News

Cycle 23: 11/23/2015 – 12/04/2015
Cycle 24: 12/07/2015 – 12/18/2015

This is a consolidated work review for Cycle 23 and 24. It has been "heads-down, power through it" time and the blog update got back burnered.

We have had a very busy couple weeks getting Appreview Plus launched and the rough spots ironed out. SOARS is officially and fully retired so from this point forward "Appreview Plus" will just be Appreview.

School Psychology and TEP Elementary were the programs actively reviewing during the transition so thank you to Paula, Janine, Patrick, Jonathan and the other active users for excellent feedback and paitence while we got things settled.

Work Complete

Appreview

• Launched Appreview (Plus) on December 1, 2015.
• CSV spreadsheet download of application report views
• Added contact phone numbers and address to CSV spreadsheet download
• Final decision displayed on application detail view as a "Workflow Bar" which includes: application complete/incomplete message, final decision entered, advisor assigned, and applicant intent.
• Application header blurb (top of application detail page) links back to the application detail page
• Areas of interest added to Application header blurb 
• Users can add themselves to a review committee with a button click
• Adjust reviewer dashboard to highlight important information and clickable report sections
• Text file application items are displayed in a web page pop-up window instead of being downloaded to view on user's text application
• Users can edit their own comments
• Enter scores report says when an application can no longer be scored
• Can create new Rubric scopes (these map rubrics to applications)
• Changed report default period to "Current Applications". Current is defined as applications to begin in a future quarter.
• Report state is preserved when browser back button is used. Added a link button that will show a URL to the current report state so reports can be shared among users via email, etc.
• Mark a Rubric Score with "Definitely Interview" flag
• Definitely interview flag is visible on score report and desiscion report
• Join a review committee and enter a recommendation from the Rubric Score tool
• Super users can delete Rubric Scores that were created in error
• Various Rubric bugs (scorer name stored, total caclulated on complete, cells properly highlighting in edit tool)
• Improved OSS degree evaluation tool to make faster during bulk data entry
• Applications awaiting decisions report
• OSS ability to see application materials the way they are presented to reviewers
• Attachments uploaded by COE staff can be deleted
• Degree institution uses MyGrad "Other" for institution name if available
• Resolve issues with emails not always getting recorded in log
• Handler for email batches where template fields don't have replacement values
• Email batch view shows which emails are pending, sent, or failed
• Add review template, then review each email workflow
• Improvement and fixes to OSS Send Email Tool: selector has option to show already sent in report pickers, Javascript helper to Select All on send email view, Added Email [[TEMPLATE_FIELDS]] help message to views where templates are edited, batch reporting has better details, including time batch was started
• Revise Appreview Plus initial load strategy to only pull purely local data from SOARS, use Grad School web service XML for all other fields
• Multiple revisions to the update Appreview from Grad School strategy to properly detect changes in fields including OSS entry and recommendations that do change the application last changed date. Update process became massive and took to long to do regularly, implemented a "quick" and "full" update to run on different schedules. Update triggering bug in PDO/database interaction, made adjustments to code and database configuration to alleviate. Fixed bug corrupting person record that corresponded to update id.
• Update from Grad School information available on Appreview About page
• Added secondary update, query UW data warehouse to ensure we get UW system key (student identifier) ASAP
• Automated merge process for duplicate Person records. New applications create extra Person record because they have no identifying fields until 48 hours after they submit application.
• Remove various testing and development default values
• Fixed application material not respecting show/hide configuration
• Fixed allow download of material items that don't have filenames in MyGrad
• Transcripts and Recommendations that are uploaded to "Other" category (instead of to specific degree or or recommender) are now accessible
• Fixed "Calendar Year" option in report picker Period was not staying highlighted

Courses 

• Add EDUCM for new Education Methods curriculum abbreviation
• Faculty activity report include independent study credits

Students

• Non-UW members of Doctoral Committees now available from Grad School and displayed in STEP

Test Scores

• Imported recent test score data feeds for WEST-B, WEST-E, NES, Praxis. These scores are visible in appreview.

Multiple Systems

• Scrub UW NetID input: when user enters myuwnetid@uw.edu in a form expecting a UW NetID the @uw.edu part is automatically stripped off.

10/26/2015 – 11/06/2015

Launch day is in site for Appreview Plus. We expect to have the new system live in time for our Quarterly Review & Planning meeting on Thursday November 19th. This coming cycle is focused on implementing the Rubric system and Email system. Email was pushed back so we could tackle our interactive report filtering system (similar to how courses database works).

Work Complete

Appreview Plus

• Report of applications that need update in MyGrad
• Rubrics edit tools and scoring tools
• Email system. Edit email templates, reports with applicants that need emails, send emails with multiple workflows, logging and review, email to log system for testing, email via Mailgun.

Courses

• Break down of independent study Student Credit Hourse by supervising faculty. Improvements to faculty activity reports.

Students

• Add milestone for dissertation credits
• Report of near completers, students with more than 27 dissertation credits

 

Test Scores

Work Planned

Appreview Plus

• Email system. This will have the same function as current SOARS system but with more flexibility for selecting recipients and better logging of what was sent.
• Rubrics. Basically we are implementing the Rubric editing and scoring system as it exists in SOARS with some refinements and the goal of making it more easily usable by programs beyond TEP.

Students

• Track dissertation credits in credits table.

Test Scores

• More scores to put in system. Continued refinement of import system with goal of making this an administrative process instead of a developer process.

10/12/2015 – 10/23/2015

We made an adjustment to the Appreview Plus plan based on conversations with initial users. Filter reporting project was moved up and email system was postponed.

This cycle our main focus continues to be the new applicant review system, on track for a November launch. We will be meeting with SME to demo the early work complete and make sure we are on track. We also are building a couple test score reports for reporting required by PESB State of Washington.

Work Complete

Appreview Plus

• Report filters. Implemented interactive report filters following the convention from courses. In list views the report parameters are displayed as headings. Clicking the headings provides access to "picker" inputs which allow you to choose options and change what is included in the report. We have pickers for time period, programs, degrees, decision status and advisor status.
• Attachment type clean up. We were using one string for attachment types imported locally and a second for files from MyGrad. This was causing some file not found errors. Fixed now.
• Review committees management tools.
• Authorization system. Refined permission system and user roles. Reorganized URL generation system, simpler, clearer, works better with authorization scheme. User edit forms.
• External user management tools including a download configuration as spreadsheet, edit it, upload it to change external user configuration. 
• Application material settings.
• Program settings.

Test Scores

• SQL reports for PESB reporting using configured requirement rules and evidence rules to match test score to PESB requirements.

Recruitment

• Customized prospective student forms for use at recruiting events.

Students

• Added latin endorsement to teaching certificate configuration.
• Updated ECFS pathways for T&L students.
• More work on dissertation credit milestone.

Infrastructure

• Fixed time synchronization problem on web servers.

 

Work Planned

Appreview Plus

• Configuration tools including: user management, external users, review committee configuration, program configuration, material configuration.
• Workflow reports for OSS: needs decision, needs update in MyGrad.
• Email system. This will have the same function as current SOARS system but with more flexibility for selecting recipients and better logging of what was sent.
• Data update improvements (stretch goal). We've booked 9-10 days of development work for the cycle, but if we can get ahead of it we will be working integrating with the Grad Schools new version of the application web service and revising our initial SOARS import process to only grab the new/local data.

Courses

• Bring in enrollment details for independent study course offerings to allow for precise calculation of student credit hours per instructor.

Students

• Update temporary data used for ECFS students to correctly represent multiple ECFS pathways.
• Report of doctoral "near completers" based on number of dissertation credits completed.

Test Scores

• Reports for PESB

09/28/2015 — 10/09/2015

This cycle will be returning to Appreview Plus with the goal of switch to this system in November. Appreview Plus is a new implementation of our online applicant review system that decouples us from the Grad School data feed allowing us to keep access to historical data, support local application (applications not through MyGrad) and better integrate with student data in STEP.

Work Complete

Appreview Plus

• OSS degree/GPA evaluation
• Set advisor
• Upload a transcript
• Links to UW / MyGrad policy documents
• Manage Application Material. Add OSS evaluations and upload material attachments. Quick edit toggles for Material complete and contingency.
• Coursework: missing coursework displayed on Application detail page. Management tools to create courses and default course collections by Path. OSS tools for marking courses incomplete and/or contingency.
• Upload recommendation attachment
• Show test scores from TestScore repository in Appreview. This includes official ACT/SAT from UW SDB.
• Set final decision tool and set advisor tool accessible from Application detail page.
• Reviewer dashboard with graph visualization of review progress and decisions. Interactively click on graph or headings to see mini report of applicants (Admits, Denies, My Advisees, etc).

Courses

• Accurately distribute credit hours for independent study course in faculty activity report

Grants

• Grants update process adjusted for changes to Grants data in UW EDW.

Person

• Merge person record tools. We import person information from multiple systems and sometimes don't have shared identifiers. Tool to merge Person records throughout the system, search for existing records and does automatic merging nightly, has user interface for manual merging. Keeps merge history log.
• Update Applicant records from UW SDB (via EDW) in nightly maintenance routine.

Recruitment

• New recruitment half-sheet for at event workflow.

Student

• Add milestone for completed 27 dissertation credits
• Merge R&I milestones
• Milestone changes for Doctoral Supervisory Committee and Reading Committee moved to production.

Testscores

• Add applicant population to ACT/SAT import from UW SDB.

Work Planned

Appreview Plus

• OSS degree/GPA evaluation
• Set advisor
• Upload a transcript
• Links to UW / MyGrad policy documents
• Material OSS evaluation
• Upload material attachment
• Display coursework
• Coursework edit tools
• Upload recommendation attachment
• UW official test scores
• Set final decision

Courses

• Accurately distribute credit hours for independent study course in faculty activity report

Student

• Add milestone for completed 27 dissertation credits
• Merge R&I milestones