Introduction
CLB centers play a key role in evaluating pupils and defining their level of learning disability. This information is important for headmasters and teachers when preparing the school for their needs. The issue was that school staff didn’t have a secure way of accessing student reports. Another matter was that students didn't have an easy way of communicating with CLB employees, as they had to come in person to interact or seek assistance.
Idea
The goal was to create a platform where school staff would be able to easily access student reports all while adhering to strict confidentiality policies. The platform also needed to be accessible to students so they could communicate with their CLBs.
Challenge
The biggest challenge was implementing various policies, all while keeping the platform stable so the data could be accessed anytime. Also, it had to be integrated with external platforms and because of strict confidentiality rules, we needed to find a way to select which users could see which data.
Final product
The final solution was a web platform that is accessed by students, teachers, headmasters, and of course, CLB employees.
By entering student information, school personnel can access corresponding student records. Headmasters can also access an overview of all student records from their school. And, in special situations e.g. before school enrollments, headmasters can access all student data to see if their school is prepared to meet their needs. Finally, on the same platform, students can access their profiles and send a message in-app to CLB workers.
Students profile
Students can access their profiles through the students’ app where they can see general info about their education. Before applying to high schools they can also complete orientational tests and see their results in-app.
In-app messaging
Students can chat with CLB employees in their district and when needed, set online or on-site appointments. They can also access their chat history anytime.
Tech solution
For the tech stack, we opted for Spring Boot and Angular. Since multiple layers of security were needed, we implemented them using Spring Security. In order to comply with strict confidentiality protocols the app performs user authentication with an SSO (single Sign-On) where users can only use their IDs to log in. With this login info, the app is then able to serve student information only to authorized users at any time. We also developed an efficient and robust data import process using Spring Batch. Code quality was assured by using Travis CI and SonarCloud. Finally, AWS cloud services provided high availability, lowered infrastructure cost, and speeded up platform development.
Benefits for the client
The resulting solution was an easy-to-use application that simplifies the communication between CLBs and schools. The platform is now compliant with the client’s policies and rules and has stable integration with external platforms. The platform benefits each end user in a different way. CLB employees got a fast and reliable way to solve queries and access student data. Teachers and headmasters can see student reports which help them prepare their school to meet the student's needs. Students can now easily get in touch with CLB employees and access their profiles.