database-changes

=Database Changes=

This wiki page documents requested and completed changes to the K-12 Online Professional Development Tracker Database. Please add/edit entries below as appropriate:

//**Great feedback. I will be implementing these changes as quick as I can. I've made a number of structural improvements to the site today (11/1) and I continue to work on it. I'm sorry that it's still rather inelegant. I'll be adding some improved cosmetic enhancements as soon as the functionality is working as intended. Remaining priorities: PDF certificate generation, RSS and flagging.**// -Jamey

Changes brainstormed by the committee 25 Oct 2007:
Needed: - certificate printing as a PDF -- needs to reflect 3 hours of credit - see example: - want live link for reflection URLs **FIXED** (Sort of... requires participants to add full http syntax. I'll fix those that don't.) - need left sidebar and header links to the home of the tracker database - job categories for job registration as suggested by Jim - commenting feature needs to be activated **IN PLACE! Please test!** You must be logged in. - system to flag duplicate or inappropriate database entries, and moderators to delete them

Other database desires - 2006 conference reflection option - RSS feed for submissions

Change requests from Wesley 21 Oct 2007

 * 1) One of the main fixes I see that needs to be made soon is that each submitted reflection has your name at the top as "Participant" rather than the person who actually submitted the reflection. **FIXED! Finally!**
 * 2) Also, if you can delete test submissions from the database soon, that would be good. We have a good number of actual reflections submitted that we shouldn't need the test submissions. **DONE**
 * 3) The links to the submitted reflection URL's need to be made live / actually linked. They should open in a new window if possible. **DONE** (see note above... requires users to enter full http syntax)
 * 4) We need an option for ANYONE to "flag" a submission as inappropriate, accidental, or otherwise recommended for deletion. This can be linked as "Recommend this submission for deletion from the database." That should link to a page explaining that this option is provided in the event a submission is inappropriate, a duplicate, or should be removed for another reason. Once that record is flagged, there needs to be a mechanism for moderators (the PD committee members) to hide those submissions from the public. A comment box should be provided to allow people to explain why that submission should be deleted.
 * 5) We need to allow people to delete their own submissions, or at a minimum hide them. Alternatively, we could just let them use the link described above to recommend deletion.

Change requests from Terry 20-10-2007

 * 1) error message: "Email cannot be null" is very unfriendly to non-techies **FIXED**
 * 2) Ideally should be a double opt-in system
 * 3) there should be a link to a data protection policy somewhere
 * 4) Range of countries in drop-down list is somewhat limited
 * 5) If this is to be a truly international conference, countries should be listed in alphabetical order with no default

Database itself works fine, but have a few suggestions for improvement:

 * 1) Why not have list of sessions appear in a drop-down menu? They could then be generated automatically rather than entered separately [JO: They are generated automatically. I tend to prefer the list of links as an easier way to see the sessions, rather than via drop-down. It's a cosmetic decision that is open to change, if the group thinks a drop-down is best.]
 * 2) Instead of only saying "See rubric for details", at the very least I think there should be a link to the relevant page and, better still, a help button which lists the relevant aspects or at least gives some examples
 * 3) Is there, or will there be, an aggregation tool, ie a reporting element so that, for example, I could generate a document which lists the sessions I've attended together with my action points (say) arising from them? [JO: That's the idea of the user's home page that they see after they initially login. I'm open to ideas on how to improve the options available there.]

Added change request 10/15 J. Lerman -- DONE 11/1
I think we need more job categories than just ages taught. There will be many other job categories represented among participants. Seems to me it will be helpful to know this information about participants (these are the US terms, in other nations the terminology may be different) library media specialists technology specialists counselors principals assistant principals department heads supervisors and directors assistant superintendents superintendents state education department staff non-profit organization staff proprietary organization staff (people who work for profit-making organizations...somebody come up with a better term please) college/university faculty/staff unaffiliated individuals education students

Requested Changes
1- Done 2- Done 3- Can we please list all countries in the world in the country drop down? We don't want to leave anyone out potentially and we did have participants from every continent last year, not sure if we had every country but we certainly had lots. We're expecting more this year.

4- Blog and school URL needs to specify if http:// is required if that makes a difference. I havent' tested to see if it does or not.... IF it doesn't, then don't worry about this

5- The drop down for conference sessions looks GREAT. Sorry I didn't send you that in Excel format. Thanks for grabbing it from the schedule. You can delete, however, the choice for "Fireside Chat."

6- Done

7- on the "create your reflection" page, we need a paragraph linking back to the rubric. The following will work:

As described on the K-12 Online Conference Credit wiki, to receive professional development credit for participation in individual sessions of K-12 Online 2007 you must author and share a textual presentation reflection or reflective media product following the provided rubric or a customized rubric developed and approved by your school or school district. Please submit EITHER a link to your web-based reflective media product about this session, OR a textual reflection:

8- Done

9- I was able to create an account and login fine, but when I tried to submit a reflection as a link I got the following error:

"Duplicate entry '1' for key 1"

So something there needs to be fixed.

10- We need a sidebar link to "Search and View Reflections" which permits any visitor to browse a read-only version of submitted reflections and links. This also needs to include a button to "flag potentially inappropriate content." If that can send an email to our committee members to moderate, that would be great, it doesn't need to immediately delete or hide the entry, however. I realize this is a new functionality and will take longer to create, so please put this low on your priority list of changes to make.

Completed Changes
- move items down here when completed with comments as appropriate 1- I'm having Miguel change the directory name from:

http://itls.saisd.net/k12O/

to

http://itls.saisd.net/k12online

So when you access it the site URL may have changed. He's changing that tonight.

2- Can you please make "state" say "State/Providence" (I even corrected the spelling! =) )

6- The copyright statement at the bottom of each page should read:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.

and have a link to:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/

8- how can we change the sidebar links and top links? For the five top header links I'd like:

Conference Home http://k12onlineconference.org/

Schedule http://k12onlineconference.org/docs/k12online2007schedule.html

Credit http://k12onlinecredit.wikispaces.com/

Wiki http://k12online07.wikispaces.com/

HelpDesk http://k12onlinehelpdesk.pbwiki.com/

If you can include these three as sidebar links that would be great also:

Conference Home http://k12onlineconference.org/

FirstTimers [[[|http://k12online07.]|]]