A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal by Ahmed A. Abdulwahid An Abstract of a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science University of Central Missouri May, 2014
ABSTRACT by Ahmed A. Abdulwahid Content Management System (CMS) is a new technology of the web development field. Nowadays, this topic is very popular in researching. Drupal is one of the most popular content management system. The Iraqi researchers and the students who are interested to participate and attend the scientific and educational events have faced a difficult issue when they try to find these events. Therefore, this thesis aims to find a solution for this problem through designing and implementing a proposed event management system, which allows the user to find these events very easily. Moreover, this system presents an opportunity to the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research in Iraq to store and evaluate the research and the events as well as the ability of updating the information of the system. This system is designed and implemented by Drupal Content Management System.
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal by Ahmed A. Abdulwahid A Thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science University of Central Missouri May, 2014
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Above all, thanks be to Allah for everything in my life. I would like to thank my supervisor Dr. Songlin Tian for giving me this great opportunity to work with him and giving me his advices to improve the ideas of the thesis. In addition, I would like to thank my great family who have always supported me s in my life. A special thanks to Dr. Mahmoud Yousef who is one of the greatest people who I have seen in my life. I would also like to thank my thesis committee: Dr. Curtis Cooper and Dr. Mahmoud Yousef for their helpful guidance. Finally, I would like to thank the Higher Committee for Education Development in Iraq for their support to get my master s degree.
TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES... ix LIST OF FIGURES... x CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION... 1 1.1 Statement of the Problem.. 2 1.2 Purpose of Study... 3 1.3 Review of Literature... 4 1.4 Overview of the Thesis.... 5 CHAPTER 2: BAGCKGROUND.. 6 2.1 The History of the Drupal. 6 2.2 The Reasons for Choosing Drupal 7 2.3 The Drupal System Requirements 8 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY.. 9 3.1 Determine and Collect the Drupal Content Management System Information.10 3.1.1 The Types of the Events.. 11 3.1.2 The Provinces of the Events. 11 3.1.3 The Majors of the Events. 12 3.1.4 The Dates of the Events... 13 3.2 Download and Install WampServer... 13 3.3 Download and Install the Drupal System.. 14 3.4 Choose, Download and Install the Drupal Theme. 14 3.5 Choose, Download and Install the Drupal Modules.. 15 vi
3.6 Design and Implementation the Event Management System 16 CHAPTER 4: IMPLEMENTATION... 18 4.1 Download and Install WampServer... 18 4.2 Download and Install Drupal System. 28 4.3 Choose, Download and Install Drupal Theme.37 4.4 Choose, Download and Install Drupal Modules..41 4.5 Design and Implementation the Event Management System...47 4.5.1 Some important information about the Iraqi public universities...48 4.5.2 The Scientific and Educational Events to be held in this 2014......49 4.5.3 Determination of the location of the Iraqi public universities on the map..50 4.5.4 A brief description about the system...51 4.5.5 Creation of categories and filtering the events according to the Type, Province, Major, and Date...52 4.5.6 A List of the events to be held in this year in the Iraqi public universities..52 4.5.7 Creation of a registration form with particular fields..53 4.5.8 Illustration of the results after filling out the registration form...54 4.5.9 Creation of Contact us form to the user to be able to contact with the administrator of the system.....54 4.5.10 Creation of a search text bar that presents a help for the user to find any information from the system...55 4.5.11 Addition of the logos of the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research in Iraq with the Iraqi flag as well as the logos of the Iraqi public universities.56 vii
CHAPTER 5: EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS..57 5.1 Home Page 57 5.2 About the System..58 5.3 Events...58 5.4 Registration...59 5.5 Contact form.59 5.6 The sections of the system....60 CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORKS...61 6.1 Future works 62 REFERENCES 63 APPENDIX..65 List of Iraqi public universities 65 viii
LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1: The types of the events. 11 Table 3.2: The provinces of the events.. 11 Table 3.3: The majors of the events.. 12 Table 3.4: The dates of the events. 13 ix
LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1: Drupal logo... 7 Figure 2.2: Drupal system requirements... 8 Figure 3.1: Event Management System methodology process.. 9 Figure 3.2: Event Management System diagram... 17 Figure 4.1: WampServer downloading section. 18 Figure 4.2: WampServer downloading. 19 Figure 4.3: WampServer icon 19 Figure 4.4: WampServer installation 20 Figure 4.5: WampServer License Agreement... 20 Figure 4.6: WampServer Destination Location. 21 Figure 4.7: WampServer additional tasks.. 21 Figure 4.8: Begin installing WampServer... 22 Figure 4.9: WampServer extracting files 22 Figure 4.10: Continue WampServer extracting files.. 23 Figure 4.11: WampServer default browser. 23 Figure 4.12: Wampserver finishing installation.. 24 Figure 4.13: WampServer SMTP server. 24 Figure 4.14: Completing the WampServer.. 25 Figure 4.15: WampServer on Taskbar. 25 Figure 4.16: WampServer local host 26 Figure 4.17: phpmyadmin username and password 26 x
Figure 4.18: phpmyadmin homepage. 27 Figure 4.19: phpmyadmin creating database.. 27 Figure 4.20: phpmyadmin drupal database. 28 Figure 4.21: Drupal home page 29 Figure 4.22: Get started with Drupal 29 Figure 4.23: Drupal zip file download. 30 Figure 4.24: Drupal icon on Downloads directory 30 Figure 4.25: Drupal compressed folder. 31 Figure 4.26: Drupal content.. 31 Figure 4.27: Moving Drupal folder to www directory.. 31 Figure 4.28: Drupal folder inside WampServer... 32 Figure 4.29: Local host with Drupal.32 Figure 4.30: Drupal installation select profile 33 Figure 4.31: Drupal installation choose language.. 33 Figure 4.32: Drupal installation verifying requirements 34 Figure 4.33: Drupal installation database configuration.34 Figure 4.34: Drupal installation instilling profile 35 Figure 4.35: Drupal installation configuring site... 35 Figure 4.36: Drupal installation server setting & update notification 36 Figure 4.37: Drupal installation complete.. 36 Figure 4.38: Drupal theme search 37 Figure 4.39: Dossier theme in Drupal theme search... 37 Figure 4.40: Dossier theme. 38 xi
Figure 4.41: Dossier icon on Downloads directory. 38 Figure 4.42: WampServer folder on Local Dick (C) 39 Figure 4.43: WWW folder inside WampServer Directory...39 Figure 4.44: Drupal folder inside www folder. 39 Figure 4.45: Themes folder inside Drupal folder. 40 Figure 4.46: Move Dossier theme to Drupal theme folder... 40 Figure 4.47: Set Dossier theme as the default theme 41 Figure 4.48: Drupal modules search..41 Figure 4.49: Views Drupal module search 42 Figure 4.50: Chaos tool suite Drupal module search.42 Figure 4.51: Webform Drupal module search...42 Figure 4.52: Google Map Field Drupal module search..43 Figure 4.53: Views module 43 Figure 4.54: Chaos tool suite module 43 Figure 4.55: Webform module...44 Figure 4.56: Google Map Field module.44 Figure 4.57: Four Drupal s modules icons.44 Figure 4.58: WampServer icon..45 Figure 4.59: WWW folder inside WampServer folder..45 Figure 4.60: Drupal folder inside www folder...45 Figure 4.61: Modules folder inside Drupal folder.46 Figure 4.62: Move ctools and google map field modules to WampServer directory...46 Figure 4.63: Move views and webform modules to WampServer directory...46 xii
Figure 4.64: Activate ctools module in Drupal system......47 Figure 4.65: Activate Google Map Field, Views, and Webform modules in Drupal system....47 Figure 4.66: Add content section in Drupal...48 Figure 4.67: Article University of Baghdad...48 Figure 4.68: Structure section in Drupal 49 Figure 4.69: Views options in structure section.49 Figure 4.70: Displays of Views option..50 Figure 4.71: Contents of Views option..50 Figure 4.72: Google map in add content section... 51 Figure 4.73: Basic page About the System 51 Figure 4.74: Category filters of Views...52 Figure 4.75: List of the events... 53 Figure 4.76: Registration form fields.53 Figure 4.77: Registration results 54 Figure 4.78: Structure section options...55 Figure 4.79: Contact option of Structure section...55 Figure 4.80: A search text bar in the system..56 Figure 4.81: Image section of add content section.56 Figure 5.1.a: Home page of the Event Management System....57 Figure 5.1.b: Information and location of University of Baghdad. 57 Figure 5.2: About the System section...58 Figure 5.3.a: Scientific and educational events.. 58 Figure 5.3.b: A description of an event..58 xiii
Figure 5.4.a: Registration form of the Event Management System...59 Figure 5.4.b: The option results of the registration....59 Figure 5.5: Contact form 59 Figure 5.6: The sections of the system......60 xiv
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION When programmer wants to build a website, he should go and learn one of the most popular website programming languages such as PHP, ASP.net, JavaScript, etc. All these languages require a skilled a tremendous effort to be able to design and create a powerful website (Dakhwe, 2006). However, these languages require some particular server platforms to be able to implement them easily and with flexibility. These procedures spend time, money and effort to achieve the particular requirements. Nowadays, several collections of open source software allow any developer or programmer to work with them much more easily than writing program code. Content Management System (CMS) is the solution of spending less time, money, and effort. It is defined as a software system that allows any developer to organize, develop, design, manage, publish, and collaborate tools with little knowledge of web programming languages (Esparza, 2011). Moreover, Content Management System deals with the relational database that makes the connection between the system and the database very flexible and easy. There are several advantages that support using CMS in these days widely. Many CMSs are free open source software that can find online with a lot of kinds of modules, themes, and other web applications. CMSs have very high levels of security (Jain, 2010).
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 2 Currently, there are several types of Content Management Systems (CMS), but the most popular CMSs are WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal. These are widely used CMSs in these days, and they are free open source software written in PHP that use MySQL as the database (Jain, 2010). The aim of this thesis is to build a proposed event management system in Iraq by using Drupal Content Management System, which organizes the scientific and educational events in Iraq according to the category: type of event, province, major, and date. A registration form is used to present a way to connect the events held in the Iraqi public universities with the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research in Iraq. The Ministry will be the administrator of the system through organizing and managing the events with the universities, as well as updating the system. Moreover, the Ministry will be able to evaluate the quality of the research projects and other events each year with the universities. This step provides the ability to improve and develop the academic and educational levels in the Iraqi universities. This system provides some important information to the Iraqi public universities, and allows the users to be able to determine the locations of events by using Google map service. 1.1 Statement of the Problem. The Iraqi researchers and the students who are interested in participating and attending the scientific and educational events, such as conferences, workshops, and seminars have faced a difficult issue when they try to find these events. It is not easy to find these events according to their specific majors, their regions, and the appropriate time.
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 3 When they want to find these events, they have to visit each university s website and try to enter one date at a time to find these events. Some of the universities are late in putting their calendars of events on their websites. That makes the searching of events impossible. On the other hand, the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research in Iraq does not have a database or a system to organize and manage the scientific and educational events that are collected from all Iraqi universities. Moreover, the Ministry needs to store these events that are held each year to be able to evaluate and improve the research activities and the events for following years. 1.2 Purpose of the Study. This thesis presents a solution for the Iraqi researchers and the students as well as the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research in Iraq through designing and implementing a proposed event management system using Drupal Content Management System. This system allows any researcher and student to find all of the scientific and educational events that will be held in the Iraqi public universities each the year. Through this system, the researchers and the students will be able to find some basic information about the universities and determine the locations of them as well. They can select their specific events according to the type of event, province, major, and date. In addition, they can fill out a registration form with particular fields to determine if they want to participate or attend the events. Moreover, the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research in Iraq will be able to store all of the events and update them each year, and it can manage and coordinate these events with the Iraqi public universities. The Ministry will be able to evaluate and improve the level of the research and the events through this system.
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 4 1.3 Review of Literature. Nowadays, Content Management Systems (CMS), especially the Drupal system, have become an active research topic in the web development field. These researches have presented Drupal system according to different ideas of the topics and contents. Some researchers have explained the concepts of the Drupal System. They have introduced the definitions of each parts of the Drupal system. For example, in Cheng, and Wang (2012), The web development based on the Drupal system is presented. Other researchers have focused on explaining the differences between the three most popular content management systems: Joomla, Drupal, and WordPress. Patel, Rathod, and Parikh (2011) have explained the performance of Joomla, Drupal, and WordPress according to their features. They have tried to analyze these three content management systems as to the same condition. The work in Patel, Rathod, and Parikh (2011) presents Joomla, Drupal, and WordPress a statistical comparison of open source CMS. In addition, there is a new work presented by Ghorecha, and Bhatt (2013), A Guide for Selecting a Content Management System for Web Application Development. This work explains the features of Content Management System through making a comparison and evaluation between them. They have used a survey to demonstrate the useful points of using these systems. Moreover, how the developer can choose one of them according to a particular work. Based on the research of the Drupal concepts, the performance of the Content Management Systems and the comparison between them according to their features, Drupal is the most appropriate CMSs for our proposed system. Therefore, for my purpose, Drupal would be the best to implement because it has a high level of security for the system, easy for customizing the features according to the proposed system requirements and it can be easily administered.
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 5 1.4 Overview of the Thesis. This thesis has organized as six chapters: Chapter 1 presents an introduction about the Content Management System (CMS), statement of the problem, the purpose of the study, and the review of literature. Chapter 2 explains a brief background about the Drupal Content Management System and the reasons for choosing the Drupal system. Chapter 3 describes the process of thesis methodology. Chapter 4 describes the steps of the implementation of the event management system. Chapter 5 explains the experimental results of the event management system. Chapter 6 presents the conclusion of this thesis and the future work topics.
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 6 CHAPTER 2 BACKGROUND Drupal is one of the most popular Content Management Systems (CMS) these days. It is an open source Content Management System, and it is free. Drupal system is used for several kinds of purpose of contents, and it presents a service for the people and the companies to publish, organize, and manage their work without higher knowledge of the programming (Douglass, Little, & Smith, 2006). Moreover, the concept of Drupal is a deeper concept than simply software. Drupal is a content management system that has great features that allow for each developer or programmer to use it with less time, money, and effort (Byron, & Berry, 2012). 2.1 The History of the Drupal. The history of the Drupal system has been wide discussed, and interested parties can find many online documents about it. Therefore, we will write about the history of Drupal with a brief description. Briefly, in 2000, two students at University of Antwerp, Dries Buytaert and Hans Snijder, who were working together on a wireless bridge that would allow to make a connection between eight students to share Hans s modem. Dries Buytaert was working to create a small news website that allows other students to participate with each other (Mercer, 2010). After Dries Buytaert graduated from the university, the idea of this website had improved until Dries Buytaert decided to publish his Drupal software in 2001(Robertson, 2013). Furthermore, Drupal has been a new technology of web development
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 7 2.2 The Reasons for Choosing Drupal. There are several reasons that make the developer choose Drupal system: - Drupal can operate with ease or complex websites with a variety of contents. - It works with a variety of operating system such as Windows, Linux, and Mac (Quadri, 2011). - Drupal has a big community that provides some important services such as the security and testing documentation for the system, as well as support for different kinds of languages (Patel, Rathod, & Parikh, 2011) - It has a huge number of themes and modules that allow any developer to feel very comfortable choosing an appropriate theme or module. According to the official website of Drupal: https://drupal.org/, there are more than 26,359 modules and 1,978 themes at the time this thesis is written. - The ability of updating the content with Drupal system is very flexible, easy, and reliable. These reasons that we have mentioned above are the most important reasons for choosing Drupal for the proposed event management system. Figure 2.1: Drupal logo
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 8 2.3 The Drupal System Requirements. Drupal content management system contains four parts: language, database, webserver, and operating system (Quadri, 2011) as shown in Figure 2.2. Figure 2.2: Drupal system requirements
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 9 CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY In this chapter, we present the process of the methodology of the Event Management System. We will also explain the steps of each phase of the process. Determine and Collect the Drupal Content Management System Information Download and Install WampServer Download and Install the Drupal Software Choose, Download and Install the Drupal Theme Choose, Download and Install the Drupal Modules Design and Implementation the Event Management System Figure 3.1: Event Management System methodology process
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 10 3.1 Determine and Collect the Drupal Content Management System Information. In this phase, we determine the required information that the user will need and use through this proposed event management system. This information include three important pieces: First: some information about the Iraqi public universities that allow for any user to get some important details for each university. These details consist of the established date, the type of the university, the current president of the university, the province of the university, the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) website, and the number of the colleges. Furthermore, we use Google Map Field module to determine the locations of each university that is going to hold the scientific and educational events. This required information is collected from the official website of the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research in Iraq: http://www.en.mohesr.gov.iq/, and from the official websites of the Iraqi public universities. Second: the list of the scientific and educational events in the Iraqi public universities. In this part, we try to search these events from several websites to find them until we can collect all of the events for this year from two places: 1. The official website of the Research and Development Department in the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research in Iraq: http://www.rddiraq.com/rdd/. 2. The official websites of the Iraqi public universities (see Appendix: list of Iraqi public universities). After collecting these events, we organize them according to the following category: type, province, major, and date. Through this category system, the researchers and the students will be able to select these events according to the user selection. Consequently, the categories are organized as follows:
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 11 3.1.1 The Types of the Events. 3.1.2 The Provinces of the Events. Type Conference Seminar Workshop Table 3.1: The types of the events Province Al Anbar Arbil Babil Baghdad Basra Dhi Qar Diyala Douhuk Karbala Kirkuk Maysan Muthanna Najaf Nineveh Al-Qadisiyyah Saladin Sylaymaniyah Wasit Table 3.2: The provinces of the events
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 12 3.1.3 The Majors of the Events. Majors Medicine Dentistry Pharmacology Nursing Engineering Science Education Veterinary Medicine Administration and Economics Law Languages Political Science Arts Media Agriculture Fine Arts Islamic Sciences Physical Education Studies Table 3.3: The majors of the events
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 13 3.1.4 The Dates of the Events. Date January,2014 February,2014 March,2014 April,2014 May,2014 June,2014 July,2014 August,2014 September,2014 October,2014 November,2014 December,2014 Table 3.4: The dates of the events Third: some information about the system and how the user can use this system as well as the purpose of designing and implementing the Event Management System. 3.2 Download and Install WampServer. WampServer represents the environment or the platform of Content Management System with Windows operating system. It is free open source software and it contains three basic components: APACHE, MySQL, and PHP. WAMP stands for WINDOWS, APACHE, MySQL, and PHP. This platform helps the developer and the programmer to deal with the web application easily (Unni, & Baskaran, 2012)
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 14 Of course, other web development environments deal with other operating systems such as LAMP dealing with Linux operating System, and MAMP dealing with Mac operating System. As a preliminary step, we download and install WampServer on the development computer. We download the software to the computer from the official website: http://www.wampserver.com/en/ 3.3 Download and Install the Drupal System. In this phase, we go to the official Drupal website to download the Drupal system. Among the available versions of Drupal, we choose version 7, to start working with the Event Management System. Downloading the Drupal system is not as easy as downloading and installing other software to the computer. The procedures for download and installation of this system need to work with the phpmyadmin, which represents MySQL database (Xie, 2013). 3.4 Choose, Download and Install the Drupal Theme. One of the important features that allow any programmer or developer to use Drupal is Drupal Theme. Drupal has a huge numbers of themes that provide an easy environment for the programmer or the developer. Drupal Theme is the interface by which the user can interact with the system. After the developer installs the Drupal system, he can find four core themes that already existed in the system. These are Bartik, Seven, Garland, and Stark themes. Each one of these themes has different appearances and features (Cheng, &Wang, 2012).
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 15 The developer can choose one of these four themes according to the work needs, but if he does not want one of them, he can go to the official website of Drupal and choose the appropriate theme for the work: https://drupal.org/project/project_theme. Moreover, after the developer goes to the Drupal themes, the developer will find many of the themes. The developer determines the required theme to the work, and then he can make a search to find the appropriate theme easily. Each theme has a brief description that explain some important details about the theme, including theme features, useful fields for choosing the theme, the number of websites that already have used these themes, and the available versions for downloading. Therefore, in this phase, we choose one of the appropriate themes to our work. It is a Dossier Theme. This theme allows the Event Management System to appear simple and flexible for the user because it has appropriate appearance of the design. The URL website for this theme is: https://drupal.org/project/dossier 3.5 Choose, Download and Install the Drupal Modules. Some programmers write codes for several important and particular works or tasks. These codes represent the Drupal modules, which present an excellent and useful service for the Drupal s developers (Cheng, &Wang, 2012). The URL https://drupal.org/project/project_module will take users to the appropriate website to download modules. From this website, the developer can search about the appropriate modules to use for the system. There are a huge number of Drupal modules, and each have a brief description, the administrator of the system can choose the modules according to the system requirements.
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 16 In this phase, we determine the Event Management System requirements of the modules. In our system, we need four modules to achieve the requirement. The first module is View module; this module will work to make the category of the events and allow for browsing events very easily and without complexity. The View module needs another module to make the tools of API be active; this module is Chaos tool suite (ctools) module. The third one is Webform module. We need this module to create the registration form and collect the results of the form. The last module that we need for the system is Google Map Field module. Through this module, we will be able to determine the location of the Iraqi public universities by using Google Map service. 3.6 Design and Implementation the Event Management System. After completing the pervious phases, we are ready to design and implement the Event Management System. The following points include the steps of designing and implementing the system: 1. Some important information about the Iraqi public universities. 2. The Scientific and Educational Events to be held in 2014. 3. Determination of the location of the Iraqi public universities on the map. 4. A brief description about the system. 5. Creation of categories and filtering of events according to the Type, Province, Major, and Date of events. 6. A List of the events to be held this year in the Iraqi public universities. 7. Creation of a registration form with particular fields. 8. Illustration of the results after filling out the registration form.
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 17 9. Creation of Contact form for the user to be able to contact the administrator of the system. 10. Creation of a search text bar that presents a help for the user to find any information from the system. 11. Addition of the logos of the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research in Iraq with the Iraqi flag as well as the logos of the Iraqi public universities. Consequently, we design and implement this system by dividing into five sections: Home page, About the System, Events, Registration, and Contact us. We can describe the steps of using this system as shown in figure 3.2: User Event Management System Information & Location Iraqi Public Universities System Description Select Event Type, Province, Major, & Date Registration Contact Form Figure 3.2: Event Management System diagram
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 18 CHAPTER 4 IMPLEMENTATION 4.1 Download and Install WampServer. The first part of working with Content Management System (CMS) is downloading and installing the local server. In our work, we choose WampServer because we work with Windows operating system as the following steps: We go to the WampServer official website: http://www.wampserver.com/en/. Then, we choose the download section according to the computer s properties that we have in the operating system. Figure 4.1: WampServer downloading section
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 19 After choosing the download section, click on the download button to start the installation steps for the WampServer. The WampServer will install on the computer. Figure 4.2: WampServer downloading Now, WampServer icons will appear in Downloads directory, and click on the icon to start the installation operation. Figure 4.3: WampServer icon
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 20 Then the first windows of the installation will appear, giving the details about the contents of the local server (WampServer) with the versions of its components. Click Next to start the installation. Figure 4.4: WampServer installation Now, the License Agreement shows, we need to accept the agreement to continue with the installation. Click Next to continue. figure Figure 4.5: WampServer License Agreement
to continue. A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 21 Determine the Destination Location by clicking on Browse button, then click on Next Figure 4.6: WampServer Destination Location If we need to create a Desktop Icon, we can select this option from Select Additional Tasks. Then click Next to continue. Figure 4.7: WampServer additional tasks
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 22 Now, we are ready to install WampServer. We begin the installation after clicking the Install button. Figure 4.8: Begin installing WampServer The WampServer installation begins as shown in Figure 4.9 Figure 4.9: WampServer extracting files Now, continue extracting files to complete WampServer installation on the computer.
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 23 Figure 4.10: Continue WampServer extracting files There is a new optional window to choose a default browser, then click on Open button. figure 4.12. Figure 4.11: WampServer default browser After clicking on Open button, the installation continues to finish the setup as shown in
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 24 Figure 4.12: Wampserver finishing installation Now, there is a window which includes SMTP and Email, choose the default values and click on Next button to continue. Figure 4.13: WampServer SMTP server The setup has finished installing WampServer on the computer; click on Finish button to exit from setup.
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 25 Figure 4.14: Completing the WampServer WampServer finishes the installation, and the WampServer icon is created on Desktop and Taskbar. After clicking on the icon, click on Start All Services and the color of WampServer is changing from red to green. Then, we choose the Local host option to open the home page of the WampServer. Figure 4.15: WampServer on Taskbar
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 26 Figure 4.16: WampServer local host Now, we choose phpmyadmin from Tools section to create a database for the Drupal system. The first step is chosen the language, Username, and Password. Figure 4.17: phpmyadmin username and password Then, the home page of phpmyadmin is shown in the next figure.
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 27 Figure 4.18: phpmyadmin homepage Now, we choose a Databases section to create a database for our Drupal Event Management System. We enter the name of the database Drupal, and then click Create to get a new database for our work. Figure 4.19: phpmyadmin creating database The Drupal database has been created on phpmyadmin, and now we are ready to download and install the Drupal system on the computer.
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 28 Figure 4.20: phpmyadmin drupal database 4.2 Download and Install Drupal System. Probably download and installations of Drupal Content Management System has existed on several websites on the internet (Burge, & McCourt, 2013), especially on Drupal official website, but we need to explain the steps of the downloading and installation in our work. Therefore, it is very important to put these steps with the requirements of the Event Management System, which we need to design and implement. Moreover, whoever wants to get basic guidelines of the installation can go to this URL: https://drupal.org/documentation/install/runscript Now, we start the steps of downloading and installing Drupal Content Management System. We go to the official website of Drupal: https://drupal.org/ to click on the green bar Get Started with Drupal.
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 29 installation. Figure 4.21: Drupal home page Then in a window shown in the next figure. We start the steps of the downloading and Figure 4.22: Get started with Drupal We choose Drupal version 7 to start the downloading from zip file Recommended Releases, which is shown in the next figure.
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 30 Figure 4.23: Drupal zip file download After Drupal system version 7 downloading is complete, it is ready for the next steps of the installation. Figure 4.24: Drupal icon on Downloads directory After downloading Drupal system version 7 on the computer, we move the Drupal folder with the whole contents to WampServer directory inside www folder. The purpose of this step is to allow the Drupal system to work with WampServer
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 31 Figure: Figure 4.25: Drupal compressed folder Figure 4.26: Drupal content Figure 4.27: Moving Drupal folder to www directory Now, the Drupal folder is moved to WampServer directory inside www folder as shown in figure 4.28.
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 32 Figure 4.28: Drupal folder inside WampServer In the next step, go to Start all Services from WampServer and choose Local host option to begin the Drupal installation. The next figure shows the Local host page, and under Your Projects section, we see Drupal project. We click on the Drupal project to begin the Drupal installation. Figure 4.29: Local host with Drupal Now, we begin with Drupal installation as the following steps. The first step is selecting an installation profile. We click on the button Save and continue.
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 33 Figure 4.30: Drupal installation select profile The second step is choosing the language. Click on the button Save and continue. Figure 4.31: Drupal installation choose language
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 34 The third step is verifying requirements of the system as shown in figure 4.32. Figure 4.32: Drupal installation verifying requirements The fourth step includes Database configuration. Here we determine the Database type which is MySQL as shown previously. Then, we enter the name of the database created previously in Drupal, as well as the database username. A database password is an optional field. After completing the fields, click on Save and continue button. Figure 4.33: Drupal installation database configuration
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 35 The fifth step is instillation of profile as shown in figure 4.34. Figure 4.34: Drupal installation profile The sixth step is configuring the Drupal site. There are two important sections below. The Site information section include site name and site e-mail address. The Site maintenance section includes username, e-mail address, password, and confirm password. After completing these fields with our own information, we can go to the next step. Figure 4.35: Drupal installation configuring site In the seventh step, there are two sections which we need to determine the Server Setting and Update Notification.
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 36 In Server Setting, we should determine default country and default time zone. In addition, in the Update Notification, we should Check for update automatically and Receive e-mail notification. Then, click on Save and continue. new site. Figure 4.36: Drupal installation server setting & update notification After finishing Drupal installation, we can visit the new site by clicking on the Visit your Figure 4.37: Drupal installation complete
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 37 4.3 Choose, Download and Install Drupal Theme. In this phase, we show some steps of setting a specific Drupal theme for our work. We should go to the official website to choose the theme for our Event Management System, and go to the Theme section to start a search for the particular theme: https://drupal.org/project/project_theme. Figure 4.38: Drupal theme search We choose Dossier theme to be the official theme of the Event Management System, we input the name of the theme in the search themes field, and click on a Search button to show the result of the themes. Figure 4.39: Dossier theme in Drupal theme search
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 38 Then, we get the specified theme, which we want to use as a default theme, with its feature description and option of download zip files. Figure 4.40: Dossier theme Now, we download the theme by clicking on the Zip file for version 7 to start downloading the theme. Then, the Dossier Theme folder has downloaded on the computer. Theme. Figure 4.41: Dossier icon on Downloads directory Now, we need to do the following steps to complete the setup and activate the Dossier
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 39 - We go to Local Disk (C) and open WampServer folder. - Choose www folder and open it. Figure 4.42: WampServer folder on Local Dick (C) Figure 4.43: WWW folder inside WampServer Directory - Choose Drupal folder and open it. Figure 4.44: Drupal folder inside www folder
- Choose theme folder and open it. A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 40 Figure 4.45: Themes folder inside Drupal folder - Move dossier folder from Downloads directory to the theme folder. Figure 4.46: Move Dossier theme to Drupal theme folder - Go to Drupal system from Appearance section to activate the Dossier theme to make it the default theme for the system.
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 41 Figure 4.47: Set Dossier theme as the default theme 4.4 Choose, Download and Install Drupal Module. In this phase, go to the official website of Drupal to choose the modules which we will use with our Event Management System. For this system, we need to use four different modules: Views module, Chaos tool suite (ctools) module, Webform module, and Google Map Field module. We go to the modules section to start searching about these particular modules: https://drupal.org/project/project_module. Figure 4.48: Drupal modules search
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 42 Figure 4.49: Views Drupal module search Figure 4.50: Chaos tool suite Drupal module search Figure 4.51: Webform Drupal module search
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 43 Figure 4.52: Google Map Field Drupal module search After searching about the four particular modules, we are able to find them and start downloading them to the computer. Figure 4.53: Views module Figure 4.54: Chaos tool suite module
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 44 Figure 4.55: Webform module Figure 4.56: Google Map Field module Now, these modules are in the computer and we will set them up on the Drupal system, and activate them from Modules section as shown in the following figures. Figure 4.57: Four Drupal s modules icons
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 45 - We go to Local Disk (C) and open WampServer folder. - Choose www folder and open it. Figure 4.58: WampServer icon Figure 4.59: WWW folder inside WampServer folder - Choose Drupal folder and open it. Figure 4.60: Drupal folder inside www folder
- Choose the modules folder and open it. A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 46 Figure 4.61: Modules folder inside Drupal folder - Move the four modules from Downloads directory to the modules folder. Figure 4.62: Move ctools and google map field modules to WampServer directory Figure 4.63: Move views and webform modules to WampServer directory
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 47 Now, we need to activate these four modules to Drupal Content Management System through Modules section and click on Save Configuration button as shown in the following figures: Figure 4.64: Activate ctools module in Drupal system Figure 4.65: Activate Google Map Field, Views, and Webform modules in Drupal system 4.5 Design and Implementation the Event Management System. After completing the pervious phases, we are ready to keep these implement the Event Management System.
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 48 4.5.1 Some important information about the Iraqi public universities. We go to Add content Section then choose Article option to enter some important information about these Iraqi public universities, which are mentioned in the appendix. These universities will hold Scientific and Educational Events as shown in the next figures: Figure 4.66: Add content section in Drupal Figure 4.67: Article University of Baghdad 4.5.2The Scientific and Educational Events to be hold in 2014. To create a list of content which include these events, we go to Structure section then choose Views option to be able creating these events.
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 49 Figure 4.68: Structure section in Drupal After choosing Views option, we add a new view named Events for this system is Events as shown in figure 4.69: Figure 4.69: Views options in structure section Then we click on Edit from Operations section, and it displays several sections. We do the following to achieve our system requirements. These steps include: Determining the title of the view list. Formatting the view as a table. Entering five view fields: Title, Type, Province, Major, and Date.
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 50 Using Filter Criteria : Published, Type, Province, Major, and Date as shown in the next figures. Figure 4.70: Displays of Views option Figure 4.71: Contents of Views option 4.5.3 Determination of the location of the Iraqi public universities on the map. We can determine the location of each university through using Google Map Field module which has the ability to find the exact location. We go to Add content section and choose Article option, then we will find the Google Map section. After that, we determine the province of the required university until we find its particular location.
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 51 Figure 4.72: Google map in add content section 4.5.4 A brief description about the system. To do this step, we go to Add content section, and choose Basic page which includes Title, Body, and Setting. In the Title field, we enter About the System. In Body field, we enter a brief description about the system. Then, in the Setting section, we determine the appropriate setting of publishing. Figure 4.73: Basic page About the System
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 52 4.5.5 Creation of categories and filtering of events according to the Type, Province, Major, and Date of events. To create these four category filters, we go to Structure section then choose Views option. After that, we choose Fields from Display events to select these four filters as well as the title of the events. These categories we have already created in the Content section, and now we select them from the Views section. Figure 4.74: Category filters of Views 4.5.6 A list of the events to be hold in this year in the Iraqi public universities. In this part, we create a list of events according to Title, Type, Province, Major, and Date. This list is created from Structure section then go to the Views option as shown in the next figure:
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 53 Figure 4.75: List of the events. 4.5.7 Creation of a registration form with particular fields. One of the important parts is creating a registration form to make a database which stores the information about the researchers and the students. This form includes several fields: City, Full Name, Position, Gender, Major, Address, Cellphone Number, Email, Reason, Paper Title, and Event Name as shown in figure 4.76: Figure 4.76: Registration form fields
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 54 4.5.8 Illustration of the results after filling out the registration form. After creating the registration form, there is a Results section of Registration which includes five options, and each option has different purpose. These five options are Submission, Analysis, Table, Download, and Clear. These options allow dealing with the results of the registration form as a database. Figure 4.77: Registration results 4.5.9 Creation of Contact us form for the user to be able to contact the administrator of the system. To provide a contact between the user and the administrator of the Event Management System, we have created a Contact us form. This form contains four fields and one select list. The four fields are: Your name, Your e-mail address, Subject, and Message that includes a category: Send an event, and Website feedback. In addition, there is an Auto-reply message after clicking on Send button. We go to Structure section then choose Contact option to create this form and add more categories.
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 55 Figure 4.78: Structure section options Figure 4.79: Contact option of Structure section 4.5.10 Creation of a search text bar that presents a help for the user to find any information from the system. Drupal Content Management System provides a search text bar. This bar helps to do a search through the information of the system.
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 56 Figure 4.80: A search text bar in the system 4.5.11 Addition of the logos of the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research in Iraq with the Iraqi flag as well as the logos of the Iraqi public universities. In this step, we add the Iraqi public universities logos to create a nice appearances for the system. We go to Add content section then choose Article option. There is an Image section that allows uploading the logo from the computer for each university as well as the logo of the Ministry. Figure 4.81: Image section of add content section
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 57 CHAPTER 5 EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS In this chapter, we describe the experimental results of the thesis. After completing the downloading and installation requirements, the designing and implementation of the proposed Event Management System results are as follows: 5.1 Home Page. This section explains some details about the Iraqi public universities, and gives a location for each university through Google map service. Figure 5.1.a: Home page of the Event Management System Figure 5.1.b: Information and location of University of Baghdad
A Proposed Event Management System in Iraq Using Drupal 58 5.2 About the System. This section gives a brief description about the system, and demonstrate the purpose of using the Event Management System. Figure 5.2: About the System section 5.3 Events. This section is an important section of the system. It shows all of the events according to the proposed categories: Type, Province, Major, and Date. The user is able to select the appreciate selection, and then the results will be displayed according to the particular selection. Furthermore, after clicking on each event s name, the event page will give the event s details for the user. Figure 5.3.a: Scientific and educational events