By Laura Strickman
| Working Title | Datakeeper: A Secure Online Data-Storage and Form-Filling Program |
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| Problem | The average high school student fills out dozens of administrative forms during their high-school career, everything from field trip permission slips to information cards for teachers' files to many repetitive emergency care forms. It's very time-consuming and frustrating to fill out forms asking for the same information over and over. |
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| Purpose | The author hopes to rectify the problem of repetitive forms by creating Datakeeper, a web-based programs which stores students' data and releases it to the appropriate people. After filling in their data for the first time, all students would need to do would be to check the pieces of information required, enter the email address to send them to, and hit send- or hit print to create a hard copy. This would reduce writing, for example, your name, address, phone number, insurance company, allergies, etc. over and over again for various field trip forms. |
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| Scope | This "Datakeeper" project could be introduced to high-school students via the student Intranet, then introduced to businesspeople in the workplace if successful at school. If the beginning email/hardcopy version is effective, the author plans to introduced Datakeeper 2, which would scan in forms, recognize which field is where, and fill in and print out the form without further prompting. |
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| Background | I haven't found any projects like this one before, but I've been thinking about this or something like it for several years. Computers are made to do tiresome, repetitive tasks so that humans can free up their time for activities that require thought; this describes the weary form-filling process perfectly. Datakeeper and programs like it are what computers were made for. |
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| Procedure/Methodology |
I'm going to use PHP in interface with MySQL to create Datakeeper. MySQL will keep the databases of various people's accounts and information; PHP will provide the means of accessing and changing this data online. Since Datakeeper will be web-based, it'll be accessable to everyone, another perk of using these languages. My timeline: First Quarter - Develop my idea. Learn PHP and MySQL. Create my webpage. Research different types of forms. Second Quarter - Code Datakeeper v.1, where a user can log on with a password, enter and access their data, and have it emailed out. Third Quarter - Code Datakeeper v.2, where a user can generate a printer-friendly image presenting their data. Work on security issues. Fourth Quarter - Code Datakeeper v.3, where a user can scan in a form and have Datakeeper fill it out. Develop a library of common forms. Make a poster and a presentation. |
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| Expected Results | By the end of the year I should have a webpage that a user can access and perform the following actions: log on with password, access his/her information, change his/her data, choose from a library of common forms, enter a form of their own, generate a printer-friendly version of a form, email form data to a teacher. |
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