Roxen Internet Software

Roxen CMS has been chosen by Group T Leuven University. This University educates 2,000 students to be a technical engineer or a teacher. Additionally, another 2,000 adults are trained in language, management and technology. Roxen was chosen for its new website www.groept.be and the integration of a number of sub systems. Both the educational model and the advanced way of working are reflected in the new website. The site is also an important factor in the school’s relations with its students.

Primarily, Roxen is used for a website restyling, initiated by a task force with representatives from each University departement. The task force defined the structure for the new site and outsourced the design to Duval-Guillaume. Uniway translated this design technically for Roxen CMS. Selection criteria for the new CMS were user friendliness for non technical users, multi language functionality with regard to the European and Asian University partners, openness of the CMS in order to integrate seamlessly into the various sub systems.

Dirk Fabre, ICT Manager at Group T Leuven University says: ‘Within our task force of seven people, we have determined what needed to be done. This had to do with rewriting and editing content and translating it into English and Chinese, for our European students and their parents. The Dutch site is now live. The English one will be as from February 2007 and the Chinese one will be available later in the year. An important next step is going to be integrating the website into our extranet, a java based environment for students, teachers and companies, who will have access to their customized information by log-in.

Advanced student communications
Leuven University is widely known for its advanced technology used for communications with students and teachers, including an extranet informing about the school’s activities, student results, schedules and payments. Additionally, an electronic learning platform is offered, including activities, discussion rooms and access to a variety of digital libraries. Currently, users are given access by individual log-ins. The next step is to integrate these various systems, so users only have to log-in once to have access to all services. This is realized by Shibboleth Authentication and Authorisation Infrastructure (AAI), a single sign-on system for web based services. Roxen will be integrated into this, too.

Group T is using a Windows network, including 15 servers and 500 desk tops. The ICT departments develops a lot of the services and also offers design support. The ICT employees often work together with professionals of other Leuven schools.