As of August 1st, 2008, the Edutech web site will no longer be updated. Edutech was funded by the Swiss Virtual Campus programme, which ended on July 31st, 2008. Some activities will be taken over by the e-Learning Services group at the SWITCH foundation.

AAI Enrollment: Vista - AAI Integration

If you have a course in Vista and your institution is an 'AAI Home Organisation' (ETH-Z, Uni Bern, Uni Fribourg, Uni Geneva, Uni Lausanne, Uni Zurich, ZFH ZHWin) then you can allow your students to enroll and login to their Vista courses using their AAI login.

More about AAI: What's AAI?

How to enroll a student in an AAI course

There are 3 types of enrollment procedures you can choose from:
Direct URL, Subscription and Invitation

    Pros
    Cons
Direct URL
Students enroll themselves by going to an enrollment URL specific to the course. This URL is constructed by course designers and it is usually sent to the students by email.
  • Simple and quick method for students and teachers
  • Students and teachers don't need to deal with the AAI portal
  • Difficult to exclude unwanted AAI users (any AAI user can enroll in a course if he/she can guess the course ID)
Subscription
A Vista course is managed as a resource in the AAI portal. Students log in to the portal and subscribe to a Vista course. The course designer gets a notification for every pending subscription and he/she can grant or refuse access for individual students.
  • Course access can be granted to a specifically defined group of students
  • Students always have to log in via an AAI portal.
  • Vista courses need to be managed as resources in an AAI portal.
  • Not viable for courses with many students
Invitation
A Vista course is designated as a resource in the AAI portal. Every student who should be enrolled receives a personalized invitation by email. Clicking on the URL in this invitation enrolls the student to the course. The invitation can only be used once (one-time ticket).
  • Course access can be granted to a specifically defined group of students.
  • Email addresses need to be known for all students who should have access to a course.
  • Vista courses need to be declared as an AAI resource in the AAI portal.

Direct URLs Method

First we make sure that your institution has been listed with the AAI portal as a Vista institution.

You give 2 URLs to your students: one for enrollment only, and one to login to the course afterwards.

To enroll your students, you give them a link to register to a section.

First they go to that link (the register URL) and are automatically registered for that Vista section.

(They are asked to login using their Home Organisation login (via SwitchAAI), then get automatically sent to WebCT Vista.)

Afterwards, they use the login URL to visit the Vista section.

Working Example of Direct URL

If you have an AAI account, this link will register you for this demo course at the University of Fribourg: Student Introduction to Vista

After you are enrolled, you can login with this link to your myWebCT page for Uni Fribourg courses.

Generate your own enrollment and login URLs:

First, fill in these fields...

Institution: Vista Section IMS ID (what's this?):

...then click here:

Subscription Method

First, the Vista section must be an AAI resource. Send us an email and we'll make your Vista section an AAI resource.

Students go to login.virtualcampus.ch (the AAI portal).

They choose their course from the list of resources and request to subscribe to the course.

You manage the subscriptions in the AAI portal, approving or rejecting each request to enroll in the course.

The students receive an approval for the course subscription by email, and can then enter the course.

Invitation Method

First, the Vista section must be an AAI resource. Send us an email and we'll make your Vista section an AAI resource.

To enroll your students, you (or we) use the AAI portal to send all the students an email. The email has a unique link for each student to register using the AAI portal.

(The AAI portal can take a list of email addresses and send out an invitation to each student. We can do this for you or you can choose to use the AAI portal yourself.)

They go to that link and register for the course.

The link is valid only for one student to register one time. (If there's a problem, he or she will need a new invitation.)

After registering, students access the course using a login url. (They can log in to the course directly or to their myWebCT page.)