Development
- Patricia Donohue
Development of the CCCApply International Application officially began in early 2014. The majority of the functional requirements were developed at that time. However, over the past year, development of the International Application (IA 1.0) has been delayed several times due to a series of high-priority system infrastructure and performance enhancement upgrades, and a mandatory State 508 accessibility audit of the OpenCCC and CCCApply admissions applications.
Prior to the completion of the accessibility audit, and before work began to address those issues, some development work was completed on the International Application, including changes to the Enrollment section, the Education page, and standardizing the address field sets on the Account Mailing & Contact Information pages.
Current Status
Once the accessibility requirements have been addressed in the Standard application and the OpenCCC account system, work will begin on addressing accessibility issues in the International application. Anticipated date to begin final accessibility review is January 29, 2016.
Note: Part of the State's requirements include a mandatory accessibility review - and a passing grade - before any development can be released to end users (students).
The remaining functional requirements, and any approved change requests, will be completed throughout February 19, 2016 and updated with the CCCApply Annual Update in March 2016.
Accessibility & Security
In June 2015, the OpenCCC student account system, and the CCCApply Standard application, were audited by the State of California 508 Accessibility Commission. The Audit requirements include addressing any issues identified by the state audit and undergo an outside accessibility review by December 31, 2015. Addressing the issues in the audit, as well as ensuring that all CCCApply admission applications meet or exceed 508 accessibility compliance, has been the focus of the CCC Technology Center, thus contributing to the delays in releasing the International Application to students.
Security and accessibility compliance are the highest priorities for the CCC Technology Center. In addition to the accessibility review, and to ensure our student's personal identity information is secure from breech, the International Application will undergo and must pass a security review by the CCC Technology Center CISO (Chief Information Security Officer).
The International application is slated for review immediately following the completion of the Standard application review. Our current estimate is November 14; however this date is dependent on the outcome of the review of the CCCApply Standard application review.
Agile Development
The remaining IA requirements will follow the Agile software development process, which means development and testing is performed in short, 3-week "sprint" cycles. During each sprint, developers work on specifictasks and requirements and at the end of the sprint, the team reviews the results with the steering committee and collects feedback. This process allows for ongoing continual refinement of the application so that it meets the overall requirements and accessibility standards by the end of the process.
Development Cycles
Development of the International Application will follow the development cycles described below; however, changes should be expected and we can not guarantee any dates released regarding development, planning, testing or release.
Development Sprints
Development work is completed in three week "sprints". Sprints can consist of strictly development work, or can be designated to testing or release planning. The IA development work will not be scheduled for every sprint. When an IA ticket is developed in an upcoming sprint, the Steering will be informed and maybe contacted for requirements review or testing.
Pre-release Development Schedule
The International Application is currently being developed and tested internally in a pre-release development environment. In October 2015, the application will be moved to the college testing environment (Pilot) for testing, review, and implementation set-up, but will remain in a pre-release state.
During the pre-release process, all work/code will be reviewed internally by the development team and the Tech Center engineers. Once the application is released to students (Application Launch), we will move to post-release development process, and invite Steering members to participate in sprint reviews that contain IA development work.
Post-release Development Schedule
Not all sprints will include IA development work. If a sprint contains IA development/code, the work will follow the post-release process of development > test > preview > prepare for release. Once the application is released to colleges for testing, previews, and implementation - the work will be previewed by stakeholders (steering), shown to colleges (All College Preview) , work is reviewed and approved by stakeholders before it is released.
Annual Update Cycle
After the International Application is released to students, future development will align to the CCCApply annual update cycle, which means that changes and improvements/additions to the application will be developed throughout the year and released annually in conjunction with the Annual Update (usually end of Feb, beginning of March).
Accessibility Audit
Prior to the completion of the audit and before work began to address those issues, some development was completed on the International Application, including changes to the Education Goal field, the Education page, and streamlining some of the address field sets on the Account Mailing & Contact Information pages.
The audit performed on the OpenCCC and the CCCApply standard application resulted in a fundamental shift in the way the CCC Technology Center now develops statewide applications. The OpenCCC Account - as well as the CCCApply admissions applications and BOG application - have been overhauled to meet or exceed the 508 requirements and new standards for new development have been created.
The International Application - as new development - has been included in these requirements. We cannot release any new development without a passing grade from an outside (vendor) accessibility review. Currently, the International Application is awaiting this review to begin. We estimate this review to begin around the third week in November 2015.