source: main/waeup.kofa/trunk/README.txt @ 13174

What is WAeUP.Kofa ?
********************

Kofa, which means 'entrance' or 'portal' in Hausa language, is a
multifunctional, open source, web based student management system to
provide transparent and comprehensive information about application
and study progress. Kofa is the flagship of the West African
eUniversity Project (WAeUP). See http://www.waeup.org to learn more
about WAeUP. The system controls all kinds of application and
student registration processes at large schools and universities in
Nigeria. It is a generic system which can be deployed by and is
useful to most universities, colleges or schools wordlwide.

Kofa is really an allrounder. The best way to briefly describe Kofa,
is to explain what Kofa can *not* do for you, rather than trying to
describe all the features in just a few words. Kofa is primarily not
an e-learning system, although, it has some basic content management
features which can be used by lecturers to disseminate course
material. Kofa is also not a scheduler which generates lesson plans
or timetables for lecturers or students. Although students register
their courses with Kofa and can see or print course lists for each
academic session, so far, courses do not contain information, when
or where they take place. However, due to the modular design of Kofa,
a scheduler or room planner could be easily added.

Kofa is divided into sections. To each section belongs a folder in
Kofa's :ref:`object database <object_database>`. When starting Kofa
in debug mode::

  $ ./bin/kofactl debug

we can use simple Python expression to view the first two levels of
the database structure::

  >>> list(root.keys())
  [u'app']
  >>> list(root['app'].keys())
  [u'accesscodes', u'applicants', u'configuration', u'datacenter',
   u'documents', u'faculties', u'hostels', u'mandates', u'reports',
   u'students', u'users']


Each of these subfolders in the root folder of the database belongs
to such a section. The section structure can be figured as follows::

  root (Database Root)
  |
  +---> app (University)
        |
        +---> faculties (Academic Section)
        |
        +---> students (Students Section)
        |
        +---> applicants (Aplicants Section)
        |
        +---> documents (Documents Section)
        |
        +---> hostels (Accommodation Section)
        |
        +---> accesscodes (Access Codes Section)
        |
        +---> configuration (Configuration Section)
        |
        +---> users (Officers)
        |
        +---> datacenter (Data Center)
        |
        +---> mandates (Mandates)
        |
        +---> reports (Reports)

The user handbook follows this organizational structure and adds
further chapters where needed. Also installation instructions and
basic information about customization can be found there.