NCAA STUDENT ATHLETE COMPLIANCE SYSTEM

May 09-17

Client

Dustin Gray

Associate Director of Compliance

ISU Department of Athletics

Faculty Advisor

Dr. Doug Jacobson

Development Team

Andy Dorman

Jared Eakins

Ryan Kent

Ben Youngblut

Team Structure

The client needs to keep detailed compliance data on all student-athletes in the athletic department.

The current solution involves packets of forms delivered to each student-athlete.

This method is very labor intensive, and wasteful of paper.

Problem Statement

The new product will provide a green software solution for both student-athletes and athletic officials.

Students will be able to submit their information online, while officials can monitor and approve the student’s progress.

Officials will also be able to create the online forms students complete.

Approach

Similar products do exist to solve a similar problem. A number of Big 12 schools have implemented systems internally to handle NCAA forms for their student athletes while others have contracted out development of commercial systems. Our own athletics department received an estimate from ISU Information Technology Services, but the cost was beyond their budget. The estimate from ITS was $13,600 for development with an annual hosting cost of $1,700.

Market Survey

-Has Admin Accounts and User Accounts

-Admin Accounts

- Manage user accounts

- Create/modify forms

- Manage forms

- Review user form responses

-User Accounts

- Fill out/submit forms

-Forms can be created

-Forms can be completed

-Form responses are stored

Requirements

-Client-server design model

- PHP, Javascript, MySQL

-Two Modes: Admin and User

-Admin

- Import student-athletes

- Create forms for athletes to fill out

-User

- Fill out and submit forms

-Heavy use of AJAX

-Javascript initiated HTTP requests to web server

-Server responds in parsable format

-Multi-tiered system, only one layer communicates w/ database

System Description

System Diagram

Application Flow

Web-based interface: familiar and accessible to users

Simple, straight-forward, and easy to use

When student-athlete completes a form, next form appears

More advanced UI for admins

Displayed information presented in a logical manor

Admin functionalities clear and simple

User Interface Description

Form Creation

Concept Sketches

Form Completion

Concept Sketches

-JavaScript Library

- User Interfaces

- AJAX Communication w/ Server

-Easy to implement drag-and-drop GUI

-Dynamic page content

-Allows for easy JSON object functionality

-Cross Browser compatibility

ExtJS

System Diagram

Separates out business logic and data structures from user interface specifics

Reasons:

Modularized software components – can easily and simply swap user interfaces without changing workings of other components

Single point-of-entry into the system – all requests routed through one mechanism

Single layer of data access – allows for easy changing of data sources

Quicker development – given interface connections, developers can develop in parallel on one piece of the system

Tools:

EZPDO – object-oriented relational data access library

XMI2PHP – turn a UML class diagram directly into EZPDO-consumable classes

Model/View/Controller

Model

Has no knowledge of business logic

Arranges contents of model map into form consumable by client

JSON – JavaScript Object Notation

ExtJS specific

View

Acts as link between model and view

Simple hand-constructed control routing mechanism

A controller method can be accessed directed by the URL

Handles retrieving the controller and the view

Has no knowledge of user interface – it just populates a hash map of model objects

Data access point – all data access happens in the controller and business logic is applied through model business managers

Controller

-SSL Certificate; issued by ISU

-Login w/ ISU PubCookie Single Sign On

-PubCookie maintained by IT

-After secure login, cookie would be accessible by application

Authentication

End-User Environment

- End-users: AD staff and student-athletes

- Web browsers, at home or office

- IE6+, Firefox 1.5+, Safari 3+, and Opera 9+ web browsers

Host Environment

-Apache web server

- PHP support

- SQL database

- Automatic backups

Operating Environment

NCAA Compliance Database as described in this document.

Final deployment will yield a fully functional system which contains an initial set of user accounts, compliance forms, and help files.

Documentation will be created and delivered throughout the development process to ensure client needs are met.

Deliverables

-Unit testing using framework

-GUI Usability/Acceptability Testing

- Prototypes/Demonstrations to Client

- Individual User Testing

Testing

Avoidable risks

- Feature creep

- Moving target requirements

Unavoidable risks

- Team members will have to learn large-scale PHP implementation

- Hardware will have to be made available to host the web server and database

- Team member leaves

- Continued operation once team leaves in May

Risk Management

- Team members will have a full understanding of the system as a whole, in order to fill in if a team member leaves

- Trade performance for scalability – simplify use and maintenance

Risks

Project Schedule - Fall

Project Schedule - Spring

The Athletics Department faces a nominal problem when it comes to compliance with NCAA. Student athletes must take time to come in to the office and fill out paper work by hand that gets reviewed, page for page, by hand. This manual review process requires a large amount of resources. Our product will minimize this by helping to automate this process online, so student athletes can complete the required documents at home in their own time. Storage in a database will also be much more efficient than filing a mass of papers, as well as cut down on the amount of paper wasted. The extensibility of the product will also ensure that compliance administrators will be able to create new forms for athletes from year to year, without needing knowledge of the inner workings of the product.

Summary

Questions??