Category: Work Reviews

9/25/2017 – 10/6/2017

Work Complete

Appreview

• Fixed Endorsement and Endorsement Requirements not getting added to new applications.
• Exposed list of Test Scores included in application view from UW Student Database. Tools for Student Services to adjust this configuration.
• Updated report filter time period to include upcoming years. This now queries actual application data and offers filter options for any year where we have applications.
• Added Red Flag feature to Appreview. Red Flags are important comments added by Office of Student Services that have major impact on admission decisions. Examples are insufficient GPA and TOEFL scores. Red Flag indicators are displayed on applicant list views and the full comments are displayed at the top of application detail page.

Budgets

• Added budgets for 2017-18 Biennium to Budgets index. Added tab interface that allows switching views between 2015 & 2017.

Courses

• Simplified Instructor review and approval of course plans. Before each quarter's entry into UW Time Schedule construction our Curriculum Coordinator asks instructors to review the course plan and enter room preferences. We have built a tool where instructors can review plan, enter room preferences, and add comments all in one place.
• Fixed bug in system that matches UW Time Schedule records to local plan records that could cause a canceled plan to not be highlighted as a difference.
• Implemented an automated testing framework for the Courses project. Initial tests for UWTS matching logic.
• Fixed bug where a missing value for a report parameter could cause the page to crash.
• ROUs (Responsible Organizational Units) have been removed from Courses database. As college structure has changed ROUs have become a less useful description of how course planning gets done. Removed to hide unuseful and stale information.

Students

• International students are indicated in Contact section of student detail.
• Fixed student search type-ahead suggestion, was showing quarter by quarter student history.
• R&I Paper Submitted added as a milestone for doctoral students.
• Fixed Reading Committee milestone, was being incorrectly marked complete. Discovered bug in data feed. Updated the doctoral committee import process with better preview and more data validation.
• Moved external students into general student model. External students are non College of Education students added to Student database to track certification, most often music students becoming music teachers. These records have been rebuilt so that they live in the same tables as COE students. Simplifies maintenance and querying. This also allows TEP students to be added to Student database during application process for certification tracking.
• Added link in Student… menu to Test Score database. Requires user authorization in Test Scores.
• Added link in Student… menu to Person log. This shows history and sources of person record updates. Requires user authorization in Person.

Tech Support

• Updated quarterly student import for recent Student database changes. This tool allows tech office to make current students active tech support database users for equipment reservations.

Test Scores

• Big improvements to Test Score requirement rules to more clearly show configuration and provide better tools to manage. Requirement Rules in Test Scores allow us to find and display import test scores for students based on the Washington state Teacher Certification and Endorsement Subjects the student is pursuing. One output for this linking is the Certification Checklist in Student database.

9/11/2017 – 9/22/2017

Work Complete

Appreview

• Fixed Person Data page which shows identifiers for other college and UW systems.

Courses

• Deployed update replacing Divisions/Associate-Deans with Areas and Area Chairs. Updating faculty affiliation with Areas. We are revisiting ROUs (Responsible Organizational Units are programs or groups who have responsibility for scheduling and staffing particular courses).

Recruitment

• Fixed problem with email template edit tool not saving changes.

Student

• Updated Complete (Degree Earned) display to include the degree name from the SDB. Allow entering of custom Program Complete names for manually added complete records. This is used for programs like Danforth where students can successfully complete without earning a UW degree.
• Include students with ELS minors in the college student database. Report of students with ELS minors and ability to look at student detail page and add tracked issues.
• Revision to local student data model to include minors. This changed the core representation of a "student" in the data and required updates to much of the application. In order to reduce chances of revisions like this in the future modified our local data model to closely track UW SDB student data model.
• Revised and simplified nightly data loads from the UW SDB. These various processes developed at different points in time had different structures. Revised to use shared resources and workflow for all, simplifies the ongoing support.
• Revision to local reports (various list views of students) in the system to use a more consistent base query and to better reuse helper strategies for fields like Program and Degree (translate UW codes into readable names). 

Infrastructure

• Hosted an Open House to solicitate feedback on upcoming priorities. Review of the Open House available here.
• Data extracts for Washinton state required reporting.

8/28/2017 – 9/8/2017

This cycle I dug into including students with ELS minor in the student database. Including minors is a new data concept for out system and is requiring some low level restructuring. Updates on this next time.

Second project in process is a new interface for instructors to review and approve course plans for time schedule construction. This will get the relevant information surfaced without as much clicking around, streamlining the review process.

Met with a group of subject matter experts to review and plan for improvements to the Recruitment database.

Work Complete

Person

• Updated the person import from UW institutional data for new name fields.

Student

• Fixed a user interface bug that made student search bar inaccessible on small screens.
• OSPI eCert records match our local teacher / admin certification data when issued date is within one month of our recommendation date.
• Teacher career reporting is modified to hold job category values: "Teaching", "Working in Education", "Working, in in Education".

8/14/2017 – 8/25/2017

Work Complete

Appreview

• Made descriptions in the Apply portal configuration view more helpful.

Courses

• Course fee fields are only displayed on offerings that have fees, previously labels and empty fields were displayed on all offering details. (This update is complete, but will be put on production with an upcoming release.)

Grants

• Grants web database has been retired. Over the last few year UW grants reporting and tracking tools have improved to the point that this system is no longer needed. We will continue to maintain this database as a back end system for college reporting and to support the faculty merit helper tool.

Student

• Update reporting of test scores for certified teachers required by WA state. Reporting from the new Student 2 database, added logic to select single applicable tests for each basic skills and endorsement category.
• Letters of recommendation from application are now included in Student attachments.
• Institution option list in edit placement form displays City, ST to differentiate institutions with the same name.
• Built tools to support long term reporting of career data for teachers who recieved certification through College of Education. The final report shows percent of certified teachers who are teaching for the ten years following certification. Create table, import process, and web form for managing this data.

Recruitment

• Fixed the "How did you hear about us?" question on the public "half sheet" form for prospective students. It was showing label and help text for college staff.

Test Scores

• Update the test score assessment configuration views. Break down into assessments by test type to make list more usable.

7/31/17 – 8/11/17

Work Complete

Courses

• Report filter for Online component. This is based on UW Time Schedule value where course can be traditional, partially online, or completely online. Courses database allows filter to "only traditional" or "courses that are partially or completely online".
• Added filter to Course Responsibility report for academic year. This report shows which college area, program, etc is responsible for scheduling and staffing a particular course. Academic year filter helps us prioritize active courses for Area reorg.

Recruitment

• Further refined spam URL remover to better handle email addresses embedded in question field.

Student

• Added import and comparison tools for WA State OSPI eCert file. This file includes state teacher and administrator records for people with certification recommended by the College of Education. We use this file to quality check our local certification data. This feature provides tools for reviewing differences and quickly reconciling them.
• Ignore feature for eCert file comparison. This is used when a former student's certification status changes, but not based on recommendation through the college.
• Report for OSPI Certificates that have a recommended date, but no issued date. OSPI response generally comes within two weeks. This report helps us with data entry and to surface problems during certification process.
• Always display UW email in student database. In some cases a student's UW email address was not displayed in the student database. If a student has a UW NetID their UW email is, now, always displayed first. Also the same email address should not be displayed multiple times.
• When student contact information has an empty value "0" for a phone number, that is no longer displayed.
• Add advisor form uses student's first enrolled quarter as the default advisor start quarter.
• Inactive students are included in the Students with Multiple Advisors reports. This report is used by OSS to accurately maintain advisor relationships.

7/17/2017 – 7/28/2017

Work Complete

Courses

• Added Online Learning Type field. This is a new field in UW Time Schedule construction which captures whether courses are traditional (in-person), hybrid, or fully online. Default value and comparisons set up so no data entry required for this field on traditional courses. Online Learning Type field is not displayed on traditional course detail, but gets special highlighting for online courses. Online courses are indicator with sticker in list views.
• Removed the redundant Distance Learning (yes/no) field.

Person

• Migrate appointment import from HEPPS data to Workday data. Appointment data is used primarily for updating authorizations in college info systems. Update person views for new data model.
• Converted authorization "glance" icons from plain color coded bubbles to pills with an inital for the information system represented.

Recruitment

• Migrated email system from SMTP to external email service. This provides better email handling, reduces spam false positives, and provides excellent tracking.
• Show count of applications from persons who RSVP'd for an event. Match on email address.
• Update to Ask a Question prompt for Student Services.
• Fixed broken links on "bulk add email" results page.

Student

• X grade tracked issues are rechecked nightly for grade that are submitted late and resolved automatically.
• Placement types can be modified. Previously type attribute was locked due to difference in fields between types. When placement type is modified placement edit form reloads with appropriate fields.
• Special Education placements types can be changed without disrupting automated placement creation. Placement rules system creates implied placements from course records using general placement type. These placements can be changed to the correct, more specific types.
• Implied placement configuration for EDC&I 561 and 601, special rule with unique handling that looks for these two courses taken during the same quarter.
• Add "Download as CSV" for placements by institution report. This includes the Generated Placement report which uses the null value "Unknown Institution". Prototyped a CSV field manager that provides reusable components for assembling export files.
• Update the data importer for Doctoral Committee data, Grad School changed report format.

7/5/17 – 7/14/17

Work Complete

Appreview

• Reworked reviewer committee configuration. Now shows committee members and the programs they review. Ability to add programs from the committee edit page. Committee assignment by program view is still available as a separate view linked in header.
• Deadline dates for Apply portal (undergraduate applications) are available to edit by authorized program administrators.
• Report view shows all contingencies that have been flagged for expected application materials and endorsement expected coursework. This report can be downloaded as a CSV text spreadsheet.
• Further adjustment to OSS material evaluation tools. Made complete, contingency toggles available from the main applicant detail view.

Person

• Investigated new UW Data Warehouse tables based on Workday data. Wrote a new appointment query to update person database with this data. Person database "appointment" record will need to be restructured, Workday has a significantly different representation.

Student

• Added system where Placement records can be generated by the system when students take specific courses during configured programs. For example the course EDTEP 593 is the course teacher education students take for their "Secondary TEP Field Experience". These generated placement appear in a report so staff can enter actual institutions and other placement details.

Tech Support

• Tool to sync current students as tech support users. Tool can be run quarterly by the tech office to make students available for support and equipment reservations.

Test Scores

• Fixed display issues with requirements configuration for state endorsements.
• Rework search tool in test scores to return a combined view of COE person records (for matched scores) and imported person records (for imported scores not linked to a COE student or applicant).
• Provide links from test score person view to other systems, preview where records exist. Links to Student, Appreview, and Person databases.

6/19/2017 – 6/30/2017

Work Complete

Appreview

• New feature to document expected Washington state certification and endorsements during the application review process. This feature ties into prerequisites reviewed by subject matter advisors. It sets up data that populates the student database when a student enrolls including expected certification and tracked issues (contingencies). 
• Built configuration management system for endorsements, their prerequisites, and expected endorsement by COE program.
• Updated manage material tools user interface.

Recruitment

• Escaped URLs submitted in Ask a Question form. These have been occasionally used by spammers to link to malicious sites.
• Updated how student services notification emails are sent to prevent spam warnings.

Student

• Fix to the Grad School doctoral committee import to correctly handle removed committee members.
• Break views that appear as a single long menu list into multiple columns for better display on desktop screens.
• Style box buttons on student home page to look clickable.

Infrastructure

• Ran automated accessibility audit on EDUC project. Fixed some immediate issues and sketch out plan for long term fixes and accessible new development.

6/5/2017 – 6/16/2017

Work Complete

Appreview

• Logging for updates from MyGrad applicant data now has a pruning routine.

Student

• Added logging for all user instigated changes to student record. New logging model stores compiled message for simpler review. Log view available from student detail under page level menu (Student… upper right).
• New "typeahead" search for students. As user types in search field matching students are suggested. Suggestions include student name, email, program, and status. Back end includes a search optimized index and maintenance routines to keep the index updated.
• Edit placement form uses pointer mouse cursor hint to indicated mentors can be clicked (add mentor to placement).
• Nightly import process that brings advisor assignments from Appreview to Student database. Student database is the authoritative home for advisor assignments, so this import only creates advisors records when the student has no advisor in Student database. Import matches on student, program, and start quarter.
• Created a new home page for Student Database with intention to make system more approachable. Emphasize search, highlight the most useful views, make all the features more discoverable. (Currently in test environment getting user feedback. Will be promoted to production soon.)

Test Scores

• Fixed certificate name not being displayed in views. Model property name change had not been fully updated.

Infrastructure

• The system context menu (upper right corner, switch from Student to Appreview, Tech Support, etc) is now fixed to the view port instead of the top of page. This resolves an issue where scrolling down a page, then activating the context menu presented a seemingly empty menu.
• Fixed issue where URLs with trailing slashes ("https://educ.uw.edu/students/") would incorrect result in a "Page Not Found" message.
• Major restructuring of client side JavaScripts and style sheets. Reorganized these component files to make them better labeled and locatable during developement. Cleaned out code inherited from previous projects, no longer used. Implemented a strategy to keep vendor libraries up to date. Created automated build pipelines to assembly production builds.
• Updated authorization notifications. We use the Person database to monitor user authorizations. Other college systems send notifications to Person, when a user's authorization is modified. These API clients needed to be updated for token API authentication.

5/22/17 – 6/2/17

Long Term Planning

As the academic year wraps up and we work through the Student database punch list we are also working on long term planning for information system development. So far we have met this Undergrad team and Carlson Center to plan for undergraduate placements, certification team to plan for filling in test score data, and grants support team to review the Grants database. As long term plans are drafted they will be posted on this blog.

Work Complete

Person

• Incorportated new student related tables into the person merge process. This included new routines for the 20 or so tables with person references in student. Rebuild of person merge to increase its modularity while decoupling it from some external dependencies.
• Utility that can re-apply historic person merges using current merge logic.

Infrastructure

• Update the EDUC project (Appreview, Student, Testscores, etc) to use lazy UW login. This allows the local application policies to dictate when a user needs to be authenticated and sends them away to UW login page only when needed.
• Removed the /a/ and /b/ from EDUC project URLs. These were needed because previously it was web server (Apache) configuration determining when a user needed to be logged in.
• Web service token authentication. When College of Education applications request data from each other (example Faculty Merit Report in Courses asks Student database for advising data) it passes a token which authorizes this inter-application API access.
• Upgraded application framework and vendor packages for EDUC (Laravel 5.4).
• Migrated JavaScript build utility to Webpack. This allows for more sophisticated client side application development using latest features while maintaing backward compatibility with the most common browsers.
• Re-organized style-sheets to create a more concise and intuitive layout.
• Prototyped a new application UI. This UI makes better use of browser viewport space, is more friendly on smaller mobile screens, accomodates large menu layouts, and makes UI components (e.g. Search) more obvious.