February 15, 2007

The year 2006 was a significant one for the company. It has been quite fruitful in terms of various large-scale projects performed for Sunburst and Russian state institutions. The main events can be summarized as follows:

Key Skills to Web

Within the frameworks of the Key Skills to Web project, DigitalXpert has performed porting of a CD product Key Skills issued by Sunburst in 2003 to the Web platform; that is, a corresponding internet-based solution has been developed. The ported product was installed on QuickMind platform and became available to users of this product.

Key Skills source codes were mainly in C++ and ActionScript1 (Flash 5), and the resulting solution was created with ActionScript2 (Flash 8) + Java\ EJB. Notwithstanding the huge amounts of source codes and data, and complex application logic, which due to technological peculiarities was to be completely re-interpreted and re-written, the transfer was performed quite quickly and with proper quality.

One of the peculiarities of the source product was the presence of large amounts of graphics, animation, and sounds, because the product's target users were schoolchildren in the pre-schools, primary and elementary schools. The requirement was to move the CD product to the Web with minor quality losses (the paradigm RIA - Rich Internet Applications has been used), and DigitalXpert's team has successfully coped with this task.

Functionality of the Key Skills product is quite similar to other QuickMind applications: The teacher-type user has the right to view and assign a resource (activity) to his students who should perform the task. But unlike other applications, assignment parameters may vary, that is, each activity possesses its own generator. One more peculiarity of the product is a system for tracking assigned tasks, so that one and the same activity cannot be assigned multiple times at once.

The Key Skills application has become and integral and very popular part of QuickMind. Although the application logic is different from standard QuickMind's, the joint efforts of Sunburst and DigitalXpert's specialists helped creating a solution which would be intuitive enough and would preserve external likeness to other QuickMind applications. But this outward similarity is backed by a significant technological progress – Key Skills is the first application in QuickMind that takes advantage of Enterprise Java Beans (EJB) and JiBX (a system that allows converting XML to Java objects and vice versa).

Enterprise Java Beans is probably the very technology due to which Java is so popular among developers of enterprise solutions. It is targeted at solving a very important and complex task: creating scalable, stable, and reliable server applications. This technology is not limited by 2-tier architecture consisting of the client application and database server, but allows creating multi-tier architecture.

The market of EJB-based client applications is young enough but has a strong tendency to grow. DigitalXpert's specialists were among the first ones who realized the perspectives of this technology and started using it for applications creation.

The secret of success for EJB-based software are application servers that provide a common platform for accessing various services, performing transactions, balancing load, and providing fault tolerance. EJB application servers help in solving scalability problems that are frequently met when creating applications for Web.

Thus, the developed solution has a modular and universal architecture which allowed creating a standalone version of Key Skills for Web with minimum possible alterations.

Key Skills Standalone

The Key Skills Standaloneproject was ordered by Sunburst according to Apple 's initiative at the end of July'2007. The goal of the project was to create a Standalone version of Key Skills on the Web platform. The Key Skills product was initially realized for Web within QuickMind, and so the new project's target was to make Key Skills a separate product. This project became a sequel for the Key Skills to Web project also conducted by DigitalXpert's programmers.

Notwithstanding the short development timeframes (the first working version was presented, according to the schedule, within 2 weeks from the start of works) and a complex modular structure, the Key Skills Standalone product is noted for its high quality and meets all easy-to-use requirements; the latter is extremely important because the product's target users are kids of pre-school and primary school age.

Key Skills Standalone is designed as a growing product. It currently contains only one set of activities, the "Basic Operations" (Maths); but it is Sunburst's intention to add new content into it as soon as necessary. Due to the flexible modular structure that allows for such expansion, the product is able to develop for a considerable period of time without rebuilding or restructuring.

From a technological standpoint, Key Skills Standalone was created on the basis of the Smart platform developed by DigitalXpert in 2005-2006 for the WriteBrain product. The platform possesses all the universal services necessary for multi-user applications functioning, and suits all kinds of educational products meant for both traditional and distant learning. The platform contains such modules as: Account management, Licenses, User management, Assignment management, Standards management for the US and Canada. The Smart platform possesses everything that's necessary for placing applications on it, no matter how complex the internal logic of those applications is.

The Key Skills Standalone project included not only switching the Key Skills product from QuickMind to the Smart platform, but also ensuring the functionality of the reporting module developed by a 3 rd part company. Despite the difficulties arising from integration of three technologically varied component parts, DigitalXpert's programmers coped with the task brilliantly.

Within the frameworks of the project, transfer of the Key Skills product onto the Smart platform has been conducted, plus its functioning as a separate application has been ensured (presently, Key Skills to Web is a QuickMind application). The KSS_Sunburst project contained the following works: Key Skills adaptation for the Smart platform , switching 20 math activities from Key Skills to Web, providing such functions as user management, working with educational standards and reports (DigitalXpert's task was to ensure interaction and calls for the reporting module; the service itself was developed by VDI).

DigitalXpert's specialists have brought it out clearly that they are able to create flexible modular solutions in shortest timeframes. The Key Skillsproduct is currently very popular and in great demand, both as part of QuickMind and in its Standalone version.

Test & Quiz: increasing functionality

Upon Sunburst's requirements, DigitalXpert 's employeeshave performed a project on expanding functionality of Test&Quiz, an educational application. The Test&Quiz project was meant for renovation of the existing application in QuickMind, Channel 1 .

The application contains a set of tools for teachers and content managers. Test&Quiz allows creating various tests, assigning them to students and checking performance results. The application is oriented for the American educational system and K-12 standards, that is, for a 12-year school of general education.

Test&Quiz is a 3-tier application, that is, it possesses:

• Client part;
• Server part;
• Database ( content storage).

Creation of an informational complex for a coercive state department

DigitalXpert has successfully finished a project on developing a demo version of Informational Complex for a Coercive State Department.

Tasks that the InfoComplex should solve :

• Granting user access services to a limited number of distributed informational sources (the Department's resources);
• Work with data from the informational sources with one result set of a "Dossier" type.

The main goal of the InfoComplex demo development was to check and demonstrate the options for integration of existing informational resources on the basis of Web technologies using telecommunication networks of the Department. The main difficulty lay in the fact that the informational resources needed to be integrated without fundamental re-building of existing informational systems.

The common access point to the InfoComplex is realized via a portal solution (Portal DX_GO).

Within the frameworks of the InfoComplex project, the following subsystems have also been realized:

• Access management;
• Registration and accounting;
• Administration.

The InfoComplex also has the QuickLink visualization system introduced, which allows users to get graphic interpretation of information acquired in result sets.