2004 - Final Year Project Digital Library
2004 - Final Year Project Digital Library
by
December 2004
t
Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS
Bandar Seri Iskandar L10g0
31750 Tronoh -W ^
Perak Darul Ridzuan °*ot\
1. (T/iS -TKlsi's
CERTIFICATION OF APPROVAL
by
Approved by,
TRONOH, PERAK
December 2004
CERTIFICATION OF ORIGINALITY
This is to certify that I am responsible for the work submitted in this project, that the
original work is my own except as specified in the references and acknowledgements,
and that the original work contained herein have not been undertaken or done by
unspecified sources or persons.
11
ABSTRACT
The application of digital libraries or web archives has been significant during the
past few years such as with the introduction of the web development technology and
implementation of data repositories in office automation. The objective of the project
is to apply the research done on file type conversion into the development of FYP
Digital Library, a web archiving system for documentation management and
preservation purposes. The current system has been too big and becoming difficult to
handle, as the number of the final year project documents to be maintained and
managed are of bigger numbers now. This has made the effort of keeping all these
documents for reference purposes difficult. With the development of the final year
project digital library that shall serve the function of web archive, these two main
goals will be able to be accomplished. The web development project involves the
application of RAD methodology as used in various smaller projects. In order to
accomplish these objectives, various interviews with stakeholders and research done
on file type conversion and information management and retrieval has been done and
the result of these has contributed to the requirement analysis and design phases of the
projects' final product resulting to the development of FYP Digital Library
Keywords: final year project documents, web development, archive, file type
conversion, information management and retrieval
in
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Alhamdulillah, with the completion of this report, the project is now up and
running in good conditions. There are a number of people whom I need to give credits
for without these people, my project wouldn't be able to be carried out and all the
efforts would then be wasted.
First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to our Most Powerful and
Merciful God, Allah S.W.T with His blessings over me for I am able to implement my
final year project.
I direct my special thanks to my Supervisor, Pn. Rozana Kasbon who has been
very helpful in supervising and guiding me through this project development that
assistance and guidance will remain with me forever. Special thanks also goes to Mr.
Mohd Noor Ibrahim and Mr. Suhaimi Abdul Rahman for sharing his opinions and
knowledge as well as a helping hand during my time in need.
Special thanks also to the Final Year Project Committee who coordinates and
plans these final year projects. Also, special gratitude to all my dear UTP lecturers
who has directly or indirectly helped me throughout this project development. Thank
you to my dearest family for all their moral, spiritual and financial support as well as
my closest friends for all their help and support. Without these people, I wouldn't be
able to complete up to this project development level.
Last but not least, to everyone who have been involved directly or indirectly
with this project. Thank you for all their cooperation and support.
IV
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT . in
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT IV
TABLE OF CONTENT
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .
l.lBackground of Study
1.2Problem Statement
1.3Objective . . . . . . 2
libraries. . . . . 10
2.3.3 Information finding issue in development of
digital libraries . 12
4.1.1 Results . . . . . 22
(System Study) . . . . 29
4.2 Discussion. . . . . 31
5.1 Conclusion . . . . 33
5.2 Recommendation . . . . 33
REFERENCES 35
VI
LIST OF FIGURES
LIST OF TABLE
vn
ABBREVIATIONS AND NOMENCLATURES
vm
CHAPTER
INTRODUCTION
As the university's compulsory element in all programmes offered here in UTP, final
year students are required to undertake FYP which can be a design or research-based
subject. The main objective of the paper is to develop a basic structure in which will
enhance the students' skills in the process of knowledge application, opening their
minds, self independence in solving problems as well as result presentation through
minimal supervision and guidance. This paper requires them to do some research,
design or development work especially on real-life problems in each respective
discipline which would motivate them to prcduce practical and well-thought
solutions. Students are to delve into research/design problems, build up objectives,
apply appropriate methodology, analyse and generate the results and report the
findings. The project can be in the form of aboratory experiments, computer
programming, modelling, simulations, analysis andproductdesign.
Currently all the previous project reports that are kept in the libraries are in
hard copy versions. There have been some cases that the reports are damaged
due to the storage conditions. This is because by keeping the reports in a hard
copy version, there will be lesser and lesser storage spaces available. As a
result, the reports will be in a bad condition and no longer suitable to be use
as reference materials. Often reports produced are serving the purpose to be
used as reference materials. However by keeping all the reports in hard
copies, it would be difficult for any party (students, lecturers, coordinators,
etc.) to do any reference to the materials.
1.2.2 Significance of the Project
By developing the FYP Digital Library, in a way it will help to solve the
current situation. Even though the current situation is not perceived as a
problem yet to the organization, the situation however may be simplified.
With the launching of the Chancellor Complex, we are now known for our
newly and improved techno building design. Therefore we need to fully
utilize the university's facilities in technology and document management in
order to match up with the new image. By having the digital library, we
would need to create servers to store all the final year project documents.
This digital library, serving its own name, will be put online in which
implemented in the university's local area network and will be made
accessible online. By storing the documents in the servers in order to make it
available online, we have helped to save storage spaces in the library, which
was used to store previous year's documents. This can help to avoid the
documents to rot in the storage spaces due to small space available for
document keeping in the library. In a way, the servers function as backup
storage to store the documents in an electronic form rather than hard copy
versions.
1.3 Objective
By having the library, any party involving with the final year reports will be able
to view previous final year project reports without having the difficulty to search
for desired topics. As defined by the community, archive serves the purpose as to
locate desired documents in a big repository, preserve all the works as well as
provide access to the repository.
For this final year project, the areas that will be covered are
• Digital Library Search engine
This part will cover the section where user (general user) interacts with the
system to search for desired topic of research. This section of the project will
then retrieve related searched topic according to specified keyword and will
display the result to user for viewing.
Information Storage &Management database
This part is considered as the vital part of the system as it stores all the
documents and also manages document uploading done by assigned
administrators. This part of the system will be responsible to reply to queries
made by user and retrieve the documents from the storage database.
User (Administrator) registration & access level
And finally the final part of the system in which responsible in storing details
and assign access level of administrators of the system, which consists of
academic central services staff, FYP coordinator and lecturers. The reason
why the system only caters for these groups user registration is because these
users will have the access to upload and maintain the storage the document
database. Each of these groups will have different level of administrator
access with different functionalities.
1.4.1 Feasibility of the Project within the Scope and Time Frame
During the past two years, the core PHP developers have done an incredible job of
providing the PHP user community with powerful technology that has been able to
perform remarkably well in many environments. As Web applications become more
popular, Web developers must face an increasing amount of possible security
vulnerabilities that have the potential to compromise their work seriously. [1]
For the development of this project, the basic underlying concept is put under web
development because even though this project is all about digital library and
archiving, as it is designed to be put on the university's local area network it still
upholds the web development basic concept. As this project is to be develop using
PHP language and utilizes crucial documents, it is important that we look into the
basic security issues relating to this language as well as basic web architecture that
this project should support.
Error control is the first step in providing efficient security for the system users or
clients. However, among the list of malicious attacks that need to be paid attention
for in this project is SQL injection. SQL injection on a Web application can have
devastating consequences that go beyond the scope of most other security attacks,
such as cross-site scripting, because it has the potential to destroy database and its
content permanently and completely. Sensitive information often is stored on
database servers and other storage facilities for later retrieval. At this point, it is
critical to have at disposal a facility that allows the developer to secure that data at
storage time and retrieve the information you are looking for when you need it. PHP
offers an extension that allows developers to use the Mcrypt Library (to secure data
byencrypting it and later decrypting it. [1]
The modern web architecture determines how system elements are identified and
allocated, how the elements interact to form a system, the amount and granularity of
communication needed for interaction, and the interface protocols used for
communication. Architecting the Web requires an understanding of its requirements.
Berners- Lee [1996] writes that the "Web's major goal was to be a shared
information space through which people and machines could communicate." What
was needed was a way for people to store and structure their own information,
whether permanent or ephemeral in nature, such that it could be usable by
themselves and others, and to be able to reference and structure the information
stored by others so that it would not be necessary for everyone to keep and maintain
local copies. [2]
Web page designers should be especially interested in strategies that enable their
readers to understand the information on a web page. Micro/macro design is a critical
and effective principle of information design that applies to every type of data
because it enables readers to understand complex content by giving them an
overview while at the same time presenting huge detail. By properly arranging and
repeating detailed and complex information, the designer creates an overall structure.
Beverly also stressed on "the arrangement of elements on the page is the biggest
factor in determining what people notice and read-or whether they abandon the page
and surf on to someone else's page" [3] This shows how much a good design is
important to the development ofaweb page, in this case, FYP Digital Library.
Previously, people have never even considered using digital archives because usually
this method is implemented once the organization finds data management has
become complicated and messy as time moves on. With the introduction of
computers and office automation, organization find it is more organized to manage
its' print documents digitally apart from continuing to use file cabinets anymore.
Once the organization goes online, example; business organization adopting e-
commerce, information sharing goes global, people find web archiving or digital
libraries of greater use.
The concept ofweb archives or digital libraries is that these printed documents are
stored digitally and stored and preserved using arepository developed in the web and
made accessible to any authorized user depending on the web's level of
authentication. Lesser and lesser printed documents are copied and distributed as this
method has solve this problem by creating a big number ofcentres of reference for
easier access to the organization or even the public.
However, as this technology is now greatly implemented all around the world, there
have been few issues regarding digital libraries or web archives that caught alot of
people in discussion over this matter. Dorothy Warner (2002) is very definite: "Is
there aplan in place to ensure that it will be there in twenty or more years?" [6] In
the haste to make information available electronically there are few agreed-upon
plans for the preservation of digital information and much has already been lost.
Therefore it is agreed upon that any plans to digitally store information on the web or
in the digital libraries, the process requires thorough research and surveys in
identifying the best practices to accomplish this goal successfully. Dorothy Warner
(2002) points out that the process would have to go through summary of the main
stages in the life-cycle concept developed by the AHDS as shown in the diagram
below.
I t
Data management Data use
& preservation
> Acquisition
> Retention / Disposal
^
> Data structure
> Data description & documentation
> Data storage
> Data preservation
This life-cycle concept applies to the research, as the objective ofthe research is to
archive previous FYP print documents into the digital library. Appropriate and
necessary documents will then be created digitally (phase 1), managed and preserved
into the library's' archive (phase 2), used as reference in order to serve its' purpose
as centre of reference to its user (phase 3) and assign the documents authentication
level; viewable only or printed-version (phase 4). Even Gail M. Hodge agrees that
"the project managers from the "cutting edge" projects emphasized the importance of
considering best practices for archiving at all stages ofthe information management
life cycle." [4] Acknowledging this important philosophy, the best practices
identified by the study are presented in the framework of the information life cycle -
creation, acquisition, cataloguing/identification, storage, preservation and access.
2.3 Development of Digital Libraries
2.3.1 Issues on Development of Digital Libraries
Referring to Gail M. Hodge statement, groups and individuals who did not
previously consider themselves to be archivists are now being drawn into the
role, either because of the infrastructure and intellectual property issues
involved or because user groups are demanding it. Librarians and archivists
who traditionally managed the life cycle of print information from creation to
long-term preservation and archiving, must now look to information
managers from the computer science tradition to support the development of
a system of stewardship in the new digital environment. There is a need to
identify new best practices that satisfy the requirements and are practical for
the various stakeholder groups involved.
Digital technology, however, poses new threats and problems as well as new
opportunities. Its functionality comes with complexity. Reading and
understanding information in digital form requires equipment and software,
which is changing constantly and may not be available within a decade of its
introduction. Today, information technologies that are increasingly powerful
and easy to use, especially like those that support the WWW, have unleashed
the production and distribution of digital information.
For this project, file type conversion is crucial as the system is about storing
documents and preserving it in a way that it reduces the risk of editing file
activity as well as plagiarism. So in this project development, the file that
would be uploaded would be stored in PDF format compared to the original
format, DOC. To illustrate this process, an example on file format for data
exchange between graphic databases will beused.
10
Interactive Interactive
Graphics Sys A Graphics Sys
1 t
Translator A Translator B
Interchange File
Data Exchange
11
2.3.3 Information Finding Issue in development of digital libraries
Thus, one of the key questions for the digital library of the future is how to
search over large numbers of distributed sources and locate the right sources
to direct a search to. One of the solutions that can be used is "exhaustive
match"; defined as the need to identify every single document in the sources
that matches the query. For an exhaustive match, the options are not very
attractive because one is to ship the query to all possible information sources.
This generates an enormous amount of network traffic and load at the
sources. In other words, every information source on the network would be
processing every query generated anywhere on the network. Clearly, this
approach does not scale to large numbers of sources.
12
2.3.4 Access Control Issue
This is also one of the crucial issues relating to the development of this
project. It is concerned that the originality of the documents should be
maintained and secured. It is also an issue that certain users only are given the
option to access these documents in a sense that they can make modification
to the documents. The next journal will discuss a bit on this issue.
This article considers the security requirements for such libraries and
proposes an access control method that mimics organizational practice. This
is by combining a subject tree with ad hoc role granting that controls
privileges for many operations independently, that treats (all but one)
privileged roles (e.g., auditor, security officer) like every other individual
authorization, and binds access control information to objects indirectly for
scaling, flexibility, and reflexive protection. In principle, object access
control is simply conformance to a rules array, which records the privileges
allowed to each subject for each object. Such an array is, however,
impractical for even a small library because of the human effort to manage it.
13
A privilege can be access to an operation or omission of some normally
required validity check or audit trail addition. The rules for deciding whether
any privilege can be granted and for combining privilege sets to determine
whether to permit an action are the same for most privileges.
This issue have been looked into and applied to the project development
concept. For this project, the system 1st level administrator will be responsible
to allocate the access control to its users while other user that surfs the library
just to search documents won't be given any access as this is an effort to
maintain the database security.
This is especially true if users are uncertain or imprecise about their system
requirements. The methodology also is considered by some to be inflexible; users
must fully specify requirements before design; design must fully document technical
specifications before construction; and so forth. In response to the faster pace ofthe
economy, rapid application development has become a popular route for accelerating
systems development. This technique emphasizes on extensive user involvement in
the rapid and evolutionary construction of working prototypes of a system to
accelerate the system development process.[10] (See Appendix C for RAD
Methodology Diagram)
The specified timeframe for the development of this FYP Digital Library is only
around 11 weeks. With limited timeframe and limited knowledge on this kind of
system development, it is deemed that by applying the rapid application development
methodology to the project methodology is the best decision and most suited the
project. Another reason for this choice is that this type of methodology actively
involves the system users in the analysis, design and construction activities. This is
good practice for this project as the basic concept of this project development need
extensive user involvement in almost all the project phases.
15
CHAPTER 3
For web development, it has always been using the model-driven development
methodology. It is one of the oldest and most commonly used approaches to
analysing and designing information systems is based on modelling. In this
methodology, system models are used to illustrate and communicates data, process or
interface building blocks ofinformation systems. This methodology emphasizes the
drawing ofmodels to help visualize and analyse problems, define requirements and
design information systems. The model driven route takes on the appearance of a
waterfall suggesting that phases must generally be completed in sequence. With this
methodology, it is possible to back up to correct mistakes or omissions; however,
such rework is often difficult, time consuming and costly. (See Appendix C for MDD
Methodology diagram. [Figure 4])
Modelsof projectand system scope
Unanticipated problem
Operation/Support Issue-
implementation Issue*
jmjjtemeniatfbr!.>:
16
ill-advised shortcuts through the methodology. With enough timeline and well-
planned scope, these fouls howevercan be overcome.
Acquire
requirements
on existing
prototype
Establlsn-
existing
prototype
objective
Requirement Planning
Define existing
prototype
functionality
Improvise tiie
existing
prototype
design
User Design
Enhance e>tlstlng
prototype
Construction
In the first phase, which is the requirement planning phase, it is divided into
two small phases; preliminary investigation phase and problem phase, hi the
preliminary investigation phase, the desired scope of topic is identified and
later project proposal is prepared and approved. However, if the proposal is
rejected, then a new scope oftopic will be searched and assigned to. Next, a
short study is done on the new assigned topic and the specific project scope is
determined and its requirements are gathered. A preliminary report on the
topic will be produced.
In the next phase, problem phase, a feasibility study of the project is done and
the problem will be analysed and reviewed with the project requirement.
Requirement analysis and specification document is prepared as well as data,
process and project modelling is created. Finally, a progress report is
produced.
In the third phase, the user design phase, in which the iterative phases start to
occur; the design phase indicates that revision of the system requirement and
incorporation of feedback on the system is implemented. Next system
architecture is designed in which the flow of the system is designed and
produces UML diagrams, etc as its documentation. Next, database structure
for the system is designed by reviewing with the previously created data,
process and object modelling. (See Appendix D for UML diagrams and
database structure of the system.) Lastly, interface of the system is designed
in which the image editing and web page design enhancement is carried out.
Finally, all the designs are reviewed against the systems requirements to
ensure that it is correct and satisfy the stakeholders' demand as well as
enabling any amendment to be made from time to time.
19
3.2.1.4 Cut-Over Phase
In the final phase of the methodology, there are still three small phases; the
implementation, analysis and final implementation phase. In the
implementation phase, unit and system integration testing activity is carried
out. First, test plans are created based on system requirement. First, unit
testing is carried out. Unit testing is testing activity done on modules in the
system before it is compiled into a whole system. Tests are performed on the
database and administrative functions as this is considered as the crucial part
of the system. Next, test activities are done on the system's web interface. If
there is any fault in the unit testing, then recoding is done and retested.
Next, the units of the system are compiled into a whole system and tested.
This test activity is identified as system integration testing. Test is carried out
on the system as a whole in order to identify any fault in the system. The
reason why unit and system integration testing is done separately is because if
there is any faults in the system when compiled as a whole system, then the
debugging and recoding units is much easier compared to done on the system
as a whole. However, there can still be bugs in the system. So modification to
the code is done and the system is retested.
In the sixth phase, the final phase in the iterative phases is the analysis phase.
This is the phase when all the reviewing and modification activity is carried
out. The activities that are identified under this phase are project requirement
review, reviewing the system design with project requirements, modifying
and retest activity on system designs, modification and retesting activity on
unit and system integration tests.
20
be done and user documentations or manuals is produced and submitted to
the user. In this project, the user documentation that will be produced is
supervisor's final draft, final draft, dissertation and finally, system
presentation.
For the development purposes, the tools that will be used are now finalized and
development phase will start immediately after installation of primary server as well
as backup server is completed. The project is to be developed using a combination of
the latest technology in application development which includes Apache as the web
server, PHP as server-side scripting language, client-side scripting language
JavaScript, XHTML, Macromedia Dreamweaver MX as interface development tool,
free PHP PDF module for .html file type conversion to .pdf file type function, Adobe
Acrobat Reader to read document searched, Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Office,
Microsoft Project as well as MySQL database. These softwares will be installed in a
Unix based PC that acts as the system web server.
21
CHAPTER 4
4.1.1 Results
As a result of study and research on digital libraries and file type conversion, this is
the end result of this final year project. This system will be used by three main users,
its general users which stands of anyone linked to the local area network may it be
students, even lecturers; next, registered users consists of final year students and
supervisors for final year projects and finally system administrator; IT Department
staff held responsible to administer the digital library. The user of this library would
only need access to it if they would need the privilege to upload documents to the
library. If user basically just wants to search for documents in the library, they
wouldn't need user account in the system. They just need to login into the system
and they can straight away use the system.
The figure below shows the default main page ofthe system. User will be directed to
this default page each time they click on the library's URL
fhttp://127.0.0.1/fvp/home.php). At this page, user will be given two options to
search for documents available in this system. They can either search for the
documents via searching using keywords or by clicking on a link to view the list of
document titles that is available in the system. They can decide whether or not to
view the document by reading the documents' abstract provided along with the other
details of the document. To view these documents, they can just click on the title of
the documents. On this page, user will be presented with three options into the
system, Home; where the user will be redirected back to this default system page,
Registration &Login; for user to create new accounts with the system and also for
authorized user to access into the administration part of the library and Logout; for
authorized users to logout of the library's administration section as well as close the
window itself.
22
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Search: j
! Search
The figure below is the default page that the user will be redirected to when they
click on the document title. User will then be redirected to this page where they
would be able to view the content of the document. This page however is supposed
to be viewing the content of the document in a .pdf format.
SupervisorName •Pn.RoiBnoKasbor
Semester jjiinjiiw
[abstract
iThe application of digital lib -anes or: ueb archives has been aigniiicani:
iduring the past ie* years such as with cue fntroduct Ion of the ueb development
Itechnology and implementation If data repositories in office automation. The
;obJeetive of the project is to develop Final Year Project Digital Library, a
jiieb archiving system for docum •ntotlon management and preaervatlon purpcaea.
IThe current ayatem has been to i big and becoming difficult to handle, bo the
imimber of the final year prcje :t documents to be maintained and managed are of
[bigger nmrtjers no«. This ho= made the effort of keeping all taeae documents
;for reference purposes difficult. Ulth Che development o£ the final year
[project digital library that shall serve the function of neb archive, these
:tvo main goals mil be able to be accompli abed. The neb development project
linvolves the application of BAD (rapid application development) mechodoloey
•used in various smaller projects. In order to accomplish these objectives.
23
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ftaijr,
Rum !bi!Ib~ l i ' iii
Usemame:
Password:
The figure above shows the system login page where authorized users need to verify
their account info before they are granted access into the system. For this system,
user accounts are granted only for final year students, FYP supervisors as well as
system administrator appointed by the system custodian and these accounts are
managed by the web support administrators. This is because users who intend to
search for documents only do not need to have an account registered with the system.
These accounts are only needed for document storage and management as well as
managing the system only.
The system login page will then identify the user access level to the system has been
granted and from here, the authorized users will then be redirected to their respective
pages. In this system, web support level users are granted the privilege to control
user accounts in the system. Upon logging in into the system, web support level
administrators will be redirected to the systems' new user registration form page. The
figure below indicates the system new user registration form. Users that want to
24
register with the system is can also view this page but they are only offered only a
few menu access at the top of the page, compared to the system administrators.
(^ Back - jx° S\ ^ , ' 5eo":h , ' Favwr« (^ Media .#>< ( • < 'VJ
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Upon completion of the user registration form, the user or system admin will then be
prompted with a pop-up window indicating that the user account has been added to
the system database registry. The system also allows the web level admin support to
edit any account that exists in the system registry. By clicking on the name of the
user account, the web level admin can then view the user account. Upon completing
edit of the user account, web support level admin is then prompted that the account
has now been edited.
The web support admin also has the privilege of deleting any unwanted user account
in the system. First by clicking on the delete user account link available in the menu
bar, then the system admin will then be redirected to a page indicating the list of user
accounts available in the system. By clicking on the name of the user account owner,
web support admin will then be redirected to a page listing down the user account
details, prompting whether or not the admin want to delete the account from system
25
registry. Upon clicking on deleting the account, admin will thenbe prompted thatthe
account has been deleted.
lien D« II It 36 IP J«!
The figure above shows the view user registration page where the system
administrators can view list of user accounts that is available in the system. This page
enlists all the usernames, level of access, names of the user that has been registered
to the system and also for the final year students that are registered to the system, the
semester they are taking the FYP; final semester.
The system also caters for second level access administrators enabling them to
upload documents to the digital library system. Upon successful login to the system,
this type of authorized user will then be redirected to the page as shown in the figure
below where they are presented with a form to upload documents into the system, in
this page, the user would have to key in details of the documents as well as abstract
of the document.
26
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Title
Supervisor Name:
Semester.
The system also allows these authorized users to edit any document that exists in the
system. By clicking on the title of the document, the authorized user can then view
the document. Upon completing edit of the document, the user is then prompted that
the document has now been edited.
These users also have the privilege of deleting any unwanted documents in the
system. First by clicking on the delete document link available in the menu bar, the
user will then be redirected to a page indicating the list of documents available in the
system. By clicking on the title of the document, they will then be redirected to a
page listing down all the document details and content, prompting whether or not
they want to delete the document from the system. Upon clicking on deleting the
document, user will then be prompted that the document has been deleted.
27
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As shown in the figure above, this is the page that will be viewed to the authorized
user to enable them to view the list of documents that is currently available on the
system. To be able to view the documents, these users would just have to click on the
document title which will link them to the document view page as shown in the
figure below.
28
Fib Wt *l«* Fswirins loch Help
o r
For this purpose, I did some comparison with existing digital libraries that
can be found via the Web and I have stumbled upon ACM Digital Library. During
this system study, Inoticed that there are afew limitations to the system that in order
to meet up with the standards of existing digital libraries in the market, modifications
would need to be carried out. First and foremost, the figure below shows asnapshot
of the digital library that has been used in this system study. More snapshots of the
system are available inAppendix F.
29
By referring to the above figure, we can see that the system offers a lot of options for
user to search documents in the system. User can search according to different type
of documents, any keyword, etc. it also offers to the user the option to report any
difficulties or feedbacks on the system. It also provides the user on user manuals or
FAQs relating to the system. The system also offers two type of service subscription,
i.e. subscribe to the full service system or register for free, limited services. The
library also caters for document viewing of PDF format files.
To use this digital library, user would have to have at least a registered account with
the system in order to use the basic, limited services. After logging in to the library,
user can search for their desired documents and they will then be given a list of
documents having high relativity to the keyword searched. By clicking on the links
on the document title, the user will then be redirected to a page where the user can
read the full abstract of the document and also an image of a PDF file of the
document to download and view the document.
From my research and study of the ACM Digital Library, I can see that the system
caters for document searching via multiple data repositories and can be indicated to
be using the document or index hierarchy document search method. This can help to
produce more results for document search and improve the response time for each of
the query made on the system search engine. This digital library also serves the
objective of document management and maintenance, information finding and
searching as well as serves its main objective, to serve its users as a reference point.
By comparing the developed system to this digital library, I can say that the system
still needs to be modified as to match to the standards set by existing digital libraries
in the market. Most importantly, this system would have to be modified so that it can
support document viewing in PDF formats. As most of the FYP documents is
produced using Microsoft products' such as Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Access,
etc.) and PHP doesn't support .DOC file conversion to .PDF files, it is advisable that
the system is developed using ASP as this programming language supports all
Microsoft's product. If this is achieved, the main purpose of developing a digital
library is then solved. Therefore, it is important to identify what are the most suited
tools to be used in developing the system during the requirement planning phase.
30
4.2 Discussion
Apart from that, this system can be beneficial to the university's library as it
no longer has to store all the reports in hard copies as it now can provide online
services to its library users. By having the online services in the library, library users
as well as other users wouldn't have to worry about the report being unavailable on
shelf, etc as they can access the document via LAN at any point connected in this
campus. In a way, the university's library will now have more spaces to shelve all the
new books available in the market apart from having to allocate all those spaces for
the FYP reports.
Also by having this system online in the university's environment is that the
concept of FYP Digital Librarynot only can be utilizes by the IT and IS departments
but also by any departments or fields available in the university. As the concept of
the library is very simple, the university management wouldn't have to incur any cost
of implementing the system as user can easily grasp the administration concept of the
system. By applying this digital library concept to the whole university,
communication and reference activity is made simpler as the documents can be
accessible by any individual in the campus. Whenever the lecturer need its
supervisee to view a report as reference to his / her project or experiment theories,
neither the lecturer nor the student need to go through hardship in tracking for the
related document. The document is now available at anytime, anywhere and for any
purposes via the digital library.
Finally, with the implementation of the digital library in the campus, the
university will then be able to improve more on its current image and reputation may
it be in the tertiary education sector or in the view of the local community. This is
31
because the digital library concept applied in higher education institution is still new
and highly technology. Moreover, most ofthe institutions view this practice as costly
without looking at thebenefits that outweigh the cons of the system implementation.
32
CHAPTERS
5.1 Conclusion
This project is developed using the current web development technology that
is PHP and MySQL as its database to store the documents in the digital library. This
system caters for three type ofuser; system admin (supervisors and staff) and general
user (student and lecturers). The library is basically about documentation
management and preservation purposes. As the current document management
system is becoming more difficult to be handled, the idea ofthis FYP Digital Library
is developed. This system caters only documents related to FYP documents
specifically final dissertations submitted upon completion of the project
development. By developing this library, not only the documents can be managed
more easily and preserved but also made accessible to any individual in the
university who needs it as reference material. With the development of the library,
user wouldn't have to worry about the report copy being in bad conditions making it
difficult to be used, user also wouldn't have to worry about the report copy being
unavailable due to other user borrowing it from the repository. This system made it
easier for all parties in UTP; library management, students who need reference
materials for their FYPs, lecturers doing research on fields ventured before in
previous FYPs, etc. Apart from that, by applying this digital library concept to the
UTP environment, it will be seen as an act to meet up with outsiders' expectations on
the level of technology and facilities in the university to the current modern and
futuristic image of UTP.
5.2 Recommendation
There are several recommendations that can be made for future enhancement ofthe
research area and also to the FYP Digital Library which are :
• Bigger search area and multiple search result to the user
As per current FYP Digital Library, the user has to select out of the list of
documents available in the system and is not able to search via keyword
which is mostly applied in most search engines. For future enhancement of
33
the system, FYP Digital Library is to allow users to search via keywords and
be able to retrieve the documents which have related keywords to those being
searched.
34
REFERENCES
[1] Xavier Spriet, "Real-World PHP Security", Linux Journal, 1Apr. 2004, 7Aug.
2004 <http://wwwliniixioumal.com/article.php>
[2] Fielding, Taylor, "Principled Design of the Modem Web Architecture", Day
Software and University of California. 17 June 2002, 30 Aug. 2004.
[4] Gail M. Hodge, Consultant to the International Council for Scientific and
Technical Information, Information International Associates, Inc., "Best
Practises in Digital Archiving :An Information Life Cycle Approach" in D-Lib
Magazine January 2000, Volume 6Number 1. 24 July 2004
[5] Garret Waters. "Preserving Digital Information: Report of the Task Force on
Archiving Digital Information.".! May 1996, 21 Jul. 2004
<http://www.rlg.org/ArchTF/tfadi.index.htm>
[8] H.M.Gladney, "Access Control for Large Collections", IBM Almaden Research
Center. 31 Aug. 2004
35
[9] Said Hadjerrouit. "Web-based Application Development: A Software
Engineering Approach" Agder University College 3 Sept. 2002, 25 July 2004
36
APPENDICES A
16
19
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21
~22~
23
~24~
25
~26~
27
~28~
29
"30"
31
"32~
33
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35
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37
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39
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41
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43
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APPENDICES B
STORYBOARD
Search page (Default Main Page)
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APPENDICES C
SYSTEM METHODOLOGY
.Models of project and system scope
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technical solutions
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* ABSTRACT
People who create digital libraries need to gather together the raw material, add metadata as necessary, and design and
build new collections. This paper sets out the requirements for these tasks and describes a new tool that, sup ports-them
interactively, making it easy for users to create their own collections from electronic files of all types. The process involves
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