IDCP
The Marist College Institute for Data Center Professionals (IDCP) is a worldwide certificate program developed with support from the National Science Foundation that offers Data Center and z/OS training programs. The IDCP currently stores their student, program, certificate, and course information in two different databases, using an outdated and cumbersome interface which was developed using Microsoft Access well over a decade ago. As a result, data management has become inefficient and troublesome. An administrative assistant who is part of the team that proposed this project to our class explained, “Currently, the interface is hard to use and reports are non-functional; we must download our information to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and manually sort data from two different databases.” They requested a more transparent interface system, a more efficient and easy-to-manage database, and most of all, the ability to easily create dynamic queries and reports based on the stored data. This web project aimed to fulfill the IDCP’s request by creating a more modern and efficient online report and data management tool. This website, built with a combination of HTML, PHP, MySQL, CSS, JQuery, and JavaScript, allows the user to interact smoothly with the IDCP database via an easy-to-use interface, and allows the user to easily generate dynamic queries and reports. The backend database behind the online tool is an updated version of the IDCP database, with attributes redefined and tables redesigned and normalized in order to promote database consistency and integrity. All of the website’s features work together to improve user productivity and allow the user to focus more on analyzing the data than on sorting it. In addition, this website is modular; it can be easily customized and put to use by other similar organizations. The website includes an authentication system for its users, as the online tool contains sensitive information about students. Only IDCP administrators may access the tool, promoting data security. The Student Profile page manages how the user will interact with the IDCP database. This page, which the user reaches after searching for a student, displays an overview of the student’s personal information, courses they have taken, programs they are in, and certificates they have earned. Clicking the View More or Edit buttons allows the user to view more information about each item and edit, append, or delete that information. These same functionalities are available for program, course, and certificate pages, enabling the user to easily edit data in the database without needing to know a data manipulation language. The Report Page consists of an easy-to-use interface that allows the user to sort and/or filter the data. The report tool allows the user to choose from various types of reports and to specify the fields to be included in the report. The two types of reports available are student demographic reports and reports about students in a specific program, course, or certificate program. Pages to create more types of reports are being developed and added per the user’s needs. Of course, there is an option to print the report.
Schwartz, Donald, Christian Menk, Si Ya (Wendy) Ni, and Kai Wong. Project Description for CMPT192, Spring 2017.