International certificates database | CASE HISTORY
Client
International School of Design, Fashion, and Media
Locations
Italy
Objective
Our mission was to devise a centralized database system for managing certificates awarded to students attending courses at international partner institutions. With numerous partners in South America where various courses are offered, graduates receive a special certificate upon completing all course modules. The challenge was the substantial number of campuses and students, necessitating a unified system enabling campus coordinators to independently manage student enrollments, course and module assignments, and track their progress through each academic period until graduation.
Technological Choice and Methodology
We opted for a web application to ensure ease of access for both the client’s personnel in Italy and the staff at partner campuses in South America. The solution was built on a LAMP environment hosted on a custom-configured Linux Ubuntu server on AWS, chosen for its robustness and scalability.
Design and Implementation
The system’s architecture was intricate, reflecting the complexity of managing the flow of information. At the hierarchy’s peak, administrator users were empowered to create partners, campuses, programs, modules, and, of course, other platform users. Coordinator users were introduced, tasked with managing course programs assigned to them. This included student enrollment (via Excel file uploads), class and workgroup formation, student assignments to these groups and individual modules, and the recording of academic outcomes for the current period. Despite the manifold variables, meticulous UX/UI planning yielded a workspace layout that facilitated all functionalities from a single page, streamlining user operations. Additional features included financial revenue calculations for each campus and partner, data querying for student academic histories and program and campus records. Based on client requests, mechanisms were implemented to restrict coordinators’ actions within specific date ranges and only if previous steps were correctly completed, promoting accurate operations and preventing retrospective data alterations. The system also incorporated a file repository, allowing the client to upload content for each campus and partner, specifying access permissions for coordinators.
Integration Challenges
Adoption hurdles were encountered, largely due to the partner campuses’ staff being unaccustomed to a rigorous and precise data management system. Prior to implementation, records were manually and inaccurately kept. Staff had to adapt to a well-structured system designed to safeguard data integrity.
Results
Over the years, the system has seen extensive use, managing a significant volume of students and courses without necessitating major revisions to the initial design.
Evolutions
After some years, minor adjustments were needed to accommodate practices that were initially rare, such as student transfers between campuses and reporting modifications. These changes were developed in collaboration with the client, addressing real-world scenarios. The enhancements were seamlessly integrated into the existing system, with minimal impact on user operations.
Conclusion
This project underscores our commitment to delivering sophisticated and efficient solutions tailored to our clients’ unique needs, showcasing our expertise in handling complex projects and enhancing organizational operations through technological innovation.