Motivation for Integration 

At a given university the CMS contains information about sections that are currently being taught. This same information will be required by the LMS for any section that is being taught on-line. This information includes which students are enrolled in a section, and which instructor(s) are teaching the section. Integration consists of sharing data between the two systems about persons, sections, and enrollment (the relationship between persons and sections).

As more and more sections have content that is delivered on-line, the motivation for integration increases. Without integration all of the information that is entered into the CMS for a section that is being taught on-line will also need to be entered into the LMS. At CSU Chico there are over 1500 sections currently using the LMS for some or all of the course content delivery. Duplicating the work of setting up these sections at the beginning of the semester for both the CMS and LMS would take a significant amount of effort. Then, during the semester if a change is made in the CMS the same change must be made in the LMS. For example if a student drops one section and adds another the change must be reflected in both systems. With integration, when the change is made in the CMS the same change is automatically made in the LMS.

An integration between the CMS and LMS will not only reduce workload. It also keeps data consistent between the two systems. Without integration those managing the system have to constantly be certain to make the same changes to both. When a mistake is made, a student may find themselves enrolled in the wrong LMS section, an instructor may not see their courses, etc. With integration the a change in one system is automatically made in the other, thus the data remains consistent in both.

How to Integrate

There are multiple ways to integrate. Here are a few.

1. Regularly push data directly from the CMS into the LMS database.
   
2. Regularly pull data directly from the CMS into the LMS.
   
3. Regularly extract data from the CMS to a set of files.

Then, on a different schedule, read the extracted files and make the indicated changes in the LMS.

At CSU Chico we've choosen the third option described above because it is a "loose" integration and easy to manage. (By loose integration we mean that a change on one system will have minimal impact on the other. For example if the CMS goes down, the LMS will keep running and vise-versa.) The group managing the CMS has written scripts that regularly query the CMS database, extract data, and create flat files in XML format. The group managing the LMS has written scripts that regularly pick up the extracted files, read them, and make the appropriate changes in the LMS.

Because the integration consists of sharing data between the two sections about persons, sections, and enrollment (the relationship between persons and sections) there are several scripts and extract files involved in the integration. The four major extracted files are:

1. a Snapshot extract,
   
2. a Learning Context Hierarchy (LCH) extract,
3. an Adds_Drops extract, and
   
4. an Add_Sections extract.

The Snapshot extract represents a snapshot of current enrollments for a specific term. The LCH extract is a representation of the university's learning hierarchies (college->department->course->section). The Adds_Drops extract contains all enrollment adds or drops in the last defined period. Finally, the Add_Sections file contains a Course and Section groupobject for any sections that have been added in Peoplesoft in the last period.