DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF AN ONLINE FORUM DISCUSSION SYSTEM

1.1 Introduction

Online forums also known as discussion boards or message boards enable users of a website to interact with each other by exchanging tips and discussing topics related to a certain theme. Learning through online forums is an important learning strategy for students to improve their language skills along with others. The use of computer based online discussion through online forums is evident in the curriculum of many courses throughout the world in universities in Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, the United Kingdom, the United States (Scott & Ryan 2009) and in Georgia as well. With the rapid development of computer-mediated communication, online forums have become more involved in classroom settings to promote student critical thinking, knowledge construction and language learning autonomy. There is a need for teachers to encourage students to use new technologies such as online forums to gain more exposure in the language along with many other various disciplines.

As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.

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1.2 Background of Study

Since information and privacy is very vital as it involves some secrets, strategies or ideas, there have 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 software 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.

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 to enhance student learning. The value of online learning communities is supported by 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.

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.

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1.3 Statement of Problem

Investigation revealed that 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.

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1.4 Aim and Objectives of the Study

The aim of the study is to design and implement an Online Forum Discussion System for Computer Science and Engineering Students in FUTO. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows to develop an application software that will:

1. Create social community website for lecturers and students interaction in the Department of Computer Science and computer engineering;
2. Protect information from unauthorized users by implementing role based security; and
3. Implement a secured web forum for students and lecturers of the Department Of Computer Science, University of Port Harcourt.

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1.5 Significance of 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.

This study will be of immense benefit to other researchers who intend to know more on this study and can also be used by non-researchers to build more on their research work. This study contributes to knowledge and could serve as a guide for other study.

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1.6 Scope of Study

The scope of the research is focused on the Design and Implementation of an Online Forum Discussion System for Computer Science and Engineering Students in Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO).

This proposed system will be built with PHP and SQL technology; it is going to elaborate on how security checks can be enforced to an online forum. A general view of online forum, security and related research will be given especially in area like online community and interactive web. Also basic security techniques used in interactive webs and forum.

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1.7 Limitations of the Study

During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:

1. Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
2. Establishment Policies: Establishment policies posed a serious limitation as most staffs are not ready to release information needed for this project work. There were lots of information needed from the staffs of this institution to enhance the study which took them time to release or they did not release at all for security purposes, hence the scope was reduced.
3. Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
4. Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
5. Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet).

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1.8 Definition of Terms

Online Forum: it is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages