Student Talent, Skills & Scientific Engagement Survey

Systems Engineering Department — Military Technological College (MTC), Sultanate of Oman.

A bilingual (English / Arabic) step-by-step survey with 15 questions in 5 sections, a PostgreSQL backend, and a secure staff dashboard at /admin.

Stack: Next.js 15 (App Router) · React 19 · TypeScript · Tailwind CSS 4 · shadcn/ui-style components · React Hook Form · Zod · Prisma 6 · PostgreSQL

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Staff Scientific Engagement System

Staff fill in open forms, like the student survey. No account or password is needed.

Route	Purpose
/staff	Choose a form, in English or Arabic
/staff/pathway	Pathway Leaders: pathway, competencies, external opportunities (one record each), student preparation, recommendations
/staff/module	TNA Module Coordinators: one module per form. Learning outcomes, proposed activities linked explicitly to outcomes, assessment, resources, competition potential
/staff/contribution	Academic & technical staff: expertise, workshops, project/research ideas, mentoring, delivery preferences, availability

• Same details across forms: every form starts with Your details (name, official email, position, department, pathway). The browser remembers them for the next form. The server links all contributions with the same email to one staff profile.
• Drafts: unsent answers are kept on the staff member's own device until submitted.
• Short forms: overlapping questions were merged. Pathway Leaders answer 9 questions, Module Coordinators 7 (plus their activities), and Academic/Technical staff 10.
• Attachments: each opportunity, module, module activity, workshop and project idea can carry up to 5 files (PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PNG, JPEG; 5 MB each).
  • Files are stored in the database, so they survive redeploys.
  • The file type is checked by content signature, not only the name.
  • Only signed-in administrators can download a file, always as a download, and every download is recorded in the audit log.
  • Uploads that are never submitted are deleted after 7 days.
• Validation: answers are checked step by step in the browser and again on the server. Submissions are rate-limited per IP and only accepted from this site.
• Identity is not verified: the email is self-declared. If verified identity is required, put the /staff routes behind the college's single sign-on or a shared access code.

Admin (/admin, administrators only)

The side menu is grouped as follows:

• Overview: key numbers, items waiting for review, initiatives in progress, links to share.
• Students: Student analytics (charts) and the student database.
• Staff contributions:
  • Staff directory (filters: technical field, contribution type, delivery, level, availability, workshop topic, research field)
  • Opportunities (filters: pathway, type, level, country, expected date, priority, review status)
  • Pathway report
  • Modules
  • Workshops
  • Research ideas
• Planning: Scientific planning. Turn a reviewed opportunity, workshop, project idea or module activity into an initiative, assign staff and students, record status changes (with history), track milestones and outcomes.
• Settings: Administrator accounts and password change.

Matching (on each opportunity and initiative) is rule-based and explained on screen. It uses students' self-reported survey answers: interest overlap, self-rated proficiency, readiness, weekly hours and previous participation, restricted to the target levels. It also lists staff with related expertise or mentoring interest, and the training gaps with related proposed workshops. Suggestions are never applied automatically. Administrators add students or staff to an initiative explicitly, and eligibility remains a staff decision.

Reports: CSV and Excel exports for opportunities, pathways, modules (one row per activity, with linked outcomes), workshops, research ideas, the staff directory, initiatives, and an integrated planning report per technical field. Exports follow the page filters and the interface language. They are admin-only and recorded in the audit log.

Before going live — required configuration

Item	Where	Notes
Official logo	public/brand/se-logo.jpeg	Copy the department-supplied file unchanged. Until it exists, the header shows an empty outlined placeholder. To use another file name or format (e.g. SVG), change src/config/brand.ts.
Specialisations (Q4)	src/config/survey.ts → SPECIALISATIONS, ISE_TRACKS	Configured with the 10 department programmes plus Information Systems Engineering (ISE). Choosing ISE asks for a track: Cybersecurity, Artificial Intelligence, Information Technology, or Other (specify). value is stored in the database, so do not change it once responses are being collected. Have the Arabic programme names checked.
Student ID rule (Q2)	NEXT_PUBLIC_STUDENT_ID_PATTERN env var	A regular expression applied to the trimmed, upper-cased ID. Default ^[A-Z0-9]{6,12}$. It is applied at build time, so rebuild after changing it.
Privacy / consent wording	src/i18n/en.ts, src/i18n/ar.ts → reviewScreen	Have the wording checked against institutional policy.

All visible text, in both languages, is in src/i18n/en.ts and src/i18n/ar.ts. A unit test fails if any key is missing from the Arabic file.

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Local development

Requires Node.js 20+.

npm install
cp .env.example .env        # then edit .env (see below)
npm run db:local            # optional: starts a local PostgreSQL on port 54329 (keep it running)
npx prisma migrate deploy   # creates the tables
npm run admin:create -- --email [email protected] --name "Your Name"
npm run dev                 # http://localhost:3000  (staff: /admin)

npm run db:local uses embedded-postgres (a real PostgreSQL server, stored in ./.pg-data) so you don't need a system install. For it, set:

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