Operation and Maintenanceof APEC Engineer Data Bank (1)

Dr. Hsieh, Shang-Hsien (Patrick)Professor of Department of Civil EngineeringNational Taiwan University

Development of Chinese TaipeiAPEC Engineer Management System

Introduction and Experience Sharing

Objectives

• Improve process efficiency by implementing electronic workflow

• Assist applicants in filling out the application forms

• Minimize errors and inconsistency of data• Automate CPD credit-hours calculation• Manage the assessment and registration

data systematically to facilitate operations such as renewal, statistics and audit, etc.

History

• 2006– Plan and design APEC engineer mgmt. system – Implement and test the online application and

assessment sub-system– Construct the web portal

• 2007– Refine the CPD management interface– Digitize historical application data– Start accepting application online

• 2008– Implement renewal function– Add new disciplines

History

• 2009– Migrate systems to the private cloud

• 2010– Upgrade software framework and portal CMS

• 2012– Implement functions to exchange information

between web portal and engineer mgmt. system

• 2013– Add tools for assisting CPD editing– Add tools for managing registration documents

• 2014– Add tools for managing registrant information

Chinese TaipeiAPEC Engineer Management System

System Overview

Online Application System

Web PortalCPD Activities

Register

Assessment System

Registrant Info. Manager

Portal ContentDatabase

Registration Data Manager

EngineerDatabase

Engineers &Guests

Administrator(MonitoringCommittee)

Forms Generator

Web Portal

Account Profile

Input format

validator

Hint

Data will be reused in form 1~6

Form 1: Checklist

Will generate Microsoft Word

documents

Automatic form checker

Form 2: Personal Info.

Add/edit/update education background

Form 3: Engineering Experiences

Add/edit/update work items

Organizations and projects input here will be listed in form 4 and form 5

Form 4: Significant Experiences

Fill details of the selected work item into suggested paragraphs

Refer a work item filled in form 3

previously

Form 5: Elective Experiences

Select three work items in the list and fill out the

details

Form 6: CPD Summary

Show and edit CPD credit-hours in recent five years

Form 6: CPD-hours Editor

This activity list is composed of items entered by other

applicants and “CPD activity register”

User can clone details of an activity on the list or enter

data manually

Form 7: Code of Ethics

Check this box to agree

User log

The system will keep records of the user activity such as updating the data or sign-in/out

Registrants can look up their own logs

Registrant Information Manager

Used by administrators of monitoring committee

Used to look up or update a part of registrants’ personal information

Registration Data Manager

• Used to retrieve scanned application forms, certificates, assessment documents by searching applicant name

CPD Activities Register

Add a conference / workshop / seminar information

Post an announcement on the web portal

Register an item in CPD activity list (form 6 editing page)

Send registrant an email about this activity

Challenges

• How to design friendly user interface for applicants with little computer experience

• How to attest the application forms by electronic signature/approach

• How to gather conference information or training records in bulk automatically to assist user in updating CPD

Operation and Maintenance

• Monitoring committee employee:– Manage or validate data

• 1 part-time system administrator: – Take care of daily hardware and software operation

and information security– Manage web site

• 1 part-time programmer: – Fix bugs, tune the user interface, and enhance

some existing functions

• Other manpower (project-based):– Develop new features– Evaluate framework upgrade plan

APEC Engineer Data BankDesign Considerations

- from viewpoint of data management

Function Requirements• Store professional profiles of All APEC engineers, which may include

– General information– Certificates

• Domestic• International

– Specialties• Categorized specialties as tags/labels• Endorsements

– Engineering experiences• Engineering projects• Field• Position• Time span• Details• Endorsements

– Continuing professional development records– Publications– Patents

Function Requirements (cont.)

• Find and display engineers information according to:– Profile details– Combination of skills– Organization– Engineering projects (experiences)

Findengineer(s)

Search keywords + conditionsin engineer profiles

Drill down from the organization list

Browse the hierarchical specialties category

Drill down from the engineering projects

Result sets

Sort

Filter

Check details

Function Requirements (cont.)

• Update engineer profiles• Update organization information

• Manage engineering project information• Share and lookup job opportunities• Share and lookup procurement information

• Manage advertisement• Manage pay services or functions

• Specialties endorsement mechanism

Roles & Responsibility

– System Administrator• Manage system settings• Manage roles and permissions

– Data Manager (Monitoring Committee)• Import and validate external data• Manage data integrity• Manage advertisement

– Engineer• Manage personal profile

– Organization• Manage organization profile• Update job opportunities• Update procurement information

– Public user

Data Management

Engineer Profiles

Publications

Patents

Developments

Experiences

Specialties

Engineering ProjectsOrganizations Bids

Certificates

Job Opportunities

Data Entities

reference

Engineer Profiles

Publications

Patents

Developments

Experiences

Specialties

Engineering ProjectsOrganizations Bids

Certificates

Job Opportunities

Existing Member’sAPEC EngineersDatabase

Existing ProfessionalEngineer Official Database

import

Engineer Info. Integration

Define protocols for exchanging online or

Define format for exchanging offline

Engineer Profiles

Publications

Patents

Developments

Experiences

Specialties

Engineering ProjectsOrganizations Bids

Certificates

Job Opportunities

Existing E-ProcurementSystemreplicate

Procurement Info. Integration

Engineer Profiles

Publications

Patents

Developments

Experiences

Specialties

Engineering ProjectsOrganizations Bids

Certificates

Job Opportunities

Existing Engineering ConsultantsManagement System

import

Organization Info. Integration

Engineer Profiles

Publications

Patents

Developments

Experiences

Specialties

Engineering ProjectsOrganizations Bids

Certificates

Job Opportunities

APEC Engineer Portal

populate and update (manually)

APEC Engineer Data Bank Portal

Engineer Profiles

Publications

Patents

Developments

Experiences

Specialties

Engineering ProjectsOrganizations Bids

Certificates

Job Opportunities

Social Network Service

endorse

Specialties Endorsement

Operation considerations

• Demand of fetching the registrant information from existing economy’s engineer management system?– None– One-time– Regularly– Continuously

• Need of data curator or validator for each signatory?

• Responsibility of user support?

Require implementing a protocolRequire a standard format May need a standard format

Operating Cost

• Computer Infrastructure– Physical or virtual (cloud-based) platform– Internet service (networking) fee– Software license fee

• Personnel cost– Data manager (local, global)– System administrator– Database administrator– Programmer

May be outsourced

Data Bank Operating ModeCentralized APs & DBs

Integrated APs &Distributed DBs

Portal only

Data residency central local local

Application residency

central central & local local

Software complexity

fair high low

Privacy issue major minor minimum

Development cost fair high low to high*

O&M cost low high high

Security issue fair major minor

Format consistency

high fair low* Depend on how many economies need to

implement a new local data bank

Possible Revenue Sources

• Sponsors:Advertisement space on the web

portal• Chargeable services, such as:– Register job offers– View “detail” profile of an engineer– Search procurement information

Need a billing sub-system

Thanks for your attention