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MIT Information Technology
Graduate Admissions Overview

mitid@mit.edu
(http://web.mit.edu/mitid/www)
Last modified: April 10, 1998

Graduate Admissions Overview

Table of Contents

  1. System Overview
  2. End User Application Overview
  3. Administrative Application Overview

System Overview

 The new Graduate Admissions End User Application which is planned to begin rolling out to departmental offices during the spring of 1998, will be used by departmental admission offices to maintain applicant data within the MITSIS Mid-tier database. Once all required applicant data is received, a Graduate Admissions administrative application will be used to "clean up" the data in the Mid-tier before migrating it to the MITSIS Backend database so that this data is available to existing MITSIS systems running on the backend. 

 A new Graduate Admissions Administrative Application will be used by one or more MITSIS data administrator(s) to remove duplicate entries, check for existing matching records in the MITSIS Backed and to assigning valid MIT IDs. The Administrative Application will use the MIT ID Server to lookup and assign MIT IDs in the MIT ID Database. The MIT ID Database will include data for past and current students as well as employees and other individuals who have an MIT ID. (See the document  MIT ID Database V2.0 System Design )

The following figure illustrates the high level relationship between the system components. Arrows between components indicate that one component "uses" another. That is to say, the Graduate Admissions End User Application uses the MITSIS Mid-tier which in turn uses the MITSIS Backend. The Graduate Admissions Administrative Application uses the MITSIS Mid-tier as well as the MIT ID Service.

Overview Image
 

End User Application Overview

An admissions clerk will be responsible for maintaining applicant data in the MITSIS Mid-tier via the Graduate Admissions End User Application. Using this application, the admissions clerk will be able to search and view existing data for applicants that they are authorized to view. Additionally, they will be able to update existing applicant data or insert new applicants. These changes will remain on the MITSIS Mid-tier until the data is "cleaned up" by the administrative application.

Administrative Application Overview

A MITSIS Data Administrator will use the administrative application to find an existing MIT ID or to assign a new MIT ID when needed. The MITSIS Mid-tier will be used to determine which records are new and to check for multiple entries for the individual. The application will then use the MIT ID Server to check for an existing MIT ID (possibly assigned by another departmental system). For each search the MIT ID Server will identify the search results as:
   1.) Matching one and only one existing MIT ID
   2.) Definitely not matching any existing MIT ID
   3.) Possibly matching one or more existing MIT ID

Matches will result in the existing MIT ID being used in the MITSIS Backend. Definitely does not match will result in a new MIT ID being assigned via the MIT ID Database. Possible matches will result in the administrator being prompted to either use an existing ID or to assign a new ID. It may require some investigation on behalf of the administrator to determine how to handle “possible matches.”