NJIT Co-authorship database a website by Christopher Pax

Introduction The co-authorship database is a web base project, with the purpose of building connections between collaborators, given online citation sources.

Overview Initial requirements Design Code Interface Feedback loop

Initial requirements The application must do the fallowing things:  display the citations in the database  display authors and NJIT author  display statistical information about the data  show collaborations between users

Design The design was to be broken down into 3 parts  Database Mysql  code web scripting to use php  design web html

Database Mysql  mysql was the database of choice, because it is free and well intragrated with php. Normalized  this first database structure was to be fully normalized. All citation will be broken up into specific tables. The next slide show the first design

Code(1)‏ Functions  Display function To be used to render the page, and elements such as forms and tables.  Search function Functions that retrieve information from the database  Logical function general functions to be used in all php scripts.

Code(2)‏ Unique Code  Actions edit: citation, authors, njit authors, etc.  display view: citation, collaborators  ajax to dynamically display information

Design Requirements  citations must be easily accessible. Authors should be easy to find. HTML design  the fallowing slides will show pictures of the primitive for the project.

citation view

Author view

Journal view

Feedback loop 1 After the first design was demostraited, the project drivers wanted a interface change. They did not like the colors. Also, they wanted more functionality.

version 2 citation view

Feedback loop 2 The second design was very much the same. They did like the colors, but the now wanted it more, NJIT like. Also, the now wanted a rss publication feed, and a statical page. The statical page is very unique since you can chose what information you want.

RSS Feed

citation view

statistical page

author view top

Author view bottom, collaborators

Feedback loop 3 The design in loop 2 was much better then previous steps. Besides visual and usability changes, there were many improvement in speed access, features, and under the hood function changes. In a final meeting, there was a call to change the database, because of its complexity Also They wanted the color them changed to fit the theme of the 'Advance' web site. Advance is the drive and funding of the project.

DB v2

RSS feed

Citation view

Searching for 'robot' in the title

Statistical information

Creating new contact

Author page top

Author page bottom

author search

author search for hiltz

Concluding remarks The project shows clearly the irritative design process. Not only visual, but code and database changes. With out the feedback from the user the interface would still look like version 1, which had many flaws. The project will keep on going through this process until it meets the expectation of the user. The only thing to worry about after that is keeping information up to date, and maintaining the system.