When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, it was clear that the lives of students, faculty and staff at Carleton University were going to change. What was not clear was that we would begin on a path toward a technical transformation that would change the game for the entire university.
When the cuScreen project launched, that is exactly what happened.
As health authorities struggled to get the pandemic under control in 2020, orders and guidance were passed down from the Government of Ontario, Public Health Ontario and Ottawa Public Health requiring Carleton to implement COVID-19 screening self-assessment for all employees, students, and visitors to campus and university buildings.
Carleton’s response was an online COVID-19 screening form, quickly developed and implemented in October 2020 to ensure the university could fulfill its screening obligations. But a more robust solution was needed.
In July 2021, President Benoit-Antoine Bacon officially announced the development of cuScreen as a joint project between the Students and Enrolment division, the Procurement Team, Information Technology Services (ITS) and more.
Released in fall 2021, cuScreen is easier to use than the previous screening form. Visitors to campus use QR codes to fulfill self-screening requirements and record their access to campus, buildings, classrooms, and offices. cuScreen uses existing MyCarletonOne (MC1) credentials held by faculty, staff, and students, and is accessible on any web browser, including mobile browsers.
Addressing the Need for APIs
To the outside observer, the development of cuScreen might sound like a single project. But the Software Development team at ITS quickly realized that successfully bringing cuScreen to life would require what amounted to three separate but concurrent projects: cuScreen itself, but also the development of an API Gateway and API Store.
API is short for Application Programming Interface, which is a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other. Simply put, APIs provides applications that weren’t built to talk to each a common ground with which to communicate.
“Before cuScreen, we weren’t working with APIs,” says Joseph Nelson, Software Development Manager at ITS. “That’s not to say we weren’t thinking about it. We had been forming the idea for how we might use APIs for some time, but cuScreen accelerated that.”
In order for cuScreen to work, it would need to rely on APIs. And in order for this to happen, Carleton would need its own API store, essentially a place to work with those APIs.
Carleton would also need an API Gateway. The result is Kong, an open-source API gateway and platform that acts as middleware – software that bridges gaps between other applications – between compute clients and the API-centric applications. The platform easily extends the capabilities of APIs with the use of plugins.
Through the API gateway, administrators know that cuScreen receives about 25,000 requests every day. Using Kong, they can log in daily to see the volume of requests, the speed at which data is being passed around, and more. The university now has all the tools needed to create daily logs of people who access cuScreen, how and where they access it, fulfilling our obligations under provincial and municipal orders and guidelines.
There was privacy and security to keep in mind as well. Internal and external security assessments were done, and the team needed to think ahead and plug any security holes that emerged before the launch of cuScreen.
“cuScreen energized us to get all of this done, because we understood the importance of making data available during the COVID-19 pandemic,” says Nelson. “But it also prepares us for the future, and it goes beyond cuScreen.
“During any engagements with new vendors, the first thing we ask is “Do you have an API?”
The API store is currently being used for Ventus, an academic accommodations management system currently in development, and Brightspace, Carleton’s learning management system. It also has applications in employee intake forms, the public exam schedule, email marketing, and more.
Cross-Collaboration the Key to Success
The project wouldn’t have been a success without cross-collaboration from departments and units across the university.
“cuScreen, the API store, and the API gateway came together with help from all different areas of Carleton,” says Nelson, citing several teams in ITS and out, including the Windows and Unix teams, the database administrators’ group, Students and Enrolment, and Procurement.
“We had a lean team,” says Betty Baxter, Project Office Manager. “There was a small group of staff testing, managing access, and more. They did a great job over the two very intensive months it took to complete the project.”
The university community has certainly felt the positive impact. The project team received the 2021-2022 Service Excellence Award for Innovation in February 2022 for their efforts.
“I’ve only been working at Carleton for a couple of years,” says Jared Losier. “I wasn’t expecting an award, but it feels nice to be recognized for the work we put into the project.”
Based on new government guidelines that came into effect on May 1, 2022, screening is no longer required to enter Carleton buildings, though cuScreen is still used for symptom reporting.
With any luck the pandemic will soon be behind us. However, the API store and gateway will continue to be used and improved, ensuring that cuScreen’s impact will be felt for years to come.
This story is a part of ITS’s Year in Review for 2021/22. Read more at our Year in Review homepage, or follow along on Twitter using the hashtag #ITSYearinReview. Thanks for reading!