Research Proposal on "Management Information System in Web Application"

Research Proposal 35 pages (11534 words) Sources: 6

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Building a Secure Workflow Management System (SWMS)

for e-Government Web Applications

Supervisor:

The Kuwait Ministry of Defense (MOD) needs secure workflow management systems (SWMS) to enable globally distributed users and applications to cooperate across classification levels to achieve critical goals, an SWMS that is dedicated to improve tender processes through the internet, it considered as an online tender management system that permits administrators to automatically issue military electronic tenders to a list of tendering companies. To this end, this study presents a roadmap for implementing (SWMS) e-tender application for (MOD) and focuses on onion routing technique for anonymous communication over a computer for such workflows.

Building a Secure Workflow Management System (SWMS) for e-Government Web Applications

Introduction

Background.

A Web application is simply an application that is accessed via Web browser over a network such as the Internet or an intranet. It is also a computer software application that is coded in a browser-supported language (such as HTML, JavaScript, AJAX, Java, etc.) and reliant on a common Web browser to render the application executable. Web applications have become increasingly popular in recent years due in large part to the ubiquity of a client, sometimes called a thin client. The ability to update and maintain Web applications without distributing and installing software on potentially thousands of client computers is a key reason for their popularity. Common Web applications include Web mail, online retail sales, online auctions, wikis, discussion boards, and many others.

Online Tender integrates online collaborative technologies with procurement automation to enable purchasing teams to compile detailed tender documents and simultaneously invite tender submissions online, by a specified close date. For the first time suppliers' tenders are published as sealed bids, into an online safe deposit box. They can only be opened by specified representatives on the pre-determined tender opening date. Moreover, such user friendly systems ensure that even suppliers with no knowledge of online tendering systems can respond easily. Online tender techniques also reduce tender periods to days rather than weeks, providing significant improvements to current non-automated working practices. Indeed, more streamlined tender approaches are revolutionizing procurement and are well poised to provide the MOD Web site with an improved ability to process tenders in an electronic way by accepting offers from foreign companies, acknowledging their receipt and automating their processing among the internal agencies responsible for their administration. The design and implementation of an MOD Web application also provides an effective and fast way of communication which allows the authorized persons to interact with foreign companies around the world. These are particularly important benefits because there are already currently 107 open foreign military sales (FMS) contracts between the U.S. military alone and the Kuwait Ministry of Defense totaling $8.4 billion (Kuwait, 2009).

According to Sabinet's (2009) definition, "Workflow environments encourage knowledge workers to add greater structure - in the form of routing lists, receipt notifications, version controls, and procedures" (p. 1). In this setting, staff are now more likely to provide information to other members of the team. For any particular project or job, more information about both the history and the current status of the process is now available for any staff member to view also it "provides secure storage and access to a consistent set of all of the data related to a service" (Government online, 2009, p. 1). Workflow management systems also serve to unite data from many different applications and provides this data with organization and integrity. Using mechanisms such as role privileges (determines who can access and/or change information), process control (e.g., a document may need management approval before moving on to the next step), version control, and system back-ups, the data becomes more reliable. Therefore, having a secure e-Government web application will reduce the costs for the government in delivering timely information. Having a web application will reduce the need for dedicated governmental representatives to be available by other modes of communication like phone or email to provide information to others.

1.2.

Proposal, Software and Hardware Specification

Despite recent initiatives to bring the process in line with various e-government initiatives, the Kuwait MOD continues to experience a major problem with tender offers for goods and services. Currently, these tenders are posted by the Central Tenders Committee and are administered by the Foreign Procurement Department (FPD). The FPD provides the MOD with all requirements such as military devices, equipments, software and so forth only from outside Kuwait. The cycle of tender requires a long time to reach final state an estimated time between 6 to 8 months which constraints the performance of work.

There are currently a number of opportunities for miscommunication between the foreign procurement department and foreign companies to occur when the e-government techniques being implemented are applied, and although some notification should be sent as soon as possible to companies that participate in the tender, the process remains labor intensive and largely manual and notification by normal mailing is slow. In addition, there are a number of considerations involved in the implementation and design of e-government initiatives because unauthorized users will inevitably attempt to access the MOD computer system which carries the potential for doing a great deal of damage to the system itself as well as gaining access to sensitive information. For this reason, Onion Routing will be used to prevent unauthorized access. With this approach, the message for each execution is encrypted with the private key.

Taken together, the advantages of e-government carry a number of obstacles that must be successfully addressed to gain the maximum advantage from these worthy initiatives and the purpose of this study was therefore to build an Internet- and intranet-accessible Web-based application that could resolve these problems while maximizing the utility of the existing components of the e-government technologies in place. Other governmental entities have used this approach to good effect in recent years as well. For example, Hotte and Kingman (2002) report that some of the advantages of this approach to workflow management include, "Information will be efficiently used from one logical source using a standard easy-to-use Web interface. Employees who are geographically dispersed throughout the state can work on common tasks. Travel will be reduced, thus increasing productivity" (p. 64). The provision of intranet access will also decrease the time MOD employees will have to devote to routine communication and administrative tasks. The Web-based technology has offered a new approach for delivering data by supporting distributed information authoring, publishing and management. Information is authored and managed by those who create it (Hotte & Kingman, 2002). The solving approach concentrate on create a Web page for the MOD that is linked with database to store tenders data and offer them in the internet and company can access the site and register in it. The data of registered company sent to MOD and approved using e-signature technique then the company receive qualification number which help to participate in any existing or future tender offered by the MOD. The application will also use Onion Routing for Anonymous and Private Internet Connections in order to ensure secure complete electronic tender life cycle.

1.2.

Overview of the Study

The study is comprised of five main chapters as follows. Chapter one provides an introduction to the study and a summary of its purpose and scope. The second chapter provides a review of e-government in general and e-government principles, tools and the framework used to implement this initiative at the Kuwaiti MOD. Chapter three presents the theoretical foundation of the study including its methodology and the security considerations that must be addressed in the Web-based application. Chapter four provides a description of the design and implementation of the application followed by chapter five which provides an analysis, conclusion, summary of lessons gained and directions for future work.

The main tasks of the study were to design and built a Web page represent an effective and fast way of communication allows the authorized persons to interact with foreign companies around the world which will be consider as an important step for processing of e-Government, These tasks will lead us to solve the main problem which summarized in that there are very long time consumed during execution the tender process between F.P departments and foreign companies also our model will ensure (security -- reliability-performance) for MOD web application.

1.3.

Scope of Work

1.3.1.

e-Government. SWM e-tender application is considered an important step for processing of e-Government and a best solution of the problem of time wasting from manual foreign procurement tenders between MOD in Kuwait and foreign companies that ensure successful outcomes. EFP Tenders introduced as web page can access directly from internet, and built by web technology called web application. This web application developed by java technology as JSP and Servlet and data stored in database called Oracle data base. The web site published in web server called application server, Onion routing is a technique that will be used for anonymous communication over a computer network. Messages are repeatedly encrypted and then sent through several network nodes called onion… READ MORE

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