Project Proposal:
Academic Job Market and
Application Tracker Website
Project designed by: Cengiz Gunay
Client: Cengiz Gunay
Audience: PhD candidates and postdoctoral
fellows
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Project Summary
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Applying for academic tenure-track positions
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There is no place like Monster.com
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Announcements all over the internet, in ad-hoc
format
Low success rate: more applications
Need to research each position and customize
application
Need tracking and reminders during long
application process
Solution: community website with public &
Problem: research burden
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Need research and communication to
customize application package:
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Find needs of search committee
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Find needs of department
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Send emails to colleagues/acquaintances
If a good fit, then start applying for the job
Research burden: existing tools
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Repetitive process with non-standard formats,
but there is some help:
Job announcement websites have
announcements and allow filtered searching
and email alerts
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General: Science Careers, Nature Jobs,
HigherEdJobs
Domain specific: Computing Research
Association’s Job Service, IEEE Job Site, ACM
Career & Job Center, NeuroJobs
Specialized application websites (e.g.,
AcademicJobsOnline) – have few positions
Research burden: shotcomings
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None of the existing tools are standardized and
can compare positions in one place
Many don't allow user comments
Wikis and forums are detached from job
postings
Problem 2: tracking application
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Application has multi-stages with deadlines
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Submit materials
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Ask referees to send recommendation letters
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Track receipt of materials and letters
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Schedule interview and visits
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Track communications
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Need to do this for each application
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May need to apply to many!
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Can use a special reminder system
Proposed solution: a communitydriven website
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Crowd sourcing for:
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Creating new position entries in standard form
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Link to school, university, department
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Can comment on all of them
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Other users can edit and improve
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Tagging helps categorizing
Caution: must control crowd!
Solution: private user section
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List of positions is public, but application
process tracked privately
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User selects and follows positions
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Can add private notes
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Can start applying and tracking deadlines
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Reminder system would be useful
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Personal tags can help customize application
Solution: but will it fly?
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Provides functionality not provided elsewhere
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But will the community adopt it?
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Need to use feedback from client and focus
group
Target audience from PhD candidates and
postdocs
If successful, can make money from ads and
sponsored accounts
Plan of action:
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Can only complete proof-of-concept version in
class
Target one or few academic subdisciplines
Use existing SQL database structure: positions,
applications, communications
Still need: multiple user information, comments,
department info
Components
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A main website user interface that allows
accessing the following components
A component to enter job position
announcements and link them to academic
units.
A component to search and browse existing
positions recorded on the website.
Ability for other users to improve the details of
the position and academic units, and to
comment on them.
Select positions to be applied for in a user’s
Platforms
1) Google App Engine: A very high level service
that uses Python or Java.
Pros:
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It is easy and simple to program and deploy (see demo).
Python has a wide library and is known by most team
members.
Hosting this project will be free because of its size.
There is an existing forum software, Fofou, that can be
modified. It is based on the forum software FruitShow,
which is written by the software engineering guru and our
class reading author, Joel Spolsky.
Cons:
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By default it does not use SQL.
Project team roles
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Software architect: To define how multiple
components of the software interact and how
the control flows between them.
Data modeler: For display and internal storage,
by taking advantage of existing database
structures.
User interface designer: Easy finding of
existing information, and allow flexible editing
and user comments, similar to that of social
media sites.
Software developer: To devise algorithms and