Kopernik

Introduction to Kopernik Observatory

Kopernik Observatory & Science Center is a non-profit organization which is opened in 1974. Located atop a 1720 foot hill in Vestal, NY, the Observatory has been one of the best equipped public observatories in the Northeast United States for nearly 40 years. It provides educational program for students and their families.

Information about Current Project

Objective

Kopernik Observatory gives tens of educational programs to hundreds of students. The information about the students, their families, class, and memberships requires a big database which cannot be handled manually. Their old database is implemented in FileMaker Pro7. Although it is an effective technology for small companies, Kopernik has lots of data to store. The high amount of data makes the FileMaker Pro7 very inefficient. Not the database structure itself, also the user interface of the FileMaker is very complicated. It has lots of textboxes and unordered lists which makes users to confuse about what they are doing, especially the unexperienced users.

Kopernik Science & Observatory Center Database and Web Application Project is created by previous project team to improve the Kopernik’s current database system and its interface. To achieve this, the previous team started implementing a new relational database structure and a web application. Our project has three stages:

1. Database Stage – In this stage, we will start examining the database structure which is created by the previous project team, then we will continue from where they left off. Our main priority will be the reconstruct of the current database system.
2. Web Application Page Stage – In this stage, we will check the previous project team’s web pages and decided the adequacy of the current web pages. If there will be a need for more pages, we will create them.
3. Miscellaneous Stage – In the miscellaneous stage we will try to fulfill the extra specifications. This stage can rather be done or left out according to our schedule. If we can finish the first two stages, we will focus on the more “unimportant” functions or modules such as “Spell checking”, “go back buttons” etc.