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Office of Institutional Research

Month: January 2016

Apply

"Apply" is a new web application for the College of Education that will allow potential students to apply to our programs. The applications they submit in Apply will be visible and reviewable in Appreview.

Currently the only applications we have available in Appreview are graduate applications. Graduate applicants complete their applications through the UW Graduate School's MyGrad web application. We then import the data into our Appreview system using a web service. For graduates, the apply interface that the applicant uses is operated by the Grad School.

We would like to have all of our applications available and reviewable in on place so COE faculty and staff can interact with a single applicant review system. Our Early Childhood and Family Studies undergraduate program is the first program we are adding to the graduate focused Appreview.

So "Apply" is the applicant facing side of "Appreview", initally for ECFS applicants.

Sandbox Server

Minor updates to operating system and software on our web servers happen during regular maintenance and can be applied in place (generally with zero downtime). But large version changes have to be handled differently. We have several major upgrades to explore.

Upgrades

CentOS

Until this year UW had an education license for Redhat Enterprise Linux. This year UW decided we were getting little benefit from the license and will not continue the contract. CentOS is the free software version of Redhat, we have to move our web servers to CentOS distribution by July 2016. At that point we will no longer be able to get updates for Redhat.

CentOS 6.X to 7.X

The Redhat to CentOS move is actually a fairly easy transition that could be made in place. But our Redhat servers are a major version back and our newest web server is running CentOS 7.X. We want all of our servers on the same OS version.

PHP 7

A major new version of PHP has just been released. There are some backward compatibility concerns, but this new version comes with major performance improvements. This means our web sites will be faster and also cheaper to operate (PHP 7 uses significantly less memory). These would be great benefits, however we can't make this migration if our web applications are not compatible with the new language version.

MySQL to MariaDB

You can google "MySQL vs MariaDB" if you are curious about open source software complexity. For simplicity sake I will leave it at Redhat 6.X supports MySQL packages, CentOS 7.X supports MariaDB. Theoretically this is a 100% compatible change from our web application perspective.

PubCookie to Shibboleth

When you sign in to our web applications you do that with your UW NetID through the official UW Login Servers. There are two pieces of software that can communicate with the UW Login Server and let us know who you are. PubCookie is the older system that is no longer actively in development. PubCookie no longer works on CentOS 7.X (Apache 2.4). Now is the time for us to start using the new Shibboleth single sign on system.

Sandbox

With multiple major changes like this we want a safe, isolated place to see how our web applications will run and iron out the migration and deployement process.

For this we create a sandbox server, a testing location for the new software stack. Once we work out problems and have a vetted deployment process using our sandbox environment we can deploy the new stack on the live web servers.

Fall Quarter – Cycle 27

1/18/2016 – 1/29/2016

Focus of this cycle is the Apply project, a portal to accept applications to ECFS programs that will be displayed and reviewed in Appreview.

Work Complete

Apply

  • Access Control List configuration for Apply. During development the system will be accessible only to specifically authorized users. When system goes live this rule will be removed and anyone with a UW NetID login will have access.
  • Changed strategy so program applied for is indicated by entry URL. No progam selection inputs. Application overview, requirements, date will be provided by program website and link on website will drop applicant into Apply for the appropriate program.
  • View for application cycle closed or not found (invalid URL provided).
  • Contact information form
  • Enrolled form (current UW student or transfer).
  • Interests form
  • Add degree and transcript form. Multi-step form (1. degree info, 2. upload a transcript) with ability to repeat for multiple transcripts. Ability for degree info to be edited and upload to be replaced. Application restructuring happened to allow for complex sub-steps within an application step.

Appreview

  • Added "Interview" as pending decision value and report filter (Decision section). Some programs do interviews as part of the application review process. This mechanism allow selected applicants to be flagged and filtered in the system.
  • Added average rubric scores to appropriate CSV export files.
  • Reviewed and adjusted website theme for Mac Safari, application had some strange behaviors on that browser.

Courses

  • Rooms listed in CSV export of course offering data.
  • Added credits and grading system to list view in My Courses. We ask faculty to check this list for accuracy and wanted fields that typically need adjusting exposed at list.
  • Fixed a non-breaking, but visible error message on the person list view.

Test Scores

  • Test score dashboard has latest test score date by test type on dashboard. This provides indicator of recent imports.

Work Planned

Apply

  • Access control configuration for #Apply
  • Landing page (No Login) will display the programs that can be applied to using this portal with links back to the public COE site for program information. It will also display application period and deadlines and be based on Apply Cycle configuration.
  • Report of applications started, not submitted. Existing appreview views will only display applications where applicant has finished and pressed "Submit". We will provide an additional view to look at application in progress.
  • Modify detail view for applications not submitted. Applications that are not yet submitted need to be highlighted appropriately.
  • Contact information form, applicant enters address, phone, email.
  • Current UW student or Transfer, applicant enters whether they are a currently enrolled UW student or also applying to the UW.
  • Interests form, applicant answers interest questions that allow ECFS to place people in T&L pathway.
  • Add degree & transcript, applicant describes previous course work and uploads a transcript.
  • Replace transcript, applicant can upload a new copy of a transcript.

Infrastructure

Fall Quarter – Cycle 26

01/04/2016 – 01/15/2016

This cycle we begin work on an online Application system for ECFS On-Campus and ECFS Online programs. This will be live by March 1, 2016 so the next batch

We continue working on Courses with a focus on building out the export CSV spreadsheets to accomodate the various workflows college faculty and staff have using course planning data.

Work Complete

Appreview

  • Fixed review dashboard bar graph wrong for 0 denies
  • Fix rubric score export not working
  • Rubric category for Special Education

Apply

  • Create an apply web page layout and client side framework
  • Data structure for storing Apply cycle information

Courses

  • Add setting for room scheduling complete, ready to be shared with instructors
  • Add "meets during finals week" to room preferences
  • CSV export spreadsheet now includes all teaching staff
  • Offering canceled reason is included in Comments tab

Test Scores

  • Database view combines test score meta-data with test score records, tool for ad-hoc IR reporting
  • Delete a test score

Infrastructure

  • Work on sandbox server to test significant server upgrades (OS distribution, OS version, PHP version, database system and version)

 

Work Planned

Appreview

  • ECFS applications, requirements gathering, project planning, and infrastructure set up.
  • Create an #Apply context, web page layout with template headers, footers, menu that will be used for the applicant views. This context will be responsive design to be usable on mobile devices.
  • Implement database for application profiles. Initially we are creating two programs that can be applied to in the new system (two ECFS programs). We will build on a system that will support these programs, but can be configured to support additional programs in the future with minimal code changes.

Courses

  • Add data to CSV spreadhseet export including all teaching staff (multiple instructors, TAs, graders) and assigned rooms
  • Add rooms to CSV spreadhseet export file.
  • Include canceled reason in the offering comments tab
  • Add "Meets During Finals Week" to room preferences. Knowing this may make more (bettter?) rooms available to COE faculty.
  • Allow OSS to configure when room scheduled is settled and should be included in Courses database.