Specifications include, but are not limited to: The WTCS Office, governed by the Wisconsin Technical College System Board (WTCSB), is pursuing an organizational initiative to redesign and rewrite the business functionality of two (2) data subsystems, known collectively as the WTCS Course, Curriculum and Program data subsystem (CCP) within a larger application, the WTCS Portal Web Application (Portal). As part of the rewrite, the underlying technology of the Portal will also be upgraded to more current technologies. CCP is used to fulfill WTCSB’s statutory responsibility for program initiation, development, maintenance, and supervision. These actions are conducted on behalf of WTCSB by the WTCS Office. CCP functions as follows: Each of the sixteen (16) WTCS Districts (Districts) are required to upload all offered Courses and curricula to CCP. The curricula must satisfy the requirements of the Programs. WTCS Office Education Directors and other staff use CCP to review, approve, track and assess WTCS Programs, curricula, and Courses. CCP interfaces with the Client Data subsystem (Client) for student information; the WTCS Office and the Districts use CCP to assess program performance and student success via data visualizations made available through WTCS Tableau data dashboards. WTCS’s Portal is a data submission, validation, approval, and reporting tool. The Portal is a database-driven Java web application that was developed in 2012 on a SQL Server platform, written in Java language with many t-SQL stored procedures. At that time, the program philosophy was to normalize the data (data was only stored once in the database and the data could be used by many but “owned” by one), make all the screens look similar, and ensure real time data entry (once data is entered, it is readily accessible to all users). The Portal contains nine (9) subsystems, 350 reports, 600 database tables, and three (3) primary databases. The nine (9) subsystems include Client Reporting System, Course Approval System, Curriculum Approval System, Apprenticeship Completion, Graduate Outcomes, Contracting, Uniform Fund Financial Accounting, Employer Satisfaction and Five (5)-Year Graduate Follow-Up. All of the nine (9) subsystems are inter-related and use Shared data. The data warehousing and Tableau data source/dashboard portion of Portal uses an additional two (2) databases with a combined total of 150 additional tables. CCP consists of two (2) of the nine (9) subsystems (Course Approval System and Curriculum Approval System). CCP is relatively self-contained, and major changes to it must be made while allowing integration with the other subsystems.
