIT web applications find X.509 certificates awkward to use, thus increasing the support burden for web server administrators.
Certificates cannot be used in certain client machine environments, e.g., from "kiosk" types of machines where users cannot install personal certificates, or in applications using delegated credentials.
Developers of applications would like to be able to use one authentication service for multiple types of authentication (certificate, Kerberos credentials, username/password).

Stellar

The Stellar Course Management System provides a secure, user-friendly platform to support teaching and learning at MIT. With more than 90% adoption by MIT Subjects, Stellar is heavily relied upon by faculty, students, affiliates, and the community at large. Features of Stellar include:

Ready-to-use course sites
Class materials management
Homework management
Schedule with integrated academic calendar
Section setup and management
Membership management and access control
Pilots of gradebook and survey tools

ISDA released the latest version of Stellar in January 2009. For the latest news, please see the Stellar News wiki.

Managed Data Service

ISDA is working on providing a community wide service that would allow departments to store their data in a centrally hosted location. This service will be responsible for the consistency, integrity, and security of data while enabling departments to update their data and join it with other data from central Institute systems. Work on designing this service will begin in the spring of 2008.