Web Education System for Bank of America – Specification 1.

Web Education System

Author: Dmitriy Proshin, www.solovat.com Edited: Alex
Audience: Matthew
Version: Version 1.0
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
Updated: 03/29/04 Printed: 6/7/2004 12:06 AM

1 Table of Contents

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………………2
System requirements - server…………………………………………………………………….3
System requirements - client……………………………………………………………………..3
Project overview……………………………………………………………………………………3
Users roles………………………………………………………………………………………….7
Database structure………………………………………………………………………………...7
Functional modules………………………………………………………………………………..9
Users registration………………………………………………………………………………9
Users access………………………………………………………………………………….10
News module………………………………………………………………………………….10
Courses………………………………………………………………………………………...11
Testing………………………………………………………………………………………….13
Forum/Chat…………………………………………………………………………………….13
Administration……………………………………………………………………………………...13
Information protection……………………………………………………………………………..15

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Web Education System for Bank of America – Specification 1.0

2 Introduction.
This specification described functional requirements for creation of web based Online Educational
system. The purpose of the software requirements document is to systematically capture requirements for
the project and the system to be developed. Both functional and non-functional requirements are
captured in this document. It also serves as the input for design and development.
The structure of the system allows interacting without installing any software on client side. To access
the system a browser is only required.

Client-server architecture

Using this approach is a de facto standard in online educational systems because it allows to access
remotely by just using web browser: reliable and stable work via internet without such risks as
dependencies from installing additional software on client side.

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Web Education System for Bank of America – Specification 1.0

3 System requirements – server side

• Operational system: Unix/Linux

• Web Server: Apache
• Programming language: PHP
• Database: MySQL
• Disk Space on the server: 100 Mb

The server side of the system consists from the following components:

• User Interface (web interface), which is required to interact to the application from user side.

• Abstract user interface – serves as a middle layer between user interface and the system Will be
written in xml language.

• Multithreading component – component of the system serving parallel requests from several
users and transferring them to the server.

• Virtual engine – core of the system. Responsible for serving active resources

• Registration Manager - used to work with information component of the system

• User Manager - used to work with user records of the system.

• Session Manager - works with user session records

• System Component – consists from low level functions to interact with API of OS and database.

To implement server side interaction J2EE framework can be used that is giving us such advantages as
platforms independence, network applications support, standard development library, support of different
databases.

4 System requirements – client

• Operation System: Windows/OS/Unix/Linux

• Browser: any browser (IE 5.5+, Netscape.).

5 Project overview
Online web based system is based on the latest internet solutions. This is the most promising technology
in distance education, allowing access to the system for students as well as teachers in any level: local or
enterprise. In internet technology different methods can be used for study: online tutorials with pre-
defined access and privileges in the system, online libraries online collaboration systems for students and
instructors, testing, teaching and certification systems.

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The online educational system allows the following:

• Test students knowledge on certain tutoring topics in any convenient time for both sides by using
a library of predefined tests

• Keep and review test results in one central place on a server and to use them for the following
educational grades.

• Easy extend, update or even introduce new study topic at any time during the educational course.

The system allows to use the following online education approaches:

• Access to the online courses via internet access

• Distribution of the educational content;
• Testing of the students performance
• Personalized online educational courses;
• Group work in the system;
• Keep in the system educational courses
• Creation educational courses according to study plans

The administrator can easily modify all the teaching materials and examination tests. This solution is for
distance education services - small portals with online courses and following certification. The system is
easy to use and allows users to learn all necessary materials online. The content can be different: it can
be a university course or a private course for children, students and working professionals all around the
world.

Schema 2 shows how the system is implemented. The local network allows creating educational network
easily. Also the system allows to use this network to take online course or to administer the course from
any PC.

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Web Education System for Bank of America – Specification 1.0

Scheme 2

Education System - is a pre-designed solution for online studying. The solution requires minimal training,
and implementation can be completed in days unlike the months required by the client-server e-Learning
systems. The result is a significant saving in time, costs and resources.

Advantages

• Easily customized and easily deployed solution

• The solution can be quickly adjusted to any design
• User-friendliness

How it works for users (students)

A user must register before he can view the course material, which consists of several pages of text with
some graphics. There is no date or time restriction for completion a course. The student may stop his
study and get back to any previous course whenever he needs it. Everything he needs is to enter his
login and password. There is a time tracking system, which returns the student to the place where he has
stopped his studying. After completing the course, the user is offered to take a quiz. If the user passes the
examination tests, the system will automatically report the student's data to the administrator. After that
the students can get the certificate.

E-learning Portal structure

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6 Users roles

System requires 4 user types:

a) Employee - none
b) Manager - view/edit/create only within his/her group
c) Human resources - vied/edit/create/delete only within their company
d) Site administrator - view/edit/create/delete all

Employee Manager Human resources Site administrator

View Yes
View by access Yes Yes Yes
Edit Yes
Edit by access Yes Yes Yes
Create all Yes
Create by access Yes Yes Yes
Delete all Yes
Delete by access Yes Yes Yes

Distance teacher features

• Edit course teaching materials

• Edit testing materials
• Edit time predetermined for reading
• Edit users
• Post news
• Post library articles

7 Database structure

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Note:
All the requests have been considered except one: for different types and roles one table will be created
instead of several. This table will have a record of the user type. A separate table will be created to
describe user privileges
The database will consist from the following tables:

Users:

Field type Comment

ID ID
last name last name
first name first name
company/facility partner company/facility partner
title title
address address
city city
state state
zip zip
manager manager
center of excellence center of excellence
training title training title
source/sponsor source/sponsor
training location training location
training hours training hours
type of training type of training
comments comments
User role User role

Courses:

Field type Comment

ID ID
Course title Course title
Course description Course description
Course content Course content

News:

Field type Comment

ID ID
News date News date
News title News title
News text News text

Tests:

Field type Comment

ID ID
Test name Test name

Test questions:

Field type Comment

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Web Education System for Bank of America – Specification 1.0

Test ID Test ID
Question Question
Answer Answer
Wright answer Wright answer

8 Functional modules

8.1 Users registration

User registration module allows to register students.

In the registration form shows all required text fields needed to be filed. After filling the required fields and
clicking “Submit” button a script checks the user input correctness and for required fields and record the
data into the appropriate table (employee).

In the same e way all other users can be registered (manager, administrator, human resources). Access
to the registration module has only one user – admin. All other users have access only to the registration
form for students

8.2 Users access

Access to the system happens after verification of the user credentials LOGIN и PASSWORD with the
records that is kept in the database. If the access credentials match user is redirected to the Registered
User Home page. If the user login/password doesn’t match, the system displays an error message and is
asking to enter the login/password again. Also there is “Forgotten password” feature implemented that
allows to send password to email address.

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8.3 News module

News module is available on public and for registered users. It displays all E-learning system messages
on the public page and on internal pages where the registered users see the tutorials.

Home Page screen

Only admin has an access to edit news.

News publishing screen

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8.4 Courses

Library module:

All system resources have the following parts:

• E-book
• text
• course
• study plan

Those information resources consist from other parts (example: text consists from sections that have in
its turn their own questions). By saying that it needs to be confirmed that these resources work as
containers for other resources.

Course screen

Courses Edit screen

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Web Education System for Bank of America – Specification 1.0

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Web Education System for Bank of America – Specification 1.0

8.5 Testing
Testing module is a part of the system that allows entering, editing and deleting courses.

Typical course looks like a set of questions with answers (correct/incorrect). If the answer matches with
correct one in the database, student gets a score. After completion a test those scores are summarized
and the total is displayed.

Features of the testing system:

• Questions in a text test can be displayed in unordered sequence;

• Answers in each text test question can be displayed in unordered sequence
• If it’s needed several questions from a test can be displayed during a test

After passing a course the test results will be saved in the database. Admin of the system, instructor can
see those results at any time later.

The following users have privileges to edit tests: admin, manager and human resources.

8.6 Forum/Chat
This module works as an online chat to connect students and teachers. It allows publishing text
messages and images (GIF, JPG, PHG, BMP) for public view in real time.

The live display of the messages published by their teacher is implemented via frequent refresh of the
browser (every 15 seconds).

9 Administration

The administration module consists from the following resources:

• Learning courses
• Users
• Test
• News

Administrator has the following privileges on these resources:

• Create a resource
• Add a resource
• Edit a resource
• Delete a resource
• Review a resource
• Execute a resource
• Upload a resource

All those actions can be executed via user interface which system uses to interact with these information
resources.

The user management module will allow administrators and teachers to perform all user management
functions like creation of students, other teachers, access filters and help manage them. User
Management functions is explained in details below.

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The new system will have three types of users. They are

Administrator

An Administrator is a super user who can create any other type of users. In addition to this an
administrator will have the ability to create Teachers, HR Managers and students. Each function of the
administrator has been explained in detail in the table below.

Teacher

A teacher is an employee of a company. Some teachers will be given the option of managing multiple
student groups but most of them will manage only one student group. He/She will be a pseudo
administrator with ability to create, edit or disable the users belonging to his learning course.

Student
Student is a user with least privileges among the users. Student users belong to their learning course and
will access to the assigned content.

Functional Requirements
This section explains in detail the security and user management requirements of the learning system.

S.No Short Description Description in detail

1. User management module The user management module will allow
administrators and teachers to perform all user
management functions like creation of students,
teachers, learning courses, access filters and help
manage them. User Management functions is
explained in detail below.
2. Create User The system will allow creation of four types of users
as mentioned above. Only administrators and
teachers will be allowed to create users. As
Administrators are super users, he/she will be
allowed to create users of any type. Teachers will
only be allowed to create students for his/her own
learning course hat he/she is managing. When a
user is created, he/she will be activated by default. If
need be, the administrator or teacher will be given
the option to deactivate the user. Deactivation will
disallow the user to logon to the learning portal.
External users will not be allowed to log on to the
learning portal.
3. Modify User This option will allow administrators, teachers to
modify user profiles. As mentioned above,
administrators can modify the profile of any user but
teachers will be allowed to modify the profiles of only
those users (students) that belong to his learning
course. For instance, teacherA will not be allowed to
modify the profile of a TeacherB user and vice versa.
Also teachers and administrators will be able to view
the user details.
4. Delete User It will be possible to delete only teacher/student user
from the system. Once a user is deleted from the
system, he/she will not be able to login to the
learning portal. If a deleted user needs to be given
access to the portal, he/she will need to be
recreated. Only teachers and administrators will be
allowed to delete/disable users. An administrator will
be allowed to delete/disable any user while the
teacher user will be allowed to delete those users

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S.No Short Description Description in detail

(students) that belong to his course.
5. Search Users The system should allow administrator/teacher user
to search for other users. The search string from the
Graphical User Interface (GUI) will be collected and
matched against the user name. The system should
allow the users to search users within existing
accounts. If the user name is not known, the system
should allow a generic search and list all the users.
There will be a search filter that will let users set their
search criteria. A user will be allowed to search for
the following types of users.
4.2 Active Users
4.2 Disabled Users
4.2 All Users

6. Create learning course Learning courses are nothing but a collection of

users who have the same level of security. Only
Administrators can create learning course. An
administrator will be allowed to create learning
course but a teacher user will be allowed to create
students only for his/her own learning course that he
/she manages.
7. Delete learning course The system will allow deletion of learning courses.
When a learning course is deleted, all the students
and teachers will be deleted from the learning course
they belong to.
8. Modify learning course It will be possible to modify the learning course
description. Only teachers and administrators will be
given this functionality. As mentioned above, only
Administrators will be allowed to create learning
courses.
9. Authentication After a user submits his credentials at the login page
the credentials will be collected and validated against
security repository, which is store on database. If
user is found to be matching, the user will be allowed
access to the learning portal. The authentication
module will not allow disabled/deleted users and
expired users to log on to the portal.
10. Authorization Administrators/Teachers will be allowed to see the
link for uploading static documents and generation of
learning courses. Public users will not have access to
any of these special links.
11. Password Policies When a user is created, he/she will be assigned with
a default password. A password policy is one in
which the system does not allow the user to create a
password that is less than 6 characters long and the
password should be a mix of alpha numeric
characters. Only characters and numbers will be
accepted.
12. Session Expiration Only one instance of user will be allowed to login with
the same userid. If a user with login id XYZ is
currently logged on and another user tries to log on
with the same userid i.e. XYZ, the session for the first
user should expire and the user will be requested to

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S.No Short Description Description in detail

re-login.
13. Idle Timeout Each time a user logs in, he/she will be associated
with a user session. This session will have an idle
time out period of 60 minutes. This means that if the
user’s browser is idle for 60 minutes or more, the
session for the user will be expired and the user will
be requested to re-authenticate himself/herself. The
session time out value will be a configurable
parameter.
14. Forgotten Password All Users will be provided the “Forgotten Password”
facility, which allows users to reset their own
password once they are able to provide answers to
the secret question that is challenged to them. The
users’ email ID will be used as user name. Once the
users provide correct secret answer, a system-
generated password will be mailed to their mail id.

External users will not be allowed to log on to the tutorial portal.

Users Administration screen

Examine Administration screen

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Web Education System for Bank of America – Specification 1.0

Distance learner features

• Course teaching material is presented as a text with some graphics

• FAQ
• The course material is available at any time and from any user account.
• The time tracking system will save all user logs and would allow to stop a test and return back to
the stop point at any time
• Simple quiz to check the student performance
• Grading

10 Data protection

This section of the document specifies security requirements for the tutorial and user security
implementation.

Security can no longer be treated as a plug-in anymore. It is the integral part of any enterprise system.
Two layers carry out the security system of the project. The first layer is responsible for user
authentication and access to the system. It uses Role-based security in Forms Authentication. This layer
determines what user has logged in, user privileges within the system and gives this user certain access
to resources. The second layer is responsible for access permissions in system. It supervises user
permissions for interaction with data. This layer uses developed components and database..

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Web Education System for Bank of America – Specification 1.0

A user will submit his/her credentials at the login page. The credentials will be collected and validated
against security repository, which is store on database. If user is found to be matching, the user will be
allowed access to the tutorial. The authentication module will not allow disabled/deleted users and
expired users to log on to the portal

To protect browser connection with server a cookies session will be used. Recording a session in a
browser allows recognizing a user at any given time in later visits.

The system allows performing administration of the users and resources. The system also allows to have
personal as well as group access to the learning courses, record the user logs, work results and remote
administration of the system.

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