The document describes a web services portal developed at the University of Puerto Rico at Bayamon to provide online services for students. It analyzes student needs and identifies services that can be automated, such as obtaining parking permits, class schedules, transcripts, and payments. The solution was to develop a PHP/MySQL platform integrated with the school's student information system. The platform allows free services and paid services. It provides benefits like reducing lines and allowing access anywhere. Future work includes adding more payment options and services.

1. MiUPRB Web Services Portal
( https://miuprb.uprb.edu )
Ramón J. Benítez-Pagán Professor: Dr. Miguel Vélez-Rubio
Department of Computer Science
Introduction
The University of Puerto Rico at Bayamón is an institution of Higher Education
whose mission “is to stimulate and support the personal and intellectual
development of a competent student in science, arts, technology, research and
the generation of new knowledge; Based on ethics and social commitment.”.
In a world almost completely digitalized, many of the services that the
citizens need requires them to personally attend an office or company to
receive the service. Currently, many services are provided online, this
alternative makes life easier for the citizen by getting results quickly and
efficiently. Also, this new way of providing services helps the company to lower
operational expenses costs, avoids long and tedious lines in their offices and
requires less human capital, which helps us to do more with less, one of the
basic principles of the Administrative theory.
Taking as example the Government of Puerto Rico, has developed an online
services portal dedicated to the citizen, this platform offers its users the ability
to obtain certifications such as good behavior, not debt in HACIENDA, no debt
in ASUME, among other services that are continually added. These can be
requested 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The address of the
aforementioned governmental platform is:
http://www2.pr.gov/Pages/default.aspx.
Needs Analysis
When carrying out the needs analysis for this project, I was able to identify that
several services offered by the institution (UPR at Bayamon) can be developed
/ automated so that students do not have to physically visit the university.
Several of the services that were identified are:
1. Request parking permit (obtain the sticker)
2. Copy of class schedule
3. Payment of enrollment (PELL Aid or PayPal / Banco Popular)
4. Student’s transcript of credits (Unofficial)
5. Certification of studies
6. Updating medical plan information (not by TeraTerm)
These processes and services could be automated to be offered on the
institution's web services platform.
Problems
In the development of an online platform like the one we proposed, the
following problems had to be addressed:
• The Student Information System "SIS" is already an old system, currently
running on an Integrity IA64 mainframe. This causes several limitations in
the development. We would have to adapt the system first, so that it is
compatible with new technologies in which modules would be developed to
which the platform would connect to obtain information.
• In order to establish PayPal as a payment alternative, the institution would
have to negotiate and make a contract with PayPal. This process could
take a long time. However, the development and implementation is
extremely simple and reliable. (Development can be started without having
the contract).
• Determine if services that currently have a cost when being provided
through the platform can be offered for free to students.
Solution
Based on the needs analysis carried out and the problems exposed, I
understood that it was possible / feasible to develop an online service platform
for students at the University of Puerto Rico in Bayamón. Such platform could
contain free services, as well as services that have some cost (this will be
determined by the user).
Free services:
1. Request parking permit
2. Copy of class schedule (currently charged)
3. Payment of enrollment
4. Updating Medical Plan Information
Services with cost:
1. Unofficial transcript of credits
The web platform would be designed in the PHP language and using MySQL
database since it makes the migration of some of these services to other
platforms more manageable since the institutional platform NEXT is developed
with this same language and database.
We had to make changes to the server where SIS is located to adapt it to the
web environment, installing WASD Web Server on it, in order to process the
web transactions received (Daniel, 2016). It is hoped to be able to offer PayPal
as a payment method for the online service of enrollment payment.
How the student benefits:
Campus students will benefit in many ways from this platform. Among the
advantages and benefits established are that the students:
• Will NOT make long lines
• Will NOT have to be on the campus all day.
• Your request is instantly served
• You do not have to make unnecessary payments (free services)
• Does not depend on any administrative personal to receive the service
How the institution benefits:
The institution will enjoy the following benefits:
• There will be no long lines at the offices/departments
• There won’t be a lot of student traffic around the campus
• Does not require a chain of command to complete requests
• Avoid payment in additional compensation to employees who absorb
additional functions to complete this process.
• Does not extend the working day operations
• It removes the backlogs to the corresponding offices as they are
independent (autonomous) processes.
Tools
• Web Server (Microsoft)
• WASD Web Server for the Integrity (SIS)
• Database Server MySQL
• PHP 7.0
• LDAP
• Paypal Web Service
• HTML, CSS, JavaScript y Bootstrap
• COBOL
• Student Information System (SIS)
• NEXT Institutional Platform
• FPDF Extension
• PHP Mailer Extension
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to José San Miguel, Programmer
of the UPR-AC and UPR-B, for being my partner in the development of this
great platform and working with me to offer these services to the students.
I want to also give credit and my sincere acknowledge and thank you to
Wilberto Vega, System Administrator of UPRB-OSI, for the continuous help he
provided me when I needed answers.
I am also grateful to Marcia Rodriguez, Director, in the Information Systems
Department (OSI) for her sincere and valuable guidance, expertise and the
encouragement extended and given to me throughout the project.
Future Work
Future work will be:
• Integration of Banco Popular’s Web Payment
• Unofficial Transcripts
• And other services as we identify them
References
Daniel, M. G. (2016, July). WASD VMS Web Services. Retrieved from
https://wasd.vsm.com.au/
Griffith, A. (1997). COBOL For Dummies (1st ed.). United States of America:
For Dummies.
Mitchell, L. J. (2016). PHP Web Services (2nd ed.). O'Reilly Media.
Nixon, R. (2014). Learning PHP, MySQL & JavaScript: With jQuery, CSS &
HTML5 (Learning Php, Mysql, Javascript, Css & Html5) (4th ed.). O'Reilly
Media.
Richardson, L., & Ruby, S. (2007). RESTful Web Services. O'Reilly Media.
Stern, R. A., & Stern, N. B. (1988). Structured COBOL Programming (5th ed.).
United States of America: Wiley.
The PHP Group. (n.d.). PHP. Retrieved from http://php.net/docs.php
Winston, A. (2002). OpenVMS with Apache, WASD, and OSU: The Nonstop
Webserver (HP Technologies) (1st ed.). Digital Press.
Platform’s Use Case Diagram
Platform’s Screenshot
Conclusion
I am humbly proud of the results of the implementation of this platform. All new
students are now requesting their parking permit through the platform. Also the
Online Enrollment Service in its first deployment was used by 720+ students
with Financial Aid.
This project was a great opportunity to experience real life-changing software
because it makes people’s (students) life easier.
This project exposed me to the environment of real developers teamwork and
helped me developed Project Management Skills that are really necessary.