		-------------------------
		On Line Thesis Submission
		-------------------------
		
Goal Of the Project 
-------------------
	The goal of the project is to create an online thesis submission
database whereby the students can submit their seminar/btp/mtp etc thesis
online and the guide can approve the thesis. Also other users should be able to
query the thesis based in the various fields like the Title, Key word etc.
Along with providing query interface, the project also aims at allowing the
user to browse through the already approved thesis. It should also remind the
students regarding the submission of their thesis before the deadline along
with acknowledging them when the thesis is approved.

What is achieved
----------------
	The following features are implemented in the project.

	1) Authentication, Submission, Approval and Insertion Unit:
		a) The Super User:
			The Super User is allowed to insert and delete tuples
		   from the  database. This is the only interface provided for 
		   entering information into the database. The superuser is
		   also allowed to create new thesis types (for e.g. assignment
                   submission etc.)
		   
		b) The Student:   
		     	The student is allowed to enter the abstract as well as
		   the actual PS file corresponding to his thesis. After
		   Submission, the Guide and Co-Guide of the student gets
		   e-mail stating the submission of thesis.

		c) The Faculty:
			Faculty is allowed to approve thesis submitted by
		   students working under his guidance. After approval, the
		   corresponding student is informed regarding the approval.

	2) Query Interface
	  ----------------

	  	Two types of Query interface are provided. 
		a) Search:
			In this interface, the user enters whatever information 
		   he has regarding the thesis he wants to find, and the
		   details of the corresponding thesis is displayed to the
		   user.
		 
		b) Browse:
			In this interface, the user is allowed to browse
		   through the already submitted thesis in a particular order.

	

Future Extensions:
------------------
	
	1) At present, the Query interface provided is Case Sensitive. So, the
	first step should be to make all these search interfaces case
	insensitive. All the comparisons in the queries are implemented at
	present by the SQL "like" operator. Ms-sql supports case insensitive 
	"CLike" but it is not a standard operator.

	2) Rightnow, the superuser is allowed to create new thesis types and
	all the students are allowed to submit thesis of this new type. Some 
	grant permission should be implemented by which the superuser can give
	submission rights to specific students for specific types of thesis.

	3) At present, the superuser is allowed to insert one tuple at a time. 
	It should be extended to allow multiple tuple insertion at a time.
	
	4) The Search interface in the Query part can be extended to implement 
	Refined search by which the search result at one level can be refined
	by give additional information. Rightnow, for refined search, the user
	have to go and refill the search form along with additional
	information.

	5) Various Statistical informations regarding the thesis submitted so
	far should be provided. This will be very useful for making various
	useful inferences.

	6) The Search part can be extended to implement features supported by
	current search Engines like returning thesis with partial matching.At
	present, only 1 keyword is taken from the user and the thesis which
	have that keyword in their abstract or the keywords specified is
	returned. This can be extended to take multiple keywords from the user
	and return the thesis having the maximum match.

	7) A trigger feature should be implemented which will send reminders to
	the students prior to their submission deadline. At present, the
	deadline table is stored in the database and is not used anywhere.
	Trigger interface will use this deadline table to send mails to the
	respective students.

	
Lessons Learnt from the Project
-------------------------------
	* It was really a wonderful experience working in a group on
	implementing something to be used online. We got  fundaes on
	Servelets, Sessions, and JDBC. We also came across some of the 
	security issues that we had never come before.

	* We learnt how to work in a group. How to distribute the work in a 
	group and how to co-ordinate among ourselves. We also got the feel for
	the important role that Co-ordination plays in realisation of such
	projects.

	* We actually realised the potential of such online projects and truly
	realised why DB projects fetch so much money!!!


		We are thankful to Prof. Siva and Prof. Sudarshan for giving us
	such a wonderful opportunity. We are also thankful to many of our
	batchmates (esp. Kedar and MP for Servelet fundaes) for helping us and
	guving fundaes at crucial points. We will be very happy if our project
	is used or serve as a proto-type for future developement in this area.

	
						Bikash Kumar Agarwalla.
						Prahlad Fogla.
						G. Siva Rama Krishna.
						Anshul Kothari.
