Project Limitations And Future Enhancements

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Primarily designed with the objective to serve as a communication tool that allows users to teleconference, collaborate on a document, use a whiteboard tool or conduct a meeting using headset/speaker tools. Additionally, includes a file transfer tool for easy transfer of files from computer to computer or sharing of files and desktop sharing which allows remote access to a computer for remote technical support.

Through this application they will be able to make conferences with their clients (distributors) or with their customers with timely updates of the company business. So they can improve their products with respect to the customers view.

Another advantage is that if the company is having branches throughout the country. So this will help them to communicate business affairs of the company and live meetings and conferences between their employees and directors. They can conduct board of directors meeting. It will give On-line solutions from the superiors to the employees. Instead of sending emails and awaiting response a meeting or a feedback forum/poll can be created to speed up the process..

TOPIC BACKGROUND

A conference organized via the Internet or Intranet, between numerous participants (minimum two), all of who are scattered at different geographical locations, comes under the term Web Conferencing. The use of text, images, formatting tools, audio or video may also be employed to communicate with the other participants of a web conference and this project implements aims to implement that only.

The project shall be known better for its ability to do away with the need for all the participants of a conference to be physically present at the same place saving money and time, which is otherwise needlessly spent in traveling. Though primarily implemented in organizations, it is flexibly designed to find applications elsewhere as well. The user is given a meeting code for the web-based conferencing. To begin, the user requires registering on the site if visiting for the first time or else login using the username and password provided and entering the meeting code provided to connect to a particular meeting. The other attendees of the meeting via the same process are connected to the meeting and can see who all are present in the web conference. Each user upon registration is allotted a username which is used to join and maintain the session of a conference. Once connected to the meeting all the users view a common screen where with the help of the whiteboard tool and others they can easily conduct their voice-enabled conferencing.

TARGET READER

This documentation has been designed with the view to be easily comprehended by anyone who wishes to refer to it for gaining technical knowledge or using it as a user manual. The target readers of this documentation primarily include:

Clientele of the system interested to use it as a User Manual.

Academia interested in Research in the said domain.

Network Administrator

Free and/or Open Source Software development community

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

The motive behind developing the proposed system is not only to develop the system but also to learn some new technologies or trends in the bargain. The learning outcomes can hence be defined as follows:-

Architecture Wise:

Research on various available architectures to develop an online conferencing portal.

Backend and Frontend designing and development.

Research and develop a standard for the front end to communicate with the back end (server side) application, and also have to consider the DB communication part.

Domain wise

Research on importance of communication in business.

Business meetings may be secured and confidential to the organization, so need to consider the security aspect for conducting/managing any web-based conference.

Research on how a web-based conference be made similar to a manual face-face meeting, have to research on various types of face to face conferencing and gather information.

Research on the FLV file format, to convert bytes into FLV.

Technology wise

Object Oriented Analysis in Unified Modeling Language (UML),

Learning to integrate different technologies to develop a single system,

Concept of Human Computer Interaction,

PROJECT OBJECTIVE

The objective of this project is to eradicate the manual process generated so that the users can freely communicate with one another without geographical boundaries to limit them. The proposed system, eSymposium, is a website aimed to connect multiple aims to primarily achieve the following apart from the rest:

Web Conferencing: Users can readily give presentations, product demonstrations and collaborate interactively with others.

Remote Support: Aim to provide support to desktops/ laptops users remotely.

Audio Conferencing: To have an interactive session or simply broadcast a seminar or presentation

File Transfer: To allow users to manage documents in terms of upload/ download and reviewing them in a meeting or after it.

White boarding: Formatting tool to assist a user during conference.

PROJECT SCOPE

The proposed system is a website application designed and developed for people who wish to host or attend conferences virtually without physically relocating. The look and feel of the system shall hence be kept much muted and sophisticated to blend in all the areas the application shall find its use. For development apt toolkit and other related technologies with an integrated networking concept shall be implemented at the client side. The project begins from the registration and terminates post successfully organizing a meeting has been achieved. There has to be proper communication throughout the members involved so that maximum utilization of human networking workforces takes place. The application shall offer services like proposing a meeting, fixing a meeting date and time, conducting the meeting, maintaining user session to record presence/absence automatically of the attendees and maintaining meeting specific session to check for the meeting duration amongst other things.

PROBLEM CONTEXT

The demand of the hour of the current trends in globalization is convergence of new and diversified technologies into one. Therefore, there is a major rush amongst the organizations where each company is working towards expanding and reaching with their products and services to the masses across the globe. Organizations are now no longer interested to be confined to one particular location or to one product. They are constantly striving to expand and grow and be the best of the best to survive and beat their competitors.

Apart from steady capital and a sound management the most important and lethal contributing factor to an organization’s success is an effective and uninterrupted communication amongst all the divisions and departments within the organization and among its allies. Reaching a common consensus on matters of the organization is a crucial thing for the stakeholders and need to conduct frequent periodical meetings to check on the progress of things. However, being geographically scattered it’s a menace to get all members to one location at a particular time according to everybody’s convenience for a brainstorming session before a decision is taken.

The solution is offered by conducting a Web-based Conferencing instead of meeting in person for it has proved to be a very fruitful and useful practical application of Internet technology making communications in business, between employers, employees, colleagues, trainees and other concerned personnel highly convenient and cost efficient. The organization incurs only the expenses of a conference call. In the present market there are innumerable web-based conferences offering portals to choose from and hence many may see eSymposium as being another one of them. It is a false notion for, with so many different types of web-based conferencing service providers in the market it becomes a daunting task to finalize one that fits an organization’s requirements perfectly and one can’t pick a portal solely on the basis that it proved beneficial for another organization. Each organization has its own needs and requirements and the portal being developed by the developer is designed so as to fit the needs of a wide range of target audience making it a preferable choice. Other reasons leading to the need of software in discussion can be contributed to many factors that have been identified and discussed in detail later.

RATIONALE

The problem areas and the proposed recommended solution being discussed the next thing to do is to set the foundation for the proposed system by debating upon the benefits the system shall reap in the form of Tangible Benefits and Intangible Benefits. This shall provide the reader with a clear understanding of the imperativeness for implementing such software.

TANGIBLE BENEFITS

Availability of Required Information: With the help of eSymposium any and all information resources required in order to make a well informed decision shall be readily made available in a timely fashion.

Common Consensus is reached: eSymposium helps to reach a common consensus to an issue at the earliest by providing the users with a platform for conducting a brainstorming session no matter what their location is.

Reduced Travelling Expenses: The Company with the aid of this software would have to bear no to minimum travelling and miscellaneous expenses otherwise spent in assembling members at one location.

Availability of Members: Since attending meeting on a virtual medium does not require the physical presence of the members, the members are readily available to schedule meetings keeping on their schedules in mind instead of location as well.

Decreased Operational Costs: Organization saves up in terms of infrastructure, stationary, entertaining the members arriving and other miscellaneous costs that is there in case of a meeting being organized physically.

Automated Process: Reduced labor costs incurred by organization for the whole process shall now be automated. The session of a user in terms of presence/ absence is automatically recorded.

Savings: eSymposium is conducted without regard to geographical boundaries or limitations imposed by them. Savings in terms of costs, energy, time and labor is achieved which amounts to a huge amount of savings in an organization.

Improved Productivity: The employees or employers do not have to physically go and sit in meetings, meaning, they may continue their work on their machines alongside with the meeting getting their work complete faster. Travelling results in tiredness and decrease in productivity correspondingly but with eSymposium this is dealt away and productivity increases.

INTANGIBLE BENEFITS

Time Frame: eSymposium takes only a few minutes to connect from one computer to another, depending on the speed of each user's Internet connection. It is quick and easy, without having to wait for things like the conference room being ready and all members being seated before proceeding to begin a meeting.

Effective Communication: Helps rid ambiguity from conversations between two or more people. They now have a common platform where they can carry on a discussion on a particular topic or over a document for as long as desired. This helps for then both parties know the point being discussed unlike a normal teleconference where major time is wasted clarifying the point on page the other person is pointing to which can be both time consuming and frustrating.

Quick Time Solutions: in case an unforeseen emergency presents itself all of a sudden and to decide on the course of action a meeting needs to be immediately organized. Physically organizing it would result in a lot of precious time being wasted to first contact the requisite persons and wait for them to then collect at a designated place.

Improve Negative Received Publicity: With eSymposium the inhibition of the users regarding how genuine the software available in markets is shall be removed for this shall not keep the users in dark about any features.

Correct Choice of Software: The software eSymposium has a wide variety of features and functionalities to offer catering to a wide variety of organization’s needs, thus proving to be the correct choice of software for those organizations whose needs match the features of the project.

Power User of the Organization: The control can be transferred conveniently upon user will to other attendees of the meeting.

Quick Search Response: Quick and Effective search using any searching parameters out of contact, meetings, session details etc.

Security Requirements: eSymposium is implemented over the Intranet to be run within an organization and hence is protected from external resources trying to corrupt or interrupt via the company’s firewall and other security measures.

FEATURES AND FUNCTIONALITIES

The features and functionalities are divided according to the basis of achievement of the developer. The features and functionalities of the application include:

CORE FEATURES

They are defined as the basic functionalities that the proposed system must fulfill in order to be considered as a complete system.

Create and Manager Users

Create user profile and search for a particular contact and append it to the list of known contacts to enable conferencing

Advertise a conference proceeding

Sending out email notifications to attendees about the scheduled event and based on their feedback finalizing a date and time. The entry shall feature in each one’s calendar.

Operator-free Set-up

The ability for users to convene and organize conferences online, without requiring the help of a human operator (or IT staffer).

User Session Management

Ability to track session and the activity of any connected user, this will enable the host/admin to take a record and review later.

Meeting Session Management

Inception to Termination to be managed right from tenure to including the number of users, user’s duration and activity period

Tracking Attendance and Behavior

Enable leader and participants to see who is currently connected with the conference, track how long each attendee remains connected, the number of questions asked and other useful behavior information

Passing the Baton

The tasks of presiding over a meeting or conference and controlling slides, polls and shared media can be passed around among participants, or a participant can jump in at any time in the role of demonstrator.

Texting/online chat

Texting/online chat capabilities enable participants to send messages to the moderator, or to each other, and in a public fashion for the entire group to read, or privately to selected recipients. Conference participants can send questions to the moderator for group discussion, for example.

Whiteboard

Enables the conference moderator or participants to highlight items in a presentation, and can also be used for note taking. It has drawing, writing, Drag n' Drop, Resizing, Images (Drag n' Drop from File-Explorer), highlight things, formatting text, Symbol(s)/Clipart. Multiple instances can be created and each one saved for review later.

Table 1.1 CORE FEATURES OF THE SYSTEM

ENHANCE FEATURES

They are defined as the functionalities that assist a user better comprehend and utilize the system.

File-Explorer

Drag and Drop interface for managing uploaded files, including the possibility to create a document tree with folders. Private and Public Drive in File-Explorer.

Managing Documents

Option to Upload/Download Documents to and from the file explorer.

Table 1.2 ENHANCED FEATURES OF THE SYSTEM

SPECIAL FEATURES

They are defined based on the research conducted in the initial phases. If the developer has the time and ability, the developer shall attempt to implement in the system.

Audio streaming and Controls

Allows conference participants to listen to the audio as they view presentations. Also allows conference organizers to control who gets to speak when and to who with various muting controls.

Recording

The entire conference can be recorded, so voice and visuals can be synchronized into a permanent record. (This is particularly valuable for presentations and other group events, as those who cannot attend any or all of the "live" event can consume it on demand at a later, more convenient time.)

Table 1.3 SPECIAL FEATURES OF THE SYSTEM

TARGET AUDIENCE

eSymposium finds a wide radius of application areas in multiple businesses for various communication purposes. Following describes the audiences the system is being developed targeted at:

Banks and Financial Institutions: People are no longer confined to one local position to have their accounts or financial consultants. eSymposium helps the bank officials like bank managers and financial consultants to effectively manage and provide assistance to the overseas and international customers promptly. It can also be used to keep in touch with analysts and investors about the latest advances in universal investment strategies.

Law Firms: eSymposium assists the lawyers to prepare a real time testimony of the witnesses unable due to certain reasons be physically present at the hearing thus saving time.

Distance Learning: In education field, in Academic institutes eSymposium help to provide distance education to students not physically present in the classrooms for various reasons. It can be used to guide and provide assistance to students as and when required.

Government Institutes: helps to organize conference to discuss on new policies of the government that needs to be implemented for public welfare.

The developed application eSymposium also finds use in the following sectors:

Job Counselor

Company’s providing facilities related to voice conferencing or tele-conferencing can also utilize this project.

Companies taking Customer Feedback

Voice calls centers and BPOs.

Healthcare Institutes

HR Applications

CHALLENGES IN THE PROJECT

The challenges can be categorized as follows:-

DOMAIN SPECIFIC

Recording: The data received after streaming shall be in bytes that need to be converted to flv format following set protocols.

User Specific Session Management which includes a person’s activity during the conference tenure.

Whiteboard: Same screen to be visible to all users with changes being reflected instantly on all is a challenge to be overcome.

File Explorer: Creation and segregating it into public and private drive.

Meeting Specific Session Management: Inception to Termination to be managed right from tenure to including the number of users, user’s duration and activity period.

Tracking Attendance and Behavior: Moderating the entire session is a very big challenge posed.

TECHNOLOGY SPECIFIC

Google Web Toolkit (GWT) use to help with building and optimizing complex browser-based applications. 

HTML 5 and JavaScript/AJAX for implementation purposes at the client side.

For deployment of the application the Web Server and Streaming Server needs to manage which is quite a challenging task especially the task of implementing a streaming server.

PROJECT DELIVERABLES

Upon completion of the project the developer shall provide the below mentioned deliverables completed on time and within budget in a good quality condition:

Project Proposal Form

Project Specification Form

Planning and Research Documents

Fully Functional System

Documentation of the System (include documenting inference and analysis of each phase of the development process, Project Management Techniques and Tools, etc.)

User Manual

Technical Manual

Presentation

PROJECT LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE ENHANCEMENTS

There are a lot of features and functionalities that can be integrated in the proposed system but the project scope has been limited to diligently resolve the problems as identified in the problem areas above. The project objective has to be achieved pertaining to the Time Constraint and Monetary constraint applied in accordance with the defined functionality of the system. However, features that are not included in the system can be considered as future enhancements. The limiting areas of the project contributing for enhancement thus are as follows, namely,

Presently the system aims to incorporate the feature of audio conferencing via broadcasting the analog voice signals across the members but does not implement video conferencing so that people can view each other’s faces giving it a more surreal feel. The enhancement shall be to manage implementing video conferencing.

Next, the system presently implemented to work with the intranet of the organization but can be enhanced later to run over the internet.

Due to network constraints the information may not be available to the user at real time i.e. some delay might occur while performing the action on the computer.

Major constraint is that the system is designed and developed to be executed only on a Windows operating system and therefore a system using an operating system other than windows like MAC, Linux and UNIX may have compatibility issues in executing the software.

CHAPTER 2- PROBLEM DESCRIPTION

PROBLEM-INTRODUCTION

The meetings are very necessary for an organization and this is clear to one and all. The resources in terms of cost, labor and infrastructure that the organization has to bear for a single meeting can be substantial specially if the members required for the meeting happen to be geographically scattered or if the member’s schedule don’t match to allow them to meet physically at one location at a particular time. Whatever be the reason if a meeting get postponed or cancelled it spells great losses for the company and hence is a major problem that requires immediate attention to be resolved. The losses may not only be monetary but there may be an important decision that may not be taken on time and the company might lose a deal hindering the growth of the company.

DESCRIPTION OF PROBLEM AREA

Unavailability of Required Information: To make informed decision accurate information is required on a prompt and timely fashion which currently may get lost or delayed due to the manual process.

Common Consensus Not Reached: A common consensus is difficult to be reached on time due to various reasons like absence of a particular member from the meeting or late reply in textual correspondence (that is via email or mail) with the employees. This spells heavy losses for the organization in terms of time and cost.

Travelling Expenses: Organization has to incur additional travelling and other miscellaneous expenses of employees in assembling all members for just one meeting which does not go down well with the company’s objective of maximum profit with minimum input

Unavailability of Members: Members required for a meeting may be involved in other projects simultaneously or away on work-related travel, out with illness, telecommute or work in other remote locations making it impossible for them to assemble at the decided time for a meeting for even a day.

Operational Costs: An organization has to entail expenses in terms of infrastructure that is, hiring a separate place for a large audience probably. Also, bear expenses to invite people for the meeting (in terms of paper cost), manually acknowledging how Time Consuming the process is and also to the entertain people attending the conference.

Manual Process: The entire procedure right from the inception of the meeting to it being conducted is a manual process involving labor cost. There is a manual acknowledgement for recording the presence/ absence of employees for the meeting.

Slow Process of Dealing with Things: In case of emergency or a crisis where immediate meeting has to be conducted, organizing a meeting within the time (day or night) is a daunting task in itself.

Negative Publicity of Existing Websites: Many websites are present offering the same kind of services but of them few turn out to be a hoax leaving the user disappointed and uninterested in other genuine products which are priced efficiently too.

Incorrect Choice of Software: From a variety to choose from the user might make a wrong decision by selecting those helpful to other organization or one that though costs less does not fulfill the requirements of that particular organization. Therefore choice should be made after careful evaluation and dependent strictly on the organization only.

Power User of the Organization: Administrator has full control. Deciding whether to give all the privileges to top Management or the Administrator of the system.

Quick Search Response: To search for a particular contact or document or meeting details or to verify a particular user’s active session maintained manually requires a long tedious process.

Security Requirements: The information is User-Specific. No unauthorized person should have the access to other user’s personal mails, meeting schedules or reminders etc.

RECOMMENDED SOLUTION

"Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines." -Robert H. Schuller  

Following the aforementioned rightful saying it is noted that the basic issues of the present system being generated have all been listed above. The next logical step is to look for a solution to the problems and implement it to eradicate all losses clean. According to the developer the implementation of the proposed solution lies in developing a web-based conferencing portal which shall allow the users to conduct seminars, hold meetings, make presentations, conduct polls, share files and documents with each other easily and quickly and collaborate with his/her colleagues to work on documents using whiteboard formatting tools or hold an audio press conference. All this can be achieved by the user from the convenience of their laptops/ desktops at any convenient location across the globe. The utility software shall be uploaded on the intranet of the organization for it is protected from outside attenuations and disturbances and provides a dedicated line to the user thus providing the requisite upload/ download bandwidth speed thus protecting the connection being dropped periodically hindering in the meeting process which can result in the system being discard as useless. The developer plans to implement everything in accordance to the set protocols and ethics and provide users with easy-to-use software. The primary area for attention is establishing communication amongst the various entities involved and the developer plans to enhance that using voice conferencing, mails, forums, and message reminders on phone.

ORIGIN OF IDEA

A legitimate question that arises in mind is to determine the reason for the birth of the idea behind deciding on developing eSymposium. The reason is simple the problem in communicating is a predominant one that everybody faces despite the advances in the technologies. To converse with a person sitting halfway across the globe requires effort in the form of turning to various email and messenger clients. Next if you wish to share a document for any discussion purposes, or present a PPT to someone you cannot communicate and view/present the document/PPT at the same time from one single application (assuming the person is trying to communicate via online based means). There are no direct means of expressing your thoughts while you communicate with the person on a topic; Yahoo Messenger comes closest in providing a scrap pad for doodling purposes but an entire clear whitespace for scribbling on misses in most.

This got the developer thinking that if a person faces such issues in personal life what possible issues must be faced by people in their professional purposes for similar reasons though their situations may differ and this is how the developer had the idea of developing an application primarily focused for organization purposes but flexible enough for being employed for personal use as well.

RELEVANCY OF THE TITLE OF THE PROJECT "eSymposium"

The project is aimed at developing a system such that the users get a feeling of conducting their official or personal meetings virtually online as they would by physically meeting and interacting. The term Symposium refers to a meeting or seminar conducted and the prefixed monosyllable is the way of representing a web-based system. Therefore eSymposium as the name suggests provides a platform for people to conduct conferences online.

PROBLEM IMPORTANCE AND JUSTIFICATION

Unavailability of Required Information: The manual process delays or damages the information before it reaches the recipient and hence sending the information online in an encrypted or normal form may help speed things and also ensure security and privacy.

Common Consensus not reached: Due to time constraints or an important member being absent due to geographical constraint an important decision may not be reached on time resulting in problems. Therefore an online system should be employed to have a discussion and reach a decision on time.

Travelling Expenses: The major reason for opting for a web-based solution is it cuts down the travelling expenses a company has to bear regularly in order to assemble all the members under one roof.

Unavailability of Members: The member’s whose presence may be needed may be required to be present elsewhere or has some other reason for not being present may well find alternative to be physically present at one place and virtually at the other.

Operational Costs: An organization expenses are curtailed in terms of infrastructure that is, hiring a separate place for a large audience probably, bear expenses to invite people for the meeting (in terms of paper cost), manually acknowledging how Time Consuming the process is and also to the entertain people attending the conference.

Manual Process: The current procedures being conducted manually requires a lot of effort and energy being wasted and could easily be done away with and switched to easier to use and less labor-extensive means of using the software.

Slow Process of Dealing with Things: In case of an unexpected emergency a lot of time is wasted in getting all members to assemble and in the meantime an entire meeting can be conducted online and be done with.

Negative Publicity of Existing Websites: the current websites have many boasting false things or not meeting the requirements of the users.

Power User of the Organization: Administrator has full control and managing things manually and keeping track of them could hence be difficult and therefore an automated system should be used.

Quick Search Response: To search for a particular contact or document or meeting details or to verify a particular user’s active session maintained manually requires a long tedious process but is quickly achieved if implemented online.

Security Requirements: The information is User-Specific. No unauthorized person should have the access to other user’s personal mails, meeting schedules or reminders and is easily achieved with the help of conducting user authorization check at the beginning.

CHAPTER 3- LITERATURE REVIEW

LITERATURE REVIEW OF THE PROJECT

Literature review is simply a summary of ideas and view based on another reference material. The main goal of this chapter therefore is to provide the readers with the apt reasons of why such study is important, that is, to share or convey the knowledge and ideas that have been established on the related topic of scheduling and conducting a meeting online, with their strengths and weaknesses.

ADVANCED PRELIMINARY

The proposed system is being developed to organize virtual meetings over a network and it is hence required to understand what solutions such a system should provide. The basics of a meeting process can help in better explaining the problems within the existing systems and how the proposed system can help in resolving them.

MEETING

The process of gathering two or more people for the purpose of achieving a common goal through interaction, such as sharing information and ideas can be termed as a meeting. There are various types of meetings but the common things among all are:

Attendance and Activity (Session Management): A meeting’s prime requirement is of attendees who interact, discuss, and achieve the purpose of their meeting. So one of the most important activities for any host is to log and maintain the attendance and activity of attendees. User Session Management takes care of managing any attendee from their attendance to their activity log.

Whiteboard Sharing: Any meeting session requires a white board to discuss/explain things to various attendees. An e-whiteboard with different option such as write text, draw images, diagrams etc in order to discuss/explain the agenda will be available for all the attendees of the meeting. This board enables geographically separated members to sync up on one point, and discuss same thing at same time.

Document and Presentation Sharing (Explorer Management): Document/PPTs are other important units of a meeting. There can be multiple documents/ PPTs that can be used while any meeting session, managing them all is thus another important part to be considered. Explorer View of the system enables users to manage their document/PPT on and off the meeting session.

Minutes of Meeting (Recording): Any meeting without a MOM is half waste, as that’s the only means for stakeholders to be aware of the meeting. Recording option of the system enables host to manage a MOM for each and every meeting. It basically record and saves each session which can be reviewed further by all stakeholders. The recordings will be available for view and download by all authenticated and valid users.

Audio Streaming and Control: Streaming is a technique that enables end users to constantly receive the content being presented by the provider. The system makes use of this technology to achieve various functionalities. The diagram below describes how the streaming is used to implement various functionalities.

ARCHITECTURE

An architecture description is a formal description and representation of a system, organized in a way that supports reasoning about the structure of the system which comprises system components, the externally visible properties of those components, the relationships (e.g. the behavior) between them, and provides a plan from which products can be procured, and systems developed, that will work together to implement the overall system.

The basic Client/Server architecture is used in the proposed system to promote better management, enhanced security and easy access to add/ remove new nodes (clients). The Client/ Server Architecture composed of 1-tier, 2-tier, 3-tier and N-tier also called 3N-tier Architecture. The 3-N Tier architecture suits best for the proposed system.

The problems faced with the 1-tier or 2-tier Architecture style is primarily the issues faced when the number of users gets increased beyond a chosen few. Also, it has limitation to solve issues like security, scalability, fault tolerance because it can be deployed in only 1 or 2 computes.  In 3-tier architecture, the issues to deal with include a more complex structure that makes it very tough to setup and provide maintenance thereby affecting the overall performance.

Figure 3.1 Client/ Server Architecture

The N-tier architecture is regarded as a more friendly and efficient for development amongst the rest despite the shortcoming of having to learn API for development purposes. By categorizing in accordance to functionality the overall system becomes quite easily understandable and manageable. As opposed to the earlier mentioned tier architectures this provides the option of appending new features to the existing ones following the logical grouped components and the decoupling supported by it without affecting the overall system. It facilitates Reusability widely courtesy the Loosely-coupled component groups being implemented in more general ways, allowing them to be used by other applications.

The N-Tier architecture employs, non-embedded database server, such as, SQL server, Oracle, DB2, or MySQL that can easily be executed on individual nodes as opposed to the embedded type databases, such as, Microsoft access and dbase. Thus, Embedded Database Management Systems cannot be used as Data Layer in the N-tier Architecture.

For better Understanding of the Subject Matter and helping the developer decide the pros and cons in favor and against a particular Architecture are tabulated below as follows:

Architecture

Pros

Cons

1-Tier

Simple

No networking – can't access remote

Very high performance

services

Self-contained

Potential for spaghetti code

2-Tier

Clean, modular design

Must design/implement protocol

Less network traffic

Must design/implement reliable data

Secure algorithms

storage

Can separate UI from business logic

3-Tier

Can separate UI, logic, and storage

Need to buy DB product

Reliable, replicable data

Need to hire DBA

Concurrent data access via transactions

Need to learn SQL

Efficient data access

Object-relational mapping is difficult

N-Tier

Support multiple applications more easily

Less inefficient

Common protocol/API

Must learn API (CORBA, RMI, etc.)

Expensive products

More complex, more faults

Load balancing is hard

Table 3.4 CONTRAST OF VARIOUS TIERS OF CLIENT/ SERVER ARCHITECTURE

3.2.1. 3 - N TIER ARCHITECTURE

As established above the 3-N Tier architecture model, which is the fundamental framework for the logical design model, segments an application's components into various tiers of services. These tiers do not necessarily correspond to physical locations on various computers on a network, but rather to logical layers of the application.

Various Tiers of N Tier Architecture as implemented in the proposed system are:

Presentation Tier: This layer presents data to the user and optionally also permits data manipulation and data entry.

Web Server Tier: This is the service layer of the application and helps in session management of the application.

Application Server Tier: Also referred to as the business logic tier, the middle tier is where COM+ developers can solve mission-critical business problems and achieve major productivity advantages. The components that make up this layer can exist on a server machine, to assist in resource sharing. 

Figure 3.2: 3N-Tier Architecture DiagramData Tier: This is the actual DBMS access layer. It can be accessed through the business services layer and on occasion by the user services layer.

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MARKET STUDY

The proposed system was intended to develop a web based application which will act as a platform for different individuals/organization to conduct a virtual meeting/conference in a more easy and securest way thereby adding various features which are not present in the existing systems. And also to develop a user friendly interface which the users will found easier than the existing ones.

Different existing applications currently in the market are:

Google Hangout: Hangout is a product developed by Google that enables virtual meeting for individual or an organization. It has various features such as Video conferencing, Public/Private chat and Screen sharing to name a few.

(Google+ Features, http://www.google.com/+/images/learnmore/hero/hero-hangouts.jpg, 2013)

It hosts virtual meetings with powerful tools like screen sharing and Google Drive collaboration and broadcasts live streaming of the Hangouts on Youtube. However, it can have a maximum of nine participants in video conferencing and not more than that.

Cisco WebEx: It assists in conducting Web Conferencing over the web from any location using any device and provides Enterprise-Standards of Instant Messaging and other benefits. It promotes real-time content sharing amongst users.

(Cisco Systems, http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps12584/prod_view_selector.html, 2013)

WebEx combines desktop sharing through a web browser with phone conferencing and video, so everyone sees the same thing while you talk.

ScribLink: ScribLink is a unique platform that provides the users with a free digital whiteboard that is private and available only to those the host user wishes to invite from different locations across the globe. The web portal has a basic and simple layout permitting even the novice users to easily maneuver around the site.

(Scriblink, http://www.econsultant.com/images/web2-scriblink.jpg, 2013)

It provides for the option of In-Screen Chatting with the other participants and also communicating via voice conferencing.

The aforementioned applications after having been defined are now contrasted against the proposed system to give the targeted reader a clear understanding of why to opt for the proposed system as mentioned below in a tabulated fashion.

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS WITH THE PROPOSED SYSTEM

Functionalities

Products

Google Hangout

Cisco WebEx

ScribLink

Proposed System

(eSymposium)

User Management

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Reminder

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Session Management

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Attendance and activity tracking

No

No

No

Yes

Polls and Surveys

No

No

No

Yes

Passing the Baton

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Texting/online chat

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Whiteboard

No

No

Yes

Yes

Screen Sharing

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

File Explorer

Yes

No

No

Yes

Audio Streaming

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Recording

No

No

No

Yes

Table 3.5 COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE VARIOUS APPLICATIONS IN MARKET

CONCLUSION

This chapter helps the reader to review the nitty-gritty of things in regard to the Proposed System, eSymposium. The first part highlights the basics of the meeting, the main component or framework on which the entire system is dependent greatly. It establishes the entire process that is followed within any organization in conducting any meeting in general. It briefly describes what are the common activities involved in this process and their significance.

Next, the architecture is chosen and defined in detail which is to be followed in the development of the proposed system. The client/ server architecture is chosen for the proposed system for the basic requirement is that of a client interacting with the system by sending request to the server, which in return executes the request and returns the response to the client. There are various tiers in which the client/ server architecture works in logically though practically they may all be implemented on the same machine like 1-tier architecture yet the individual tiers should be capable of working separately. For the proposed system N-tier Architecture is chosen for there are multiple tiers coming to work. The coding is done in within the boundaries of the tier. All the client-related coding is put in the Presentation Tier, while the Web Server Tier houses the coding for the server-side. The Application Server Tier stores the business logic of the system while the actual DBMS is implemented within the Data Tier.

Lastly, a thorough market study was conducted to best evaluate the competition and demarcate the proposed system from the rest of the similar systems already available in the market providing similar functionality but only the most widely-used and popular ones with attractive features were included for the final comparative analysis beginning with a huge list of applications and finally narrowing down to three to best study the completion for its strength and weakness. This market study shall help the developer determine the demands and requirements of the user better and thereby help decide which feature in the proposed system should be given more weightage over the others or which to mandatorily include in order to make the system a hit amongst clients from all walks of life. Also, amongst the systems already released some were failures while others a hit and therefore utilizing this information along with the standards set by them shall assist the developer in developing the final system to be released which shall be suitable matched against its competitors. It highlights the exact reasons for opting for such a system and the features the proposed system has to offer that may all not be available with one application presently in the market or if available then may not have been implemented in the same fashion to enhance the overall user experience.

CHAPTER 4- RESEARCH METHODS

RESEARCH -INTRODUCTION

How research is defined varies widely from field to field, for engineers it is defined as that which focuses on applying scientific knowledge to develop designs, processes, and objects, by conducting research using simulations, mathematical models. Sociologists conduct research using surveys, interviews, observations, and statistical analysis to better understand people, societies, and cultures. Graphic designers conduct research through locating images for reference for their artwork and engaging in background research on clients and companies. Historians conduct research by examining archival materials— newspapers, journals, letters, and other surviving texts.

Research is bifurcated primarily into two components known as the primary research and the secondary research where the former deals in research that collected firsthand by an individual rather than found in a book, database or journal that has already been written like the latter.

(Driscoll, D.L., 2011)

Figure 4.3 Categorization of Research Work

PRIMARY RESEARCH

Discussing first about the primary research it forms for a firm foundation of any project for without a strong backing in the form of such research the project fails to interest the individuals. The primary purpose of conducting primary research is to learn about something new that can be confirmed by others. Primary research is based on principles of the scientific method, a theory of investigation first proposed by John Stuart Mill. The application differs from field to field but the principles and guidelines remain the same. Using the scientific method, researchers develop research questions or hypotheses, interviews, study existing system documentation for reference, conducting naturalistic observation and focus groups to collect data on events, objects, or people that are measurable, observable, and replicable.

(Driscoll, D.L., 2011)

PRIMARY RESEARCH TECHNIQUES CHOSEN FOR PROPOSED SYSTEM AND ITS JUSTIFICATION

The developer doubles up as a researcher and conducts questionnaires and interviews for the current proposed system of eSymposium.

The need for conducting a primary research arises because the proposed system shall be a live system catering to the needs and requirements of the end users and so it has to be in sync with what they signed up for. Presently, the developer is not fully aware of the minor details that lead to the issues arising. All the issues identified so far are purely based on peculations and it may so happen that there may have been a few that the developer skipped and that only be resolved once the people are questioned about it. Questionnaire gives a comparative result where the majority ruling applies and so the developer can decide what course of action to take depending upon the path the majority favors. Interview is a more personal means of interacting and in this specific questions are given specific situational-based answers and the experience of people being interviewed help the developer to learn and emulate accordingly in the proposed system.

Questionnaires are used for taking view of mass people about specific information and then based upon majority ruling taking the decisions on that. With their help a larger range of people can be addressed and their opinions collected and therefore conducting a close-ended questionnaire is chosen as the first research technique to be carried out. The questionnaire help to understand the general expectation of the end users as to what features and functionalities they wish to use in the proposed system and how shall it overcome the present problems and issues.

Interviews are used to provide an "in-depth" information regarding the subject matter which the questionnaires may at some level fail to do so for they are close-ended limiting the respondent to answer from amongst the alternatives provided to him/ her to choose from. Therefore, in order to understand the flaws in the existing system and the plausible major areas of concern that require immediate attention through the proposed system the Interview of certain people associated with the corporate sector is carried out who are experiencing the issues of conducting meeting offline on a fairly regular basis and would benefit greatly if they are able to eradicate issues.

The main intention of the developer by conducting the questionnaires and the interviews with these people is to understand the current system thoroughly, its working and shortcomings (if any) so as to develop the proposed system in a more efficient and productive way.

QUESTIONNAIRES

The questionnaire helps understand the existing system and has questions pertaining to only the existing system. They aim at providing the developer with a pre-feedback from the end users of the system. They voice the opinion of the participants in general(bulk), helping the developer to determine which of the paths he wish to follow and what not to do in order to make the proposed system a success. The Questionnaires prepared categorized as:

Organization Specific

Others

QUESTIONNAIRES- ORGANIZATION SPECIFIC

Ques 1: How frequently are meetings conducted within your organization?

More Than Once a Day

Daily

Weekly

Monthly

Ques 2: On an average what is the number of employees who attend a particular meeting in your organization?

Two to Five

Five to Ten

More than Ten

Can’t be Determined

Ques 3: Does your organization follow the traditional method of conducting meetings in a conference room?

Yes

No

Ques 4: How often a meeting has been delayed/ cancelled due to members missing following geographical limitation or time constraints?

Never

Once/ Twice

Few Times

Many Times

Ques 5: How would you rate the existing system within the organization for conducting a meeting?

Excellent

Useful

Not Useful

Worst

Ques 6: In the last few years, has your organization incurred any financial losses due to meeting(s) being delayed/ cancelled?

Yes

No

Ques 7: Is a medium required to facilitate the overall communication process by easily assembling people thus saving time and cost in travelling?

Very Much Required

Required to Some Extent

Not Required

Not Sure

Ques 8: Do you feel the need of some viable technologies to track down and notify the attendees of the meeting?

Very Much Required

Required to Some Extent

Not Required

Not Sure

Ques 9: How necessary is a feasible solution for conducting meetings in terms of costs and specifications if available at affordable price?

Very Much Required

Required to Some Extent

Not Required

Not Sure

Ques 10: Which of the following features when included would most benefit the proposed system? (You may choose more than one option)

Whiteboard

Plan meetings with integrated calendar

Voice Conferencing

Screen Sharing with other participants

Polls/ Votes.

Ques 11: What is the present medium you employ to communicate with a person(s)? (You may choose more than one option)

Email

Letter/ Memorandum

SMS

via Phone

In Person

Ques 12: Which of the following technologies are frequently accessible? (You may select more than one option)

SMS

Internet

Mobile Internet

None of the above

Ques 13: Would you prefer a feature of generating the report automatically for documenting the Minutes of Meeting?

Very Much Required

Required to Some Extent

Not Required

Not Sure

Ques 14: Would you like to conduct meetings on an online portal as opposed to in a conference room?

Yes

No

Cannot Say

Maybe in some situations, not always

Ques 15: Do you feel the requirement for a new system that shall help save resources and thereby boost the overall productivity of your organization?

Very Much Required

Required to Some Extent

Not Required

Not Sure

QUESTIONNAIRES- OTHERS

Ques 1: What is the present medium you employ to communicate with a person(s)? (You may choose more than one option)

Email

Letter/ Memorandum

SMS

via Phone

In Person

Ques 2: How often have you faced a situation where you were unable to communicate with person(s) due to geographical limitations or time constraints?

Never

Once/ Twice

Few Times

Many Times

Ques 3: How would you rate the necessity of some viable technologies to contribute in assembling people easily from different geographical locations and saving time and cost in travelling?

Very Much Required

Required to Some Extent

Not Required

Not Sure

Ques 4: To what extent will it be beneficial for you to track down and notify in advance people you wish to communicate with (say setting up an appointment)?

Very Much Required

Required to Some Extent

Not Required

Not Sure

Ques 5: Do you feel there is any need some viable technologies to facilitate better communication amongst people?

Very Much Required

Required to Some Extent

Not Required

Not Sure

Ques 6: To what extent is there a need for an affordable and feasible solution using the available technologies to get rid of communication complications?

Very Much Required

Required to Some Extent

Not Required

Not Sure

Ques 7: Would you opt for an online portal allowing you to communicate and share data with other people freely as opposed to the existing methods?

Yes

No

Cannot Say

Maybe in some situations, not always

Ques 8: Which of the following features when included would most benefit the proposed system? (You may choose more than one option)

Whiteboard

Plan meetings with integrated calendar

Voice Conferencing

Screen Sharing with other participants

Polls/ Votes.

Ques 9: Which of the following technologies are frequently accessible? (You may select more than one option)

SMS

Internet

Mobile Internet

None of the above

Ques 10: Would you like to provide any other information or comment on the proposed system?

(The justification and results of the questionnaires have been documented later in the Analysis Section.)

INTERVIEWS

The interview includes domain specific research and is asked from certain specific people in the concerned field. The developers working and the people occupying managerial positions within the organizations who are primarily concerned with hosting the meeting are the targeted audience for the interviews. The interview is a more personalize and contains direct questions that though subjective help the developer gain a better insight into how to further design and develop the proposed system. The interviews are categorized as:

Developers

Managers

INTERVIEW-DEVELOPER SPECIFIC

Ques 1: What are your views about a system that can provide you a central point for communication and exchange of ideas and documents?

Ques 2: Kindly share your experience, mentioning (if you faced) any difficulty (technical or non-technical) in detail with the existing Meeting Management software?

Ques 3: Are technologies like SMS/ Email for web-based notifications means accessible to the target audience and how?

Ques 4: Could you suggest some ways to make the proposed system more reliable and acceptable to the target audience?

Ques 5: What precautions need to be observed while recording the Minutes of Meeting, where the streamed bytes need to be converted into flv format?

Ques 6: How would you recommend Implementing whiteboard feature so that the same screen is visible to all simultaneously and any modifications are reflected throughout?

Ques 7: What steps to take to moderate the overall meeting as well as individual user’s session simultaneously?

Ques 8: For deployment of the application what would be the best way of implementing a streaming server?

Ques 9: How would you deal with network constraints so that the information may be available to the user at real time?

Ques 10: What kind of operational problems could be faced upon implementation of the proposed system? How can they be eliminated?

INTERVIEW-MANAGER SPECIFIC

Ques 1: What is the procedure followed in your organization for scheduling a meeting?

Ques 2: Kindly share your experience, mentioning (if you faced) any difficulty (technical or non-technical) in detail with the existing Meeting Management software?

Ques 3: What problems are faced for scheduling a meeting and how could they be improved?

Ques 4: How often have you faced a situation in which a meeting has been cancelled/ postponed due to unavailability of some members? Specify the reason?

Ques 5: What remedial steps could have been taken to avoid the aforementioned situation altogether?

Ques 6: How much would an organization be ready to invest and how much in a meeting scheduler software like eSymposium?

Ques 7: How is privacy and security maintained during a meeting in the present scenario?

Ques 8: Are technologies like SMS/ Email for web-based notifications means accessible to the target audience and how?

Ques 9: Could you suggest some ideas to make the proposed system more reliable and acceptable to the target audience?

Ques 10: What kind of operational problems could be faced upon implementation of the proposed system? How can they be eliminated?

(The justification and results of the interviews have been documented later in the Analysis Section.)

SECONDARY RESEARCH

Secondary research also referred by many as desk research is one of the most popular and widely chosen mode of conducting research. It is popular choice for it is easy to conduct without utilizing many resources for this involves processing data documented by a researcher(s) previously in the form of reports, press articles and previous market research projects in order to reach a conclusion. The major reason for opting for this is the relatively low expense in comparison to primary research for no new research needs to be commissioned. The developer opts for secondary research for reasons other than monetary basis for the secondary research helps gaining insight into the kind of difficulties and issues faced and the possible solutions the other researchers used thus saving time of the developer for the remedy is chosen avoiding incurring any hurdle. However, its main disadvantage is that the data used in the analysis may be out-dated and therefore return inaccurate results, or the previous studies may not have targeted the exact issue that the current research requires.

(DJS Research Ltd., 2011)

ACADEMIC SEARCH

Research is the back bone of the system and more rigorous the research is more are the chances of building a useful and acceptable application. The academic research is a way to find out the things from the work of the others. So an extensive research must be carried out in order to complete this project successfully.

SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT METHODOLOGY SELECTION RESEARCH

The first step in developing a plan for the proposed project is finalizing a Software Development Life Cycle Methodology to be followed like a blueprint for development. Based on the project requirement any one of the innumerable can be chosen, the deciding factors for the same being:

Clear User Requirements Specified

Thorough Knowledge and Awareness of the Technology to be used

System Complexity

Stringent Time Constraints

Project Visibility

The reason for proceeding with the development using the phases and rules as specified in the methodology is simple because this then results in fewer or no errors and smooth functioning of the entire development process. The Chosen methodology for the development process of the proposed eSymposium project is ITERATIVE WATERFALL MODEL.

Justification for Choosing Iterative Waterfall Model:

The most popular methodology is the Traditional Waterfall Model even after having several limitations. The major advantage of water fall model is that it is very useful in helping developer’s lay out in detail what they need to do. Its simplicity makes it easy to explain to customers who are not familiar with software development; it generates intermediate products which are necessary in order to begin the next stage of development.

(Shari, Lawrence, Peleeger, 2002)

The traditional waterfall model, although widely use, has some strong limitation as below:

"Presumes that the system requirement have already been defined and scrubbed exhaustively, which is probably the most important step towards project success".

(pm_sdm.htm, 2009)

Other than this it also does not permit any backtracking to go and modify any work done previously which restricts the developer from being flexible enough to go and modify as and when required.

After research and seeing the disadvantages of the traditional waterfall model the developer conclude that the waterfall model is not sufficient to achieve the project requirement. Hence the developer further started research for spiral model.

The developer found that some of the project requirement would not be achieved by the spiral model for the major problem or disadvantage of spiral methodology is that it required constant review of the problem specifications at the end of each phase and this shall prove cumbersome for the developer and therefore it was discarded.

The comparison was therefore between Traditional Waterfall model and the Iterative Waterfall Model. Traditional Waterfall model posed a lot of shortcomings in the terms of requirements being fixed at inception and hence not suitable for accommodating any changes. The Iterative water fall model was developed to overcome the basic shortcomings of the waterfall model approach. The chosen methodology as compared to Traditional Waterfall Model is less risky and hence chosen above it. If any difficulty