QRizing the University

Recently we've been involved in a project to help the students know the timetables of the classrooms in situ and other info on other university services. We decided to put a QR code for each item (classroom, library, secretary, service, etc.) with and url encoded. This url redirects the petition to a proxy web application that  depending on the type of the item shows a mobile adapted web site. For example, if a student scans a QR code placed in a classroom, the web shown will display the timetable of that classroom. Another example could be scanning the QR code of the university restaurant. It could display the timetable and the menu for that day. This method can be applied to many purposes and it's easy to generate QR codes and put them in whatever you want.

Groupware with Google

Analysis of different collaborative software. The project is conceived to help people involved in a common task achieve their goals in a collaborative way using online tools. We'll test some  Google Tools for a Groupware solution.

Interactive data visualizations

In this project we analyze more convenient ways to transmit a message effectively through non conventional data representations. Many of them might become ubiquitous in the next few years. Mind Maps, Tree maps, Hyper Trees, and other will be examined to exploit its practical usefulness. View Demo.

Cloud computing with Amazon

Evaluate Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) to provide resizable computing capacity in the cloud. This project is intended to make web-scale computing easier for developers and systems managers.

Customer Relationship Management System

We are working in the selection of an open-source CRM software for managing the university's interactions with its current and future students. Sugar and vTiger are being used in a testing environment.

Document Management System

To have an effective paperless office, we need a system to manage these documents. We'll test different document management systems to find out the one that fits best to our needs. Nuxeo or Alfresco are some of the possible open-source options.

Electronic locks

This integration project is deviced to develop a PHP API that communicates with our electronic lock provider's API. The PHP API will also communicate with our ERP.

Internet Fax

We are changing the way to send and receive faxes throughout the university services in order to reduce costs. With an internet fax service, you can send or receive a fax using your email program. No installation of modems or fax servers or phone lines. The management of faxes is easier and cheaper.

Content Management System

We want to select an outside vendor to create a new web portal. Different CMS will be examined: eZ Publish, Drupal. Special attention will be given to the ease of integration with our ERP.

Degree and Master's Final Project

In order to complete a graduate degree or a master's degree, according to the Bologna process, students must defend a final project. We are building a software application useful for students, teachers and staff members to keep track of all the projects.

Introduction

The ITLab has developed a computer program to manage a special type of subjects in the study plans named "Degree Final Project" or "Master Final Project". The implementation of official masters and degrees make it mandatory to finish all studies adapted to the European Higher Education Space with the preparation and defense of a final project.

The program's goal is to manage administrative tasks involved to monitor progression in the different studies taking into account the particularities of each degree or master. To do so, we've designed a form shared by all the degrees in which we ask a few questions that provide the basis to meet the requirements of each study. The results obtained through this form allowed us to make a flexible development adapted to the differences.

The information of the form is contained in a GoogleForm. It contains 30 questions to be answered by a person with a manager profile in the topic under study. Link to the form (spanish).

We wanted to give a generic name to the program. It couldn't be tied to any particular academic activity or associated to any type of study (degree or master). The APM initials match the requirements. APM stands for Academic Project Management.

Underlying technologies

Programming language: PHP 5

Programming environment: Zend Framework 1.11

Javascript Framework: jQuery 1.7

Database engine: PostgreSQL 8.3

Adapter authentication: LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol)

User authorization model, RBAC (Role-Based Access Control)

Current version:1.0

Application overview

In order to know the general approach to the final development of a new application, you can read the APM-slide document and the APM-notes document. The latter adds notes to the APM-slide.

Application Packaging

We try to create a controlled environment to package some of our applications in order to make them easily deployable for other companies. Thus, we'll contribute with the open source community sharing our own applications.

Administration of licenses & warranties

Evaluate GLPI open-source software to ease administrative tasks such as: managing periods of validity of software licenses, warranties and expiration times of the same, ticketing of incidents on equipment...

jQuery & Zend Framework

We are testing this outstanding javascript framework to ease its integrations with the PHP Zend Framework. We finally decided to stop using prototype and migrate to jQuery.

We are evaluating the improvement in web application development for our university using Zend Framework, considering its learning curve and current scheduling limitations of the development team.