Magister’s Team Website

• Andrew Liddell - ajl496@nau.edu
• Joe Domabyl V - jwd98@nau.edu
• Daniel Drake - dcd97@nau.edu
• Junjian Yin - jy358@nau.edu

Dr. Viacheslav Fofanov - Associate director of the graduate program for SICCS at NAU

Email: Viacheslav.Fofanov@nau.edu

Volodymyr Saruta

Email: vvs28@nau.edu

• Joe Domabyl V
  • Team Leader
  • Release Manager
  • Lead Architect
• Daniel Drake
  • Editor
  • Presentation Coordinator
• Andrew Liddell
  • Website Developer
  • Editor
  • Meetings Recorder
• Junjian Yin
  • Lead designer
  • Client Relations Manager

We have developed a series of requirements to solve this problem and design a high quality web application:

• A stable web hosting service with a preconfigured instance to host Django
• A database that will keep track of all assigned alumni (including their info) for each semester.
• A django environment encapsulating all of the database information and rendering it to the end-user in the form of templated html pages.
• An efficient optimization algorithm that automatically organizes TA assignment depending on which moving decisions are made.
• A way to send our own links of admission so that the TA’s can create their own account on the system.

The database will be common ground for both the TA and the Lab-organizer type users. Upon login, the user will either be directed to the lab organizer page or the TA page depending on their credentials. Only the lab organizer will be able to make changes to the database, while both types of users will be able to see from the database. The TA will see the entries for their own schedule while the lab organizer will have all access to the information about the TA’s. In order to get the information in the first place, the lab organizer can recruit TA’s and ask for information via emails and forms. This is labeled via the diagram below.

The application will feature a GUI that will allow users to visualize TA scheduling as well as employ a set of buttons that provide a series of different functions. Both user account-types will be presented with a different version of the GUI upon login. Each user will be shown pages based on the work they are trying to accomplish. Below is a rouch sketch of what the GUI should look like.

Users of the application will first be authenticated by the system and subsequently given different permissions based on their account status. The importance of strict roles and permissions are to ensure security, confidentiality, and to ensure the equal satisfaction of all TA’s that are scheduled. The application will complete most of the scheduling work for the lab organizer while also allowing the organizer to make any changes necessary to fit the current context. The TA’s will not have any direct permissions in terms of schedule changes, but will be allowed to see their entire schedule.

The application will provide a way of organizing and placing TA’s into their qualified positions. In the backend of the system will be an optimization algorithm that will contextually decide which TA gets assigned to which lab. This algorithm will contain a generalized formula for scheduling TA’s using a number-based scoring system. All TA’s hired for a specific semester will be evaluated through each semester and assigned a score based on their skill qualification. The TA with the highest score for a certain lab will be assigned to that lab.

There will be two primary aspects of account configuration and setup. First, the lab organizer will be able to create an account for themselves to be able to moderate their labs. Second, each TA will be able to access the application in order to provide their personal data, allowing them to be scheduled within the system. Upon email recruitment via the lab organizer, the TA will be invited to the website and be prompted to enter their relevant information so that they could be scheduled appropriately by the algorithm.

Django is a highly scalable web framework that will allow us to make great looking and dynamic web pages that allow the user to quickly navagate and use the appropriate tools for the website. The main focus of using this framework is to develop a template of html pages and use the built-in sys admin component for the use of Fofanov.

This library will allow us to make nice asynchronous webpage updates to our application, specifically in regards to generating switch possibilities to the lab organizer.

For the most part, we do not plan to use many IDE’s for the design of this project. Editors like vim, emacs, etc. will be own main tools for development.

Bitnami will be the preconfigured deployment environment for QuickSched. The application will be designed to fit upon and nicely install in this instance.

We will be using this web hosting service for our entire application. The servers will be trustworthy and efficient, and the budget will be very low considering the smaller scale of this project. Lightsail offers a reliable hosting service that we need, along with phenominal support for django deployment.

Our code repository of choice will be github. Since many of the team members have plenty of experience with it, we will use it for our version control for the project.