Who can you turn to?
We are all familiar with the large scale software products being used across Higher Education institutions in Australia. Learning management systems, curriculum systems, student information systems, CRMs, the list goes on. Typically, these systems are quite large and sophisticated, complex to implement and critical to a university's operations.
However, despite major advances in interoperability using increasingly robust protocols, there are often requirements for middleware to provide users with ways of managing data in, out and across different systems.
Take the perspective of a staff member in a functional area such as learning support charged with creating course shells in a LMS that also requires them to import curriculum data from a curriculum system then import student lists from a student information system. Some of this can be automated but typically a skilled learning technology support officer will play a role in facilitating and error checking the process. In an ideal world there would be a single portal (remember them!) that in an efficient and elegant way provides functionality across multiple systems without necessarily exposing those systems to the staff member.*
So, for institutions that need something like this, who do they turn to?
Internal development
Once the culture of 'home grown' software development within IT departments was fairly ubiquitous in Australian universities. This has largely been replaced by a preference for buying in proprietary solutions. It can be argued that software development skills, certainly for mid-scale projects, within university IT departments have been eroded over time. With squeezed budgets, university administrators would prefer to see their staff making sure proprietary systems are well fed and watered rather than spending time on bespoke development with its inherent risk.
External development - large vendors
The availability of mature, road-tested large systems available from reputable vendors means that it makes great sense to implement these as core infrastructure.
However, when it comes to a bespoke solution how many of the mainstream vendors would be interested in a development project that is relatively small? One suspects not many.
External developers - modest sized!
Which brings me to All the Ducks. (Surprise!)
At the Ducks, we find ourselves being approached by universities (and others) for bespoke solutions. As a relatively small developer we feel that we bring some distinct advantages. These include:
Opportunity for a close relationship with the developers/designers of your solution
Opportunity for you to play a key role in designing the solution that is perfectly matched to your key requirements/environment/infrastructure - not trying to retrofit an existing solution - and we all know how that can go awry
Our credibility is only as good as our last job - and we strongly encourage potential clients to speak to previous clients
The Duck's two principal developers, Shane and Wiley, are also the owners of the company so they are committed to providing the best quality possible in systems they develop
We use the latest AWS technologies and practice continuous delivery so progress on your project is transparent and real, not a series of PowerPoint slides or mocked up screenshots
We have robust project management systems in place and use Jira as our core tool for managing your feedback and issue reporting
We are really nice people to deal with and have actual social skills - don't believe me - ask our clients!
We have a small team of contracted developers - people with years of experience who work at responsible day jobs and enjoy working with us in their spare time
There is no harm in talking to us and we will share our insights and experience readily in helping you decide if we can be of assistance. We don't do hard sell so you can approach us without fear of coming away with a set of encyclopedias (or a piece of middleware) you didn't need!
*The writer well remembers a time ("A not so long time ago in a galaxy not so far, far away....") when his team was charged with manually interrogating the student information system for student lists, then taking the resulting CSV files and manually importing them into the course shells in the LMS. For thousands of students over hundreds of courses. As for late enrolments, or changed enrolments, a new world of pain was encountered. Admittedly, this scenario only happened once at the start of an academic year until IT teams implemented integrations. And, by the way, how long does it take for psychological scars to heal? Asking for a friend.
One for free:
Apropos the title of this piece - a wonderful version just for fun: Who can I turn to - Shirley Bassey