Design and Implementation of a Website for Gema Wons Group

ABSTRACT The report is about a design of Gema Women’s group website. The group is a self sponsored con~imunity development group that provides voluntary services for the less fortunate persons within the society. Due to uncontrollable increase in membership within the group there was need for a fast yet cost effective way of managing the operations within the group. The group consist of members who are geographically dispersed thus there was urgent need to design a website that could act as means of informing the members about the current operations of the group. The main objective was to design and implement a well established and user friendly Website for Gema Women’s Group. This research answered questions like the problems experienced by the organization, the approaches that were used in the design of the website and how the implementation and testing of the new system took place. The beneficiaries of this system were the members of the organization together with the community that it supported. The researcher designed a dynamic and user friendly website for Gema Women’s Group from their head office at Karocha within Machakos district. The research included the board members, ordinary members and the staff of Gema Women’s Group. Questionnaires were distributed to the chairperson, secretary, treasurer and another 5 to the ordinary members of the organization. They were required to fill in the questionnaires and return them for analysis. Interviews, observation and document review were also used to collect necessary information. Dreamweaver application was used to design the system using Php programming language. The researcher suffered the problems of language barrier, short time for development and also the budget was too large. The computerized system designed was efficient, cost effective and simplified method of operation for the group therefore should be adopted by Gema Women’s group. A connection to the web is needed to access the information, which will be impossible if a computer and connection is not available. It is thus recommended that the organization should have an internet connection so that the database is accessible to the administrator. Website security is a broad field, but most websites have common security issues that need to be addressed, regardless of the particular technologies used or functions deployed. Use of authorization and authentication mechanisms like digital certificates and digital signatures should be considered.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

SUPERVISOR APPROVAL ii

DEDICATION iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT iv

LIST OF FIGURES v

LIST OF TABLES ~vi

ABBREVIATIONS

ABSTRACT

TABLE OF CONTENTS..~,,...,•...~. ix

CHAPTER ONE 1

INTRODUCTION ~1

1.0 General Introduction 1

1.1 Background to the Study 1

1.2 Statement ofthe Problem 2

1.3 Objectives ofthe Study 2

1.3.1 Main Objective 2

1.3.2 Specific Objective 2

1.4 Research Questions 3

1.5 Scope ofthe Study 3

1.6 Aim ofthe Study 3

1.7 Significance ofthe Study 3

CHAPTER TWO 5

LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.0 Introduction 5

2.1 Issues related to the study 5

2.1 .1 Manual System 5

2.1.2 Computerized System 6

2.1.3 Community development group 6

2.1.4 Nonprofit Organization 7

2.2 Website 7

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2.2.1 Advantages of web site .8

2.2.2 Disadvantages of website 9

2.3 Webpage 9

2.4 Web Server 9

2.5 World Wide Web 10

2.6 Website Security Issues 1 1

2.6.1 Validation of input and output data 11

2.6.2 Direct data access (and theft) 11

2.6.3 Data poisoning 11

2.6.4 Malicious file executions 11

2.6.5 Authentication and session management 12

2.6.6 System architecture and conliguration 12

2.6.7 Phishing 12

2.6.8 Denial of service 12

2.6.9 System information leakages 13

2.6.10 Error handling 13

2.8 Website Development Tools 13

2.8.1 Hypertext Preprocessor 13

2.8.2 Hypertext Markup Language 15

2.8.3 Hypertext Transfer Protocol 15

2.8.4 Java Script 15

2.8.5 MySQL 16

2.8.6 Cascading Style Sheets 16

2.8.7XAMPP 17

2.8.8 Dreamweaver 17

2.9 System Development Life Cycle 18

2.9.1 Top-Down Development 19

CHAPTER THREE 20

METHODOLOGY 20

3.0 Introduction 20

3.lAreaofStudy 20

3.2 Target Population 20

3.3 Sample Size 20

x

3.4 Research Design .20

3.5 Research Techniques 21

3.6 Source of data 21

3.7 Data collection methods 21

3.7.1 Observation 21

3.7.2 Interviews 22

3.7.3 Questionnaires 22

3.7.4 Review of Documents 22

3.8 Data Analysis 23

CHAPTER FOUR

SYSTEM ANALYSIS AND DESIGN ~24

4.0 Introduction 24

4.1 Analysis of the Current System 24

4.2 Description ofthe New System 24

4.3 Advantages ofthe New System 25

4.4 Feasibility Study ofthe New System 27

4.4.1 Technical Feasibility 27

4.4.2 Economical Feasibility 27

4.4.3 Schedule Feasibility 28

4.4.4 Operational Feasibility 28

4.5 System Requirements Specification 28

4.5.1 Hardware Requirements 28

4.5.2 Software Requirements 29

4.6 System Design 29

4.6.1 First Level Data flow Diagram 32

4.6.2 Second Level Data Flow Diagram 33

4.6.3 Physical Design 34

4.6.4 Tables 35

4.6.5 Forms 37

4.7 System implementation 45

4.7.1 System Conversion 45

4.7.1.1 Parallel Running 45

4.7.1.2 Conversion Cost 46

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4.7.1.3 Need for explicit Backup and Recovery 46

4.7.1.4 System Testing and Validation 46

4.7.1.5 System Coding 47

4.7.1.6 User Training 47

CHAPTER FIVE 48

DISCUSSION, RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION~ 48

5.0 Introduction 48

5.1 Discussion 48

5.2 Recommendations 49

5.3 Conclusion 49

5.4 Project Limitation 50

5.5 Areas of further Study 50

REFERENCES.,.. .,..., .

APPENDICES ,,,,, 53

APPENDIX A: QUESTIONNAIRE 53

APPENDIX B: INTERVIEW GUIDE 56

APPENDIX C: SYSTEM CODE 57