When today I opened the website of my university searching for the result of even semester (SCARED), I ended up on the following page
http://ipu.ac.in/newmsg/latestmsg.htm . I came to know that GGSIP University is inviting tenders for the “
Automation of various activities of University Examination Division“.
After digging around the following tender notice :
http://ipu.ac.in/store/tnexm150310.pdf which is actually a detailed problem statement talking more about workflow.I am hereby giving my reviews on the solution that ( Majoring open source and off-course as an alternative Oracle Apps ) I think can result in a sustainable workflow for the examination department.
So story goes like this :
1. provide university with unlimited usage of solution on an ongoing basis through the mode of build own operate model.
I think their should some intermediate product need to be their and if not the migration of the existing system should have to be made prominent in the initial stages of the products.
2. bring an environment of a single integrated solution and thus removing all existing software solutions of various examinations processes.
I think this is a bit confusing and ambiguous because you can’t assume the automation of the examination department as the superset of the Academics ERP , infact it is nothing more then the a merely a module of the ERP for the university.
3. provide login ID and passwords to every user.
Nothing comment able in that .
4. provide limited access to users as per their specified role in the examination division.
Concentrate on the controller module and follow MVC model.
5. have a central data base to be maintained in the university with a provision of its mirror database in another place in the university. However, another replication of the database should be maintained in a secure and reliable data centre mutually agreed by university and the company.
Use heartbeat (
http://www.linux-ha.org/wiki/Main_Page ) if its postgresql / Mysql and if Oracle go for Real Time Cluster ( Nothing matches the latter one ) and please use secure tunneling for Communication between the nodes.
6. have the provision for automatic generation of S.M.S. to parents, students and Deans/Directors/Principals ,as and when, required . The S.M.S. may be for the declaration of results, date sheets and any other such information.
Any Gateway Integrate-able with your application (They basically need a parent – teacher – Student Connectivity ) .
7. have the provision for generating automatic e-mails to parents, students and Deans/Directors/Principals for various purposes like admit cards, date sheets,results and any other such information.
Either buy Google Apps (+1 🙂 bcoz its cheaper then maintaining a Mail Server at the premises ) or hunt for another Public Domain.
8. prepare results where the marks will be transferred through OMR sheets and/or electronic forms. It should also have the facility for data entry of marks, which may be used in extra-ordinary circumstances only.
Nothing special 😛 or comment-able 😛
9. maintain the record of all changes made by various users. If any change is made after declaration of result, an e-mail should be generated to the Controller of Examinations with every detail of the change immediately.
Refined workflow management.Nothing more then that.
11. provide facility to view the results by students through the university website by entering their roll number and password.
Just P (Parent) – T (Teacher) – S(Student) .
12. maintain the details of all types of examination fee paid by a student.
11. provide facility to view the results by students through the university website by entering their roll number and password.
12. maintain the details of all types of examination fee paid by a student.
13. maintain the details of accounting activities related to examinations such as details of payments made to paper setters, evaluators, observers, university representatives, invigilators, centre superintendents, addl. centre superintendents, assistants, attendants, waterman etc.
14. maintain the payment details of all conduct centres & evaluation centres.
15. maintain the details of norms and payments of practical examinations.
16. maintain the details of norms and payments of various examinations activities.
17. maintain the details of policy matters, rules, regulations related to examinations.
18. maintain the details of schemes / syllabus of all university programmes along with its date of revision & implementation.
Nothing comment-able
19. maintain the details of Ph.D. students.
20. maintain the record of teachers with their specialization, students, evaluators, examiners and other such persons involved in the examination activities.
21. have facility for registering requests / complaints through the university website.
Public Profile or more of a social module 😀
Few Things which I expect should be added :
1.Go for private cloud infrastructure because if University wants to accommodate more features then they actually have a chance of doing that in future.
2.No Vendor lock Please (Don’t follow the blunder specified by the UIDAI [The biggest project of all time in India] )
3.Open Source (IIM better know what proprietorship have done to their Entrance Examination )
4.Keep authentication and workflow separate from being a mere part of examination module centric.