Huck Institutes develops app for evaluating graduate applications

Michael Hand at the Huck Institutes, working with core developers from the WebLion team, has developed a Plone-based 'voting system' that enables faculty to evaluate applications for graduate study submitted by prospective students.Faculty and staff conducting the evaluation are assigned particular roles. These roles determine what actions each person can take, when, in the multi-stage process of deciding whether or not a candidate should be offered a place for graduate study. Custom scripts enable student details to be retrieved, viewed, commented on, and processed according to custom workflows. The system automatically sends emails to relevant people at key points, letting them know that they need to log in to take action or make a decision.Michael decided to develop the 'voting system' using Plone, rather an alternative technology (such as PHP), for several reasons. Key among these were the ability that Plone affords to control security and workflows. Only people who have logged in with appropriate credentials can see candidate details, and only a defined subset of these people can initiate a transition from one workflow state to another (for example, to move a student from a state of "under consideration" to "offered an interview").An alpha version of the 'voting system' is now being used by graduate programs associated with the Huck Institutes. Once the system has been in use for a few months, and bugs have been ironed out, the plan is to generalize the system into a product that could be adopted by other Penn State departments and colleges.Watch this space!