Summary

The project is to implement an on-line admissions, registration and graduation clearance system for (graduate) students in the Computer Science department. The current system (using Banner) allows students to apply online but the process by which the faculty reviews the applications is a paper process. Additionally, the registration hold removal and graduation clearance process is also a pure paper process. In this project you will design a system that will automate the workflow process in the admissions, registration and graduation system for our students, with the scope of this project limited to Masters degree students.

Let’s first review the current process. A graduate student applies to CS-GWU (actually, the process is the same for any department or school) using an online system linked to banner. The student fills out a form online and pays the application fee. After filling out the form, various pieces of information – GRE scores, recommendation letters, transcripts, financial statements – get attached to the application. Once all the information has been received (i.e., the application is “complete”) the application is reviewed by the CS faculty – specifically an admissions committee reviews the application. This process takes place each semester – i.e., fall and spring. Students applying for admission are denoted Graduate Applicants. Applicants can check on the status of their application by visiting a specific URL and search for their status using a student number. (Note that to protect privacy we should not use their social security number but rather a system generated unique number that is emailed to them once they apply – if you cannot implement this, then you may choose to use the student number.) More information on the data entered in the application is detailed later in this document.

The admissions decisions are made by a committee of faculty. Any member of the committee may review any application and it is the job of the chair of the admissions committee (henceforth referred to as CAC) to make sure that each application is reviewed by at least one reviewer. It is important that reviewers be able to write comments on the application; these are, of course, not to be seen by the applicant. It is also important for the CAC (in a meeting with the whole committee) to perform overall rankings. Each reviewer provides a score (between 1 and 4 – where 4 is the highest) and there are various summaries that can be useful such as applicants ranked by average score (if there is more than one reviewer). More information on the review process and the data to be displayed is detailed later in this document. (The final step in the admission process is the entry into banner by the admissions staff person –Luis Acevedo in the CS department at GWU.)

Once a student is admitted their application status must indicate this. An admitted student may matriculate (i.e., join the department) – in this case the student is added to the list of current graduate students and are classified as a Graduate Student. Once they join the department, the database must keep track of their registration and grades – i.e., what courses they have taken, the grades, etc. (i.e., their transcript). The student can access the registration system to register for courses, and they will be required to fill out a Form 1 (their course plan which should meet degree requirements). The final job of the database is the verification of graduation requirements! Currently, a student applies for graduation and the “audit” is done by the staff person. You have to design applications that automate this process – in other words, the student fills out a form online (by going to a URL) for graduation and the database application must perform an “audit” based on (1) their transcript and (2) the degree requirements. Once a student has been cleared for graduation, the staff person clears the record and they graduate and therefore must be added to an alumni database.

Based on the above discussion, we will partition the overall process into two (seemingly independent) applications:

Online Application and Admissions process

A graduate applicant goes to a website and enters their information into the database. Applicants can check their application status online – the status is one of three (i) application incomplete (ii) application complete and under review and (iii) decision (admit or reject).

The graduate admissions committee reviews applications and makes a decision -- Admit, Admit with Aid, or Reject.

(B) Online Registration and Graduation Process.

Admitted students enroll at GWU (i.e., matriculate) and are now considered Graduate students. Once the student joins GWU, they will use an online registration system to register for courses and their transcript is recorded in the database (courses and grades). In addition, the student fill out an online Form 1 which lists the courses they will take to meet graduation requirements. When the student applies for graduation, the system must check to see if all graduation requirements are met. Once they are met, and the student is cleared to graduate they are then added to an alumni list. For simplicity, we will only consider graduation clearance for the Masters program.

The end goal of this project is to design a system that performs the above tasks (i.e., the database and the applications):

Design and implement all the tables necessary for the complete system.
Correct implementation of the entire workflow for each application (A and B).
Design and implement the application logic and the user interfaces.

Details of the two key applications and on the type of data (and the forms used for review) will be provided in the project details page and an overview if provided below. Note that you have to visit the department website and check on the graduate program requirements to figure out more details for graduation process.

Project Overview

I have tried to break down the details according to the process, types of users, and the typical queries (in addition to the queries required to implement the workflow process).

Summary of the Workflow Process:

The Graduate Student database applications process goes all the way from application being received in the department to the student’s graduation clearance.

Here is an outline of the process:

1. An application is received by the department, and an entry is made into the database (indicating date application was received, and the data for the student including academic data such as GRE,GPA etc.).

(Note that in practice, this data could also be downloaded from Banner and uploaded into our tables.)
The applicant is emailed a password to use to login to the CS-ARGS system. Using this they can check the status of their application.

(Note: If you cannot implement this, then you can use their student ID as their password for access to ARGS).

2. A decision is made by the Admissions Committee – decision can be Admit or reject. And admit can be ‘admit with aid’ or ‘admit without aid’ – the admission date is also included in the data.
3. An applicant can check on the status of their application by going to the website and entering their password. The status is “Application Received and Decision Pending”, or “Application Materials Missing” or “Admission Decision: Accepted” or “Admission Decision: Rejected”.
4.An admitted student shows up at GWU (i.e., matriculates) to enroll for courses and is officially a grad student in the department. The executive aide, henceforth referred to as the ‘Graduate Secretary (GS)’, officially enters the student into a ‘current graduate students’ database. Note that they must first be matriculated by the GS before they can enroll.
5. Once admitted the student registers for courses using an online registration system. The students enrollment information is kept in the database – i.e., the courses enrolled in, year and semester, and grade (for courses they are under progress the grade is an IP). You will be required to implement a simple online registration system. Before they can register, for the first time only, they must fill out an advising form and get the faculty advisor to lift the 'registration hold'. Once the hold is lifted, it will remain lifted throughout their graduate studies.
6. Student applies for graduation, and if cleared for graduation (the system does an ‘audit’ to check if the student meets degree requirements) the student is removed from the database (by the executive aide) and automatically added into the alumni database.

Details of each application workflow are described in the project details page. .

Administration and Project Assignment:

The project will be done in three phases. The objectives of the project are to expose the student to building 'real' applications while working in teams and to expose the student to project integration wherein they will be exposed to integrating two systems to implement the final deliverable.

Phase 1: In phase 1, you are required to provide a design for the database schema -- you must provide the ER diagram to illustrate the overall design and then provide the tables. You must show all the constraints in your schema. You must first read the entire project description and come up with a draft design. Each student will be assigned to one application, so your focus should be on designing a good schema for the application assigned to you but you must provide a design for the entire system (i.e., both applications)..
Phase 2: Students will be assigned to two person teams. The teams themselves will be assigned to either application A or application B. Each team is required to fully implement the application to which they are assigned. Each team must describe the final schema, the dependencies in the schema, and the normal form of your design.
Phase 3: In phase 3, new teams will be assigned -- consisting of at least one person who has done Application A in Phase 2 and at least one person who has done Application B in Phase 2. The goal of Phase 3 is to integrate the applications/projects and implement the complete CS-ARGS system.

Grading: Each phase will have specified deadlines, and will have constitute a portion of the overall project grade. To pass the project requirement, you must have a working project that meets the specifications provided (in the project details document) and you must demo your project. You can earn 80% of the project grade by meeting the minimum requirements specified; you can earn more than 100% of the project grade if you implement a large number of extra features. Failure to meet minimum specifications will result in zero points on your project scores. In Phase 3, each team member is assigned specific responsibility – if a particular component is not working then the team member assigned that responsibility will be held responsible. There are no extensions allowed on this project.