RAC Management

The Django-based Research Advisory Committee (RAC) management website you're building is designed to streamline the PhD process for scholars by managing their RAC meetings, which can be conducted both online and offline. Here's an overview of how the system functions:

User Roles and Dashboards

The website caters to several roles, each with its own dashboard and functionalities:

• Scholar: Registers on the platform and selects a supervisor for their RAC meeting.
• Supervisor: Receives and approves meeting requests from scholars, schedules RAC meetings, and provides feedback post-meeting.
• Coordinator: Reviews and approves scheduled meetings before they are finalized.
• Director: Reviews and approves supervisor requests, allowing the scholar to proceed with the meeting.
• PhD Section: Monitors RAC meeting progress, approves RAC statuses, and manages final documentation.
• Internal Experts: Participate in RAC meetings and provide feedback.
• External Experts: Similar to internal experts but from outside the institution.

Scholar Workflow

1. Registration: Scholars first register on the platform.
2. Supervisor Selection: Scholars select a supervisor for their RAC meeting and send a request through their dashboard.
3. Request Approval:
   • The supervisor reviews and approves the request.
   • After supervisor approval, the request goes to the director for final approval.
   • Once approved by the director, the scholar is allowed to proceed with scheduling their RAC meeting with the chosen supervisor.

RAC Meeting Scheduling

• Scheduling: The supervisor schedules the RAC meeting, which can be either online or offline. This meeting is then displayed on a calendar within the system.
• Approval Process:
  • The scheduled meeting first goes to the coordinator for approval.
  • Once approved by the coordinator, meeting details are automatically emailed to all relevant parties, including the scholar, supervisor, coordinator, internal experts, and external experts.
  • The meeting is then displayed on the calendar.

Meeting Types

• RAC Meeting: Involves the scholar, supervisor, coordinator, internal experts, and external experts.
• Supervisor Meeting: Involves only the scholar and supervisor.

Online Meetings

• Video Conferencing: For online meetings, the system integrates with a video conferencing application (Jitsi Meet). Participants can join the meeting directly from the calendar by clicking on the scheduled meeting link.

Post-Meeting Workflow

• Feedback and Documentation:
  • After the RAC meeting concludes, the supervisor, internal experts, and external experts provide feedback on the scholar.
  • The supervisor generates a PDF report based on this feedback and uploads it to the system.
  • The PhD section reviews the uploaded document and approves the RAC status.

Milestones Tracking

• RAC Meetings: There are six RAC meetings (RAC1, RAC2, RAC3, RAC4, RAC5, RAC6) that a scholar must go through.
• Milestone Progress: As each RAC status is approved by the PhD section, the corresponding milestone is marked as complete on the scholar's dashboard.

This system ensures a structured and efficient process for managing the various stages of a scholar's PhD journey, from initial registration to the final RAC meeting approval.