A Major Project Synopsis Report

on Online Examination System

Submitted in Partial fulfillment for the award of

Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.) Degree in Computer Science & Engineering

Submitted to

RAJIV GANDHI PROUDYOGIKI VISHWAVIDYALAYA, BHOPAL (M.P)

Submitted by Varun Soni Arpit Agarwal Ravi Bharti Semester - VII Under the Guidance of

Mr. Sandeep Rai

Dept.of CSE

TECNHOCRATS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (EXCELLENCE) BHOPAL (M.P.) DECEMBER- 2011

TECNHOCRATS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (EXCELLENCE) BHOPAL (M.P.)

CANDIDATE DECLARATION

We students of Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Science and Engineering, session: 2011 -12, Technocrats Institute of Technology (EXCELLENCE)-Bhopal (M.P.), here by declare that the work presented in this project report synopsis entitled Online Examination System is the outcome of my own work, is bonafide and correct to the best of my knowledge and this work has been carried out taking care of Engineering Ethics. The work presented does not infringe any patented work and has not been submitted to any other university or anywhere else for the award of any degree or any professional diploma.

Arpit Agarwal Ravi Bharti Varun Soni

Date: 19:11:2011

TECNHOCRATS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (EXCELLENCE) BHOPAL (M.P.)

CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that the Project Synopsis entitled Online Examination System being submitted by Arpit Agarwal ,Varun Soni & Ravi Bhartiya in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of Bachelor of Engineering Degree in Computer Science and Engineering to Rajiv Gandhi Proudyogiki Vishwavidyalaya, Bhopal (M.P.), This work is completing under my supervision and guidance during the academic session 2011-2012. He/She has/have completing the work with sincerity and diligence.

Mr. Rajesh Boghey Sandeep Rai Head project Guide Department of Computer Science & Engg. of Computer Science & Engg. TIT(Excellence),Bhopal TIT(Excellence),Bhopal

Mr.

Department

ACKNOWLEGEMENT
I am thankful to my Almighty for the blessings that were bestowed on me to make this work possible. It is a great pleasure to have the opportunity to extent my heartfelt gratitude to everybody who helped me throughout the course of this project. It is distinct pleasure to express my deep sense of gratitude and indebtedness to my learned supervisor Mr. Sandeep Rai for his invaluable guidance, encouragement and patient reviews. Her/his continuous inspiration has made me complete this project. He/She kept on boosting me time and again for putting an extra ounce of effort to realize his / her work. I would also like to take this opportunity to present my sincere regards to my teachers Rajesh Boghey Sir and Director Bhupendra Verma Sir , TIT (Excellence) for their support and encouragement. I am thankful to the Computer Lab staff members for providing me unconditional and anytime access to the resources. I am grateful to my parents, brother and sister for their continual support and encouragement prior to the commencement of this work, during and now after. Above all, I thank my classmates for their unconditional support and motivation during this work.

Arpit Agarwal Varun Soni Ravi Bhartiya Semester VIII (Computer Science & Engg.) TIT (Excellence), Bhopal

ABSTRACT This Web Application provides facility to conduct online examination world wide. It saves time as it allows number of students to give the exam at a time and displays the results as the test gets over, so no need to wait for the result.It is automatically generated by the server. Administrator has a privilege to create, modify and delete the test papers and its particular questions. User can register, login and give the test with his specific id, and can see the results as well.

Table of content

1. Introduction 1.1 Overview 1.2 Objective 1.3 Motivation 1.4 Constraints ,Assumption and Dependencies 2. Literature survey 3. Requirement Analysis 3.1 SYSTEM / HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS 3.2 SOFTWARE REQUIREMENT 4. Proposed Work (Problem Definition) and 4.1 Proposed Methodology 4.2 Model Used : Waterfall Model 5. Design Overview 6. System Documentation 6.1 ER Diagram 6.2 DFD 7. 8. 9. Future Enhancement Conclusion References & Bibliography

1.Introduction
1.1 Overview
Requirements of examination system The basic functions of online examination system include registration, user management, report generation ,question paper matrix entry, question pool management, data entry, examination conduction etc. The figure 1 shows the process flow of the system.

Fig. 1: Process flow diagram of online exam system

Some key non functional requirements that had a strong impact on the architecture and the

components used in the architecture included: Open Source Stack Scale out vs Scale Up Ease of Extensibility Performance/High System Throughput Reliability Security/Privacy/Escrow Accounts All these functional and non-functional requirements have been considered while deciding on technology components in the solution, described in further sections.

1.2 Objective:

This Web Application provides facility to conduct online examination world wide. It saves time as it allows number of students to give the exam at a time and displays the results as the test gets over, so no need to wait for the result. It is automatically generated by the server. Administrator has a privilege to create, modify and delete the test papers and it particular questions. User can register, login and give the test with his specific id, and can see the results as well.

1.3 Motivation:
There are many drawbacks of the traditional examination procedure.The first problem is that there are loads of hard copied documents beinggenerated. This brings us to the age-old discussion of keeping information in the form databases versus keeping the same on sheets of paper. Keeping the information in the form of hard-copied documents leads to the following problems: i. Lack of space It becomes a problem in itself to find space to keep the sheets of paper being generated as a result of the ongoing discussion. The documents being generated are too important to be ill-treated. ii. Filing poses a problem Filing the documents categorically is a time consuming and tedious exercise.

iii. Filtering is not easy It becomes hard to filter relevant documents for the irrelevant ones if the count of the same crosses a certain manageable number. iv. Reviewing becomes time-consuming All the process done manually at the centers and all the records are maintained on the papers. So the maintenance of the record is very difficult in the departments and as well as its very difficult for the workers to check the record. The Existing system is paper based, time consuming, monotonous, less flexible and provides a very hectic working schedule. The chance of loss of records is high and also record searching is difficult. Maintenance of the system is also very difficult and takes lot of time. v. Result Processing Result processing is slow due to paper work and requirement of staff.

1.4 Constraints, Assumptions, Dependencies

Constraints As this system is based on client server technology, so for normal operation minimum of 64 MB RAM will be required on all clients. Assumptions In general it has been assumed that the user has complete knowledge of the system that means user is not a nave user. Any data entered by him/her will be valid. To make the software as user friendly as possible but at the same time keeping in minds user requirements. Server OS should be Windows NT/2000/XP. Client PC should be Windows 9X/NT/WorkStation or Windows 2000 with latest service pack. Dependencies It depends that the one should follow the international standards for the generating the User ID & should fill the related information in the proper format.

2. Literature survey
What are the users demonstrable needs? User needs a web-based system, which will remove all the above-mentioned problems that, the user is facing. The user wants a web-based system, which will reduce the bulk of paperwork, provide ease of work, flexibility, fast record finding, modifying, adding, removing and generating the reports. How can the problem be redefined? We proposed our perception of the system, in accordance with the problems of existing system by making a full layout of the system on paper. We tallied the problems and needs by existing system and requirements. We were further updating in the layout in the basis of redefined the problems. In feasibility study phase we had undergone through various steps , which are described as under: How feasible is the system proposed? This was analyzed by comparing the following factors with both the existing system and proposed system. Cost The cost required in the proposed system is comparatively less to the existing system. Effort Compared to the existing system the proposed system will provide a better working environment in which their will be ease of work and the effort required will be comparatively less than the existing system. Time Also the time required generating a report or for doing any other work will be comparatively very less than in the existing system. Record finding and updating will take less time than the existing system. Labor In the existing system the number of staff required for completing the work is more while the new system will require quite less number of staff.

3.Requirement Analysis
System Interface Application would be a self-contained system. It will not access data of any other application nor will other application have access to its data. User Interface Application will be accessed through a Browser Interface. The interface would be viewed best using 1024 x 768 and 800 x 600 pixels resolution setting. The software would be fully compatible with Microsoft Internet Explorer for version 6 and above. No user would be able to access any part of the application without logging on to the system. Hardware Interface For Server Intel Pentium III or above with 512 MB RAM 4 GB hard disk Network Interface For Client PC With 256 MB RAM Network Interface Software Interface For Server For Client Windows 2000 Enterprise Edition WAS Server DB2 Server Windows 95/98/2000/NT Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 & above

Communication Interface The system should be accessed over LAN or WAN. For Clients to access application server the network should be running TCP/IP protocol. Operations : Client Side Interactive operations using options provided in the application, Example Data Entry generation and viewing of reports. Server Side Database backup should be taken every day. In case of data base crash, last backup should be restored. User Characteristics The end user of the software can be divided into two categories :

Administrator: Access to master forms for the purpose of data entry and generation of reports. Operator: Access to his corresponding records and giving examination only.

4. Proposed Work
4.1 Proposed Methodology
Usability: The links are provided for each form. The user is facilitated the view and make entries in the forms. Validations are provided in each field to avoid inconsistent or invalid entry in the databases. Reports screen contains text boxes and drop down lists, so that reports can be produced. Security: Application will allow only valid users to access the system. Access to any application resource will depend upon users designation. There are two types of users namely Administrator and Student. Security is based upon the individual user ID and Password. Maintainability: The installation and operation manual of examination management system will be provided to the user.

 Availability: System will be available around the clock except for the time required for the back up of data. Portability: The application is developed in ASP.NET. It would be portable to other operating system provided .NET Framework is available for the OS. As the database is made in DB2, porting the database to another database server would require some development effort.

Acceptance Criteria
The software should meet the functional requirement and perform the functionality effectively and efficiently. A user-friendly interface with proper menus. Data transfer should be accurate and with in a reasonable amount of time keeping in mind the network traffic. The system should not allow entry of duplicate key values. System should have the ability to generate transactional Logs to avoid any accidental loss of data. Log file should also be generated.

4.2 Model Used

The waterfall model is a model which was developed for software development; that is to create software. It is called as such because the model develops systematically from one phase to other in a downward fashion, like a waterfall. The most probable phases through which it progresses downwards are

Definition Study/Analysis Basic Design Technical Design/Detailed Design Construction Testing Integration Management and Maintenance.

Before the advent of this method, the software development in the computer companies suffered from a haphazard integrated software network like cluttered knitting. However with this method they hoped to bring clarity in their projects.

About the Phases As said earlier the waterfall model has been structured on multiple phases especially to help out the software construction companies to develop an organized system of construction. By following this method, the project will be divided into many stages thus easing out the whole process. For example you start with Phase I and according to this model, one only progresses to the next Phase once the previous one has been completed. This way one moves progressively to the final stage and once that point is reached, you cannot turn back; similar to the water in a waterfall. Brief Description of the Phases of Waterfall Model

Definition Study / Analysis: During this phase research is being conducted which includes brainstorming about the software, what it is going to be and what purpose is it going to fulfill.

Basic Design: If the first phase gets successfully completed and a well thought out plan for the software development has been laid then the next step involves formulating the basic design of the software on paper.

Technical Design / Detail Design: After the basic design gets approved, then a more elaborated technical design can be planned. Here the functions of each of the part are decided and the engineering units are placed for example modules, programs etc.

Construction / Implementation: In this phase the source code of the programs is written.

Testing: At this phase, the whole design and its construction is put under a test to check its functionality. If there are any errors then they will surface at this point of the process.

Integration: in the phase of Integration, the company puts it in use after the system has been successfully tested.

Management and Maintenance: Maintenance and management is needed to ensure that the system will continue to perform as desired.

Through the above mentioned steps it is clearly shown that the Waterfall model was meant to function in a systematic way that takes the production of the software from the basic step going

downwards towards detailing just like a Waterfall which begins at the top of the cliff and goes downwards but not backwards.

Advantages of the Waterfall Model

The project requires the fulfillment of one phase, before proceeding to the next. Therefore if there is a fault in this software it will be detected during one of the initial phases and will be sealed off for correction.

A lot of emphasis is laid on paperwork in this method as compared to the newer methods. When new workers enter the project, it is easier for them to carry on the work from where it had been left. The newer methods dont document their developmental process which makes it difficult for a newer member of the team to understand what step is going to follow next. The Waterfall Model is a straight forward method and lets one know easily what stage is in progress.

The Waterfall method is also well known amongst the software developers therefore it is easy to use. It is easier to develop various softwares through this method in short span of time.

Disadvantages of the Waterfall Model There are many disadvantages to the model as well. Lets have a look at those,

Many software projects are dependent upon external factors; out of which the client for which the software is being designed is the biggest factor. It happens a lot of times, that the client changes the requirement of the project, thereby influencing an alteration in the normal plan of construction and hence the functionality as well. The Waterfall Model doesnt work well in a situation like this as it assumes no alteration to occur once the process has started according to plan.

If, for instance, this happens in a Waterfall Model, then a number of steps would go to waste, and there would arise a need to start everything all over again. Of course this also brings about the aspect of time and money which will all go to waste. Therefore this method will not at all prove to be cost effective. It is not even easy to take out the cost estimate of each step, as each of the phases is quite big. There are many other software developmental models which include many of the same aspects of the Waterfall model. But unlike the Waterfall model, these methods are not largely affected by the outside sources. In the waterfall model, there are many different people working in the different phases of the project like the designers and builders and each carries his own opinion regarding his area of expertise. The design, therefore, is bound to be influenced; however in the Waterfall model, there is no room for that.

The other negative aspect of this model is that a huge amount of time is also wasted. For example if we study any software development process, we know that Phase II cannot be executed until Phase I has been successfully completed; so while the designers are still designing the software, time of the builders is completely wasted.

Another disadvantage of this method is that the testing period comes quite late in the developmental process; whereas in various other developmental programs the designs would be tested a lot sooner to find the flaw at a time when a lot of time and money has not been wasted.

Elaborate documentation during the Waterfall method has its advantages, but it is not without the disadvantages as well. It takes a lot of effort and time, which is why it is not suitable for smaller projects

5.Design Overview
Introducing Web Application
Among all technologies, the Internet has been the fastest growing technology. Ever since its inception, the Internet has evolved exponentially. In the recent years, it has changed the way business is conducted. Organizations are increasingly becoming dependent on the Internet for sharing and accessing information. This Internet boom has changed the focus of application development from stand-alone applications to distributed Web applications.

Web applications are programs that can be executed either on a Web server for server side scripting or in a Web browser for client side scripting. They enable you to share and access information on the Internet and corporate intra nets. In addition, Web applications can support online commercial transactions popularly known as e-commerce. An online store accessed through a browser is an example of a Web application. The content of a Web application that consists of only HTML pages is static. It does not respond dynamically to the actions performed by users. To respond dynamically to user requests, you can use client side and server side scripting in addition to HTML pages.

Components of Dynamic Web Applications

A dynamic Web application can have client side scripting, server side scripting, or both.Client side scripting enables you to develop Web pages that can dynamically respond to user input without having to interact with a Web server. For example, if there is a Web application that requires users to enter the user name and the password before displaying the home page, you need to ensure that a user does not leave the user name and password fields blank. To check whether a user has left the user name and password fields blank, you can write client side scripts that execute on the client computer. A client side script helps reduce network traffic because it does not need to interact with a Web server to provide dynamic response to user input. In addition to providing dynamic content, client side scripting speeds up the response time of a Web application. This happens because a Web server is not overloaded with the job of processing the client side script for every client. Scripting languages, such as VBScript and JavaScript, are used to write client side scripts. Server side scripting provides dynamic content to users based on the information stored in a remote location, such as a back-end database. It includes code written in server side scripting languages, such as Active Server Pages (ASP) and Java Server Pages (JSP). A server side script is executed on a Web server. When a browser requests for an HTML page containing a server side script, the Web server to which the request is sent, first processes the script and then sends the results to the browser. For this reason, any data that should come from the Web server needs to be processed using server side scripting. For example, if a Web page is to display the current time of the system in which the Web site is hosted, you need to implement server side scripting. If you use client side scripting, then each of the browsers requesting for the file containing the script will display the current time of the system in which the browser is located.An optimal dynamic Web page combines both client side scripting and server side scripting. The general rules for using client side scripting and server side scripting are:-any access to data that resides

on the client computer or is dependent on the client computer should be implemented using client side scripting. For example, if you need to know the type of browser being used to access a Web site, you should use client side scripting to retrieve the information.

ASP.NET in .NET Framework

ASP.NET, which is the .NET version of ASP, is built on the Microsoft .NET Framework. Microsoft introduced the .NET Framework to help developers create globally distributed software with Internet functionality and interoperability.

Features of ASP.NET
In addition to hiding script commands, ASP.NET has the following advanced features that help develop robust Web applications: 1. Compiled Code: The code written in ASP.NET is compiled and not interpreted. This makes ASP.NET applications faster to execute than other server side scripts that are interpreted, such as the scripts written in a previous version of ASP. 2. Enriched Tool Support: The ASP.NET Framework is provided with a rich toolbox and designer in the Visual Studio .NET IDE. Some of the features of this powerful tool are the "what you see is what you get" (WYSIWYG) editor, drag-and-drop server controls, and automatic deployment. 3. Power and Flexibility: ASP.NET applications are based on CLR. As a result, the power and flexibility of the .NET platform is available to ASP.NET application developers. ASP.NET applications enable you to ensure that the .NET Framework class library, messaging, and data access solutions are seamlessly accessible on the Web. ASP.NET is also language-independent. As a result, you can choose any .NET language to develop your application. 4. Simplicity: ASP.NET enables you to build user interfaces that separate application logic from presentation content. In addition, CLR simplifies application development by using managed code services, such as automatic reference counting and garbage collection. For this reason, ASP.NET makes it easy to perform common tasks ranging from form submission and client authentication to Web site configuration and deployment. 5. Manageability: ASP.NET enables you to manage Web applications by storing the configuration information in an Extensible Markup Language (XML) file. You can open the XML file in the Visual Studio .NET IDE. 6. Scalability: ASP.NET has been designed with scalability in mind. It has features that help improve performance in a multiprocessor environment. 7. Security: ASP.NET provides a number of options for implementing security and restricting user access to a Web application. All these options are configured within the configuration file. 8. Extensibility: ASP.NET provides a number of options to create an extensible Web application. For example, you can create custom controls; extend the default Hypertext Markup Language (HTTP) pipeline. Note that the path through which the data flows from the client to the server is called the HTTP pipeline.

INTRODUCTION OF SQL SERVER

Introduction to SQL and Its Tools:

The SQL SERVER product is primarily divided into: SQL Server Tools SQL Client Tools

SQL Server: Microsoft SQL Server is a relational database server, developed by Microsoft. It is a software product whose primary function is to store and retrieve data as requested by other software applications, Server based Multi user RDBMS. The SQL SERVER Server is a program installed on the Servers hard disk driver. This program must be loaded in RAM so that it can process user requests. The SQL SERVER Server product is either called SQL SERVER Workgroup Server Or SQL SERVER Enterprise Server The functionality of both these products is identical. However, the SQL SERVER Workgroup Server restricts the number of concurrent users who can query the Server. SQL SERVER Enterprise Server has no such restrictions. Enter product must be loaded on a multi user operating system. The SQL SERVER Server takes care of the following: Updating the database. Retrieving information from the database. Accepting query language statements. Enforcing security specifications. Enforcing data integrity specifications. Enforcing transaction consistency. Managing data sharing. Optimizing queries.

Managing system catalogs.

SQL SERVER Client Tools: Once the SQL SERVER engine is loaded into the servers memory, users would have to log into the engine to get work done. SQL SERVER Corporation has several client-based tools that facilitate this. The client tool most commonly used for Commercial Application Development is called SQL SERVER Developer 2000. SQL*Plus is separate SQL SERVER client-side tool. It is a product that works on Microsoft Windows 95 and Windows NT both of which are standard client based GUI operating systems.

What is SQL Used for:

Using SQL one can create and maintain data manipulation objects such as table, views, sequence etc. These data manipulation objects will be created and stored on the server's hard disk drive, in a table space, to which the user has been assigned. Once these data manipulation objects are created, they are used extensively in commercial applications.

DML, DCL, DDL:

In addition to the creation of data manipulation objects, the actual manipulation of data within these objects is done using SQL. The SQL sentences that are used to create these objects are called DDL's or Data Definition Language. The SQL sentences used to manipulate data within these objects are called DML's or Data Manipulation Language. The SQL sentences, which are used to control the behavior of these objects, are called DCL's or Data Control Language. Hence, once access to the SQL*Plus tool is available and SQL syntax is known, the creation of data storage and the manipulation of data within the storage system, required by commercial applications, is possible.

6. System Documentation
ASSUMPTIONS Data requirements: The major characteristics of the semester examination system are..The university has many departments which are identified basically by the department_id. Also the departments have a particular location (campus). Each department has teachers. Each teacher is assigned to teach a particular subject. He also has to make question paper and evaluate the answer script. WE have assumed that a teacher can take classes in different department but he will belong to a particular department. A particular department may offer few courses. One or more subjects may be same for different courses as well as departments. Same subject (name) in two courses or department is separately identified by the corresponding subject_id. Subject_id for a course of a department is unique. A student must register to appear in the exam. A registered student is considered as exam candidate. Exam can be of two types regular and supplementary. In case of supplementary a candidate may not have to appear in all the subjects assigned to a particular semester. The exam controller section is the administrator of this whole examination system. ENTITY SETS USED IN E-R DIAGRAM For constructing a conceptual schema of this data base, the entity sets and the associated attributes are given below (as our specification of the E-R diagram).. ENTITY SETS 1.Student 2.Department 3.Teacher 4.Subject 5.Exam 6.Exam Candidate 7.Result 8.Routine ASSOCIATED ATTRIBUTES Name, Roll No, Reg. No, Contact No Department_id, Name, Location Teacher_id, Name, Contact No, Status Name, Subject_id ,Course, Dept Exam_id, Roll No, Sub_id, Exam roll no. Semester, Year, Exam_id, Sub_id Roll no, Exam_id, Sub_id, Grade, Date_of_publish Date ,Time ,Room No , Exam_id

E-R DIAGRAM

7.Future Scope
Scope of this project is very broad in terms of other manually taking exams. Few of them are: This can be used in educational institutions as well as in corporate world. Can be used anywhere any time as it is a web based application (user location doesnt matter). No restriction that examiner has to be present when the candidate takes the test.

8.Conclusion
The On line test System is developed using VB.NET and ASP.NET fully meets the objectives of the system for which it has been developed. This Web Application provides facility to conduct online examination world wide. It saves time as it allows number of students to give the exam at a time and displays the results as the test gets over, so no need to wait for the result. It is automatically generated by the server. Administrator has a privilege to create, modify and delete the test papers and its particular questions. User can register, login and give the test with his specific id, and can see the results as well.The system has reached a steady state where all bugs have been eliminated. The system is operated at a high level of efficiency and all the teachers and user associated with the system understands its advantage. The system solves the problem. It was intended to solve as requirement specification.

9.Biblilography www.ieeexplore.iee.org www.infosolutionsgoa.com www.1729.com/blog www.scribd.com www.intowebtraining.com