Project Proposal: Academic Job Market and

Application Tracker Website

Project designed by: Cengiz GunayClient: Cengiz GunayAudience: PhD candidates and postdoctoral fellows

Project Summary

Applying for academic tenure-track positions There is no place like Monster.com Announcements all over the internet, in ad-hoc format Low success rate: more applications Need to research each position and customize application Need tracking and reminders during long application

process Solution: community website with public & private sections Can be a successful business if satisfy many academic

disciplines

Problem: research burden

Need research and communication to customize application package: Find needs of search committee Find needs of department Send emails to colleagues/acquaintances

If a good fit, then start applying for the job

Research burden: existing tools

Repetitive process with non-standard formats, but there is some help:

Job announcement websites have announcements and allow filtered searching and email alerts General: Science Careers, Nature Jobs, HigherEdJobs Domain specific: Computing Research Association’s Job Service, IEEE

Job Site, ACM Career & Job Center, NeuroJobs Specialized application websites (e.g., AcademicJobsOnline) –

have few positions posted by few employers; Online forums (e.g., Chronicle of Higher Education website

forum), not connected to position postings Wikis (e.g., Academic Jobs Wiki) – no automation, too much

manual work

Research burden: shotcomings

None of the existing tools are standardized and can compare positions in one place

Many don't allow user comments Wikis and forums are detached from job

postings

Problem 2: tracking application

Application has multi-stages with deadlines Submit materials Ask referees to send recommendation letters Track receipt of materials and letters Schedule interview and visits Track communications

Need to do this for each application May need to apply to many! Can use a special reminder system

Proposed solution: a community-driven website

Crowd sourcing for: Creating new position entries in standard form Link to school, university, department Can comment on all of them Other users can edit and improve Tagging helps categorizing

Caution: must control crowd!

Solution: private user section

List of positions is public, but application process tracked privately

User selects and follows positions Can add private notes Can start applying and tracking deadlines Reminder system would be useful Personal tags can help customize application

Solution: but will it fly?

Provides functionality not provided elsewhere But will the community adopt it? Need to use feedback from client and focus

group Target audience from PhD candidates and

postdocs If successful, can make money from ads and

sponsored accounts

Plan of action:

Can only complete proof-of-concept version in class

Target one or few academic subdisciplines Use existing SQL database structure: positions,

applications, communications Still need: multiple user information, comments,

department info

Components

A main website user interface that allows accessing the following components A component to enter job position announcements and link them to academic

units. A component to search and browse existing positions recorded on the website. Ability for other users to improve the details of the position and academic units,

and to comment on them. Select positions to be applied for in a user’s private section on the website. A component to list saved positions by deadline, and set reminders. Allow adding additional private comments and tags to these positions before

starting an application (research phase). Allow annotating private communications related to a position. A component to enter application tracking information connected to a selected

position. A component to see status of applications, update them and get reminders about

their status and related communications.

Platforms

1) Google App Engine: A very high level service that uses Python or Java.

Pros: It is easy and simple to program and deploy (see demo). Python has a wide library and is known by most team members. Hosting this project will be free because of its size. There is an existing forum software, Fofou, that can be modified. It is based on the forum software FruitShow,

which is written by the software engineering guru and our class reading author, Joel Spolsky.

Cons: By default it does not use SQL.

2) Apache-MySQL-PHP (AMP): Free, open source industry standard for developing web applications. Pros:

Lots of existing AMP code for web apps. Lots of existing online tutorials, examples and information. Can use existing partial MySQL database schema developed for this purpose.

Cons: Hard to install and maintain runtime environment. Hard to learn, develop and modify existing code.

1) None of the team members have experience in components of AMP, and especially the programming language, PHP.

Project team roles

Software architect: To define how multiple components of the software interact and how the control flows between them.

Data modeler: For display and internal storage, by taking advantage of existing database structures.

User interface designer: Easy finding of existing information, and allow flexible editing and user comments, similar to that of social media sites.

Software developer: To devise algorithms and integrate other components together.

Testing lead: To design and apply a testing strategy Documentation lead: To make sure the project and the code is

properly annotated sufficiently to be transferred to another software team at the end of the semester.