Presented By:
Ayelet Birnbaum
Yael Kazaz
Supervisor:
Viktor Kulikov
07/05/12
Motivation
• Ever since Smart-phones entered our lives,
relying solely on computers for information
has become growingly difficult
• When a certain service is provided via
website, it becomes much more accessible
and easy to use when it is offered also as an
App
• Today, most of the students at the Technion
own a Smartphone
Why UG Courses App?
• The course information engine at the Technion
undergraduate studies website, is a very
informative tool that is highly used by
undergraduate students that represent more
than 70% of the entire student population at the
Technion
• In this project we will create an App for Android
OS that will offer most of the services that can
be found in the website today
App Features
Course
Search
Course Name
Course
Number
Semester
Faculty
Advanced
Options
My Cart
Schedule
Registration
Info
Registration
Date
Presents
courses in the
cart
Presents the
weekly
schedule
synchronized
with Google
Calendar
1. Exam
schedule
2. Total
credits
3. Course list
Presents the
time and date
that the
registration
begins
Creating an App on Android
• An Android App is written in Java
• Various tools are required in order for the
App to work properly in terms of
communication and decoding between
server and Smartphone
• In the following section of the presentation
we will introduce these tools that are
needed for our project
Web Services (1)
• A Web service is a method of
communication between two electronic
devices over the web
• In our project, Web services are needed in
order to enable communication between the
Smartphone on which the App is installed on
and the server on which the App is
developed on
Web Services (2)
• When a request for a certain operation on the
App is received on the server (via Tomcat) then
creating a web service for the operation is
required
• Creating a web service for an operation results
in the creation of a cluster of files including an
XML file that holds the required information
and support files that instruct how to read the
XML file
• Other systems interact with the Web service by
using SOAP messages
SOAP
• Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) is a
protocol specification for exchanging structured
information in the implementation of web services
• In our project, we will use the SOAP protocol in
order to communicate between the server and the
Smartphone
• SOAP relies on Extensible Markup Language (XML)
for its message format
• In Android there is a KSOAP2 library that works
with SOAP, and it can read the web services files
Tomcat
• Apache Tomcat is an open source web server
that serves a client request and receives a
response from the server (two way – requests
and responses)
• In our project, Tomcat is used to constantly
listen for requests from the App on the
Smartphone, and run the operations requested
on the server
• Tomcat enables the operation with web
services and is in charge of the code translation
from Java to HTML
System Layout
SOAP
Internet
Web
Services
PC
Tomcat
App
SOAP
App
Web services
KSOAP2
UG - FTP
Class Diagram
Road Map (1):
What we have done so far
• Deciding what options will be included in the App and what
options will no be left out
• Defining project specifications and structure
• Learning study material relevant to creating an Android
App:
– Web Services
– Tomcat
– SOAP
• Designing App implementation and building the Class
Diagram
• Creating the Mid-Term presentation
Road Map (2):
Still to Come
• Gaining hands-on knowledge of how to create an Android App by
creating a simple App and loading it on to the Android
Smartphone
• Writing the App itself in Java on Eclipse environment, thus
implementing the Class Diagram created before
• Testing the implementation
• Writing the relevant code for the data transformation between
the computer and the Smartphone and the UG server
• Designing the graphical interface of the App
• Creating the Final presentation
• Creating the project book
• Creating the project poster