Hello all,
First a few notes:
- This project’s timeline ends in June 2012. However, there will be continued maintenance and development work.
- We are a state funded entity, and as such can not hire outside of the United States. International applicants need not apply.
- Please Submit examples of your work, as well as a bid/proposal (requirements below) as soon as possible — Deadline for applications is May 1st, and preference will be given to those who submit bids before April 23rd!
The Wyoming Distance Learning Center is looking for a developer (or a team) to convert an existing PHP/MySQL project to a WP plugin. The current site can be found at http://wyclass.wy.edu
Speed is of the essence with this project. We’re hoping to have something to show off by June. This is a time crun! ch we know, but future work with us on this project will not be so rushed.
The purpose of the site is primarily course search and registration database. It enables students to find online courses offered via the state’s seven community colleges and one four year university. If the student finds a course they like on the site, WyCLASS, provides a form the visitor/student can fill out. The form content is then sent to the registrar at the community college &/or university providing the course. The form is standard for all institutions, and only asks for simple registration info: name, email, phone, etc.
The code to connect & interface with the college(s) & university databases has already been written. We just need the system converted to WP such that the user system is integrated, and we can control the look and feel of WyCLASS as well as gather data and stats via the WP admin panel.
- Simple Administrative interface
- User levels: Global admin, Course admin (can load new course offerings via file upload, and later, edit entries if need be. They should only be able to upload to their own college/university), student (effectively subscriber role).
- Student users should be able to enter profile info (data needed to pre-fill the registration form, maybe an avatar/user pic)
- Global Admins should be able to make/edit custom confirmation messages following form submission (that is, let admins enter generic message via dashboard, we don’t need custom per user or anything like that)
- The system should track what courses a student user has registered for, and at the end of that term remind them to rate the course (#/5 stars and maybe a limited comment area – bad word filter required)
- Registered student users should be able to tweet, fb share, and (maybe) Google+ share a cou! rse they think is good/cool (really just social media share a page, could easily be handled by theme integration of shareaholic or like plugin)
- Course and Global Admins: ability to manually edit courses once loaded, as well as mark as inactive / removed from listing.
- For Course admins, the ability to upload a spreadsheet, csv, etc (whatever’s easier, we’ll expand support later) to update that colleges course offerings either simi-annually (basically per semester) or annually (two semesters, and maybe summer) at a go.
- The course admins should be able to edit student comments but not ratings. If edited a comment should say “moderated by admin” or something along those lines.
- Global Admins should be able to stealth edit anything.
- Global & Course Admins should have access to a stats page.
About stats, reporting and other read-only backend stuff.
Site stats will be handled by giving C! ourse Admins access to FireStats and Google Analytics dashboard areas.
WyCLASS plugin should collect stats specifically on:
- Number of registration forms completed
- Number of times a given courses description is viewed
- Number and content of searches on the site (we really need to know what people are looking for)
- Number of searches per user (for registered users)
- Ability to output all these lists as a spreadsheet or CSV that can be converted to a spreadsheet.
- Break data down to see how many students registered for each of the 8 possible institutions, delivery methods, terms, etc
- Any additional data points that can easily be generated given the data collected would be great – that is, we’re open to suggestion.
Again, all of this code is already written and working in PHP/MySQL, but in a proprietary /! stand alone system. It just needs WP integration.
Finally we come to the purpose of the site, given a database of courses created by Course Admins from each institution uploading data, visitors / students need to be able to search for courses.
Search criteria should include:
Search by Term, Delivery methods (online, blended, phone, compressed video, etc full options will be in the sample data we will send you), institution, college within institution (eg: math, geology, language arts), credit hours, course number, course name, and any combination of those. Reference current search fields on http://wyclass.wy.edu
Results returned should be presented in a clean table, again reference the site – UI improvements welcome. Site pages, news posts, contact/info pages, etc will all be handled within WP & plugins like Contact Form 7. Backups etc will happen with WP backup! plugins, therefore plugin files & database must conform to WP stan! dards.
Some things that we’d like, if there’s enough time & money.
- It would be nice if the template files were keeping with Twenty-11′s responsive format, thereby increasing access via mobile tech.
- The ability to archive & purge old data (within custom date ranges).
- Generate an email to the student when registering for a course (perhaps just copy the email sent to the institutions registrar)
- Option to pop-up printable version of course description
- Registration field reCAPTCHA or Honey Pot for non-logged in users.
- Gravatar support (perhaps just use WP user icons/avatars & we can install a gravatar plugin)
- Ability to save searches
- Subscribe to searchers / notification of changes / watch list
- Ability to “friend” other users & then recommend courses,! share info, comment on each others reviews, etc
Things that we’d like to see in future versions.
There are a handful of things that we’d like to see in version 1.5 or v2.0. These items are not subject to the timeline of the project listed above or in WPMUdev, but a secondary (or continued) contract with the programmer. Whomever we choose to work with can expect to have a long lasting (and financially beneficial) relationship with the WyoDLC as improvements and upgrades of this plugin will continue regularly.
- We want to add a few additional fields such as transfer information, and whether the course counts as dual and concurrent credit for high school students.
- >This will require modifying the original Excel/CSV parsing code.
- Exporting of all courses a registered user has signed up ! for via the system as a nicely formatted PDF
- A point syst! em & leader board for reviews, registrations, sharing courses via social media, and recommending classes to in-system ‘friends’. Gamification.
It sounds like a lot, but…
This will be a large project, but not nearly as large as creating the stand alone project was. Any of these features we can draw out of WP, like avatars or search functions, or required plugins will help. Don’t feel like you have to do everything from the ground up!
WyCLASS is an award winning site integral to higher education in this state. That said, this plugin should continue that legacy of success both for us and for yourself! Once it’s put into the WP plugin database (so other states can use it as well) it should be a feather in the WyoDLC’s cap, as well as a glowing item on your resume. We’re happy to work with you and/or your team to provide you with testimon! ials etc along with payment.
This should be everyone's success story!
~ The WyoDLC Team.
How to Apply
If you are interested in bidding for this project, please send us the following:
- Your vita / résumé
- Samples of your previous work that we might find relevant to this project.
- A project bid / proposal which includes rough cost and time estimates.
If you have any questions at all, or would like to email your application directly, please contact Aaron at Aaron@WyoDLC.Org
Apply for this job vacancy
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