Further to the following outline, more information on lectures are available in the course outline document [PDF].
Outline of course content
This course is concerned with the practical issues surrounding the design, development and implementation of large-scale web systems for e-commerce applications such as a web bookstore, or on-line auction site.
The course consists of ten 2-hour lectures, combined with weekly lab sessions and two courseworks. Assessment of this course is by coursework only. Although the course introduces all of the key necessary concepts for building large-scale web commerce systems, it assumes that students have a pre-requisite knowledge of Java and basic aspects of Internet technologies and databases. The lectures focus on discussing key concepts and students will be expected to read effectively around the key topics in order to help them with their coursework.
The course will use the Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) framework as its basis. Other frameworks will be introduced (e.g. Microsoft .NET), but will not be considered in depth.
The first coursework will consist of an individual programming exercise implementing a very simple web based system. This will be a guided programming exercise and is intended that all students gain at least some experience in building practical web systems using J2EE and MySQL.
The second coursework will be a team exercise (typically teams of between 4 to 6) implementing a working e-commerce application. Students will be expected to manage their work as a team, design, implement and test their systems. Assessment will be through a group report, and progress and presentation meetings with the course convenors. Within individual teams, there is scope for students to adopt a variety of roles, according to their technical background and personal interests, including project management, conceptual design and implementation.
There will be weekly lab sessions for this course. These sessions will consist of exercises to guide students through using the key technologies, and support for the two courseworks.
Learning outcomes
Students who complete this course successfully should:
- Understand the key issues associated with the design and implementation of large-scale web based systems for e-commerce.
- Have a detailed understanding of the J2SE/J2EE framework, and an appreciation of the range of alternative frameworks and their merits and disadvantages.
- Be able to implement a simple J2EE web application, and appreciate the purpose and functionality of each of the components of that application.
- Be able to work effectively as part of a team to build a non-trivial web application.
JBoss demo server
We have set up a JBoss demo server that hosts demonstrations of the different JBoss applications that we will be working with during the lab sessions. The URL of this demo server is http://jboss.tn.informatics.scitech.susx.ac.uk:8080. The available demos on this server are: