Forum OpenACS Q&A: Re: acknowledgement module available?

2: Re: acknowledgement module available? (response to 1)

Posted by Caroline Meeks on 10/03/03 07:20 PM

That was at one point in time part of the spec for "Photo Book" from Sloan. They thought they would need people to "sign" a release before they uploaded thier photos and info.

I believe the lawyers told them it wasn't required and thus it was never built.

Some interesting requirements came out of the discussion. For instance it maybe important for legal reasons to record the IP address and current password of the user at the moment they click.

It would be smart to implement it so it could be applied to a whole site, a subsite, or to specific programmer specified funcitonality within a package. (e.g. you don't need to "sign" to view data on but you do need to to upload your own data).

4: Re: acknowledgement module available? (response to 2)

Posted by Peter Alberer on 10/03/03 07:48 PM

Hi Caroline,

At first i have thought about making a singleton package that allows assigning an acknowledgement to the whole site or to a specific openacs-group. But it would also be possible to create the package as a multiple mountable package that gets its "context" via the nearest subsite/community. That is probably the most flexible solution.

could you explain what you mean by "programmer specified funcitonality" in more detail? What kind of data could be useful to upload for an acknowledgement?

For the signing process i thought about several modes. The acknowledgment module could ask users to mark a checkbox, enter a phrase (something like "YES") or to enter their password.

TIA, peter

6: Re: acknowledgement module available? (response to 4)

Posted by Caroline Meeks on 10/03/03 08:08 PM

Here are some possible use cases where a developer might want to require an acknowlegement to only a specific part of a package.

Publishing Personal Data

A school decides they need a legal authorization before they can show a student's photo graph on the web. Thus the authroization form should pop up just before the student uploads thier photo.

Non-Disclosure:

A company sets up a file storage area and anyone with access can post a file thier. However, if you want to see a file you have to sign thier non-disclosure agreement first.

I'm thinking that your package could supply a tcl API like:

ad_mayberedirect_for_agreement -form "Blah-nondisclosure"

Another possible feature:

Ability to rerequire people to sign.

For instance there is a court case and the lawyer tells your company that they're old agreements are meaningless must reword all thier aggreements and get all new signatures. They need to be able to upload a new version and reset all the users agreed_p to 'f'.

On the other hand someone finds a typo, you need to upload a new version but not reset agreed_p.

7: Re: acknowledgement module available? (response to 6)

Posted by Peter Alberer on 10/03/03 08:26 PM

Agreed, those are use cases that should definitely be possible with the system! In the last case (rerequirement) i had thought about issuing a new acknowledgement requirement. But removing the old acknowledgements would save space in the database :)