Web & System Infrastructure

TRC has had a specialised team of two full-time web developers employed on web-based development projects since the late 1990s. An additional part time developer position was added in late 2013 to support and enhance development projects.

The TRC web support team is responsible for:

  • The design, development and maintenances of faculty online systems including websites, databases and other web-based projects
  • Maintenance, support and enhancement of the faculty content management system (CMS) and associated systems.
  • Development of new web-based tools to support faculty projects
  • Database design and implementation
  • Training of staff in the use of faculty cms.

Development environment

Our primary server environment for web-based solutions is OpenSource and runs on faculty IT infrastructure using the standard Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP (LAMP) stack.

Our development environment is based upon a mixture of LAMP and Macintosh (MAMP) development stacks.

Web team also uses a Windows Server IIS instance and the FileMaker Pro Server Advanced database server for legacy databases/systems and other projects requiring both web and client-based access.

Associated units/governance

TRC web team supports the web-based requirements of UNSW Arts and Social Sciences through the Faculty IT and AV Manager and the Faculty General Manager.

The team are responsible to the Faculty External Relations Team for all matters related to the faculty CMS websites.

FASS assessment tool

This is a faculty online tool designed to reduce the amount of time students spend on assessment. The nominal value of student time on assessment tasks is to be reduced from 114 hours to 85 hours. The tool incorporates the UNSW assessment guidelines and flags assessment tasks that do no meet criteria. The tool will also reduce the number of courses that will need to be referred to the assessment task since UNSW criteria validation will occur in the tool itself. Currently this tool works outside but in conjunction with MAPPS (the UNSW on-line course proposal system) and the faculty's Graduate Attributes tool.

Version 1 of the tool was launched in October 2012.

Version 2 of the Assessment Tool now incorporates Stream/Program Learning Outcomes and Course Learning Outcomes in addition to the existing tools from version 1. Validation also now includes the learning outcomes as well as the assessment.

Version 2 was released in October 2013. With the inclusion of the learning outcomes and assessment into a single tool, the separate Graduate Attributes tool will be used as reference tool and able to be decommissioned.