CSCI 6838 Capstone Projects
Fall 2001
Project Description

by K. Yue, August 8, 2001

Draft: projects will be edited and added

1. Discussion Forum for the School of NAS

Mentor: K. Yue
Number of team members: 3 to 5.

The School of Natural and Applied Sciences would like to have a customizable Web-based discussion Board (Forum) for his Web pages.

There are many freeware, shareware and commercial Web forums available but they do not provide all desirable features. This project is to create a customizable forum for NAS.

The project team will need to come up with the initial specifications with the mentor. The design must be database based and flexible enough for future enhancement and customization.

Some requirements are:

• an administration module for easy management.
  • Create new topics
  • Define topic monitors.
  • Notification through email.
  • Edit messages.
  • Different user types: administrators, monitors and regular users.
  • Password protection.
• Topic structures:
  • Tree-structured (aka yahoo message board).
  • Easy navigation.
  • Search topic button.
• Keyword search capability:
  • under the current topic or the entire forum.
  • using title or message body.
  • performance must be good.
• Message listing within a topic:
  • submitter names and email, date and hit counts.
  • tree structured replies.
• Message posting:
  • Preview button
  • Reply button
  • Submit button
  • HTML (selected elements) or text message.
  • file attachment (images, text and pdf only).
  • password protection option.
  • Remove double postings.
  • Notification to monitor option.
  • Monitor response by email option.
• Error messages:
  • customizable.
• Layout and style:
  • customizable

2. Web Support for Capstone Projects

Mentor: K. Yue
Number of team members: 3 to 5.

This project includes a thorough analysis of Web tools that will assist teams for maintaining their capstone projects. The project builds an integrated Web tool for future capstone projects. This project is more open-ended in nature and specification analysis is more intense than other projects.

Examples of Web tools that may be integrated together:

• defining project.
• logbook.
• status report: add, edit, delete, submit, submit to supervisor, etc.
• Gnatt chart for scheduling and timetable.
• Communication tools between team members and supervisors.
• Software configuration tool
• customized discussion board
• keyword searching
• resource submission
• note posting

3. Web Applications for the School of Natural and Applied Sciences

Mentor: K. Yue
Number of team members: 4 to 8 (may be divided into two or more teams.)

This project includes identifying, designing and implementing Web applications for enhancing the workflow of the School of Natural and Applied Sciences.

All applications probably have the following features:

• database based.
• protected: may have many types of users, such as administrators, monitors, members and anonymous users.
• admin utilities: for setting up and maintaining the applications.
• integrated together (probably by sharing database).

No E-Commerce is expected for these applications.

Areas of need include the followings:

• A Web-based system to update the course inventories of the catalog. Preliminary requirements:
  • historical information.
  • change mechanisms.
  • approval mechanisms.
  • report generation includes Words files for actual documents, statistical reports, etc.
  • ability to maintain prerequisite structures.
• A Web-based system to submit and merge faculty annual reports. Preliminary requirements:
  • flexible: fixed entries and flexible entries.
  • "save to work later" features.
  • submit and email acknowledgement.
  • versioning.
• A Web-based system for TA applications and maintenance. Preliminary requirements:
  • mechanism to get faculty digital signatures for references.
  • check eligibility: such as CPS and acknowledge by emails.
  • submit and email acknowledge to proper persons: associate dean offices, chairs and instructors.
  • report generation:
    • each applicant: get from UCT student course and other information at UHCL.
    • whole application listing and summary information:
      • by courses, etc. (i.e. maintenance of course offering needed)
    • ability to get only new applicants since last time.
• A Web-based system for maintaining, checking and searching course scheduling. Preliminary requirements:
  • add, delete and update course schedules efficiently.
  • ability to make full or part of the schedules public.
  • authorization mechanism.
  • searching capability.
  • handling topic courses.

It is not necessary to implement all identified projects.

4. Tools for UML Software Metrics

Mentor: K. Yue
Number of team members: 3 to 5

In this project, the team will create a software tool for analyzing and presenting object-oriented software metrics for UML diagrams. The tool should work with UML diagram files to extract software metrics information and store them in a database. The tool should be able to:

• provide historical trends.
• script-based, daemon-based and GUI based.
• extract information from more than one UML diagrams.
• generate reports in various formats.
• may be integrated with a commercial case tool, such as Rational's Rose.
• generate output in other file formats, such as Excel.

Initially, the team will need to:

• study and understand UML.
• study and collect software metrics for UML diagrams: define what should be collected.
• study existing tools for re-use.
• study and select scripting languages for development.

5. UHCL Online Bookstore:

Mentor: K. Yue
Number of team members: 3 to 5.

This project is a basic, artificial, yet realistic project to construct an E-Commerce site for UHCL bookstore. Team members will gain transferrable experience in E-Commerce and relational database designs.

Some requirements:

• Use JSP/Java Servlets/EJB.
• Support secure transactions using SSL and credit card processing.
• Reverse engineer book information.
• Secure shopping carts.
• Support book reservation and purchases.
• Delivery: pick up at bookstore or delivered to a user-specified address.
• Inventory and workflow functions.
• Modular design for integrating with backend systems.
• Email notifications.