CPSC04 Digital Binders
Team Members: Tara Hanson, Eric Jobes, Adam La Mar,
Sterling Miller, Richard Riley
Faculty Advisor: Brian Steverson
Sponsor: Gonzaga University Center for
Engineering Design & Entrepreneurship
Liaison: Rob Bryant
Project Background: The goal of this project is to develop a web-based application to help transition the reappointment,promotion, and tenure (RPT) process at Gonzaga University for tenured and tenure-stream faculty away from a paper-based system to a digital system. Currently, faculty applying for reappointment, promotion, and/or tenure assemble an application packet consisting of multiple documents that taken together can consist of 200 or more pages. For promotion and tenure, these documents are assembled into a 3-ring binder (the “original”) plus an additional 10 copies (resulting in 11 total binders). The binders are then used within a series of steps that make up the evaluation process. Approximately 40-50 faculty members apply for promotion and/or tenure each year. The current paper-based model for RPT not only consumes resources (purchasing of binders, paper, printing, and photocopying), but is inconvenient for both faculty putting together binders and the various committees that evaluate RPT cases. While Gonzaga would like to move to a digital solution for this process, there are currently no applications that directly support all of the needs of the RPT process.
Summary Statement of Project Goal:
Summary Statement of Project Goal:
The goal of this project is to develop an easy-to-use and secure web-based application that allows faculty to create and evaluate digital binders that is specialized to the needs of the RPT evaluation process.
Project Deliverables:
The primary deliverables for this project include:
1. A fully functional and professional looking web application to support digital binders and the RPT process
2. A tutorial and user guide to help faculty create and manage RPT binders and for those involved in evaluating cases and providing administrative support for the RPT process
3. A maintenance plan and guide for future developers and system administrators of the system
4. Deployment of the web application
The primary deliverables for this project include:
1. A fully functional and professional looking web application to support digital binders and the RPT process
2. A tutorial and user guide to help faculty create and manage RPT binders and for those involved in evaluating cases and providing administrative support for the RPT process
3. A maintenance plan and guide for future developers and system administrators of the system
4. Deployment of the web application
Project Management & Communication Expectations:
1. Frequent meetings (every 1-2 weeks) with members of the Ad-Hoc Committee of the Faculty Senate on Digitalizing the Promotion and Tenure Process. This will likely involve a series of meetings in the early Fall to develop a list of system requirements and high-level features of the system, and then meetings to obtain feedback on features as they are developed.
2. Meetings with a focus group of faculty to gather usability data on alpha and beta versions of the software prior to the final release.
3. Students will need to work with Gonzaga ITS to ensure the web application can interface with
systems currently in place (e.g., Banner and user authentication) and to ensure the web application can be easily maintained by ITS.
Project Research Expectations:
Students will be expected to take an active role in defining and designing an effective and professional looking user interface to support the RPT process. Because a system like this is not currently in use at Gonzaga, and because the RPT process can differ across departments and schools, part of the challenge of this project will be to identify and document the processes used for RPT and incorporate this information into an appropriate user interface design.
Other Project Information:
As mentioned above, part of this project is to identify necessary features of a web application to
support the RPT processes used at Gonzaga. The following are some possible examples of features that will likely need to be supported by the application.
Faculty applying for RPT
1. Login using standard zagmail/blackboard credentials.
2. Upload PDF documents by type (e.g., resume, personal statement, professional development
materials, and so on).
3. Automatically generate and add reports to binders consisting of courses taught, grade distributions, and summaries of course evaluation data
4. Maintain and view binders by year
5. Submit binder for evaluation
6. Receive notifications as part of the RPT process (as needed)
Administrative support for RPT
1. Ability to add documents (such as letters of recommendation) to a binder (without faculty member able to see actual letters)
2. Ability to assign and grant access to members of department, school, and/or university-wide
evaluation committees
3. Ability to select “due dates” for binders to be completed and available for future steps in the RPT process
Reviewers of RPT cases
1. Ability to view a completed binder with letters, organized by “tabs” (document types)
2. Ability to perform keyword searches over documents within a binder. This includes, e.g., the ability to perform a keyword search over a single document as well as a keyword search over all documents.
3. Ability to add and remove annotations/comments/notes to document content within a binder.
support the RPT processes used at Gonzaga. The following are some possible examples of features that will likely need to be supported by the application.
Faculty applying for RPT
1. Login using standard zagmail/blackboard credentials.
2. Upload PDF documents by type (e.g., resume, personal statement, professional development
materials, and so on).
3. Automatically generate and add reports to binders consisting of courses taught, grade distributions, and summaries of course evaluation data
4. Maintain and view binders by year
5. Submit binder for evaluation
6. Receive notifications as part of the RPT process (as needed)
Administrative support for RPT
1. Ability to add documents (such as letters of recommendation) to a binder (without faculty member able to see actual letters)
2. Ability to assign and grant access to members of department, school, and/or university-wide
evaluation committees
3. Ability to select “due dates” for binders to be completed and available for future steps in the RPT process
Reviewers of RPT cases
1. Ability to view a completed binder with letters, organized by “tabs” (document types)
2. Ability to perform keyword searches over documents within a binder. This includes, e.g., the ability to perform a keyword search over a single document as well as a keyword search over all documents.
3. Ability to add and remove annotations/comments/notes to document content within a binder.