- Customization
E - Campus can be customized for the requirements of
each university. The code has been written based on a well thought of
design where all the issues have been considered beforehand. Thus the
code is flexible and scalable. Changes can be made with the minimum
effort as long as they do not impact the basic design. Several issues
related to customization can be:
Change of front end: The front end and the back
end are entirely separate documents and changing one has no impact on
the other. This means that front-end changes can be carried out at a
short notice.
Adding/Blocking/Changing of features: Due to
the object oriented/modular approach used during the coding, new features
can be added seamlessly without impacting the existing code. The existing
code can be modified, new ones added or deleted without hampering the
basic structure of the site. This flexibility is achieved mainly by
using configuration files, so that the changes need to be made in only
one place.
For example to change the number of records shown at
a time after a search, only the configuration file needs to be changed,
and the search program itself doesn’t need to be touched.
Change of flow: Change of flow of information
can be handled mainly by changing the navigation links. Very little
changes need to be made to the programs.
- Security
All care is taken to make sure that critical data is
protected from unauthorized access. Access is provided only to members
who have come in through the proper channel, i.e. after entering their
username and password. Even after logging in the user is allowed to
access only the data he/she is authorized to.
For example an instructor is allowed to read the answers
posted by any student. But a student cannot read the answers posted
by another student. Maintaining the access rights in a separate place
does this.
Data encryption: All the critical data (passwords/score-sheets
etc.) are stored only in encrypted form. The encryption is done using
well-known encryption algorithms (RSA, MD5). Thus the data is protected
from everybody including the administrators of the web-site.
Secure Login: Secure login is provided using
secure HTTP. All data flow between the client/server computers is in
encrypted form.
Password protection of Data-Base: The data base
is protected from unauthorized access. The access is allowed only for
specific sets of username, password, hostname and database-name. The
database never needs to be accessed directly, its done only through
the programs.
- Data present in multiple servers.
Some critical data might be present on the clients(university)
servers which can be fetched as required. Or the university may upload
it to the site from time to time.
