Changeset 13174 for main/waeup.kofa/trunk

Timestamp:

16 Jul 2015, 09:31:46 (9 years ago)

Author:

Henrik Bettermann

Message:

Extend intro.

File:

• main/waeup.kofa/trunk/README.txt (modified) (1 diff)

main/waeup.kofa/trunk/README.txt

@@ -2 +2 @@
 ********************
 
-Kofa, which means 'entrance' or 'portal' in Hausa language,
-is a multifunctional Student Management System and a
-Web Portal to provide transparent and comprehensive information about
-study progress. The system controls all kinds of application and student
-registration processes at large schools and universities in Nigeria.
+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 the flagship of the West African eUniversity Project (WAeUP).
-See http://www.waeup.org to learn more about WAeUP.
+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.
 
-Installation instructions can be found in the User Handbook (docs
-folder in the file system).
+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.