ABSTRACT
The role of discussion forums is an
essential part of online courses in tertiary education. Activities in
discussion forums help computer science students to share and gain knowledge
from each other. In fully online courses, discussion forums are often the only
medium of interaction. However, merely setting up discussion forums does not
ensure that learners interact with each other actively and investigation into
the type of participation is required to ensure quality participation. This
study provides a general overview of how fully online computer science students
participate in discussion forums. The main benefit of this research is that it
provides a benchmark for the trend of participation expected of the fully
online introductory information technology and programming students. The
methodology adopted for this study is the Structured System Analysis and Design
Methodology (SSADM). The system was created using ASP.NET and MySQL. The aim of
the system is to create a discussion forum where users can create various
topics, reply topics and moderate topics by the administrator of the site
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1. Background of the Study
The advancement in technologies and
the fast pace globalization has led to university students either partially or
fully in an online environment (LaPointe&Reisetter, 2008). Online learning
presents not only challenges in course design but also opportunities toenhance
student learning. The value of online learning communities is supportedby
powerful learning theories; an active learning community and a sense of connectedness
to others are critical to real learning (LaPointe&Reisetter, 2008). The
recent growth in computer networks and more specifically, the World Wide Web
(WWW) has given rise to communication, socialization and interaction between
individuals via the internet. The internet is been used for several
purposes these days ranging from education, business and so on, one major area
that focuses on individual interaction and communication is online forum.
An online forum, or message board, is
an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of
posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at
least temporarily archived. Also, depending on the access level of a user
and/or the forum set-up, a posted message might need to be approved by a
moderator before it becomes visible.
Since information and privacy is very
vital as it involves some secrets, strategies or ideas, there has been need to
protect information from being violated or exposed. This introduces us to the
need for a secured online forum, Luke et al. (2003) defines Security as the
degree of protection against danger, damage, loss, and criminal activity.
Security as a form of protection structures and processes that provide or
improve security as a condition, here security mechanisms, policies and
privileges can be enforced. With this, private posts can be enhanced and
regulations can be applied. In other words will we design a secure student
online forum.
This present era has been termed to be
an information age, an age where the demand for information has dramatically
increase, the internet has been the most useful place for getting information
nowadays, the use of search engines is one of the most useful, the internet is
not just used for getting information but for also socializing and exchanging
ideas and information, this has led to the development of several softwares and
applications, ranging from the development of online communities and
interactive applications. Some of these communities and interactive
applications are included with live chat, instant messaging, forum and online
calls. Information are surfed at every possible place, people are interested in
sharing and obtaining feedback on their research or who are
interested in studying online communities of practice. In a case of a learning
community, there are ways in which the community can leverage learning; one of
such way is online forum which is our area of focus.
Sylvia c. (2007) explains, an online
forum is a type of interactive website for holding discussions and posting user
generated content, usually each conversation has its own screen, with the
original posting at the top, and responses listed in chronological order below.
A sense of virtual community often develops around forums that have regular
users, it is an instance of interactive web. Forums differ from chat rooms and
instant messaging because forum participants do not have to be online at the
same time, they suit short posts, which request a response from others. This
online forum can enhance campus-based activities; opportunities to support
existing campus-based activities will be explored. For example faculty learning
communities and workshop that are supported through the learning could be
supported and promoted through the forum, exchange of expertise and services
with other forums.
Luke et al. (2003) explains, one good
way to get users to return to your site is to offer Web forum, these can be
used for purposes as varied as philosophical discussion groups and product
technical support. Web forums are sometimes also called discussion board or
threaded discussion groups, the idea of a forum is that people can post
articles or question to them and others can read and reply to their questions.
Each topic in a forum is usually called thread.
Over the years number of reported
security breaches has increased, intrusions and attack have become more and
more sophisticated and are very common nowadays, since information and privacy
is very vital as it involves some secrets, strategies or ideas, there has been
need to protect information from being violated or exposed. This introduces us
to the need for a secured online forum, where security mechanisms, policies and
privileges can be enforced. With this, private posts can be enhanced and
regulations can be applied. However in online forum information and ideas can
be shared, individuals who share in an interest in education research and
practice can dialogue across disciplines, geographical borders, levels of expertise,
and educational sectors. In other words new threads of discussion by posting
articles can be started, viewing articles that have been posted, viewing the
threads of conversation in the forum.
1.2
STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
In recent time the quest for this
knowledge has risen drastically, surfing or browsing the web without direction
for information is becoming stressful especially using search engines. Also
getting information in a campus-based community, especially when carrying out
research, it can be stressful and expensive.
Due to busy schedules of lecturers,
they find it difficult passing information to students, students in turn also
find it difficult to interact with them, especially to ask question and get
ideas.
Setting up a forum is actually quite
an interesting problem. We will need some way of storing the articles in a
database with author, title, date, and content information. However, the way
most threaded discussion software works is that, along with showing you the
available articles, it will show you the relationship between articles. That
is, you are able to see which articles are replies to other articles (and which
article they are following up) and which articles are new topics of discussion.
1.3
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The project is aimed at designing a
social community website for lecturers and students interaction in the
Department of Computer Science, The functionalities are related to normal
existing social websites, this entails; quick messaging (student-to-student,
student-to-lecturer and lecturer-to-lecturer)
i. To
protect information from unauthorized users by implementing role based
security.
ii. To
implement a secured web forum for students and lecturers of the Department Of
Computer Science, University of Calabar.
1.4
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
This research work will help in
enhancing our knowledge about implementing an online forum; it will improve the
interaction between lecturers and students.
This forum is developed in order to
facilitate it users to establish network between one to many persons and
maintain all people’s profile. It will also help to save time and energy when
they want to share some kind of information, views, ideas etc to their group
friends without spending so much time for communicating to each other. It provides
social communism so that people can interact with each other even both of them
so far away from each other.
TOPIC: DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A WEB BASED DISCUSSION FORUM FOR COMPUTER SCIENCE STUDENTS
Chapters: 1 - 5
Delivery: Email
Delivery: Email
Number of Pages: 65
Price: 3000 NGN
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