Online Study Forum

ONLINE STUDY FORUM

UNDERTAKEN BY
Noreen Farooqi 97-PGD-12 Saira Rashid 97-PGD-13 Sumaira Siddique 97-PGD-15

SUPERVISED BY
Muhammad Azeem Irshad

A PROJECT REPORT SUBMITTED AS PARTIAL FULLFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF PGD

Centre for Information Technology GOVT.COLLEGE OF SCIENCE, MULTAN

Session 2010-2011

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Translation: In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Kind.

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FINAL APPROVAL
This is to certify that we have read this dissertation titled Online Study Forum Submitted by Saira Rashid, Noreen Farooqi and Sumaira Siddique. It is our judgement that this dissertation is of sufficient standard to warrant its acceptance by the Centre for Information Technology Govt. College of Science, Multan for the Degree of Post Graduate Diploma in Information Technology.

Committee:

1. External Examiner

_____________________

2. Supervisor Muhammad Azeem Irshad

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Centre for Information Technology Govt. College of Science, Multan.

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PROJECT BRIEF

PROJECT TITLE: NAME OF THE ORGANIZATION: OBJECTIVES: UNDERTAKEN BY:

Online Study Forum The City College Online Discussion Forum Noreen Farooqi Saira Rashid Sumaira Siddique Muhammad Azeem Irshad Lecturer: IT Centre Govt. College of Science, Multan.

SUPERVISED BY:

START DATE: END DATE: COMPUTER USED: SOURCE LANGUAGE: OPERATING SYSTEM USED: Intel Pentium 4 HTML, CSS, PHP, MYSQL Microsoft Windows-XP Professional(2ndEdition) Wamp Server Dream weaver 8

TOOL USED:

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DEDICATION
To Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H); The Holiest Person of the universe.

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Acknowledgement
we would like to express our special thanks to Mr. Imran Saqib, project Manager Centre for Information Technology Govt. College of Science and Faculty Coordinator Mr. Malik Jamshaid Iqbal, for their their tireless efforts for providing working environment and all other facilities that were needed throughout the academic session. We are lucky enough to have a supervisor, like Muhammad Azeem Irshad, for his timely and valuable help, along with healthy criticism, during all phases of development of this project. We would like to say thanks to all of our teachers as they have been the source of guidance and inspiration through out the period of this degree, for us. We would like to express our special thanks, from the core of heart, to our ideal, loving, and caring parents. They are really, a great gift of almighty ALLAH, providing endless & multi dimension transmission of love on all the modes of life, providing inspiration, motivation and encouragement. Without these prerequisite, this was not possible for us to achieve this goal.

Noreen Farooqi 97-PGD-12 Saira Rashid 97-PGD-13 Sumaira Siddique 97-PGD-15

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TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction to online study forum. 2. Introduction Existing System. 3. Introduction proposed System. 4. Design Tool. 5. User Interface. 9 18 24 32 43

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CHAPTER
INTRODUCTION TO ORGANIZATION

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Introduction to online study forum

1.0 Introduction An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived. Also, depending on the access level of a user and/or the forum set-up, a posted message might need to be approved by a moderator before it becomes visible. Forums have a specific set of jargon associated with them; e.g. a single conversation is called a "thread". A forum is hierarchical or tree-like in structure: a forum can contain a number of sub forums, each of which may have several topics. Within a forum's topic, each new discussion started is called a thread, and can be replied to by as many people as wish to. Depending on the forum's settings, users can be anonymous or have to register with the forum and then subsequently log in in order to post messages. On most forums, users do not have to log in to read existing messages. 1.1 1.1 History

Early Internet forums could be described as a web version of an electronic mailing list or newsgroup (such as exist on Usenet); allowing people to post messages and comment on other messages. Later developments emulated the different newsgroups or individual lists, providing more than one forum, dedicated to a particular topic. Internet forums are prevalent in several developed countries. Japan posts the most with over two million per day on their largest forum; China also has many millions of posts on forums such as Tianya Club. Forums perform a function similar to that of dial-up bulletin board systems and Usenet networks that were first created starting in the late 1970s. Early web-based

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Online Study Forum forums date back as far as 1994, with the WIT project from W3 Consortium and starting from this time, many alternatives were created. Forum software packages are widely available on the Internet and are written in a variety of programming languages, such as PHP, Perl, Java and ASP. The configuration and records of posts can be stored in text files or in a database. Each package offers different features, from the most basic, providing text-only postings, to more advanced packages, offering multimedia support and formatting code (usually known as BBCode). Many packages can be integrated easily into an existing website to allow visitors to post comments on articles. 1.2 1.2 Forum structure

A forum consists of a tree like directory structure containing at the lowest end topics (commonly called threads) and inside them posts. Logically forums are organized into a finite set of generic topics (usually with one main topic) driven and updated by a group known as members, and governed by a group known as moderators.] It can also have a graph structure. All message boards will use one of three possible display formats. Each of the three basic message board display formats: Non-Threaded/Semi-Threaded/Fully Threaded, has its own

advantages and disadvantages. 1.2.1 1.2.1 User groups Internally, Western-style forums organize visitors and logged in members into user groups. Privileges and rights are given based on these groups. A user of the forum can automatically be promoted to a more privileged user group based on criteria set by the administrator. A person viewing a closed thread as a member will see a box saying he does not have the right to submit messages there, but a moderator will likely see the same box granting him access to more than just posting messages. An unregistered user of the site is commonly known as a guest or visitor. Guests are typically granted access to all functions that do not require database - 10 -

Online Study Forum alterations or breach privacy. A guest can usually view the contents of the forum or use such features as read marking, but occasionally an administrator will disallow visitors to read their forum as an incentive to become a registered member. A person who is a very frequent visitor of the forum, a section or even a thread is referred to as a lurker and the habit is referred to as lurking. Registered members often will refer to themselves as lurking in a particular location, which is to say they have no intention of participating in that section but enjoy reading the contributions to it. Moderators The moderators (short singular form: "mod") are users (or employees) of the forum who are granted access to the posts and threads of all members for the purpose of moderating discussion (similar to arbitration) and also keeping the forum clean (neutralizing spam and spambots etc.). Because they have access to all posts and threads in their area of responsibility, it is common for a friend of the site owner to be promoted to moderator for such a task. Moderators also answer users' concerns about the forum, general questions, as well as respond to specific complaints. They also can do anything to lend a helping hand to a user in need. Moderators themselves may have ranks: some may be given mod privileges over only a particular topic or section (called "local"), while others (called "global" or "super") may be allowed access anywhere. Common privileges of moderators include: deleting, merging, moving, and splitting of posts and threads, locking, renaming, stickying of threads, banning, suspending, unsuspending, unbanning, warning the members, or adding, editing, removing the polls of threads. "Junior Modding", "Backseat Modding", or "Forum copping" can refer negatively to the behavior of ordinary users who take a moderator-like tone in criticizing other members. Essentially, it is the duty of the moderator to manage the day-to-day affairs of a forum or board as it applies to the stream of user contributions and interactions.

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Online Study Forum The relative effectiveness of this user management directly impacts the quality of a forum in general, its appeal, and its usefulness as a community of interrelated users. 1.2.1.1 Administrator The administrators (short form: "admin") manage the technical details required for running the site. As such, they may promote (and demote) members to moderators, manage the rules, create sections and sub-sections, as well as perform any database operations (database backup etc.). Administrators often also act as moderators. Administrators may also make forum-wide

announcements, or change the appearance (known as the skin) of a forum. 1.2.2 1.2.2 Post A post is a user-submitted message enclosed into a block containing the user's details and the date and time it was submitted. Members are usually allowed to edit or delete their own posts. Posts are contained in threads, where they appear as boxes one after another. The first post starts the thread; this may be called the TS (thread starter) or OP (original post). Posts that follow in the thread are meant to continue discussion about that post, or respond to other replies; it is not uncommon for discussions to be derailed. On Western forums, the classic way to show a member's own details (such as name and avatar) has been on the left side of the post, in a narrow column of fixed width, with the post controls located on the right, at the bottom of the main body, above the signature block. In more recent forum software implementations the Asian style of displaying the members' details above the post has been copied. Posts have an internal limit usually measured in characters. Often one is required to have a message of minimum length of 10 characters. There is always an upper limit but it is rarely reached most boards have it at either 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 or 50,000 characters.

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Online Study Forum Most forums keep track of a user's postcount. The postcount is a measurement of how many posts a certain user has made Users with higher postcounts are often considered more reputable than users with lower postcounts. Some forums have disabled postcounts in the hopes that doing so will reduce the emphasis on quantity over quality of information. 1.2.3 1.2.3 Thread A thread (sometimes called a topic) is a collection of posts, usually displayed from oldest to latest, although this is typically configurable: options for newest to oldest and for a threaded view (a tree-like view applying logical reply structure before chronological order) can be available. A thread is defined by a title, an additional description that may summarize the intended discussion, and an opening or original post (common abbreviation OP, which can also mean original poster) which opens whatever dialogue or makes whatever

announcement the poster wished. A thread can contain any number of posts, including multiple posts from the same members, even if they are one after the other. A thread is contained in a forum, and may have an associated date which is taken as the date of the last post (options to order threads by other criteria are generally available). When a member posts in a thread it will jump to the top since it is the latest updated thread. Similarly, other threads will jump in front of it when they receive posts. When a member posts in a thread for no reason but to have it go to the top, it is referred to as a bump or bumping. Threads which are important but rarely receive posts are stickyed (or, in some software, "pinned"). A sticky thread will always appear in front of normal threads, often in its own section. A thread's popularity is measured on forums in reply (total posts minus one the opening post) counts. Some forums also track page views. Threads meeting a set number of posts or a set number of views may receive a designation such as

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Online Study Forum "hot thread" and be displayed with a different icon compared to others threads. This icon may stand out more to emphasize the thread 1.3 1.3 Discussion

Forums prefer a premise of open and free discussion and often adopt de facto standards. Most common topics on forums include questions, comparisons, polls of opinion as well as debates. It is not uncommon for nonsense or unsocial behavior to sprout as people lose temper, especially if the topic is controversial. Poor understanding of differences in values of the participants is a common problem on forums. Because replies to a topic are often worded aimed at someone's point of view, discussion will usually go slightly off into several directions as people question each others' validity, sources and so on. Circular discussion and ambiguity in replies can extend for several tens of posts of a thread eventually ending when everyone gives up or attention spans waver and a more interesting subject takes over. It is not uncommon for debate to end in ad hominem attacks. 1.4 Discussion Formats and Activities 1.4.1 Post First Use this format if your students typically feel like "everything has already been said" by the time it's their turn to post. When students enter the forum, they cannot see any other posts until they make a new post of their own. This way everyone is forced to post an original thought, even if it has already been generated in the discussion. Some course management systems have this format built in, but if yours doesn't then you'll have to set it up manually. Typically you can set up two "teams" or "groups" in your course and set them up as follows: Team One has only "write" permissions (meaning they can write a post, but not see any others), and Team Two has both "read and write" permissions in the forum . Initially, everyone is enrolled in Team One. Using - 14 -

Online Study Forum your CMS's automation features, you can set up an "action" so when a student posts to the forum they are unenrolled from Team One and enrolled in Team Two. 1.4.2 Jigsaw: Generate a short list of topics within the concept you are teaching. Each student becomes an 'expert' on one of those topics, first by themselves and then in discussion with other experts. Later these student experts become responsible, through dialogue, for helping non-experts to become as knowledgeable as they are. For example, a class of 25 students works on five topics. Each student decides which of these 5 topics they wish to become expert about. They spend time before or during class studying thier topic in order to develop the required expertise. Students who have selected the same topic gather in a small group to raise questions, explore misunderstandings and discuss what they have learned. When students feel they have finished pooling the insights they have gained in the course of becoming expert, new small groups are formed that include expert representatives from each of the original topics groups. Each student expert takes a turn in leading the others in a discussion of their particular area of expertise. These small groups end when all members of the group express satisfaction with their knowledge and understanding of all of the topics covered. Sometimes the exercise ends there - other times it extends to a large group summing up. I.4.3 Hot-seat: This format calls for the moderator to be well informed about the subject being covered in the discussion. It usually helps to be prepared ahead of time with source materials covering the main points or issues that might help steer the discussion in the preferred or pre-agreed direction. They keep the discussion on track by asking the questions that they feel will cover the

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Online Study Forum important aspects of the subject while still encouraging free thought and discussion from the other participants. 1.5 Scope of the project Following are the foremost features of the site Intellectual exchange Learning new ideas and refining old ones Enjoying community membership Influencing the forum's evolution Contributing to others Making new friends and contacts Keeping up with current events Flexible study time you can upgrade your career level without leaving your job; easy revision options 1.6 Objectives Following are the objectives of the proposed system online education does not require commuting You will be complete most of the classes at your convenience. Live anywhere, The system will be facilitate slow and quick learners Accessibility. Gain extra knowledge. Self-paced learning. online education is much cheaper than on-campus classes; engagement Costly and complex technology.

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CHAPTER
EXISTING SYSTEM

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2.1 Introduction
The primary goal of Existing study is to provide a structured method to focus on problems, identify objectives, evaluate, and aid in the selection of the best solutions. In this step, the system before doing something is understood to improve its functioning. In other words, we must find out what is going on. It is essential for a system designer to understand the system before its improvement or computerization. The process of understanding the system includes becoming involved, sometimes deeply involved in the system, as it currently exists. During this process the system designer learns a great deal about the subject matter. The system designer must know what it is going on and what he should do. Feasibility study is not warranted for systems in which economic justification is obvious, technical risk is low, few legal problems are expected, and reasonable alternative exits.

To improve confidence that the recommended action is the most viable solution to the problem.

To assure that products requiring information systems resources can be done, should be done, and will be done.

2.2 Process:
Our existing system is a typical or a traditional education system and in a traditional education system classroom is the basic unit for learning. As for as concern to the process of a traditional education system it always follows a set of certain rules and regulations. As students and teachers, we all have had the experience of being in a traditional classroom. You can see and interact with your classmates. Every movement or sound around you is visible or audible to distract you. The usual scene of flying aero planes, caricatures, jokes etc behind teachers' back especially when they are writing on the board, punishments, getting grounded and what not. You are getting bored but dare not leave the - 18 -

Online Study Forum lecture in between. Or else maybe as a teacher you want to extend your lecture but the schedule holds you. The process can be explain with the help of following points 2.2.1 SPECIAL AV. AIDS In a traditional classroom special av aids related to the topic are required to make the lesson more effective and interesting . 2.2.2 Teacher centered classroom In traditional classrooms teacher has the main role. The teacher explains the things. In other words teacher has main power in the controlled environment of a classroom. The term "traditional classroom" brings to mind visions of a classroom of twenty or more children, all roughly the same age, listening raptly to the instructor or teacher, while all working diligently at their studies.

2.3 Impetus for change The main reason behind the conversion of the existing system into the online format is to provide such a platform where student can express their thought and share their ideas more effectively with their fellows , and teachers will be their to guide them when they need . 2.4 Nature of problem We observe many problems in the existing system. These problems are as below: impossible for one person to give each student the one-on-one attention lacks student focused learning lacks emphasis on critical thinking lacks process oriented learning lacks interactivity Pupils sitting too close to one another will surely lead to some unnecessary quarrels over territorial space. - 19 -

Online Study Forum Pupils will be easily distracted by those who are more cheeky

2.5 Scope of the problem The scope of the problem means the area in which the problem lies. It is very important to define the area in which the problem lies before starting to solve the problem. 2.6 Problem in the Existing system Within the available resources traditional education system providing good education to the students. However with the increasing numbers of students and the need to cope up with the modern age, the existing system of education is becoming insufficient ton cope up with the requirements. Some of the drawbacks are described here. 2.6.1 Not suitable for all students In a classroom of twenty to thirty children, there are going to be several children with differing learning styles and academic strengths and weaknesses. it is very difficult for a teacher to help with on-on-one o all the students with in the specific time duration of a lecture. 2.6.2 Existing system is uninteresting for the students In a traditional classroom environment, it's not uncommon for children to become bored or frustrated because in a classroom students have a passive roll. The teachers have to complete his lecture within specific time and students are bound to listen the teacher. They are mostly having no chance to interact with the teacher. 1.4 2.6.3 Lacks Process Oriented Learning

Traditional training emphasizes passing tests, whether or not students under testing material. The learning process is thus devalued, and students are not encouraged to understand the methods, techniques and skills required to find - 20 -

Online Study Forum answers. Constructivist learning holds the process as important as the results because it stimulates skills important long after schooling. 1.5 2.6.4 Lacks Emphasis on Larger Concepts or Structures

Rather than focusing on larger concepts and considering student context in the learning as constructivist training does, traditional training focuses on basic skills and gradually builds to a whole. While this simplifies learning, it provides little context, which can disconnect learners. 1.6 2.6.5 Lacks Interactivity

Traditional training emphasizes individual student work and projects and is poor preparation for a student's future endeavors, which are likely to include working on teams and collaborating with colleagues. Under this training model, students receive few opportunities to practice group dynamics and teamwork. 2.6.6 Encourage passive learning

Depending on the level of interaction in the classroom setting, shy students may be allowed to attend classes without providing alternative ways to communicate ideas. Forcing students to learn by vocal exchange with a professor may limit their ability to learn. 2.6.7 Ignore individual learning differences between students Classrooms environments tend to group students together in large number often making it difficult for instructors to isolate learning deficiencies and provide the necessary close attention that individuals may need to learn. Online classes allow for a more individual perspective from the professors standpoint due to most of the communication being easily handled through email and chat. 2.6.8 Neglect problem solving, critical thinking, and higher order learning skills

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Online Study Forum The classroom setting can also hinder ones ability to learn by allowing other, more vocal, students to dominate the bulk of the discussion

environments. Quieter personalities are limited in their communication options for exchanging ideas and information

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CHAPTER
PROPOSED SYSTEM

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Online Study Forum 3.1 Introduction The proposed system will be a computerized system. Students just enroll themselves and can join the online classroom discussion. Proposed system will be providing all activities described in the existing system and will provide necessary information with accuracy and efficiency. Proposed system is designed keeping in mind all the problems being faced in the present system. 3.2 Scope of proposed system Since the existing system is not sufficient, so an online system is proposed. The online system is designed keeping in mind all the problems presented in the existing system, it is hoped that this approach will meet all the possible requirements of the students. The main purpose of the proposed system is to provide an online discussion forum where students share their ideas and can attend their classes at any time. They can also take their missing notes. If they have any imbigwati about any thing they can consult their teacher or their fellows. The plus side is that you can get a lot of information from different sources that you may not have access to The proposed system will save time and can continue his studies with any other work (job). The proposed system (online study forum) is more flexible compared to face to face communication as they provide time to reflect and think and allow both introverted and extroverted students to be involved in online discussions. Forum members could willingly share their wealth of knowledge and experience with other members. In return, every member of the forum can benefit from this infusion of free knowledge. 3.3 Need of computerized processing Computerization means automation of the system, which was previously working and was slow. Pakistan is developing in science and technology. - 24 -

Online Study Forum Twenty first century is the information technologys (IT) century. IT is the central focus of all major companies world wide to lower costs and improve quality of products and services. Internet is a very powerful and revolutionary technology which is affecting the world, people nations and as well as individuals. The internet enables computers of all kinds to directly communicate and share services thought the world. World has become a global village and this is all due to facility of internet. The advent of computers had changed the world. This powerful and revolutionary technology has affecting the world, nations and as well as the individuals. Now computer is affecting all fields of life and is becoming necessary for every field. E-learning is the buzzword of the day. Due to online study it is easier for them to continue the process of learning according to their ease. 3.4 Benefits of the proposed system

The most successful projects are those that truly do what their user expected. Thats why we clearly notify all the user requirements as below: 3.4.1 Efficiency Efficiency is the degree to which we maximize utilization of resources for achieving an object. The proposed system will be more efficient than existing system. 1.6.1.1 3.4.2 Flexibility Online courses typically allow students to work asynchronously, which means that they can complete their coursework at the time and place of their choosing. 1.6.1.2 3.4.3 Communication Gone are the days when distance learning meant that you had to correspond with your instructor via snail mail, or even email. Today's Internet-based courses - 25 -

Online Study Forum typically include opportunities for instant communication such as message boards, online chatting and even videoconferencing. 3.4.4 Student-centered learning: In an online environment, Students are empowered to learn on their own and even to teach one another. Particularly in the discussion group mode, students have the opportunity to explain, share, comment upon, critique, and develop course materials among themselves in a manner rarely seen in the F2F classroom. 3.4.5 Highly interactive discussions: The online environment, discussions enter a new dimension. When an instructor posts a question on the asynchronous discussion board, every student in the class is expected to respond, respond intelligently, and respond several time. 3.4.6 Geared to lifelong learning: The online environment fosters self-motivated education. Students direct their own use of Internet links, search engines, discussion boards, chat, e-mail, and other media. While such resources cannot guarantee student initiative, they establish a framework that gives precedence to the autonomy of the learner. 3.4.7 Immediate feedback: Online students generally have greater access to instructors. Online students, however, can and do e-mail countless questions to their professors and frequently engage in a dialogue that would be hard to duplicate in the F2F world. 3.4.8 Distance learning does not require commuting. This saves you money and time that youd otherwise spend on travel back and forth to school. You can schedule learning around other aspects of your personal and professional life.

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3.4.9 You can complete most of the classes at your convenience. Most of the classes are asynchronous, which means you dont have to attend a lecture at a particular time and place. You can review the assignments and do your homework during off-hours or from home. 3.4.10 Live anywhere Study from anywhere while pursuing the education of your choice. You don't have to live in the same city or the same country to attend the learning institution of your choice. You can study wherever you have access to a computer and Internet connection. 3.4.11 Self-paced learning. For slow and quick learners. This reduces stress and increases satisfaction. 3.4.12 Cost: An online education does not require that you relocate to a new place or that you forgo full time work 3.5 Others

May generate ideas which may not arise during real-time classroom discussions.

Elicits responses from quieter students who shy away from speaking up in class by providing a more comfortable discussion venue in which to contribute.

Provides individual points, as well as whole online discussion threads, that can be referenced in class, enriching the discussion and acknowledging thoughtful ideas.

Student comments can be read and validated fairly quickly, showing that you are invested in their ideas.

Students expand their personal knowledge-base through the back-andforth engagement and interaction with other classmates sharing insights, perspectives, points-of-view, as well as their personally held information and knowledge.

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Online Study Forum 3.6 Planning

The web-based system is designed after complete analysis of the manual system. This system is developed to to provide online discussion facility. A system is a set of related components that work together to fulfill a purpose. The replacement of the existing system with web-based system was necessary to improve

Performance Information Accessibility Learning new ideas and refining old ones Intellectual exchange Keeping up with current events Learning about new opportunities Planning is important factor. In this phase of preliminary investigation, the figures are prepared in rough forms. The success of the project depends on the good plan. It can be determined for a project that when and which project cost will be completed. To answer those questions, we prepared schedule and budget.

3.7 Schedule

The planning phase, the duration of the project considered, in which it would be completed. The duration of the project is different for different projects. This project estimate completion time is three months.

Survey and Study Analysis Design Development

1 Week 3 Week 3 Week 4 Week

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Online Study Forum 3.8 Select a Feasibility Solution A controlled process for identifying problems, opportunities or mandates, determine objectives, describing current situation and successful outcomes, and assessing the range of costs and benefits associated with several alternatives for solving a problem. The study will be used to support agencys justification for information system resource requests in excess of their procurement thresholds. The selection phase determines how the new system is to be a design. For this purpose a feasible solution among all possible solution is selected. The selection of a solution is determined that satisfies following conditions. 3.8.1 Technical feasibility A system request is technical feasibility if the organization can obtain the equipment and personnel to develop (or purchase), and operate the system. Technical feasibility is frequently the most difficult area because objectives functions and performance are somewhat hazy. It essentials that the process of analysis and conducted in parallel with an assessment of technical feasibility. The equipment and other items are currently available in market. 3.8.2 Operational feasibility An operational feasibility system is one that will be used effectively after it has been developed. If users have difficulty with new systems, it will not produce the expected benefits. User-friendly interface make it easier for the customer to navigate through the web site. A solution is operationally feasible if it can be fulfill the end users requirements flexibly with the future needs. This system will fulfill almost all the the requirements of end user. - 29 -

Online Study Forum The proposed system will be user friendly and user will operate the system efficiently. The purposed system will operationally fulfill all requirements of the user.

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Online Study Forum

CHAPTER
DESIGN TOOL

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4.1 What is PHP?

PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor is a widely used, general-purpose scripting language that was originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document. As a general-purpose programming language, PHP code is processed by an interpreter application in command-line mode performing desired operating system operations and producing program output on its standard output channel. It may also function as a graphical application. PHP is available as a processor for most modern web servers and as a standalone interpreter on most operating systems and computing platforms.

PHP originally stood for personal home page. Its development began in 1994 when the Danish/Greenlandic programmer Rasmus Lerdorf initially created a set of Perl scripts he called 'Personal Home Page Tools' to maintain his personal homepage, including tasks such as displaying his rsum and recording how much traffic his page was receiving.

He rewrote these scripts as C programming language Common Gateway Interface (CGI) binaries, extending them to add the ability to work with web forms and to communicate with databases and called this implementation 'Personal Home Page/Forms Interpreter' or PHP/FI. PHP/FI could be used to build simple, dynamic web applications. 'Personal Home Page Tools (PHP Tools) ' publicly on June 8, 1995, to accelerate bug location and improve the code. This release already had the basic functionality that PHP has today. This included Perl-like variables, form handling, and the ability to embed HTML. The syntax was similar to Perl but was more limited and simpler, although less consistent.

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Online Study Forum 1.6.2 4.1.1 Licensing: 1.6.3 PHP is free software released under the PHP License, which insists that: 1.6.4 1.6.5
Products derived from this software may not be called "PHP", nor May "PHP" appear in their name, without prior written permission From group@php.net. You may indicate that your software works in Conjunction with PHP by saying "Foo for PHP" instead of calling It "PHP Foo" or "phpfoo"

This restriction on use of the name PHP makes it incompatible with the GNU General Public License (GPL). 4.1.2 Usage: PHP is a general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited to serverside web development where PHP generally runs on a web server. Any PHP code in a requested file is executed by the PHP runtime, usually to create dynamic web page content. It can also be used for command-line scripting and client-side GUI applications. PHP can be deployed on most web servers, many operating systems and platforms, and can be used with many relational database management systems. It is available free of charge, and the PHP Group provides the complete source code for users to build, customize and extend for their own use. PHP primarily acts as a filter, taking input from a file or stream containing text and/or PHP instructions and outputs another stream of data; most commonly the output will be HTML. Since PHP 4, the PHP parser compiles input to produce bytecode for processing by the Zend Engine, giving improved performance over its interpreter predecessor. Originally designed to create dynamic web pages, PHP now focuses mainly on server-side scripting, and it is similar to other server-side scripting languages that provide dynamic content from a web server to a client, such as Microsoft's - 33 -

Online Study Forum Active Server Pages, Sun Microsystems' Java Server Pages, and mod_perl. PHP has also attracted the development of many frameworks that provide building blocks and a design structure to promote rapid application development (RAD). Some of these include CakePHP, Symfony, CodeIgniter, and Zend Framework, offering features similar to other web application frameworks. The LAMP architecture has become popular in the web industry as a way of deploying web applications. PHP is commonly used as the P in this bundle alongside Linux, Apache and MySQL, although the P may also refer to Python or Perl or some combination of the three. WAMP packages (Windows/ Apache/ MySQL / PHP) and MAMP packages (Macintosh / Apache / MySQL / PHP) are also available. As of April 2007, over 20 million Internet domains had web services hosted on servers with PHP installed and mod_php was recorded as the most popular Apache HTTP Server module. 4.1.3 Security: The National Vulnerability Database maintains a list of vulnerabilities found in computer software. The overall proportion of PHP-related vulnerabilities on the database amounted to: 20% in 2004, 28% in 2005, 43% in 2006, 36% in 2007, 35% in 2008, and 30% in 2009. Most of these PHP-related vulnerabilities can be exploited remotely: they allow attackers to steal or destroy data from data sources linked to the webserver (such as an SQL database), send spam or contribute to DoS attacks using malware, which itself can be installed on the vulnerable servers. These vulnerabilities are caused mostly by not following best practice programming rules: technical security flaws of the language itself or of its core libraries are not frequent (23 in 2008, about 1% of the total). Recognizing that

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Online Study Forum programmers cannot be trusted, some languages include taint checking to detect automatically the lack of input validation which induces many issues. Such a feature is being developed for PHP, but its inclusion in a release has been rejected several times in the past. Hosting PHP applications on a server requires a careful and constant attention to deal with these security risks. There are advanced protection patches such as Suhosin and Hardening-Patch, especially designed for web hosting

environments. 4.1.4 Syntax: PHP only parses code within its delimiters. Anything outside its delimiters is sent directly to the output and is not processed by PHP (although non-PHP text is still subject to control structures described within PHP code). The most common delimiters are <?php to open and ?> to close PHP sections. <script
language="Php"> and </script> delimiters are also available, as are the shortened

forms <? or <?= (which is used to echo back a string or variable) and ?> as well as ASP-style short forms <% or <%= and %>. While short delimiters are used, they make script files less portable as support for them can be disabled in the PHP configuration, and so they are discouraged.

An introductory example:
<html> <head> <title>PHP Test</title> </head> <body> <?php echo "Hello World"; /* echo("Hello World"); works as well, although echo isn't a function, but a language construct. In some cases, such as when multiple parameters are passed to echo, parameters cannot be enclosed in parentheses. */ ?> </body>

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</html>

The purpose of all these delimiters is to separate PHP code from non-PHP code, including HTML. The first form of delimiters, <?php and ?>, in XHTML and other XML documents, creates correctly formed XML 'processing instructions'. This means that the resulting mixture of PHP code and other markup in the server-side file is itself well-formed XML. Variables are prefixed with a dollar symbol and a type does not need to be specified in advance. Unlike function and class names, variable names are case sensitive. Both double-quoted ("") and heredoc strings allow the ability to embed a variable's value into the string. PHP treats newlines as whitespace in the manner of a free-form language (except when inside string quotes), and statements are terminated by a semicolon. PHP has three types of comment syntax: /* */ marks block and inline comments; // as well as # are used for oneline comments. The echo statement is one of several facilities PHP provides to output text (e.g. to a web browser). In terms of keywords and language syntax, PHP is similar to most high level languages that follow the C style syntax. If conditions, for and while loops, and function returns are similar in syntax to languages such as C, C++, Java and Perl.

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4.2 What is MySQL?

MySQL is a relational database management system (RDBMS)[1] that runs as a server providing multi-user access to a number of databases. It is named for original developer Michael Widenius's. The MySQL development project has made its source code available under the terms of the GNU General Public License, as well as under a variety of proprietary agreements. MySQL was owned and sponsored by a single for-profit firm, the Swedish company MySQL AB, now owned by Sun Microsystems, a subsidiary of Oracle Corporation. Free-software projects that require a full-featured database management system often use MySQL. Such projects include (for example) WordPress, phpBB, Drupal and other software built on the LAMP software stack. MySQL is also used in many high-profile, large-scale World Wide Web products including Wikipedia, Google . 4.2.1 Platforms and interfaces: MySQL code uses C and C++. The SQL parser uses yacc and a home-brewed lexer, sql_lex.cc MySQL works on many different system platforms, including AIX, BSDi, FreeBSD, HP-UX, i5/OS, Linux, Mac OS X, NetBSD, Novell NetWare, OpenBSD, OpenSolaris, eComStation, OS/2 Warp, QNX, IRIX, Solaris, Symbian, SunOS, SCO OpenServer, SCO UnixWare, Sanos, Tru64 and Microsoft Windows. A port of MySQL to OpenVMS also exists. Many programming languages with language-specific APIs include libraries for accessing MySQL database. In addition, an ODBC interface called MyODBC allows additional programming languages that support the ODBC interface to - 37 -

Online Study Forum communicate with a MySQL database, such as ASP or ColdFusion. The HTSQL URL based query method also ships with MySQL adapter allowing direct interaction with MySQL database from any web client via structured URLs. The MySQL server and official libraries are mostly implemented in ANSI C/ANSI C++

1.7 4.2.2 Management and graphical frontends:

MySQL is primarily an RDBMS and therefore ships with no GUI tools to administer MySQL databases or manage data contained within. Users may use the included command-line tools, or download MySQL frontends from various parties that have developed desktop software and web applications to manage MySQL databases, build database structure, and work with data records. One of the popular front end is PhpMyAdmin. The official MySQL Workbench is a free integrated environment developed by MySQL AB, that enables users to graphically administer MySQL databases and visually design database structure. MySQL Workbench replaces the previous package of software, MySQL GUI Tools. Similar to other third-party packages but still considered the authoritative MySQL frontend, MySQL Workbench lets users manage the following:

Database design & modeling SQL development replacing MySQL Query Browser Database administration replacing MySQL Administrator

MySQL Workbench is available in two editions, the regular free and open source Community Edition which may be downloaded from the MySQL website, and the proprietary Standard Edition which extends and improves the feature set of the Community Edition.

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1.8 4.2.3 Features:

They have a common code base and include the following features:

A broad subset of ANSI SQL 99, as well as extensions Cross-platform support Stored procedures Triggers Cursors Updatable Views True Varchar support INFORMATION_SCHEMA Strict mode X/Open XA distributed transaction processing (DTP) support; two phase commit as part of this, using Oracle's InnoDB engine

Independent storage engines (MyISAM for read speed, InnoDB for transactions and referential integrity, MySQL Archive for storing historical data in little space)

Transactions with the InnoDB, BDB and Cluster storage engines; savepoints with InnoDB

SSL support Query caching Sub-SELECTs (i.e. nested SELECTs) Replication support (i.e. Master-Master Replication & Master-Slave Replication) with one master per slave, many slaves per master, no automatic support for multiple masters per slave.

Full-text indexing and searching using MyISAM engine Embedded database library Partial Unicode support (UTF-8 and UCS-2 encoded strings are limited to the BMP) - 39 -

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Partial ACID compliance (full compliance only when using the nondefault storage engines InnoDB, BDB and Cluster)

Partititoned tables with pruning of partitions in optimiser Shared-nothing clustering through MySQL Cluster Hot backup (via mysqlhotcopy) under certain conditions

The developers release monthly versions of the MySQL Server. The sources can be obtained from MySQL's web site or from MySQL's Bazaar repository, both under the GPL license.

1.8.1 4.3 Java Script

JavaScript is a special language used in many web sites. A scripting language is a language, which is easy and fast to learn. A scripting language is interpreted in run-time. It is not compiled like other languages as C++, C#, VB. NET etc. JavaScript is client side language and it runs on the client browser. Netscape developed it and because of its simplicity, it is one of the most known scripting languages. It can also be used on server side. Java Script can be used on all most known browsers. It can be easily used to interact with HTML elements. We can validate text fields, disable buttons, validate forms, or change the background color of page on run time using java script. Like other programming languages it contains variables, arrays, functions, operators, objects and much more that can help us to create better scripts for our pages. JavaScript code can be inserted directly in the HTML or we can place it in a separate file with the js extension and link the web page with the js file.

1.8.2 4.5 Wamp Server

The acronym Wamp refers to an open source application (Apache, MYSQL and one or more of Parl, PHP and Python), combined with Microsoft Windows, Which are commonly used in Web Server environments. The WAMP stack provides the four key elements of a web server: an operating system windows, database MYSQL, Web server (Apache) and web scripting software (PHP, PEARL, PYTHON).

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CHAPTER
USER INTERFACE

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