RAE 2008

The Research Assessment Exercise is of vital importance to academic researchers, as it provides the results of research projects submitted to the standards agency and then budgets are allocated based on this.

I had two weeks to design and implement a relational database-driven system. Built it using ASP.NET as this provided a robust enough system to handle all the traffic, and Visual Studio provided a stable environment for testing.

On launch day, results were issued with a 90 minute embargo to prevent media leaks. This meant having to input a high number of data sets to the database, test the figures and then flick the switch. Any errors would have completely undermined the project, and lead to a loss of confidence.

To achieve optimal accuracy several rehearsals with dummy data were done, and timed to see if it was possible. We even dubbed our office Mission Control for the week leading up to it.

In the end the site launched with no errors. We received over 50,000 visitors in the first week, and it went on to become the de facto source of research assessment information for the University.

A few screen shots (click to expand)