REQUIREMENT DOCUMENTATION

Transcription

1 Concordia University Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering COEN 490 PROJECT QUIZ ROOM REMOTE SECURE SERVER REQUIREMENT DOCUMENTATION By COEN 490 GROUP 25 YAN, Jiarui DOMINIQUE, Gerry ZHANG, Wenzhuo Dayvanant MANNORIND A Technical Report Submitted in partial fulfillment Of the requirements Of ENCS 282 Concordia University October 2005

2 Abstracts Requirement Documentation for COEN 490 project Quiz Room Remote Secure Server This technical report provides a general description of the COEN 490 project, Quiz Room Remote Secure Server. Due to the inconvenience, unreliability and insecurity of the existing quiz room system, a totally new idea came into existence by Dr. Kharma. More detailed objective and motivation is stated clearly in 1. Due to the different roles of users to whom this system will be facing, 2, user requirements, provides a mini user manual from three aspects, which are students, instructors and administrators, respectively. Very brief design idea is provided in 3. 4 and 5 come up with the resource that is required with in order to achieve this project and the tentative plan of the future work of this project. Finally, there is a summary in 6. i

3 Table of Contents 1. OBJECTIVE and MOTIVATION 1.1. Objective 1.2. Motivation 2. USER REQUIREMENTS 3.1. Students aspect 3.2. Instructors aspect 3.3. Administrators aspect 3. DESIGN 3.1. Linux clients linking to a Windows server 3.2. Windows cuts 4. NEEDS 5. PROJECT PLAN 6. SUMMARY List of Figures Figure 2-1 User Interface scratch ii

4 1 1.1: Objective Objective and Motivation The objective of this project is to implement a new, if possible, to replace the existing quiz room system. The final achievement of the new implementation is to let the instructor conduct their own ideal quizzes and exams that consist of various types of questions, including multiple choices and essay questions. Unlike the existing quiz application, this new quiz room remote secure server provides students with essential software that is required to answer the quiz or exam questions. 1.2: Motivation As is known to us all, there is only one type of question which is multiple choice questions in the quiz room that is being used presently. In fact, it prevents instructors from examining a student s knowledge of all areas because multiple choice questions, to some extent, are not applicable in some subjects, such as programming courses. To conduct a quiz or online exam, technicians usually work even during the weekend to arrange the rooms for the quizzes, as well as to configure the computers in the lab properly according to the instructors requirements. The system is usually being used only once a year which is lacking in reliability and reusability. After taking all the factors described above into consideration seriously, the innovation of the existing quiz room system becomes crucial and turns out to be an essence

5 2 2.1: Students Aspect User Requirements From the point view of student, the following steps are the major procedure for students to go through in order participate in a quiz or exam and finish it successfully. 1. Students are required to login with their ENCS account. Then a GUI panel pops up on top of the screen, whose main functionality is to provide students with a direction in case in the process of online quiz or exam. 2. Students can open the quiz questions by simply clicking the Open Quiz button on the user interface. Then students are asked to confirm writing the quiz. Concordia University ENCS Online Quiz/Exam System Student GUI Panel Open Quiz Submit Print Help Figure 1 User Interface scratch 3. Once the quiz starts, students are allowed to use the software specified by their instructor to write the quiz

6 4. Students can submit their answers at any time by simply clicking the Submit button on the interface. 5. Once the quiz time is finish, students current answer is automatically saved and submitted. 6. After submitting the answer, students are logged out by the system. P.S. During the quiz, students can print any thing from their own LINUX terminals by simply clicking the Print button which is located on the GUI panel. P.S. During the quiz, help menu helps students with any technical and non technical questions. A simple clicking on Help button leads students with problems to that menu within second. 2.2: Instructors Aspect From the point view of the instructor, what he/she should do is to provide the information of his/her quiz. He/she is required to fill in an application form. This allows the quiz room server administrator to set up the network, including the starting and ending time of a quiz and software tools that are allowed in the quiz room. After the quiz ends, the instructor should have access to all the answering files that are submitted by the students so that he/she can mark on it. 2.3: Administrators Aspect Form point view of the administrator, his/her task is to setup and maintain the quiz room remote secure server. Once the administrator receives an application from a certain instructor, he/she should setup the server by providing the starting and ending time of the quiz, the application tools that are allowed in the quiz which is specified by the instructor, the path of the folder to which all the answer files will go and the network cutting parameters

7 3 Design 3.1: Linux clients linking to a Windows server The architecture of the network will basically be clients running under Linux that will be accessing a Windows server. Having Linux clients will greatly facilitate the set up of a secure system, which will be used to access the windows network. The main Idea will be to load all security restrictions along with the main Graphical User Interface (GUI). The way to do this is to design our own set of shell commands. Linux is an operating system that loads a manageable shell at boot time. Thus, the idea is to load the shell commands that will bring restrictions and security to our system followed by our GUI at start up. As soon as the student has submitted his work and that he/she is finished, the system will revert to the original state by executing another set of shell command that will release our restrictions. 3.2: Windows cuts Concordia s network basically works with Windows cuts that are downloaded at boot up. The cut is a snapshot of Windows at a predefined point of time. Each time a student logs off; all changes to the OS are reverted to the original cut. This allows to offer the same environment to every student and to discard any unwanted modifications. When a quiz is set up, the quiz server will take control of all computers in desired rooms. For this certain period of time, the server will offer the same predefined environment cut to all computers. All the programs will be ran by Windows on a Linux station. When the quiz is over, the original Windows cut will be loaded back and the normal behaviour of the stations will be reinserted

8 4 Needs In order to achieve all this work, it is evident that we will need tools and means to develop, design, implement and test our system. Our first estimations of what will be needed are basically two computers, a client terminal and a network terminal. Those computers need to be set up as the Concordia University s network as accurately as possible (OS, speed, peripherals, etc.). We need administrator access to both computers to be able to set up the system on deep solid bases. We need a bunch of windows applications installed that will be used by the students that will participate to the quizzes (list already provided). We need those computers to be accessible only by the members of our group likely in a locked room. We also need technicians cooperation in explaining us the present behaviour of the network and in providing tech support if needed. Since we will be spending much of our time working on the system, it would be interesting to have web access and printing services. This will allow us to make researched from the provided computers and then makes our job a lot easier. If possible, we would also like to have at least one person who will use the program (teacher or else) to give suggestion or feedback every now and then on the development of the system. It will allow us to keep the software user friendly to someone out of the development team

9 5 Project Plans Date September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 Main Task The formation of the team and the understanding the target project: Group members Project description Meeting with the project supervisor Preparation of the project: Hardware resource Meeting with the technician team Setting up the coen490 lab in Hall Building System design, including server design and client user interface design Implementation of the project: Windows server 2003 server application LINUX client application Testing in the coen490 lab Deliverable Testing of the project: Instructor try-on Administrator try on Student try on Documentation: Detailed design documentation Detailed implementation documentation Detailed Testing documentation Detailed User manual - 6 -

10 6 Summary In summary, this quiz room remote secure server intends to provide an easy solution to existing quiz room situation. Setting up a quiz room can be much simpler for both instructors and technicians. Plus, various types of quiz can be realized, such as theoretical and practical. Moreover, it simplifies the quiz writing process for students and makes the best use of school resources