Requirements and Actors
Modules 10 and 11 build one system end to end: a statewide, Commission-supported transcript review service. Educator Preparation Programs (EPPs) submit candidate transcripts; the service applies a consistent, Commission-defined methodology — including AI-assisted analysis — to evaluate how prior coursework aligns with Subject Matter Requirements (SMRs); Commission staff review the analysis and make the final call; the candidate receives a standardized, portable report. Before touching Visual Studio, nail down who uses it and what "done" means.
The three actors
- EPP submitters upload transcripts on behalf of candidates, track submission status, and respond to requests for missing documents. They care about a simple portal and fast turnaround.
- Commission analysts are the professional reviewers. They work a queue, examine each transcript against the SMR checklist, weigh the AI's suggestions, and record a determination. They are the deciders — this is a human-in-the-loop system by mandate, not by preference.
- Candidates consume the output: a report stating whether subject matter requirements are met and, if not, exactly which content areas have gaps (addressable by coursework or an exam). They may never log in, but the report travels with them between programs — so it must be standardized and self-explanatory.
Add a fourth, quieter actor: program administrators who configure SMR definitions, manage users, and pull operational reports.
The functional flow
Every feature in the next seven lessons hangs off one pipeline:
submit → analyze → review → determine → report
An EPP submits a transcript package; the system extracts coursework and proposes SMR alignments (the AI-assisted step); an analyst reviews those proposals, accepting or overriding each one; a determination is recorded; a portable report is generated. Each arrow is a status transition you'll model explicitly in Lesson 2 — vague statuses are where workflow apps rot.
The non-functionals that shape the design
Four qualities dominate every design decision in this build:
- Consistency. Two identical transcripts must get the same evaluation, this year and next. That forces a versioned methodology (Lesson 4) rather than tribal knowledge.
- Auditability. A state agency must be able to show who decided what, when, and based on which rules. Every determination gets an immutable trail.
- PII protection. Transcripts are education records — names, birthdates, grades. Encrypt at rest, restrict by role, log access, and never let transcript files leak into logs or temp folders.
- Turnaround time. The whole point of the service is faster, cheaper review than each EPP doing it alone. Queue depth and days-to-determination become first-class metrics (Module 12).
Notice what's not on the list: novelty. The stack is the one you already know — layered ASP.NET Core MVC, EF Core, SQL Server, Kendo grids for the queues. The interesting work is the domain.