Operation and Maintenance of APEC Engineer Data Bank (1) Operation and Maintenance of APEC Engineer Data Bank (1) Dr. Hsieh, Shang-Hsien (Patrick) Professor of Department of Civil Engineering National Taiwan University

Development of Chinese Taipei APEC 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 Taipei APEC Engineer Management System System Overview Online Application System Web Portal CPD Activities Register Assessment System Registrant Info. Manager Portal Content Database Registration Data Manager Engineer Database Engineers & Guests Administrator (Monitoring Committee) 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 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 Bank Design 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) Find engineer(s) Search keywords + conditions in 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 ProjectsOrganizationsBids Certificates Job Opportunities Data Entities reference

Engineer Profiles Publications Patents Developments Experiences Specialties Engineering ProjectsOrganizationsBids Certificates Job Opportunities Existing Member’s APEC Engineers Database Existing Professional Engineer 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 ProjectsOrganizationsBids Certificates Job Opportunities Existing E-Procurement System replicate Procurement Info. Integration

Engineer Profiles Publications Patents Developments Experiences Specialties Engineering ProjectsOrganizationsBids Certificates Job Opportunities Existing Engineering Consultants Management System import Organization Info. Integration

Engineer Profiles Publications Patents Developments Experiences Specialties Engineering ProjectsOrganizationsBids Certificates Job Opportunities APEC Engineer Portal populate and update (manually) APEC Engineer Data Bank Portal

Engineer Profiles Publications Patents Developments Experiences Specialties Engineering ProjectsOrganizationsBids 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 protocol Require 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 Mode Centralized APs & DBs Integrated APs & Distributed DBs Portal only Data residencycentrallocal Application residencycentralcentral & locallocal Software complexityfairhighlow Privacy issuemajorminorminimum Development costfairhighlow to high * O&M costlowhigh Security issuefairmajorminor Format consistencyhighfairlow * 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

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