University of Bahrain College of Information Technology Department of Information Systems Second Semester 2014 / 2015

ITIS313 / ITBIS393: Web-Based Information Systems

Case Study

In this case study, you are asked to compare and contrast between two web-based content

management systems (CMS): WordPress and your choice of another CMS such as Joomla, Drupal,

TYPO3, Plone, etc…. The aim of this study is to develop a report detailing this comparison between

the CMSs in different aspects and identify their features and capabilities. The report should consider

the case study below as the topic of the intended website / webapp to be developed.

Case Study

The Department of Information Systems wishes to launch a departmental website using a CMS. The

website will be separate from the University main website and under the management of

department administration.

The website will include static and dynamic content. It will feature the department information such

as aims, objectives, programs offered, curriculums, courses and their outlines. In addition, all

announcements, seminars, and workshops will be posted on this site. The site will also allow the

faculty members to customize their homepages and upload related information about their courses,

research interests and publications.

As for the dynamic content, the department would like to implement a pre-registration system to

allow students to select which courses they aim to register for in the next semester. In addition, the

department wishes to implement a senior project WebApp within the CMS to allow users to browse

the completed projects’ details along with a copy of the abstract as well as view the current projects

and register or suggest proposed projects.

The site should allow users with various roles, such as administrators, editors, faculty, staff,

students, and visitors.

Deliverables

Write a 1000 – 1500 words report detailing your research on the selected CMSs and their suitability

based on the above case study. You do not have to develop or code the website, but you have to

evaluate these CMSs to assess their capabilities for the intended case. You must actually attempt to

test these CMS as most of them offer an online trail or demo of their products and show evidence of

your research in the form of the demo website links and screenshots.

The report should indicate:

A clear indication of which CMS was selected in addition to WordPress, and the main features and functionality of the compared CMSs.

The technical aspects of the CMSs, e.g. platforms, languages, databases, etc…

Aspects for comparison include the various CMS components, as discussed in Section 18.3

from the textbook.

Additional aspects for comparison can includes platform requirements, scope of the

website, ease of use, support and documentation availability and adoption, design

templates and plugins support, integration with other systems, or social networks, etc...

Concise and meaningful screenshots of your demo websites and actual links of these, if

available.

Your overall experience with the CMSs.

A recommendation and justification of your choice of CMS for the case study.

Report Format

Your report must include: A cover page with all members’ names, IDs and emails.

A disclaimer page following the cover page stating: “All the work in this report and included software is our own work. Any external sources are cited” that includes the signature of the group members and the date of submission.

Table of Content and numbered pages, tables, and figures or screenshots.

Work Distribution: Describing what each member contributed to work and report. Notes

Each group should have 2 – 3 members.

Submit a softcopy and hardcopy of your report.

Deadline: Sunday 31 May 2015.

Assessment Criteria

Category Notes

1 Content Breadth The amount of CMSs components and features that are covered and assessed. Availability of demo websites screenshots and links

2 Content Depth The detail and comprehensiveness of the comparison criteria.

3 Comparison and Contrast Criteria

The mapping of the criteria components to actual features of the selected CMSs.

4 Justification Explanation of the reasons the selected CMS based on the results of the criteria.

5 Readability and layout of the Report

Clear and proper language, numbered content and table of content, clear screenshots.

Scores

The report is marked out of 25 as each category is marked from 5 to 1 as follows:

5 = Excellent: Outstanding work and comprehensive details covering all aspects and

demonstrating high ability to comprehend and convey the topic content.

4 = Very good: Covered all aspects, well documented and detailed, lacking few details.

3 = Good: Adequate content with sufficient detail, yet various problems with the topic

structures.

2 = Fair: Basic mention, lacking explanation or very shallow description.

1 = Poor: inconsistent and incorrect content, incomplete or missing parts.

Penalties

Each delayed day will result in a 10% deduction from the scored mark.