Name: Nicole EnglishInstitution: University of Missouri, Kansas City
E-mail Address: nenglish@cctr.umkc.edu
Format: Paper presentation
Suggested Audience: Anyone interested in distance education, web applications, training, user support, secured info gathering via web.
Presentation Outcome:
1. How to create secured web pages for information gathering, as in exams or surveys or limit info to certain groups
2. How these concepts can be used for other web applications for user support.
Presentation Content:
In order to make intelligent decisions/choices with our rather limited financial resources, it was decided to distribute (yet another) paper and pencil survey to gather information about our userbase. In the wake of dealing with the problem of distributing the surveys, getting users to comply, gathering the surveys, "interpreting" the surveys, and tallying the results, a couple of us in Computing Services decided to take the bull by the horns and create a dynamic web page which could take the same information, keep it on file, allow the user him/herself to change the information, and run the numbers on request, and still be reasonably secure.
We based it on a dynamic page which was created as a user interface for the Mailing List Manager. This List Manager would allow users and staff who owned lists to set the constraints of their lists via a web page, which had to accomodate a variety of levels of privs and be very secure.
We used these same techniques to secure the web survey, creating a file for each user taking the survey; the user can change the information, if need be, as their situation changes; it retains their information; it asks for username and password on that node. It also allows users to send in comments to Computing Services.
As this project was finished, it was realized that this technique could be used in a similar way to give online exams, and a prototype was created for a summer class. The opportunities for using this technique to train Student Assistants and users soon became evident, and we now have plans to use similar web pages for Student Assistant access, to book media equipment time, check databases for info, do scheduling, and to check people in and out of lab shifts.