Chapter One
Content
CHAPTER ONE
1
INTRODUCTION
Below is a basic summary of the different sections of this document: In chapter 2 this document reviews relevant current literatures and its documentation. Chapter 3 focuses on the analysis and design of the old and new systems. Chapter four discusses the processes involve in the implementation and documentation of the software. Chapter five finishes this report with summary, evaluations, recommendations and conclusion. I have also included the possible areas of future work that could be done by anyone who may want to continue work in the area of this project.
1.1
Background to the Study
In an effort to generate revenue and help develop the educational sector of Nigeria, The Evangelical Church Wining All (ECWA) established her first university by the name Bingham University in the year 2005 in Jos, Plateau State after which the school was moved to its permanent site in Nassarawa State. The school boasts of about four faculties, ten departments and five thousand students. Computer Science is one of such departments in the faculty of Science and Technology, which holds and nurtures about one hundred and fifty students (undergraduates and diploma) and fifteen staff. These staff and students are one group of people that involve themselves in various software developments (basically students) as it is mandatory at some level in the course of their study. Apart from this, some of them have developed
1
themselves as a programmer that seeks to earn some/all of his/her living from software development. But as it is now, some of the softwares produced in the department have not been introduced to the public for acceptance and primarily for sale due to lack of efficient, adequate and effective publishing and marketing techniques. Hence, the need for an efficient and effective On-line Ecommerce Enterprise Application; where staff and students can show off their work for sale. Also, in an attempt to develop a highly secure, fast and reliable application using powerful set of APIs while reducing development time, application complexity and improving application performance, Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) will be used.
1.2
Statement of Problem
The staff and students of Computer Science Department, Bingham University, have always had to promote the awareness of the various softwares built in the department manually since the establishment of the institution. They’ve never had the chance to display their projects electronically in this twenty-first century for sale. Most of the softwares built always never get past the door of the school. According to Muyiwa, a student of the department, “those that manage to get to the eye of the public must have cost the developer a great effort. Apart from this, the software is sold at an undesirable price due to lack of guidance.” Also, according to realtime experience, staff and students sometimes have to go through National Association of Computer Science Student (NACOSS) to have their softwares published and put on shelve for sale. These have resulted in unnecessary stress, discouragement in software development and accumulation of abandoned projects (finished and unfinished) on the part of the people
2
concerned, which would have served as permanent/partial solution to some critical business problems in the society. It was in response to the above that the project was initiated (see Appendix A).
1.3
Terms of Reference
A web-based e-commerce site with a RESTful web service as an additional functionality is expected to be developed and implemented to electronically assist in the publication and sale of softwares built in the department.
1.4
Project Aims and Objectives
The system will provide the following functionalities: 1. Have an online representation of the products (softwares) on sales in the department based on their category. Each category will have products ascribed to it, which customers can browse to view product information and add any of the listed products to his/her cart. 2. Possess a virtual shopping cart functionality, which includes the ability to: 1. add items to the shopping cart. 2. remove items from the cart. 3. update items quantities in the cart. 4. view a summary of all items and quantities in the cart. 3. An administration console that enables customers to view their orders.
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4. Possess a welcome page that introduces the business and service to customers and allows them to navigate to any of the product category. 5. Provide security, by protecting sensitive shopper’s data/information while it is been transformed over the internet. 6. Prevent unauthorized users from accessing the administration console. 7. Have it database exposed as a RESTful web service with Google map feature. 8. Authenticates a single user as the Administrator. 9. Contains a confirmation page that provides a summary of customer’s order and generates unique reference number for each customer for tracking the customer order. 10. Be web based and hosted. 11. Possess a page where shoppers can meet with the staff and student developers. On this page customer can read a detailed article demonstrating the functions and features of a specific software he/she wants to purchase written by the developer and also browse through the developer’s biography. 1.5 Limitations
The system to be developed must adhere to the following constraints: 1. The application must be developed with NetBeans IDE. 2. Compatibility: The application should not be biased to any one internet browser or operating system and must meet with the W3C standards. 3. Java programming language with emphasis on Java Enterprise Edition and MySQL must be used in the development of the system. 4. The system must have been developed by September 2011.
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1.6
Significance of the Study
According to Investopedia “E-commerce has allowed firms to establish a market presence, or to enhance an already larger market position, by allowing for a cheaper and more efficient distribution chain for their products or services”. Hence, I believe that the outcome of this study would begin an era when the department would no longer stress herself through manual publication and sale of developed software in a bid to encourage her staff and students. Also, it would help to build the department’s image education wise and earn her staff and students recognition worldwide, hence promoting the prestige of the school. Revenue generation for the department, staff and students is another benefit to the study.
1.7
Scope of the Study
The project is limited to the development of an E-commerce Enterprise Application with the incorporation of a RESTful web service.
1.8
Definition of Terms 1. API: “Application Programming Interface”, a collection of classes that an application program uses to carry out lower level services performed by the OS. 2. OS: “Operating System”, utilities of programs written to art as a platform for the execution and development of other programs. 3. MySQL: “My Structured Query Language”, a type of querying language specific to MySQL database. Query Language is a structured language used to create and access data in a database.
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4. IDE: “Integrated Development Environment”, software that assists developers in the development of other softwares. 5. E-commerce: “Electronic commerce”, selling products online via the web (TechEncyclopedia, 2011). 6. RESTful: “Representational State Transfer”, otherwise known as REST-based is a collection of web resources identified by URIs. 7. URI: Uniform Resource Identifier 8. NACOSS: National Association of Computer Science Students. 9. SDLC: “Software Development Life Cycle”
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1
INTRODUCTION
Below is a basic summary of the different sections of this document: In chapter 2 this document reviews relevant current literatures and its documentation. Chapter 3 focuses on the analysis and design of the old and new systems. Chapter four discusses the processes involve in the implementation and documentation of the software. Chapter five finishes this report with summary, evaluations, recommendations and conclusion. I have also included the possible areas of future work that could be done by anyone who may want to continue work in the area of this project.
1.1
Background to the Study
In an effort to generate revenue and help develop the educational sector of Nigeria, The Evangelical Church Wining All (ECWA) established her first university by the name Bingham University in the year 2005 in Jos, Plateau State after which the school was moved to its permanent site in Nassarawa State. The school boasts of about four faculties, ten departments and five thousand students. Computer Science is one of such departments in the faculty of Science and Technology, which holds and nurtures about one hundred and fifty students (undergraduates and diploma) and fifteen staff. These staff and students are one group of people that involve themselves in various software developments (basically students) as it is mandatory at some level in the course of their study. Apart from this, some of them have developed
1
themselves as a programmer that seeks to earn some/all of his/her living from software development. But as it is now, some of the softwares produced in the department have not been introduced to the public for acceptance and primarily for sale due to lack of efficient, adequate and effective publishing and marketing techniques. Hence, the need for an efficient and effective On-line Ecommerce Enterprise Application; where staff and students can show off their work for sale. Also, in an attempt to develop a highly secure, fast and reliable application using powerful set of APIs while reducing development time, application complexity and improving application performance, Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) will be used.
1.2
Statement of Problem
The staff and students of Computer Science Department, Bingham University, have always had to promote the awareness of the various softwares built in the department manually since the establishment of the institution. They’ve never had the chance to display their projects electronically in this twenty-first century for sale. Most of the softwares built always never get past the door of the school. According to Muyiwa, a student of the department, “those that manage to get to the eye of the public must have cost the developer a great effort. Apart from this, the software is sold at an undesirable price due to lack of guidance.” Also, according to realtime experience, staff and students sometimes have to go through National Association of Computer Science Student (NACOSS) to have their softwares published and put on shelve for sale. These have resulted in unnecessary stress, discouragement in software development and accumulation of abandoned projects (finished and unfinished) on the part of the people
2
concerned, which would have served as permanent/partial solution to some critical business problems in the society. It was in response to the above that the project was initiated (see Appendix A).
1.3
Terms of Reference
A web-based e-commerce site with a RESTful web service as an additional functionality is expected to be developed and implemented to electronically assist in the publication and sale of softwares built in the department.
1.4
Project Aims and Objectives
The system will provide the following functionalities: 1. Have an online representation of the products (softwares) on sales in the department based on their category. Each category will have products ascribed to it, which customers can browse to view product information and add any of the listed products to his/her cart. 2. Possess a virtual shopping cart functionality, which includes the ability to: 1. add items to the shopping cart. 2. remove items from the cart. 3. update items quantities in the cart. 4. view a summary of all items and quantities in the cart. 3. An administration console that enables customers to view their orders.
3
4. Possess a welcome page that introduces the business and service to customers and allows them to navigate to any of the product category. 5. Provide security, by protecting sensitive shopper’s data/information while it is been transformed over the internet. 6. Prevent unauthorized users from accessing the administration console. 7. Have it database exposed as a RESTful web service with Google map feature. 8. Authenticates a single user as the Administrator. 9. Contains a confirmation page that provides a summary of customer’s order and generates unique reference number for each customer for tracking the customer order. 10. Be web based and hosted. 11. Possess a page where shoppers can meet with the staff and student developers. On this page customer can read a detailed article demonstrating the functions and features of a specific software he/she wants to purchase written by the developer and also browse through the developer’s biography. 1.5 Limitations
The system to be developed must adhere to the following constraints: 1. The application must be developed with NetBeans IDE. 2. Compatibility: The application should not be biased to any one internet browser or operating system and must meet with the W3C standards. 3. Java programming language with emphasis on Java Enterprise Edition and MySQL must be used in the development of the system. 4. The system must have been developed by September 2011.
4
1.6
Significance of the Study
According to Investopedia “E-commerce has allowed firms to establish a market presence, or to enhance an already larger market position, by allowing for a cheaper and more efficient distribution chain for their products or services”. Hence, I believe that the outcome of this study would begin an era when the department would no longer stress herself through manual publication and sale of developed software in a bid to encourage her staff and students. Also, it would help to build the department’s image education wise and earn her staff and students recognition worldwide, hence promoting the prestige of the school. Revenue generation for the department, staff and students is another benefit to the study.
1.7
Scope of the Study
The project is limited to the development of an E-commerce Enterprise Application with the incorporation of a RESTful web service.
1.8
Definition of Terms 1. API: “Application Programming Interface”, a collection of classes that an application program uses to carry out lower level services performed by the OS. 2. OS: “Operating System”, utilities of programs written to art as a platform for the execution and development of other programs. 3. MySQL: “My Structured Query Language”, a type of querying language specific to MySQL database. Query Language is a structured language used to create and access data in a database.
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4. IDE: “Integrated Development Environment”, software that assists developers in the development of other softwares. 5. E-commerce: “Electronic commerce”, selling products online via the web (TechEncyclopedia, 2011). 6. RESTful: “Representational State Transfer”, otherwise known as REST-based is a collection of web resources identified by URIs. 7. URI: Uniform Resource Identifier 8. NACOSS: National Association of Computer Science Students. 9. SDLC: “Software Development Life Cycle”
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