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Executive Summary
Company
The DePaul University Center for Urban Education aims to empower educators and administrators at Chicago area public schools by providing current, high-quality tools, materials, training, and support to ensure that Chicago's children receive the best possible education.
Project
Create a portal communication system for the Center and educators to speed data entry and report generation and provide automated data analysis.
Solution
.NET-enabled business logic coupled with COM+ objects, presented through classic Active Server Pages (ASP) Web pages.
Tools
• ASP
• Visual Basic
• COM+
• C#
• SQL Server 2000
• XML
• Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP)
• Visual Studio .NET
• Visual Studio 6
Challenges
• Many users had never used a personal computer.
• Short development timeline with a fixed deadline for school-year implementation.
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.NET Web Service Connects Educators
A program for underprivileged schools
trades in the file cabinet for the file system,
with dramatic results.
registration system.
by Jason Salas
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| SEI CEO John Jasper, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, and DePaul Center for Urban Education Director Barbara Radner. Jasper and Radner used .NET technologies to streamline communications between DePaul and educators in the Chicago public school system through the development of an intuitive XML Web service. |
Many educators share a common hardship: What should be simple processes require excessive and unnecessary paper trails and preventable layers of redundancy. A program at DePaul University (Chicago, Illinois) set out to address this problem by leveraging high-end IT solutions using .NET to create an effective, scalable, robust, and expandable system for its network of educators.
The result is a more productive educational environment with a manageable structure to ensure the best possible learning experience in underserved Chicago public schools. As a result, administrators can spend more time tracking progress and less time filing reports, and teachers can devote more time with students and less time on paperwork.
Identifying the Problem
DePaul University, the largest Catholic university in the U.S. and the largest private institution in Chicago, views itself as a leader in progressive technologies for the communities it serves, based on its successful fellowship program in which it works with educators in the Chicago public school system. The program fosters a collaborative curriculum through its relationships with several hundred teachers, school administrators, and program staffers (called connectors) within disadvantaged schools at the K-12 level. But paperwork-intensive processes and long response lags frustrated participants involved.
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