OFIS Notes from 31 Jul 2009

• Before meeting: discussion on ofis-list about upcoming OFIS work for the fall:

     1. Contributions interface - contribution-specific input forms.
     2. start using revision control.
     3. faculty web pages for Martha.
     4. latex interface - can we process bibtex formatted contributions and import them to OFIS?
     5. error reporting (Noki?)
     6. provide a "dump" of data for Dean's office staff for a) PEng, 
        b) sabbatical leaves c) list of faculty,
     7. clean up the merit "one pager"
     8. look into forms to go as a possible mechanism to speed up input/output
        form development (Noki?)
     9. supervisory experience - improve interface for faculty to input
        undergraduate and visitor and other supervision.
     10. (NEW) Add to the OFIS tables that will keep track of appointment
         dates, tenure and promotion data. For the dean's office.
     11. add a Research Area field to Expertise table and screens
     12. add a Affiliations sub-section to Professional Registrations/Designations;
         I am not sure how much change the data structure will require

• Discussion on list about bibTeX as a useful input format, and how to process it.
  • I would like to find a bibtex filter that outputs in a delimited format, as a proof of concept that we can make irregular bibtex input into regular output.

Today's Meeting:

• Got the histogram of OFIS use from Peter Douglas. Salient points: Electrical Engineering has large numbers of profs, small fraction of OFIS use. Find out why. (Vs: System Design: very few profs, also low usage). Chemical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering had 100% use (2008).
• noki reported: "forms to go" and "quotecharge" (?) - forms-generation software supposedly allow mysql support; though neither make it clear how, with their demos. Ongoing.
• Grind EQ: latex-to-word and vice-versa, via word plugin.
• Discussion on error-reporting:
  • Noki will work on a feature-addition to allow error reports for missing items (current interface only can flag incorrect items, not missing).
  • Discussion on perhaps a FAQ for errors we know of, such as incomplete info in databases? "This data is produced by X, it is released in November, so we won't have more recent data."
  • Could we give people a checklist of what they need to fill in to complete each report?
  • Perhaps using the validation engine that verifies on generating a report?
  • Put the checklist on the reports page, perhaps.

• Merit report: one page summary: needs work.
  • Discussion of committee which suggested merit-reports be standardized across campus.
  • Daniel: Will send Beth a copy of a blank CS merit report.
• Bibtex references: How does it handle multiple names?
  • Daniel: Will send list copies of CS profs' bibtex files, perhaps one or more with multiple names in a reference.
• Marlon is working on various data input; hopes to get teaching roster directly from Quest rather than dean's office. Hopes to have report back in a week or more. Discussion of engineering process.

Completed Tasks

• Daniel: report to list on http://www.tug.org/utilities/texconv/textopc.html and bibtex exporting (xml, other formats?)
• Daniel: get usage report info from Peter
• Daniel: download a few of the RTFs, look at them. Toward trying to producing a sample CS merit report: look at code for producing reports
  • Word-generated RTF templates are much larger than re-saved version in TextEdit: 132K vs. 43K for ceab_report.rtf.
  • The overall generation code looks straightforward, though RTF format complexity makes it clear it's a finicky process to develop.

Upcoming Tasks

• Daniel: send Beth a copy of a blank CS merit report.
• Daniel: send list copies of CS profs' bibtex files, perhaps one or more with multiple names in a reference.
• Daniel: get information from current OFIS users
• Daniel: make some sort of comment to the group about reporting code and whether it's reasonable to take on the task of OFIS report modifications (as part of output development).
• Daniel: set up meeting with Marlon, Vu, Ray about svn
• Daniel: any overall projects not on the list?
• Daniel: When do I think is a good day/time for OFIS meetings?...

-- DanielAllen - 31 Jul 2009