Credentialing

From Humanitarian FOSS Summer Institute

Abstract

The credentials of persons involved in disaster recovery can be easily indexed, sorted, searched, stored, and otherwise made conveniently accessible by this module. By having some preset knowledge of existing certifications, as well as the capacity to be expanded by authorized users, the Credentialing module is scalable and quick to deploy. Additionally, it ties in with the Volunteer Management module for easy integration with existing volunteers. The advantage of having a separate module is that you can also integrate with other modules, e.g. for staff, etc.

The data stored for people, credentials, and titles is based on the ESAR-VHP "Interim Technical and Policy Guidelines, Standards, and Definitions" document, provided by Frank Fiedrich.

Get a copy

• Download latest release. To extract, run tar -xvzf vcs.tar.gz on it.
• Try out a demo

For Developers

Anyone willing to contribute to the project can check out their own copy by following these steps:

• Firstly, a copy of Sahana needs to be checked out by following the instructions on http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=127855 ; make sure the "www" folder of Sahana is within the document root of your web server.
• Once that has been done, a copy of VCS (Volunteer Credentialing System) has to be checked out into the "mod" folder of Sahana. The Credentialing module is located at http://svn.cs.trincoll.edu/project_vm/vcs

User Interface

Overview
People
  Add Person
    [form collecting personal information as described in ESAR-VHP doc]
  Browse People
    [paged list of people tracked by credentialing module]
    [link to view each person's details]
  View Person
    [personal info]
    [titles]
    [certifications]
    Attach Certifications/Titles
    Attach Documents
Documents
  Add Document
    [form collecting document info, including optional call #]
  Browse Documents
    [paged list of documents tracked by credentialing module]
    [link to view each document]
  View Document
    [document info]
    [associated people]
    [associated certifications, titles]
    [electronic record of document, e.g. scan or transcript] (?)
    Attach a Person
Certifications
  Add Certification
    [form collecting certification info]
  Browse Certifications
    [paged list of certifications tracked by credentialing module]
  View Certification
    [certification info]
    [associated titles]
Titles
  Add Title
     [form collecting title info]
  Browse Titles
     [paged list of titles tracked by the credentialing module]
  View Title
    [title info]
    [associated certifications]
    [associated people]

As per the ESAR-VHP document, the following terminology is used:

A title is a description of a position, such as Doctor or Pharmacist.
A certification is a requirement to be certified for a certain title, such as Board Certification or Unencumbered License.
A document is a record validating a person's specific certification, such as a medical license or a letter from an employer.

The user interface will be non-linear. For example, a user will be able to attach a document from a person's page, or associate a person from a document's page.

The overview page will provide statistics on the number of people, titles, and certifications in the system, and their relationships.

Tables

vcs_acl (p_uuid [varchar 40], status[set('OK', 'admin')])
vcs_person (p_uuid[varchar 40])
vcs_document (call_num[varchar 40], desc[text], comments[text],
     doc_status[set('OK', 'missing', 'invalid')], electronic_file[varchar 128])
vcs_document_certification_title (cid [varchar 40], tid[varchar 40], call_num [varchar 60], p_uuid [varchar 40])
vcs_certification (cid[varchar 40], name[varchar 128], desc[text])
vcs_title (tid[varchar 40], name[varchar 128], desc[text], parent[varchar 40])
vcs_title_level (tid, cid[varchar 40], level[int],
     status[set('verified','unverified', 'not required')])

Usage

Adding titles and certifications:

The first thing to do when using the Credentialing module is to add one or more titles, such as 'Doctor' or 'Physician', to the system. To do that, the user has to go to the "Add Title" page in the "Titles" menu and enter a name and a description for the title. Then the user should add some certifications to the database from the "Add Certification" page. Those might include things like 'Degree', 'License', or others.

Dividing a title into levels:

Once the titles and certifications have been established, the titles can be subdivided further into any number of levels by going to the page for the particular title, entering a number for the level and clicking the "Add" button. This will lead the user to a page where he or she will be able to choose the certifications required for that level. For example, 'Degree' might be selected from the first drop-down menu as the certification, and it could be either 'verified', 'unverified' or 'not required' for that level. If no certification is selected from the first drop-down, that row will be ignored. Also, if more than three certifications are needed for the particular level, the user can simply click on the 'Add Requirement' button and an extra row will be added to the list. Once the user is finished with the selections, he/she should press the 'Save' button to store the changes. Thus the user may have a Physician Level 1 thorough 4 for example, with Level 1 being the highest (requiring the most certifications) and Level 4 being the lowest (requiring the least number of certifications).

Adding people:

Now that the levels of each title have been set, the user can start adding people to the database by going to the "Add Person" page, filling out all the required fields and clicking the 'Add Person' button at the bottom. Once the people as well as the titles are in the database, the next step is to put these two things together. That is done through documents, which serve to fulfill certifications, allowing a person to gain a certain Title and Level.

Adding documents:

Documents are added from the "Add Document" page in the "Documents" menu. The 'Call Number' field serves as a way of knowing where to locate the actual document physically, like a library book number. If one is not specified, it is filled out automatically. If the document is available on the internet, a link to it can be put in the 'Document URL' field. The status of the document can also be marked in the 'Status' drop-down menu. Once all the required fields have been filled out, the user has to press the "Add Document" button to store the document in the system.

Document association:

This will take the user to the document's page, where it can be associated to a person in the system and be used to fulfill one or more certifications. This is done by first searching for a person by their name or unique ID number in the field labeled 'Search for a person'; as the user is typing, a list of the people matching the entered criteria will come up, making it easier to find the desired person. Having selected the person, the user should then go on and select the certification that this document fulfills. He/she has to select the appropriate title from the list on the left, and the certification from the list on the right. This process can be repeated if the document is used to fulfill more than one certification.

All of the information in the system is editable after submission, allowing it to be updated with any changes over time as well as providing a way of correcting errors in the data.

View screenshots of the system.

TODO

• Internationalization
• Paging
• Electronic files (better support)
• Code refactoring and reorganization
• Access Control
• Better error handling
• Revised certification display on person page: list, then table, instead of floating boxes

From Fiedrich

• Better workflow when adding people: ask to add docs/certifications right away
• Access control: users/administrators
• Sorting
• View people by certified title
• Option to display all certified title levels, not just the lowest