Let’s stop reinventing the wheel and share the code we develop to make institutional systems talk to each other.

If you work for a University as a developer you’re probably very familiar with the scenario that “we have just bought product X, which will need to talk to products Y and Z”. There are lots of well established institutional systems such as Library management systems, Finance systems, HR systems, Student Records systems, Virtual Learning Environments, and so on. Heck – there are even email and calendar / online collaboration suites too

As a developer, you’re accustomed to Googling around to figure out how to do things and solve tricky problems. Sites like Stack Overflow help enormously here, but there’s a whole class of stuff that is quite hard to search for – enterprise packages. Aside from a few enlightened cases (e.g. Google Apps API forum posts), there either isn’t a body of sample code to draw upon, or it’s hidden away behind corporate Extranets.

So, I’d like to snarf a chunk of the JISC Elevator Pitch funding to try a little experiment to open source some of this systems integration code. Here’s a short video that explains how I envisage this working:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Watch this video on YouTube.

If successful, I think this little project would help to get institutions thinking about sharing code more generally, and perhaps even move us a little bit closer to a “University API” that exposes say “Finance system functions” rather than “Agresso Finance System functions”, and would permit institutions to move between systems whilst retaining a common API layer. Much of the prior work in this area has been top down, but I suspect a bottom up approach would be more likely to succeed.

I see this as a natural DevCSI project, since participants in DevCSI already “get it” and understand the benefits that accrue from sharing code – particularly around rapid development, pooling expertise, and avoiding unnecessary duplication of effort. As part of the project we would organise a workshop under the DevCSI banner for all those interested in opening up their institutional systems integration code. This would provide an opportunity to agree a common approach to code sharing (e.g. choice of license), and also give people an opportunity to share hints and tips for successful promotion at each others’ institutions.

If you like the sound of what you’re hearing – vote for me! (Note: ac.uk email address required for this)