Natcoll Attendance Register
This project is few years old now, and started way back when I first started teaching Web design an Natcoll http://www.natcoll.ac.nz/
We have an attendance requirement of 80% per module for our students, so to keep them informed of their attendance, I built a web based register that they could login to and see their current attendance figures They could also see the results of their assessments as well. Initially it wasn't very pretty, and being a early venture into using PHP, the code was a bit ugly too.
Regardless to say, a new version came along a year or so later which was prettier and more soundly coded, it also included PDF generation of attendance letters and a function to generate an XML file for importing into Adobe InDesign (and making it look pretty(er). The problem with this one was that it was catching on with the other disciplines at the college, so had to be adapted and more pages written to accommodate the differences in the courses.
The system also used a duplicate login system in that it authenticated against the register's MySQL database rather than the Active Directory server like the student workstation logins. With the collapse of an alternate system used at another of Natcoll's campuses, the time had come for a rethink of the whole shebang.
Enter "Rob's Super Special Attendance register v2.0". This new web based application is now fully integrated with our Active Directory services and sucks most of its information from there. Logins are authenticated, class groups are pulled, all courses are catered for and the number of files has drastically reduced.
The new system is now a streamlined mulitasking beast capable of generating attendance update letters in PDF format for each class group -- rather than each indivdual student. (Yep, we still need to have a paper trail...). The assessment portion has fallen by the wayside due to lack of time and the fact that it was not a requested feature from the other campuses.
If you are interested to see how this works, the files are available here http://littleb.co.nz/projectfiles/new_register.zip. I'm releasing this software as pintware, if you use it then you owe me a pint next time you see me.