1. System Overview
   
   1. System Objective
      
   2. System Scope and Context
      
      
2. List of documents
   
   
3. Description of Current System
   
   1. Current System Overview
      
   2. Current System shortfalls
      
      
4. Changes to Current System and Rationale
   
   1. Description and Prioritization of Changes
      
   2. Assumptions and Constraints
      
   3. Rationale for New Capabilities
      
   4. Changes Considered but Not Included
      
      
5. Concept of Operation for the Proposed System
   
   1. Operational Overview
      
   2. Operational Stakeholders
      
      1. Roles and Responsibilities
         
      2. Operational Assumptions
         
      3. Organizational Relationships
         
   3. Operational Capabilities and Viewpoints
      
   4. Operational Modes
      
   5. Quality Attribute Goals
      
   6. Operational Policies and Constraints
      
   7. Support Concept
      
      
6. Operational Scenarios
   
   1. Mainstream Scenarios
      
   2. Variant Scenarios
      
   3. Exception-Handling Scenarios
      
   4. Support Scenarios
      
      
7. Operational Impact
   
   1. Operational Impacts
      
   2. Organizational Impacts
      
   3. Impacts During Development
      
      
8. Analysis Result
   
   
9. Notes
   
   
10. Glossary
    
    

Table of Figures

• Figure 1.2a System Scope Block Diagram
  
• Figure 1.2b System Use Case Diagram
  
• Figure 3.1 Current System Block Diagram
  
• Figure 5.1 Extended System Scope Block Diagram
  
• Figure 5.2.3 ICTM Organizational Relationship Chart
  
• Figure 5.3a Data Flow Diagram
  
• Figure 5.3b System State Transition Diagram
  
• Figure 5.3.1 Sequence Diagram for Translating Web Pages
• Figure 5.3.2 Sequence Diagram for Searching Web Pages
  
• Figure 5.3.3a Sequence Diagram for Posting Messages to the Student Bulletin Board
  
• Figure 5.3.3b Sequence Diagram for Selecting Messages from the Student Bulletin Board
  
• Figure 5.3.3c Sequence Diagram for Posting Messages to the Instructor Bulletin Board
  
• Figure 5.3.3d Sequence Diagram for Selecting Messages from the Instructor Bulletin Board
  
• Figure 5.3.4 Sequence Diagram for Fetching Remote Files
  
• Figure 5.3.5 Sequence Diagram for Creating Web Pages
  
• Figure 5.3.6 Sequence Diagram for Authoring Web Pages

1.0 System Overview

The International (French) Cross Cultural Teaching Model (ICTM) takes a step towards bridging this technology gap by simplifying the process by which multimedia can be incorporated into a course's curriculum via the internet.

In addition, the ICTM can be viewed as a collaborative forum -- a site at which multiple instructors can gather and contribute their ideas and material to the instructional site, thereby enhancing the breadth of the material contained at that site.

The ICTM also takes into consideration the needs of the students who explore the site by providing functionality that enables them to efficiently search and translate pages of information. Inherent to any teaching model, is a means by which students and instructors can effectively communicate with one another and the ICTM provides a bulletin board and email option by which this can be made possible.

1.1 System Objectives

The ICTM offers significant changes and improvements over the current system that is employed by instructors in the University of Southern California French and Italian Department. To begin, many of the language instructors do not have the time nor the technical knowledge necessary to develop and/or maintain a course web page. Thus, instructors currently employ student assistants to alleviate much of the technical burden associated with web page maintenance and creation. One of the objectives of the ICTM is to simplify this process so that instructors may play a more prominent role in the design of the course site. Consequently, the course site is a mold, an image of what the instructor would like to see and what the instructor would like the enrolled students to see as well.

And unlike the current system where a course site is modified by a single instructor, another objective of the ICTM is to incorporate a collaborative element into the system whereby multiple instructors -- some of whom may be overseas (in Paris for example) -- can collectively discuss and add material to the instructional site. Not only does this reduce the cost in terms of time spent by the student assistant and/or instructor searching for appropriate material for the site, but it greatly increases the concentration of content that is contained at the site.

But what good is concentrating all this related material into one site if the user has no means by which he/she can effectively sort through the information? Thus, in order to solve this dilemma, another objective of the ICTM is to provide various functions that will allow the user to search through the information contained at the site.

Additionally, there may be instances where a user may not understand the information contained within a page due to language barriers. The ICTM is aimed at helping students learn more effectively by providing a translation element by which students can conveniently translate pages that would have otherwise deterred them from reading or comprehending the information contained on the web page.

Lastly, newsgroups and email are the predominant means by which students and instructors can communicate with one another in the current system but the final objective of the ICTM is to consolidate both means of communication into the student site in the form of a bulletin board and a form emailer to the instructor. The logic is that convenience will encourage students to post and ask questions regarding course related topics and material, thereby creating an intellectually stimulating environment -- an environment that emulates an ideal teaching model.

1.2 System Scope and Context

The search element of the system allows the user to search both texts and images in the database but with the following restriction: keyword descriptions must accompany all images on the ICTM web pages to allow the user to perform images searches. Each search should be a simple string match and restricted to the web pages created by the instructors which are stored locally on the ICTM server.

When a user clicks on the link to translate a desired page, the user is simply following a link to a translated version of the page that has already been translated and stored on the server. Thus, due to performance concerns, the translation of a page is not done upon a user's request, but instead, when the instructor users saves and updates changes that he/she has made to a web page. Note that the translation feature is restricted to pages that are stored locally on the server. No translation will be provided for links to remote sites.

In addition, a user will have access to a bulletin board and a form emailer, which are built-in features of the student site. Users will be able to post, read, and selectively retrieve messages on a bulletin board and will also have the ability to email a message to the instructor. Note that the the instructor's email address is hard-coded into the form emailer so that a student will not have to remember or know the instructor's email address in order to send a message. In addition, the user will have a carbon-copy of his/her message sent back to him/her for verification purposes. Also, note that a user at this stage can be a student or an instructor. Instructors have access to all functions at the student site and rightfully so, since questions and comments from students that are posted to the student bulletin board, may be directed towards an instructor.

The proposed system also allows valid instructor users to access the instructor site which is unavailable to all student users. There, an instructor has the ability to create web pages as well as the ability to modify existing ones. A dummy page will be displayed on the screen as a means for the instructor to preview the page that he/she is creating. Though the dummy page does not possess any functionality (in that the user cannot follow a link or open an audio/video file), it is here that the instructor actually performs the web authoring commands: text manipulation, add link/image, delete link/image.

Due to concurrency issues, only one instructor will be allowed to modify a single page at any given time. Furthermore, an instructor user will also have at his/her disposal, a bulletin board -- equivalent in functionality to the student bulletin board -- as well as the ability to fetch multimedia files from remote locations.

The system administrator has direct access to the system and performs various administrative functions, such as user account management. The administrator also has the sole privilege of deleting any files stored at the site. No user has the ability to delete a file and must put in a request to delete files to the system administrator. The system administrator should work in conjunction with UCS to maintain backups of the system data in the event of data loss or corruption. A use case diagram is shown below in figure 1.2b.

The current system's block diagram is shown below in figure 3.1.

• Security:
  The current system lacks an authentication system by which unauthorized users may be filtered out.

• Ease of use:
  Web page authoring is a technically complicated and time consuming process requiring either HTML knowledge and/or knowledge of COTS web authoring software tools such as Adobe Pagemill, Microsoft Frontpage, etc. In the current system, instructors employ student assistants to handle the development and maintenance of the course web site. Instructors are thus limited in the amount of interaction and participation they can contribute to the development of the course site.

• Collaborative element:
  One of the largest shortfalls of the current system is the lack of a collaborative element. In other words, the current system lacks a collaborative component which would allow two or more instructors to input material from various locations. Though a remote instructor can fax, or mail (electronically or via postal service) material to another instructor for incorporation into a course's curriculum, the current system provides no convenient means by which an instructor can simply add material without having to contact the instructor for permission, advice, etc. In other words, instructors may find the existing method of collaboration to be more trouble than it's worth.

• Communications element:
  The current system allows students and instructors to communicate with one another via private channels (email) as well as public forums (newsgroups). But it falls short in convenience and accessibility.

• Search element:
  The current system provides no means by which a user can search through the information contained at the site. A user is essentially confined to browsing through web pages until the required information or image is found.

• Translation element:
  In the current system, if a user encounters a file composed in a language that he/she is not able to comprehend, the user may either manually sift through a translation dictionary and translate the information or bypass the file entirely. No convenient translation mechanism is at the user's disposal in the existing system.
  

4.1 Description and Prioritization of Changes

1. Web page creation:
   Priority: Essential
   Description: The instructor has the ability to add a new, blank web page to the site. The page is assigned a name by the system of the form page[number].html, where [number] is determined by the number of the last page created. For example, if page0.html, page1.html, and page2.html already exist and a new web page is created, it will have the name page3.html.
   Web Page Creation Example in Prototype

2. Web page authoring:
   Priority: Essential
   Description : The ICTM will provide tools at the instructor site that will allow a user to perform basic web page editing operations such as text manipulation, link/image creation and deletion.

   Link creation involves much more than just specifying the URL of a particular remote site. The instructor user will also have the ability to link internally within the site, meaning that the user can simply input the desired page number of the internal file that the link refers to. Link creation also allows the instructor user to link to multimedia files (video and audio) that have been fetched and stored locally on the server. Instead of typing in the name of the multimedia file to be linked to, the user simply selects the multimedia file from a list of available files.

   Image addition is similar to link creation in that it allows the user to select an image file (.jpg, .gif, etc.) from a list of available image files. The difference is that an image, not a text link, will be displayed on the dummy page and the resulting student page.

   Links and images are treated as objects and thus can be removed from the dummy page at the instructor user's will. In addition, more complex web-publishing features such as tables, lists, etc. will not be supported since time constraints warrant emphasis on more substantial functionality.

   Web Page Authoring Example in Prototype

3. Web page selection:
   Priority: Essential
   Description : Allows the instructor user to flip through the existing web pages contained at the site and/or directly go to a desired web page by simply entering the page number of the file that the link refers to. The page number of each web page will be displayed somewhere on the screen for the instructor user's reference.
   Web Page Selection Example in Prototype

4. Bulletin board:
   Priority: Essential
   Description : As specified in the WinWin negotiations, a bulletin board will serve as a pseudo-live communications forum by which users can conveniently and efficiently communicate with one another. Users will have the ability to read and post messages on the bulletin board. Each message will be appended with the username, the date, and the time to ensure integrity and proper identification. Furthermore, each bulletin board will possess a sorting mechanism based on date. Note that the bulletin boards on the student site and the instructor site are distinct entities -- they are used and maintained separately.
   Bulletin Board Example in Prototype

5. Authentication:
   Priority: Essential
   Description : The ICTM system provides a login page where only authenticated users -- those users that have a UCS account and are enrolled in or instructing the target course -- can proceed to the student site. A link to the instructor site will be available on the student site, though only users with enough privileges (instructors and the system administrator) will be granted access. Note that this means that every instructor user will be "piped" or forced to enter the student site every time he/she wishes to enter the instructor site. This design decision was made to ensure that an instructor consistently keeps up to date with the messages that may posted to the student bulletin board on a daily basis.
   Authentication Example in Prototype

6. Fetch:
   Priority: Essential
   Description : An instructor user will also be given the opportunity to ftp media from remote sites. Since the fetch interface should be similar to other popular COTS ftp software, the required elements associated with our fetch feature are the username and password at the remote site, the location or ftp address of the desired file, as well as a descriptive name of the target file. It is important that the filename is descriptive since the system cannot provide any means by which the file can be previewed.
   Fetch Example in Prototype

7. Search:
   Priority: Essential
   Description : Allows a user to search for text or images stored at the site. Searches on images are based on the keyword descriptions that an instructor user attaches to the image. Because the search will be implemented as a simple string-match, not only will it be fast, but it will also be flexible in that queries can be made in either English or French.
   Search Example in Prototype

8. Translation:
   Priority: Essential
   Description : The ICTM will provide users the ability to translate information to French or English. Selective translation -- translating bits and pieces of text within a web page -- is not supported since the translation process occurs when the web page is initially created. In addition, this means that only ICTM web pages may be subject to translation. Thus, when a web page is created by an instructor, the web page is translated into French and English; subsequently, all three versions (original, French, and English) are stored locally on the server which then can be opened by a user at the student site.
   Translation Example in Prototype

9. Locking:
   Priority: Essential
   Description : To ensure consistency and reliability, the ICTM will implement a locking mechanism which will prevent two instructor users from modifying pages concurrently. In order for a user to modify and lock the site, the user will need to click on the lock button on the toolbar of the java applet.
   Locking Example in Prototype

10. Time stamping:
    Priority: Desirable
    Description : Posted at the top of every student page will be a time stamp to indicate the last time the page was updated by an instructor.
    Time Stamping Example in Prototype

11. Instructor email:
    Priority: Desirable
    Description : The ICTM will integrate a form emailer on the student site that will have the primary instructor's email address hardcoded into the script. And for verification and quality assurance purposes, not only will the username of the sender be attached to the message, but a carbon copy of the message will be sent back to the sender as well.
    Instructor Email Example in Prototype

12. Collaborative component:
    Priority: Essential
    Description : The ICTM will incorporate a collaborative component which would allow two or more instructors to input material from remote locations. In other words, the ICTM will allow multiple instructors at different locations to input their material to one instructional site.
    Collaborative Component Example in Prototype

13. Audio/video playing:
    Priority: Essential
    Description : By allowing instructors to ftp and store audio/video files on the ICTM server, users at the student site must then have the ability to play these files. This is crucial because the ICTM is geared towards integrating multimedia into a course's curriculum. In addition to having the necessary COTS AV software applications installed on their machines, users should also use a COTS web browser that support AV playback. In the case where a user does not have the necessary applications or plug-ins installed on his/her machine, links to sites that allow a user to download AV applications/plug-ins such as RealAudio, Shockwave, etc. will be provided.

14. Good graphic user interface (GUI):
    Priority : Essential
    The GUI at both the student and instructor sites must be intuitive and similar to their COTS counterparts where applicable. For example, the search interface should be similar to popular on-line search engines such as Yahoo, Excite, Lycos, etc. so that users will immediately be familiar with the ICTM interface. In addition, complex functionality such as fetch, file I/O (directory structure, file archiving, etc.) will be kept hidden from the user.

15. Menu of hard-links:
    Priority : Desirable
    Located at the student site will be a menu of links to sites that the primary instructor feels will be frequently visited by the students (France.com, Le Monde, etc.). In addition to the links to popular sites, a link to an on-line help manual as well as links to sites containing audio/video plug-ins will be included.
    Menu of Hard-links Example in Prototype

16. On-line help:
    Priority : Desirable
    Description : At the disposal of each user at the student site will be a link to an on-line help manual in case a user has a question or a problem with the ICTM.
    Help Example in Prototype

17. Statistical log:
    Priority : Optional
    Description : A statistical log detailing the number of students and the pages that a particular students has accessed should be recorded for analytical purposes by the instructor. If time allows, the CS577b students can add any other statistics that they or the client deems appropriate.
    Statistical Log Example in Prototype

18. Modification log:
    Priority : Optional
    Description : The time stamp at the top of every student page should follow a link to a page detailing the updates made for that particular page.
    Modification Log Example in Prototype

• Basic knowledge:
  All users of this system should possess some basic computer knowledge and experience with the World Wide Web.

• Hardware requirements:
  In order for a user to interact with the ICTM system, the user must use a computer that has internet access and that has a COTS web browser such as Netscape or Internet Explorer installed on the machine. The minimum memory and hardware requirements of the system depends on the minimum requirements of the user's web browser.

• Browser capabilities: Minimally, in order to interface with the ICTM system, a user's web browser should support frames and come equipped with audio/video and Java plug-ins. The web browser should also provide standard cutting, pasting, and printing functionality.

Note that these four rationale components roughly translate into the four component modules that define the groups into which the system capabilities are subdivided. For further details, please refer to the System Priorities of the Feasibility Rationale (Section 4.1) .

• Collaborative component:
  One of the major shortfalls of the current system, as stated above in section 3.2 is its lack of a collaborative component. In other words, it is difficult under the current system for multiple instructors to contribute material to a course's curriculum in a convenient and effortless fashion. The collaborative component of the ICTM system, which consists of the web page creation, web page authoring, and web page selection functionality, allows multiple instructors from remote locations to contribute material to a single instructional site. This thereby allows for greater concentration in content at the site and thus satisfies the goal of the ICTM project which is to provide an enhanced instructional environment.

• Communications element:
  Another shortfall as mentioned in section 3.2 , is the method by which students must communicate between themselves and with their instructors. Yes, under the current system, students can use COTS email software for a private communications channel as well as class newsgroups for a public communications forum; however, by providing a communications element in the form of a bulletin board and form emailer, which would be built right into the student site, students may be encouraged to participate in on-line discussions as well as emailing the professor with questions regarding course material, lectures, assignments, etc. By constructing both the bulletin board and the form emailer with an interface similar to popular COTS communications software packages such as Eudora, users will find using the ICTM communications features simple and convenient to use without the additional hassle of opening up a separate application, learning the interface, etc. The thinking is that convenience will stimulate both students and instructors to participate in on-line discussions thus satisfying the goal of the ICTM which is to promote an intellectually stimulating learning environment.

• Additional tools:
  What tools are available to the student using the current system? Aside from the web browser's functionality, none actually. And because of the inevitable increase in the amount of information that will be stored on the ICTM server, additional tools will be necessary to efficiently and effectively retrieve, sort, and understand the material. This is the premise behind including a fetch, a search, and a translation element into the ICTM system. And by incorporating these tools at an ICTM user's disposal, the user will be provided a vehicle by which he/she can efficiently navigate and comprehend the collection of material contained at the instructional site, perhaps speeding up the learning/research process.

• Extended system functionalities:
  The extended system functionalities refer to the miscellaneous features proposed for the ICTM system such as authentication, locking, time-stamping, statistical logs, and modification logs. These extended system functionalities are absent from the current system and provide an assorted array of components to the proposed ICTM system that act as complimentary actors that round out the capabilities of the system. Though authentication in itself does not encourage students to learn and participate in intellectually stimulating discussions, it does however prevent unauthorized users from tampering with the system and disrupting the instructional environment that has been so carefully constructed. Locking is a system functionality that ensures integrity and consistency among modified web pages while time-stamping allows users to see when any new modifications have been made to a particular web page. The statistical and modification logs are tools by which instructors may use to monitor and analyze student and system progress.

• Live communications:
  The customer initially wanted to have some form of live, real-time communications between instructors but due to technology and time constraints, the ICTM, instead, uses a bulletin board as an acceptable alternative vehicle for live communications.

• Interdepartmental support:
  Due to time constraints, the ICTM is focused initially on the French version of the cross cultural teaching model and will allow for enough modularity so that single byte languages such as Italian, Spanish, etc. can be supported in the future. Thus, the translation feature for our proposed system is currently limited to bilingual translation (French and English).

• Link updating:
  Link updating -- the process by which obsolete or outdated links were automatically updated by the system -- was originally considered as an optional feature of the ICTM; however, it was found infeasible to actually implement such a function due to schedule constraints. Instead, it was agreed that the system administrator could update links on a periodic basis. Users could also email the system administrator once any obsolete links were discovered, thereby speeding up the link updating process.

Further description of each of the blocks in figure 5.1 are given below:

• Translation service/provider:
  The translation service will be on-line and the cost of the service will be kept to a minimum. The role of the translation provider is to accept HTML files from the ICTM system and translate these files into French and English versions, both of which are then stored (along with the original version) on the hard disk. Though the translation service has not be determined at this point, a tentative agreement has been reached with Vivigy, Inc. that would provide free on-line translation service for the ICTM system in exchange for advertising space on the ICTM student and/or instructor sites. The Vivigy, Inc. Power Translator for UNIX demo can be tested at http://www.vivigy.com/Demomain.htm and the person to contact at Vivigy is Rod Young (ryoung@vivigy.com) .

• Multimedia files:
  The ICTM is designed to enhance a course's educational environment by integrating multimedia elements such as images and audio/video files into its curriculum. The ICTM will support and allow instructors to archive images (.gif, .jpeg, etc.) as well as audio and video files (.wav, .mov, etc.).

• ICTM web pages:
  The ICTM web pages are the heart and soul of the ICTM system. Student users will browse, search, and translate these pages while instructor users will create, select, and modify them. The system will also lock and time-stamp these pages as well as keep statistical and modification logs of each web page for analysis purposes.

• Username database:
  The username database is maintained by the system administrator and is used for authentication purposes for the ICTM system. The username database will hold the username of each valid user as well as the access privilege for each user (partial or student privileges versus full or instructor privileges).
• Communications component:
  The communications component of the ICTM consists of a bulletin board and a form emailer. The bulletin board is further subdivided into two disjoint bulletin boards which are used and maintained on the student site and the instructor site respectively. The form emailer is contained solely on the student site.

• Collaboration component:
  The collaboration component of the ICTM consists of the web tools built into the instructor site. These tools allow a user to create a web page, select a web page, and edit these web pages appropriately. All the web pages contained at a single instructional site are thus a collaborative effort of multiple instructors who login to the ICTM system and then proceed to the instructor site where they subsequently create new web pages and/or add material to existing web pages.

• Tools component:
  The ICTM offers a variety of tools at a user's disposal: 1) a search mechanism that allows a user to perform a keyword search through the database of web pages, 2) the ability to translate web pages to French, English, or back to the original version, and 3) a fetch function that allows an instructor user to fetch multimedia files from remote sites.

• System component:
  The system component of the ICTM consists of miscellaneous system functions that do not contribute to the central functionality of the ICTM system; however, these system functions - authentication, locking, time-stamping, a statistical log, and a modification log - do complement the collaboration, communication, and tools components described above.

• Student user:
  The student user can be described as a student who is enrolled in the course that the ICTM system serves as an instructional site for. The student user is assumed to be a USC student who not only has internet access, but has a UCS account. Once authenticated at the login page, the student user will proceed to the ICTM student site. Thereupon, the student user will have the capacity to browse, search, and translate through the web pages contained at the site. In addition, the student user will have two communications options at his/her disposal: a bulletin board for a general public communications forum and a form emailer for a private communications channel to the course's primary instructor. For security purposes, student users will not have access to the instructor site.

• Instructor user:
  The instructor user can be described as the primary instructor of the course as well as any instructors who would like to contribute material to the instructional site and more importantly, has the approval of the primary instructor. Like the student user, the instructor user proceeds to the student user site once he/she has been validated by the ICTM authentication system. At the student site, the instructor user is capable of using all of the functionality contained at this site, including the bulletin board and the form emailer. Why would an instructor user, particularly the primary instructor, want to email himself/herself? At the request of the customer, the form emailer serves a dual purpose in that the primary instructor can email information contained at the student site to himself/herself as means of archiving and selective printing. But the instructor user's mainstream operational scenario involves the capabilities contained at the instructor site which contains a bulletin board, a web page creation mechanism, a web page selection mechanism, as well as tools to edit web pages.
  

• System administrator:
  The system administrator will either be a trained, experience UCS consultant or a student assistant who has extensive technical background in UNIX file management and web page maintenance as well as a basic knowledge of computer networking and hardware. It is the primary responsibility of the system administrator to maintain the ICTM username database which holds the usernames and the privileges of all authorized users of the system. The system administrator is also responsible for troubleshooting minor problems with the ICTM as reported by the users of the system as well as performing regular backups of the ICTM datafiles.

Initially, user accounts will be setup by the system administrator. Enrolled students and registered instructors will serve as the initial user base for the proposed system.

Login function will serve as a common starting point for all potential users of this system - unauthorized users will be filtered out at this stage. Following validation, a user will then proceed to the student site which consists of a student page, the student bulletin board, and the student capabilities. A link to the instructor site will also be available, though only instructor users will be granted access. The system should keep track of a user's username so that another login prompt should be unnecessary. The operator checks the transaction and takes care of the registered user. If the system is updated or changed, the UCS informs the updated changed fact, and the explanation of the fact to the user and the operator.

5.2.3 Organizational Relationships

5.3 Operational Capabilities and Viewpoints

Initially, users at the instructor site enter data in the form of text and/or images into the web authoring module of the ICTM system. The text can represent links to remote sites or files (audio/video, image, etc.) that have been fetched onto and stored onto the ICTM server. The user then clicks on the update button which prompts the web authoring module to update and store the modified page. The page is then taken by the translation processor which sends the page to the translation service. There, the web page is translated into French and English and sent back to the translation processor which stores the two translated versions of the original web page. The data flow terminates with three versions of a web page: the original version, the French version, and the English version. All three versions are subject to additional functionality in the form of searching, browsing, and modification.

Figure 5.3b below illustrates the transitions between the major states of the ICTM system.

The following sections provide further detail on the various viewpoints of the ICTM system. Accompanying each description is a sequence diagram for illustrative purposes.

5.3.1 Translation Viewpoint
A user who wishes to translate a page to another language clicks on a link for the desired language. Initially all users are browsing the original version of the web page, which can be a mixture of both French and English. Located on the top of the web page will be three translation options, one of which will be disabled since that option is current in use. In other words, If the user is browsing the French version of a page, the link to the French page is disabled or "off" while the links to the English and original versions are enabled or "on". So, if a user wants to "translate" the web page he/she is currently browsing, then the user simply clicks on an enabled translation option (original version, French, or English), which allows the user to follow the link to the pre-translated, locally stored version of the web page.

5.3.2 Search Viewpoint
A user may wish to search through the ICTM web page documents which are stored locally on the ICTM server. The user initially clicks on the search link which is hard-coded onto the menu of hard-links. A search window is then brought up. The user enters the keyword(s) into the search text field and clicks on the search button to process the query. A list of query results are then returned to the user.

5.3.3 Bulletin Board Viewpoint
The bulletin board viewpoint is actually comprised of two different views since the student bulletin board and the instructor bulletin board are maintained and used separately.

The student bulletin board is located on the student site and should be used primarily by valid student users, though instructor users will have the capacity to post messages to this bulletin board as well. On the communications panel or section of the student site, a user enters a message into the text field and clicks on a button to submit the message. The user's message, along with the username, the date, and the time of the message are posted to the bulletin board.

At the user's disposal on the student site is a bulletin board selection mechanism where a user may select messages sorted by the month and the year. For example, if a user wants to retrieve all of the messages posted on November 1997, then the user can simply select November 1997 and click on a button to retrive those messages.

Much like the student bulletin board usage, the instructor bulletin board is used the same, except that the instructor bulletin board is located on the instructor site. This means, therefore, that only instructor users have the privilege to post and select messages from the instructor bulletin board.

5.3.4 Fetch Viewpoint An instructor user has the ability to ftp or fetch files from remote sites. The instructor user simply clicks on the fetch button which then prompts the user to enter the username, password, filename, and ftp address of the remote site. If the filename or address location are incorrect, then the system will inform the user appropriately; otherwise, the file is stored on the server for future insertion into a student web page.

5.3.5 Web Page Creation Viewpoint The instructor user can create a new web page by clicking on the new page button. The current page is new moved off the screen and a blank page is displayed to the user for modification.

5.3.6 Web Page Authoring As long as another instructor user A is not currently modifying the web page that instructor user B wants to modify, instructor user B can edit the web page by adding text, images, or links to multimedia files.

5.4 Operational Modes

• 5.4.1 Login
  The user enters their username and password, and this data is sent to the Authentication state.

• 5.4.2 Authentication
  In this state, the username and password are verified. If the information submitted is that of a valid user, then we identify whether the user is an instructor or student, and grant them the appropriate access privileges.

• 5.4.3 Student Site
  This is a super-state which allows a user to choose from an array of operations available on the student user page.

• 5.4.4 Student User Page
  From the student user site, the user can access many different functions. The user can post messages to the student bulletin board, select to display bulletin board messages from a particular month and year, search the site for specific keywords, access the statistical or modification logs, go to the help page, send email to the professor, or see different translations of the site's web pages. Instructors may go to the instructor site from this page.

• 5.4.5 Post message to the Student Bulletin Board
  In the communications(bulletin board/email) window is a message area where the user types a message and pushes the "post" button to submit it. When a message is submitted, it is stamped with the time, date, and name of the poster. Then, it is saved in the server and displayed on the student bulletin board. A posted message consists of the message body, the time and date it was submitted, and the name of the person who wrote it. Either student or instructor users can post messages to the student bulletin board.

• 5.4.6 Get Student Messages
  A user may want to look at messages from a specific date. In that case, they can choose the month and year of the messages they want to view from a menu above the bulletin board, and the messages from that time period will be displayed in the student bulletin board.

• 5.4.7 Search
  The user can search the course site for specific keywords, in either French or English. A list of links to web pages and documents on the site that match the user's query is displayed.

• 5.4.8 Get Translation
  A user may want to see one of the site's pages in a specific language. In that case, the user can select from one of three links (original, French, or English) at the top of any of the site's web pages. Then the web page associated with the user's choice is displayed.

• 5.4.9 Get Statistical Log
  In this state, we retrieve and display the statistical log for the current student page. Each entry in the statistical log stores the time and date that the page was visited, and the name of the user who accessed it.

• 5.4.10 Get Modification Log
  We can retrieve and display the modification log for the current student page. The modification log contains entries which hold the time and date that a modification took place, and the type of modification that was made (Create, Add, Delete).

• 5.4.11 Help
  If the users have questions about how to use the system, they can consult the FAQ which is available by clicking on the "help" link from the student site.

• 5.4.12 Send Email
  Our system provides a convenient way to email the professor. The user simply clicks on the "email" link from the student site, and the email form appears in the communications window. The user then fills in the subject header, message body, and clicks on "submit" to send the message. When sending e-mail, the user's name and return e-mail address are sent along with his/her message to allow the professor to reply directly to him/her. In addition, a copy of the message is e-mailed to the user who sent it.

• 5.4.13 Instructor Site
  This is another super-state that provides numerous operations for instructors use.

• 5.4.14 Instructor User Page
  The instructor user page allows the instructor to fetch files, access the instructor bulletin board, return to the student site, or acquire the lock to modify the site.

• 5.4.15 Post message to the Instructor Bulletin Board
  This state is similar to the posting state for the student bulletin board. In the bulletin board window, there is a message area where the user types a message and clicks on "post" to submit it. After a message is submitted, it is saved in the server and displayed on the instructor bulletin board. Note that only instructor users post messages on the instructor bulletin board.

• 5.4.16 Get Instructor Messages
  If an instructor wants to read messages from a certain time period, they can select the month and year of the messages they want to view from a menu above the bulletin board, and all the messages from that period will be displayed in the instructor bulletin board.

• 5.4.17 Fetch
  Our system allows an instructor to easily retrieve files from remote sites. They will be prompted for the ftp address of the desired file, the password for the site, the name of the file they want to retrive, and the name of the file to save it as. Assuming that the ftp address and password are valid, and that the file to be retrieved exists, the file is then saved in the server with the file name indicated.

• 5.4.18 Locking
  When an instructor selects the "Modify site" button on the instructor user page, a request is made to the Locking module to acquire the lock to edit the site. If acquired, the instructor is allowed to go to the site modification page. Otherwise, a message is displayed to the user saying that someone else is editing the site, and the user is returned to the instructor user page.

• 5.4.19 Site Modification Page
  Our ICTM system gives instructors the ability to create web pages on the site without having to know any of the technical commands associated with file creation or HTML. The instructor can create pages, add or delete links/images in this state. When the instructor is finished making changes to the site, he/she clicks on the "Update and save" button to actually save the modifications. The user may also do fetching and access the instructor bulletin board in this state.

• 5.4.20 Web Page Creation
  The instructor has the ability to add a new, blank web page to the site. The new page is automatically assigned a unique name by the system.

• 5.4.21 Add Link
  The user can add a link to the site by specifying the name of the link and the type of the link (remote URL, file, or a page number on the student site).

• 5.4.22 Add Image
  An image can be added by specifying the name of the image file.

• 5.4.23 Delete
  This state is for the deletion of links and images. The user highlights what they want to delete (the name of the link or image), and presses the "delete" button.

• 5.4.24 Update and Save Page
  When the user clicks the "Update and save" button, the edited pages are sent to the translation site to create French and English versions of the pages, the new pages are time stamped (with the time of modification), and the changes are recorded in the modification log. Finally, the lock is released so that other instructors can edit the site.

5.5 Quality Attribute Goals

• Availability:
  One of the primary requirements of the ICTM project must be its availability to the registered students and instructors. The user base will potentially include students and instructors at remote locations such as Paris. By placing the ICTM on the internet and allowing web page modifications on the web, students and instructors can readily access student pages at the ICTM for exploration and modification.

• Performance:
  The translation of a web page should be done as soon as the page is updated. This means that when a web page is updated, it is sent to the translation provider. Thereupon, the translated versions of the web page are sent back to the ICTM server for storage and future retrieval. Because the translated versions of each web page are stored locally on the server, the translation overhead on the student user end is minimal since it simply involves following a link to the desired web page. Thus, the performance concern here is with the initial translation of newly created/updated web pages. This slows down the entire process of updating and saving web pages. The saving process (translation included) should take less than 30 seconds to perform 75% of the time.

  The other performance concern is with the search mechanism. Because the search is restricted to just the web pages created by the instructors which are stored locally on the server, the query should be relatively fast and should return results to the user within 10 seconds at least 85% of the time.

• Usability:
  Another primary attribute of the ICTM must be its usability. Non-experienced instructors should be able to enter the instructional site and make use of all the available functionality in order to modify the student site. The user interface should be uncomplicated and intuitive enough for any user to understand; however, a link to a modest help page detailing instructions and frequently asked questions will be provided to accommodate the user.

  The bulletin board feature, furnished on both user and instructor sites, is simply a text message box with a button to submit and post the message to the proper bulletin board.

  The remaining student capabilities must also be intuitive and user friendly. Translation merely requires the user to select a link to the French, English, or original version of the web page. Likewise, the search mechanism should easy to use, allowing the user to just input the desired keyword, which subsequently returns a comprehensive, yet coherent, list of query results.

• Security:
  By implementing an authorization mechanism, non-authorized users will not be able to gain access to either the student or instructor pages. Furthermore, valid student users will strictly have access to the student pages contained at the ICTM. Student users will not be granted access to private information contained at the instructor site and have the ability tamper with the student pages. Valid instructor users, however, will have super-user privileges, able to access both the student and instructor sites.

• Reliability:
  A locking mechanism should be implemented in order to ensure reliability and consistency of web pages. Backup copies of the student web pages should also be maintained by UCS in the event of data loss.

• Maintainability:
  System maintenance should only require one system administrator to setup and enter user accounts into the username database. The system administrator should also deal with any miscellaneous system problems or errors that might occur. File/web page deletion will be handled by the system administrator by request and if the system is not implemented with a mechanism by which obsolete links are updated, the system administrator should take care of this responsibility at regular monthly intervals.

• Locking Constraint:
  Because selective web page locking cannot be enabled, whenever a user locks clicks on the lock button, the entire ICTM site is locked. Thus, any user who wants to change a page, must wait until a user has completed his/her modifications to the site.

• Web Page Deletion Constraint:
  Web pages can only be deleted by the system administrator. Thus, if a user wants to have a particular web page deleted from the ICTM system, the user needs to put in a request to the system administrator to have the page deleted.

• Web Page Authoring Constraint:
  Because of the complexity of creating and editing web pages, only the most basic web page authoring functions will be provided to the instructor user: add text/images/links and delete text/images/links. In addition, no special text formatting can be provided to the user. In other words, text cannot be italicized, bolded, and underlined. In addition, the format of a web page must be preset or fixed to a template: images are flush left, text cannot be centered, etc.

• Bulletin Board Message Archiving Constraint:
  The ICTM system archives bulletin board messages for future retrieval over the span of one semester. Thus, at most five bulletin board message files will be archived on the ICTM server (five corresponds to the maximum number of months that a semester can span) and at the request of the primary instructor user, the system administrator has the authority to delete outdated message files which can be classified as files archived for greater than two months.

• Account Constraint:
  All users of the ICTM must have a UCS account in order to login to the ICTM system.

• Username Constraint:
  Every valid user must login to the ICTM system using their UCS account username. This limitation is imposed because the form emailer uses the username as the return address (username@usc.edu) for the carbon copy of a sent message. This also relieves some of the administrative duties of the system administrator.

• Email Constraint:
  The form emailer is solely designed to email the primary instructor user. The emailer cannot send email to other classmates or other participating instructors.

• Translation Constraint:
  Translation between languages, such as French and English, is a difficult process since each language has subtle nuances (slang) that may or may not be translated properly by the translation provider that the CS577b development team selects. Thus, the translation of web pages by the ICTM system is limited by the translation provider that it adopts and cannot be ensured to be 100% accurate. The translation accuracy (reliability) should be greater than 70%.

• Interface Constraint:
  Every potential ICTM user must have internet access and interface the ICTM using a COTS web browser that supports frames, java applets, and basic functionality (browsing, printing, cutting, pasting, etc.)

In addition, because the CS577b development team is not expected to provide post development training or support, an on-line help manual will be added to the student site for reference.

6.0 Operational Scenarios

• System administrator scenarios:
  • User account management scenario:
    At the outset of the course, the system administrator initially sets up a database of usernames which consists of all enrolled students and participating instructors. These usernames are acquired via email within the first few weeks of the semester. The system administrator only stores the usernames and privileges of each user into the database (the password is checked against the UCS database). For example, if the user is a student then the user will only have partial access privileges whereas an instructor user will have full access privileges.

  • Link update scenario:
    A user discovers a link that is non-existent and then notifies the system administrator to update the link on the ICTM web page to reflect the change. The system administrator then modifies the web page by traditional editing methods (emacs, vi) or via the ICTM system.

• Student user scenarios:

  • Bulletin board scenario:
    A user wishes to post a message to the bulletin board. The user enters a message into the text field and clicks on a button to submit the message. The user's message, along with the username, the date, and the time of the message are posted to the bulletin board.

  • Instructor email scenario:
    A user may opt to email a message to the instructor by simply typing in his/her desired message and then submitting his/her message to the instructor. Since the email address is hardcoded into the form mailer, the student need not include the instructor's email address and will receive a carbon copy of his/her message. The instructor, to whom the email message will be sent, may also want to use this email feature. For example, if the instructor wishes to "save" or selective print a particular portion of text contained at the student site, the instructor can simply copy and paste the text into the form emailer's text field and send this text to himself/herself. Though the implementation of the form emailer should not be any different to accommodate this scenario, it is important to keep in mind that the instructor, to whom the message will be sent, will also be using this feature as well, but for different purposes.

  • Translation scenario:
    A student user wishes to translate a page to another language. The student user clicks on a link for the desired language and retrieves the pre-translated page which is stored locally on the server. The translation options are then updated to reflect the student user's current status, meaning that if the user is browsing the French version of a page, the link to the French page is "off" while the links to the English and original versions are "on" or active.

  • Search scenario:
    A student user wishes to perform a search on a particular keyword. The student user enters the keyword(s) into the search text field and clicks on the search button to process the query. A list of query results are then returned to the user.

• Instructor user scenarios:

  • Bulletin board scenario:
    Identical to the student user bulletin board scenario, except that the instructor user bulletin board is maintained separately from the student user bulletin board.

  • New web page scenario:
    An instructor user wishes to create a new web page at the ICTM. The instructor user clicks on the new page button which internally creates a new .HTML file and assigns a new page number to the page. The previous page is moved off the screen and the blank page is displayed to the user along with its assigned page number.

  • Web page modification scenario:
    An instructor user wishes to modify an existing web page at the ICTM. The instructor user repeatedly clicks on the left or right arrow buttons to cycle through the existing web pages to the desired page. Modifications are then made by the user to the web page displayed on the screen. If the user wants to add a link, the user either highlights some text and clicks on the link button or just clicks on the link button which would require that the user enter the name of the link. The user then needs to specify where the link points to by entering either the URL of a remote site or the page number of a local web page. If the user wants to add an image, the user clicks on the image button which brings up a wizard/screen with a list of the available images on the server.

  • Fetch scenario:
    An instructor user wishes to ftp or fetch a file from a remote site. The instructor user then clicks on the fetch button which prompts the user to enter a username and password at the remote site, the name and the ftp address of the desired file, as well as the desired local filename. If the filename or address location are incorrect, then the system will inform the user appropriately; otherwise, the file is stored on the server for future insertion into a student web page.

7.2 Organizational Impacts

7.3 Impacts During Development

8.0 Analysis Result

The International (French) Cross-Cultural Teaching Model or ICTM for short is designed to change all of that. The goal of the ICTM is to create this enhanced educational environment where both students and instructors can efficiently and effortlessly research, peruse, and add material to a single instructional site. From an instructor's viewpoint, he/she can login into the system and quickly add material to the site with little hassle. Perhaps the instructor can even chat with other instructors from around the world on the built-in bulletin board or fetch some multimedia files at a remote site to add to a web page. From a student's point of view, he/she has numerous options to stimulate their interest and keep them on the student site for hours, either to research information or communicate with fellow peers or mentors. What if a student encounters some French text that he/she cannot understand? Simply click on the the French link and a fully translated version of the page appears on the screen for the student to read and comprehend. This was done in an efficient, effortless manner which required no use of a multilingual dictionary. What if the student wants to search for information on the Eiffel Tower? A simple click on the search link and entering the appropriate keywords will do the trick. All done at one single site. The ICTM communications component eliminates the need for newsgroups or COTS email software packages since a bulletin board and a form emailer are incorporated into the student site.

All in all, the ICTM offers a substantial improvement over the current system and both students and instructors in foreign language departments will benefit immensely by incorporating the ICTM system into their course curriculum.

9.0 Notes

• The system is being designed for use by students and professors who have very little technical knowledge. Hence, it is crucial that the system is easy to use.
• This system is initially being designed specifically for use by French classes.
• The cost of the translator should be as low as possible, preferrably a free one available on the web. Currently, the most feasible on-line translation provider option is Vivigy, Inc. which has offered free on-line translation service in exchange for advertising space. For further details please refer to the Translation service/provider part of Section 5.1 .

Authoring web pages: The modification of a web page. In our ICTM system, the editing operations that an instructor can choose from are adding and deleting links and images. The authoring of a web page typically consists of creating an HTML file and editing it directly by hand. Our system will shield the instructor user from having to know HTML, will create HTML files, and allow the addition/deletion of links and images by merely clicking on a few buttons and entering some simple commands.

Bulletin Board: In reference to a physical piece of board on which people can pin messages written on paper for general consumption - a "physical bboard"), a bulletin board is a computer and associated software which typically provides an electronic message database where people can log in and leave messages. Any registered user may submit or read any message in these public areas.

Dummy page: a Java applet that duals as a page preview source as well as the area in which an instructor user can perform various web authoring commands such as text manipulation, link/video addition, and link/video deletion.

FTP: Stands for file transfer protocol. This command is used to retrieve files from remote sites.

GIF: Graphics Interchange Format: A standard for compressed digitized images.

GUI: Graphical User Interface: The use of pictures rather than just words to represent the input and output of a program. A program with a GUI runs under some windowing system (e.g. The X Window System, Microsoft Windows, Acorn RISC OS, NEXTSTEP). The program displays certain icons, buttons, dialogue boxes etc. in its windows on the screen and the user controls it mainly by moving a pointer on the screen (typically controlled by a mouse) and selecting certain objects by pressing buttons on the mouse while the pointer is pointing at them.

HTML: Hypertext Markup Language. A Hypertext document format used on the World-Wide Web. Built on top of SGML. "Tags" are embedded in the text. A tag consists of a "<", a "directive" (case insensitive), zero or more parameters and a ">". Matched pairs of directives, like "" are used to delimit text which is to appear in a special place or style.

ICTM: The International Cross-Cultural Teaching Model

Instructional site or Student Site: A web site that is comprised of a student web page, a student bulletin board, a search feature, an instructor form emailer, and a link to the instructor site.

Instructor : A user who has the authorization to access the both the student and instructor site.

Instructor site: A web site that is comprised of an instructor bulletin board, a dummy page, a web page creation button, web page authoring tools, a web page selection feature, and a fetch button. This site can only be accessed by authorized instructor users.

Java: A simple, object-oriented, robust, secure, portable, architecture-neutral, general-purpose programming language developed by Sun Microsystems. Java supports programming for the internet in the form of platform-independent Java "applets"

JPEG: Joint Photographic Experts Group: Standard image compression algorithm that is designed for compressing either full-color or grey-scale digital images of "natural", real-world scenes.

Perl: Practical Extraction and Report Language General purpose language, often used for scanning text and printing formatted reports. It provides extensive support for regular expression matching, dynamically scoped variables and functions, extensible run-time libraries, exception handling and packages, provide/require.

Student : A user who has the authorization to access the student site but not the instructor site.

Student assistant: A work-study student who has been hired by an instructor to oversee the development and maintenance of the current system. The student assistant will in all likelihood, play the role of the system administrator of the ICTM.

Student site or Instructional Site: A web site that is comprised of a student web page, a student bulletin board, a search feature, an instructor form emailer, and a link to the instructor site.

System administrator or system maintainer: Person responsible for ICTM account creation and maintenance as well as day-to-day maintenance of the site (backups, file deletion, etc.)

Translator: In the context of our project, a translator is a computerized software module that translates words or phrases from one linguistic language (English/French) to another.

User: An authorized student or instructor.

Web page authoring: Web page editing (text manipulation, link/image addition, link/image deletion, etc.)