Exchanging course-related information - Kent University
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Currently, course information is produced in PDF and MS Word files which are a result of the Academic and Partnership Division’s collection of course information from Faculties. The main aim of the this project is to provide a single management point for all externally facing course-related information.
Executive Summary
The project objectives were to build a:
Overall approach
PHP and MySQL were used to provide all the objectives of the project. The Symfony PHP development framework was chosen because this offered a good way of developing a PHP application in a structured and consistent way.
Although course data exists in a student records database, this is for the most part of a sort which is not for general public consumption. The course information pertinent to the project existed very largely only in printed and HTML formats, where the HTML was manually generated from the printed material. The course information in HTML format was used as the primary source of data for this project because it was readily available, and owing to its semi-structured form was relatively easily parsed into a structured set of data using a Symfony application.
Findings
Parsing semi-structured HTML provided a good way of extracting existing course information for insertion into a relational database. This provided a starting point from which future updates to course information could be made, given an appropriate editing environment, and the political will to ensure that the existing paper-based system be replaced with an electronic system.
The Symfony PHP framework worked well in development but did not meet basic performance requirements on the University’s live web server (for reasons that were not clear). As such the decision was taken not to provide a live course system based on the applications developed. During the project lifespan a separate project was started to investigate the possibility of using Drupal as a content management system (CMS) throughout the University. It was felt that resources would be better utilised by delaying full development of a course information application using Symfony, and switching to a trial system developed around Drupal. This trial is currently work in progress.
Achievements
This project achieved some of the original objectives:
- An undergraduate XCRI-CAP feed was generated (beta version), and undergraduate courses for 2009 were entered into a relational database
- An administration interface to the course data was developed as a web application, although this was not put into production because of performance issues with the chosen Symfony framework
- Course information stored in the database was output to a series of static HTML pages (which could have been dynamic pages were it not for performance issues). These HTML pages already existed and acted as a source for the data in the first place, so this step was merely a proof-of-concept that HTML pages could successfully be generated from a set of data
- The beginnings of a trial course information system were developed in Drupal. A formal decision has been taken to adopt Drupal for the University’s CMS, but this development is still very much in a test stage
Conclusions
The project has been a conditional success in demonstrating the possibilities for producing publicly available course information. It has highlighted some of the technical issues in generating a structured set of data from a largely unstructured paper-based source. It has also highlighted the need for a change in the workflow surrounding how the information is produced.