Online scholarship application system

Abstract

The Foundation Office at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse deals with a large number of scholarship applications typically in the range of five to eight thousands every academic year. Nevertheless, processing these applications is time-consuming due to their current paper-based processing. At present, applicants have to fill out their application forms and submit them manually to the office. If there is any problem with their applications while they are processed, it will also take extra time for both the reviewing committee as well as the applicant to communicate and correct the errors. As a result, additional paperwork for review may cause a delay in the entire procedure. Some basic criteria such as GPA are now examined tediously by committee members but it can be checked by a computerized system automatically. Furthermore, maintianing and keeping relevant information and updates on the status of an application for each applicant are strenuous without computerized manipulation. In order to solve these problems, a pilot project was done to automate many of the tasks performed by all the parties including the applicant and the scholarship committees. This manuscript describes the development of a new software system for scholarship application and processing by re-engineering the pilot project. Some of the important features of this new system include efficient processing and interactivity between multiple users under a highly secure networking environment. The document also describes some of the challenges encountered during each phase of the development life cycle, while adding more functionalities and techniques introduced for solving the issues mentioned earlier.