University

Properties of the Information System

The planning solution of the Information System has the following features:

• Distributed: client/server web oriented architecture. The access to the systems is from the client accesses or through remote sessions in a terminal server. All the communications use a TCP/IP protocol;
• Modular: the network infrastructure, the servers and the applications have scalable features. The fuctionalities are modifiable and extendable, on the bases of new requirements or necessities to adapt new specifications to already realized processes, additionally, they are easily adjustable to hardware and software basic updates;
• Safe: Network infrastructure based on VPN (Virtual Private Network), efficient backup and restoration systems guaranteeing data integrity with a congruence check on the application. In terms of application are guaranteed effective and efficient saving and data restoring mechanisms allowing data integrity and the permanence of the effects of the transactions even in the presence of partial or total system failure;
• Standard compliant: of safety of developement of the application software, of accessibility to the Web;
• Efficient: for the access and the use of the provided services is guaranteed a contained response time even in case of contemporary use of elevated multiutency;
• Operative ease: the applications are user-friendly, data insertion is easy and provides the user with assistive typing systems;
• User-friendly environment: the order-execution platform of the software regarding the Servers are Linux and Windows Server environments, the Client platform is a Microsoft Windows Desktop;
• Data integrity: the durability of the system intended as the actual capacity of the singular appliaction to operate in a preventable manner is guaranteed, despite the introduction of data incoherent with the specifications;

In addition to the essential features the IS respects the following specifics:

• it respects the minimum safety measures imposed by the current legislation in the field of personal data protection and for the safeguard of the patrimony of the university;
• it provides its services through a Front-office / Back-office model:
  • Student Administration Office
  • Didactic Sector
  • Administrative Sector
  • WEB (University Portal/Application)
• it guarantees to the system users availability and accessibility to the services. 

 

General specifics

Architecture and Management Platform

The architecture is Client/Server. The data are extracted from the database through SQL interrogations. The transnational system and the SQL DML commands are used in order to update the database.

Data security is guaranteed on a operating system level and on a DBMS level, with the possibility to use encrypted and secure connections.
 

WEB Services

The realized web services are one of the layers of the multi-level architecture, offering immediate data and service availabilty, through authentication.

Communication happens through "messages" inserted into a SOAP envelope: formatted in accordance with the XML standards and usually transported through HTTPS protocol.
 

Database and Application 

Access to the data happens in various modes, either in native mode using the client support provided by a specific DBMS, through ODBC interface or through Web services.

The application uses technologies of access to efficient data capable of guaranteeing a optimized flow for the Internet oriented applications both on the server side and on the client side.

The criteria with which the applications have been developed allow maximum independence and portability of the Package regarding both the Hardware component and the Basic Software component (operative System, RDBMS etc...)

 

Graphical User Interface

The Graphical User Interface has been developed with great regard for the main applications, resulting in a highly user-friendly approach. The key combinations recognized by the systems are compliant with the Microsoft Office standards, ensuring reduced learning times.

The outputs of the applications are available in different formats (Office, pdf, etc.), so as to be instantly publishable on the internet and available for an eventual dispatch by e-mail, or software fax. Some of the most recent applications have been configured in order to give the possibility to personalize the print outputs without intervening on the code. 

 

Infrastructures

• Data network and connectivity
• Server Farm Fastweb
• Workstations
• Physical Infrastructures Information Systems Cerbara
• Electronic Mail 
• WEB
• Telecommunication
  Privacy and Security
  Administration and Inventories
  Help Desk

 

Tools

• Administrative 
  • Deliberations of the government bodies
• General affairs
  • Protocol and documentary flow
• Services targeted to the student
  • Student Administration Office
  • Matriculation and payments
  • Consultation
  • Exam bookings
  • Didactics
• CRM/TMK
• Area WEB: Internet Website
• Area WEB: Siti Internet
• Area WEB: e-learning
• Users, enabling profiles and parameter tables
• Didactics
• Publishing and production of contents
• Support and HelpDesk

The settings of the Unilink platform answer to the following educational needs aimed at the organization of a favorable learning environment: 

• intuitive and user-friendly interface, designed to minimize the impact with a highly-technological reality;
• use of straightforward and standardised didactic materials, so as to enable professors to re-use said material; inter-operability of the didactic materials as suggested by the SCORM specificacions; 
• graphic costumisation, so as to allow the adaptation of the graphic design to the target users;
• tools for interaction between the different actors of the training process in the network: tutors, students, experts.
• interaction with traditional electronic communication means, in order to avoid technologic overlapping. In fact, any communication related to the course shalll be notified to the students on their academic mail addresses ;
  evaluation of the formative pathway.
• The system provides for the possibility to develop sets of open-ended question/multiple-choice self-assessment tests;
• support tools for the tutors, aimed at monitoring the interactions and the degree of presence/participation to the activities provided in the courses, evaluating the degree of fruition of the didactic materials and the participation to the communication environment both in the receptive and proactive process, promotes eventual recalibrations of the course, overcoming, to a certain extent, the impossibility to perceive the degree of attention participation of the students caused by the physical separation between professor and student.

 

Portal

The Unilink portal is the University's official source of information and acts as access point to various services for students, tutors, etc...

From a technical point of view the portal is perfectly integrated with all the software services currently available to the University.

Non-registered users may consult all the online contents except those provided in the reserved area.

In order to gain access to specific contents and to further services as, for example, the online matriculation process, the guests shall register to the portal through a specific registration form, than access through the Academic  Single SignOn system.