database-proposal

=Self-Serve Professional Development Database=

Please edit this proposal as desired to make it better.


 * Goal**: An online, web-enabled database application will be created and made available to participants in the 2007 K-12 Online Conference for professional development / CPE credit documentation.

> > [Question: is the reflection/action plan hosted elsewhere? Or is it what they fill out in response to the session in a form we provide? --Jamey] >
 * Database Specifications:**
 * 1) The web database will permit users to create an account with a unique userid and password. Required and optional information for account creation will include:
 * 2) Last name
 * 3) First name
 * 4) email address
 * 5) City
 * 6) State
 * 7) Country
 * 8) Ages of students taught (selectable as checkboxes): under 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, over 18
 * 9) Optional: Web address of personal blog
 * 10) Optional: web address of current school
 * 11) Once an account has been created, users will be able to submit workshop reflections/action plans for professional development credit.
 * 12) The database will require the following fields for each reflection/action plan:
 * 13) The participant's name (autofilled from their account profile)
 * 14) The title of the presentation (selectable from a drop-down menu)
 * 15) The web link of the participant's online reflection/action plan
 * 1) Once a teacher has applied for PD credit for a K12Online07 or K12Online06 session, they will be able to print a certificate from the web which will include:
 * 2) their name
 * 3) the titled of the session they watched/reflected on
 * 4) the web link to the presentation (on the conference blog)
 * 5) the web link the applicant/participant provided for their reflection/action plan
 * 6) the current date
 * 7) People will only be able to apply for credit 1 time for each session. 2 hours (120 minutes) of professional development credit may be earned for each session of the conference, including the pre-conference keynote.
 * 8) Submitted reflections/action plans will be made public, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution / Non-Commercial / license, and searchable/browsable by session title.
 * 9) The publicly browsable database of submissions will include an option to "RATE THIS SUBMISSION" with one to five stars. This will permit outstanding reflections to "rise up" as the most popular submissions on the site. The database will also permit logged in users to comment on submissions turned in by other participants, encouraging discussion among participants about submitted reflections / action plans.
 * 10) The publicly browsable database of submissions will include a "FLAG THIS SUMBISSION" option for visitors to use, if a submission needs to be reviewed by the PD committee or conference conveners. Examples of reasons why a submission might need review include:
 * 11) It links to or includes objectionable content
 * 12) It does not meet the specified requirements in the reflection/action plan rubric

This database is being created to explicitly disintermediate (remove the "middle man") from the professional development granting process. Because web links to submitted reflections / action plans will be browsable and viewable by others, this transparency should encourage participants to be honest in their application for PD credits. The "flag this submission" option will be available to encourage visitors and other participants in the conference to help "police" submissions and get inappropriate submissions removed from the database.

If possible, a CAPTUA option will be added to the form to prevent automated/computer-generated spam submissions.

Additional info added 10/1/2007:

Here is the link to the "draft" version:

http://tinyurl.com/3xqwqa

This is the reply page we'd like people forwarded to after they complete the form:

http://k12onlineconference.org/?page_id=134

The main changes we're thinking would be good from this "draft" version Brian has put together would be: Advanced ideas - If possible this would be cool, but this isn't absolutely needed to get this running: Those advanced ideas could be implemented for the 2008 conference and not this year, but I thought I'd throw them out there as things we discussed.
 * 1) The site could allow people to register for PD first with an account and username, and then they would use those credentials to login when they return to the site and apply for credit. That way they don't have to enter their personal info every time they submit a reflection for credit.
 * 2) The site would have a browseable/read-only version that would let people search and view submissions by others.
 * 3) The site should allow visitors or users to "flag" a session that may need to be removed, either because it is a duplicate or may not meet the terms of the submission rubric/criteria. Then a set list of people need to be notifed of the flag, or perhaps the searchable end can just permit searching for flagged submissions. There needs to be a way admins can hide entries which may need to be deleted, and actually delete them if needed. I don't know if this site will get spammed, I would guess it won't, but we need to have provisions for some level of quality control.
 * 4) The site needs to provide people with the option to print their certificate upon completion of their submission. It would be best if this could be a dynamically created PDF file, but I don't know if that is possible. I will work up a draft certificate and send it to you.
 * 1) Tags for each session: If when a person selects a session from either the 2006 or 2007 conference, it would be good if that record in the database could be coded with the tag for that session. We didn't use tags last year, but we are this year and we can assign tags for the 2006 conference. Also if people could add their own custom tags that would be good, then people could search by tag in the database.
 * 2) Tag for each strand: It would be cool if the database could include a tag for the strand (out of four) the selelcted session is in. Then we'd be able to search the database reflections by strand and compare how many results we have in different strands.
 * 3) If the database supported creation of RSS feeds for records that would be great. Then presenters could subscribe to reflections about their session by its tag.
 * 4) If the database let registered users "rate" submitted reflections by others similar to how youtube supports rating out of 5 stars, then the reflections rated the highest could "rise up" and be viewable from the homepage of the database.

Mainly it will be GREAT to get this application in a mySQL database and web environment. The system Brian setup is nice but it just exports as a CSV file. If we get thousands of submissions to this database, as we really might, it would be a LOT of work to have to manually grab that CSV file, import it, generate certificates, and email them to people even if we setup an automated system with Filemaker or something else. The online web option is really the best way to go with this.