Category: Projects

I was tasked to visualize the data from years of students using the Fitness Center. I worked with C# and SQL server to make make charts from the data. I used Visual Studio to create a  WebForms Application and deployed to IIS server. I was able to leverage active directory to provide integrated authentication to this resource.

Profile Of The Skagit Valley College Information Technology Development Team

I am writing this profile about the Skagit Valley College Information Technology Development Team because of the exciting research and development being done in the areas of paperless applications and responsive web technology. This innovative r&d is being done at my workplace so this is a subject that I have plenty of access to, and I am inspired by ideas and curiosity about it. If you use the SVC website frequently, then you will find the behind the scenes information to be very interesting and informative.

In the I.T. office where I develop paperless applications, the clack of heels in the hallway is echoed with the clickety clack of a keyboard that is most likely being worked out at over 50 wpm. There is a distinct buzzing noise that can be recognized as a computer’s fan, clearly straining to remove the heat and keep the hard working processor from melting into silly putty. Not too many people would notice such odd noises, these subtle signs of a computer user pushing his technology to the limits. These cues could easily blend into the background noises that surround our everyday environments and be indistinguishable from the hustle and bustle of the numerous students going about their daily studies.

Our team at the college is responsible for things to do with computers, technology and the Internet. There are 5 men in our core crew of Information Technology Developers. We create and manage the web pages applications, graphics and user interfaces that many of the students use every day. The information technology team that is quietly powering the entire Skagit Valley College information infrastructure is a talented team of Technology Specialists. This diverse group of enthusiastic developers has helped redefine the way technology is used and have dramatically impacted the future of web development. People may be surprised to know that this local team of developers has come up with such a remarkable system of responsive web development that is well ahead of major corporations.

There’s an interesting culture surrounding the information technology offices: they have rituals of coffee and pizza and laughter. They have very critical functions within the community of students who depend on them daily for support for everything from login to printing to writing the code that is behind the scenes running the very classes that they attend. There is a quiet sense of partnership and teamwork. A question is met with a smile and enthusiastic explanation, however I sense they want to stay behind the scenes and quietly keep everything running.

When people hear about the responsive website that the information technology development team created for the college, and how it’s a different user experience on every device, they seem find it very interesting and want to hear more about it. I began with the initial research of web frameworks and responsive web technology, and then I presented my findings to the web team. From there we decided to go with a responsive web site rather than creating a separate mobile site. The technology that we have put in to place can now detect a user’s screen size, and then “respond” by changing the web page to best fit the user’s devices from PC to smart TV to iPhones and beyond.

“Paperless Applications” is a new and rapidly growing field of technology. Going well beyond the traditional web form, this is a very green and efficient way of gathering information. Computer and mobile technology has advanced to the point that it is finally feasible to do away with paper forms and use electronic devices to gather information that a person would normally put on paper. This paperless technology is also a much more secure way to store the information, which is important as usually you are giving your name address and other personal information when you fill out these forms.

Let’s take for example the traditional job application form. If you go apply for several jobs and fill out paper applications with your name address and social security number and leave it with an employee behind the counter you are taking a big risk with your personal information and at the very least your privacy. An online web form based job application is easily accessible and filled out by anyone with a computer or mobile device. When the applicant has finished filling out the application this data is then saved and stored securely and only show the up for authorized personnel.

Some other great reasons to use paperless applications when the data is stored into a storage device, the device may be powered down and it then uses is almost no resources. The information that is stored in this method may be much easier retrieved and displayed in organized reports achieving higher efficiency than paper document storage.

I have future plans for this technology that I would like to use to really enhance eLearning and create a more interactive online classroom environment. I also have an application designed to protect children and sign them in and out of school, daycare or pretty much anywhere. That particular application is currently deployed in one day care and under consideration by the state of Washington for schools as well as the YMCA for their membership needs.

The Student Life services at Skagit Valley college offer clubs to the students. This service and activities organization requires certain paperwork for the club and organization to stay active and receive funds. The S&A Budget Request Form is a major source of paperwork for these clubs. I have been tasked to create an online form to replace the paper trail for this subject. The forms are very complex with a lot of required information and many dynamically generated fields. This lead to some very complicated problems to solve using my test driven development techniques.

One such problem arises when the users choses “Add another item” to their budget request. I must then adjust the client and server side validation to include the new item, and adjust the balance to reflect the new fields. The client side validation is using JavaScript, but the server side validation is using the ancient language of classic asp also known as vbscript. This is a challenging situation, and I responded with some innovative solutions.

On the client side, adding new rows to the table of “Justification for Budget Request” can be a simple javascript (JQuery) code:

 $("#addline_budget").on("click", function(){ // this sets the event handler to capture button press 

var new_justification_budget_item_count = Number($("#justification_budget_item_count").val()) + 1; // this keeps track of how many rows are in the table.

 $("#addline_budget").closest('tr').prev().after("< tr>< td> my new row< /td>< /tr>");// this will add a new row to the table. 

This form has some pre existing conditions that I must work with, for example the system to keep track of what fields are required for the client side validation uses a hidden field with the names of the required field. This actually makes it a little easier to add dynamic validation by simply adding the name of the field into the “required” list.

 var new_required = $("#required").val() + ",justification_budget_item" + new_justification_budget_item_count + ",justification_budget_amount" + new_justification_budget_item_count; $("#required").val(new_required); 

This form also uses several of the custom scripts I have stored in my application development cloud: Cleaning money values of dollar signs, cents etc.
Basic email validation, and budget balancing.