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IUware Online is a web-based software distribution service developed by Indiana University and tailored to the needs of higher education. It is designed to provide a convenient “one-stop” site for students, faculty, and staff who need to acquire software, while also offering the benefits of distributed software administration across multiple departments or specialized support units. By enabling each area of expertise to post their own software, the service achieves faster updates, better content, and lower costs. The central administration of the site provides overall continuity, usability, security, and an economy of scale.
IUware Online was established in 1998 to service the needs of a state-wide institution with over 100,000 students, faculty, and staff on eight campuses. Version 3 of IUware Online has been in production for over two years and the current version (3.3) is now the central software distribution service at both Indiana University and Louisiana State University. At IU, IUware Online receives over 125,000 page hits and provides 50,000 product downloads per month.
IUware Online is a .Net application written in C# which utilizes a Microsoft SQL Server 2000 database. It consists of 3 primary web applications:
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Administration
The
Administration site provides the high level functions for overall service management. From
the Administration site the service manager can define license agreements, software publishers, operating systems, CDs, software categories and advertisements.
Requests to add or remove software titles from IUware
Online are approved or denied from the Administration
site.
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Software Administration
The Software Administration site is used to create entries in the software catalog for IUware Online. From this site a software administrator can enter all the information a user needs to know about a product. In addition to basic software information, the software admin can also set availability information, security parameters, file names for download, and CD information.
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Public
An award-winning, easy-to-use website for students,
faculty, and staff who wish to browse the software catalog, lookup
software information, and download software. The user interface is easily
customized. To view the Indiana University version of the public web site
(downloading is restricted) see
http://iuware.iu.edu
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