Family Education Network - Division of Pearson Education
Teachers' Quiz Lab Migration Project
QuizLab II Migration Project
FEN, Family Education Network, formerly The Learning Network (LN), a division of Pearson Education
purchased a software application called QuizLab which we will call QuizLab I.
This application allows teachers to create an account with class information and
student rosters. The teachers can also create various types of quizzes from multiple choice
to essay questions on over 10 subjects from art, music, languages, computers, math and sciences.
This application ran on three linux web server running C-cgi applications that saved the data
in flat files and was pushing the limits of the hardware and software.
An application was developed to extract the data and store the information in flat .csv file format.
FEN also has a GradeBook application, running in ColdFusion using SQL Server,
with a very similar data model to QuizLab I. The developer of the
GradeBook application was able to extend the GradeBook data model and application
to encompass similar functionality to QuizLab.
This new version is called QuizLab II.
The migration process which was developed by BVJ personnel based upon BVJ's extensive knowledge
in data models and database technology:
- Takes 53 .csv files and loads them into 22 QL1 tables using six
top level DTS packages which call another 66 DTS packages to process the .csv files.
This represents 287,108 teachers, 339,284 classes, 1,056,310 students, 1,079,151 quizzes
with 16,645,848 questions and 40,440,105 selectable answers, 9,036,252 student answers
in 545,129 student taken quizzes since June 1.
- Migrate the data in the 22 QL1 tables into 9 QL2 tables.
- Improve the performance of the above process and reduce the time from 46 hours to 10 hours
- Modify the above process to restore one or a just a few inactive teacher account information based
upon teacher requests.
- Installed extra disk drives on two Compaq P4 Development Systems
- Design and implement the layout of data files and transaction logs that spanned six SCSI drives
on both the QA test database server and the production database server
- Installed Windows 2000, IIS 5.0, SQL Server 2000, Cold Fusion 5.0 and generating and install SSL Certificates on
the two development systems, and six HP LC2000 server machines: three production ColdFusion web servers,
one QA ColdFusion Web Server and two database server one for production and one for QA.
Comments from Management
- "Bruce - I don't know what to say or how we can thank you for the way you
have allowed Quiz Lab to turn your life upside down over the past couple of
months. We would not be nearly as close to our goal without you and your
stamina for the project. You have gone well beyond what we could have
reasonably asked or expected. We were lucky that you came knocking on our
door a few months ago."
- -- Kathy, Senior Manager at FEN
- "Amen to that - thank you Bruce - as well as you Dan and Kathy (and everyone
else)."
- -- George, another Senior Manager at FEN
- "Bruce--I want you to know how much I/we have all appreciated your work,
your dedication and your contributions to the launch of Quiz Lab. You put
in enormous efforts and allowed us to ruin your sleep and weekends on a
regular basis which you handled with grace and humor. You were indeed a key
member of the team and will be missed!
If there is anything I can do for you (references, etc.), please don't
hesitate to ask!
And please stay in touch.
Again, my sincere gratitude,"
- -- Barry, Quizlab Manager at FEN
- "Well, Barry beat me to it - I just want to add that your thoroughness and
care and attention to detail were also particularly evident. You will
definitely be missed!"
- -- Dan, Quizlab Project Leader, FEN
- A comment from a customer...
"A million thanks for all of you guys who are working to make Quizlab an
excellent teaching tool. The new Quiz Lab is simply five hundred times
better and easier than the previous version. I used it twice last year and I quit.
It was too complicated. Now with the new release, I have been using it on
regular basis. Thee designers followed the format of my GradeBook and the result
was great. You are doing an incredible job. Congratulations!"
- -- Jose, a teacher and a satisfied user of Quizlab II.
If you would like to discuss your project needs with us please contact us today
at Send Mail to info@bvj.com.
This page, and all contents, are
Copyright © 1999-2017, Bruce A. Bednarski
of BVJ Company, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
Better Value Joined
www.bvj.com
Joining-Information-People-DataBases & Businesses
Click here for more information.
