Team Name
DENB
Timeline
Summer 2022 – Fall 2022
Students
- Aditya Mishra
- Tommy V Philip
- Nicholas Casey Baum
- Edward Javate
Sponsor
Dr. Shawn Gieser, PhD.
Dr. Chris Conly, PhD.
Abstract
Documenting projects, ideas, research, and discoveries has been a practice in numerous fields of science for centuries. In the field of computer science and engineering, many have used engineering notebooks as an aid in research and development of projects. These physical notebooks are signed by the owner and a witness for authenticity and are kept in libraries with other legal documents. As we enter the digital and information age, increased information is being kept digitally or electronically. In consequence, the practice of documentation must adapt and evolve the physical engineering notebook into a digital engineering notebook for increased security, conservation of physical space, and the convenience of data/device portability.
Background
Hand-writing notes and drawing diagrams has worked for centuries but bringing the documentation into the current century by digitizing the engineering notebook is our goal. We aim to do so by allowing for engineers to document their research digitally and back up all their research, notes, and data across multiple platforms to ensure the security of their data and allow for verification down to the millisecond of when, where, and how the data was found, written, and stored. For engineers who still prefer to hand-write their notes, they are able to scan and input those notes into their digital notebook, allowing for the ’best of both worlds’ for those involved.
Digital ENBs are intended both to increase the ease of use for students and staff in the University of Texas at Arlington College of Engineering to update their notes and plans while mobile. Since DENBs are stored digitally, there is additional security implemented in authentication through credentials to access the notebooks. This contrasts with physical notebooks that can easily tampered with or lost. An added security implementation will be automated timestamping, as well as initials/signatures required for changes. This attempts to prevent, or at minimum discourage any falsification of information that has already been inserted into the notebook.
Project Requirements
List highest priority requirements here (top 10)
- DENB Home Page – For interfacing with the notebook (pages)
- DENB Table of Contents – For keeping track of pages in the notebook
- DENB Entry Page – For logging entries
- DENB Information Page – For storing and displaying general user information
- DENB Embedded Materials Page – For referencing miscellaneous material
- Multimedia Insertion – User has the ability to insert images/spreadsheets/tables
- Timestamp / Verification System – Notebook entries will have timestamps appended. Completed pages will have digital signatures appended.
- Lock Feature / Authentication – The notebook will authenticate users
- Database Storage – The notebook will store data to a secure database
- Responsive – User should expect < 1 second response time
System Overview
The system overview for the Digital Engineering Notebook consists of three (3) high level layers. These layers include the Security, Database, and Application layers. The Security layer handles login/authentication, timestamps, and signature verification as required. The database layer stores and verifies the credentials for the security layer, as well as storing the data for the notebook(s) themselves and any embedded materials uploaded for those notebooks. The Application layer is the layer that the user(s) interface with through whichever device they are utilizing to manipulate their notebook(s). Interaction between the Security and Database layers is required for login/user authentication. Interaction between the Security and Application layer is required for timestamp and signature authentication. Interaction between the Application and Database layers is required for fetching and updating/storing notebook data.
Results
The application can be deployed and is able to function properly on the web. All major functionalities have been implemented, with some limitations only on the capability of the user to embed documents. Some UI improvements were done before final deployment.
The User Manual can be accessed through this link.
Future Work
In a future Senior Design course, the ‘Embedded Documents’ function needs to be implemented properly to upload and retrieve from the database rather than post a temporary URL and launch it in a new tab. The UI/UX needs to be updated to be more user friendly, and the ability for an administrator to oversee notebooks for students/staff they have purview over needs to be implemented. These should be relatively simple tasks, but the DENB team did not have time to implement and test these properly. The ability to ‘work offline’ via a check-in/check-out system for the notebooks also needs to be implemented more thoroughly as the current implementation does not properly allow for this.
Project Files
Project Charter (link)
System Requirements Specification (link)
Architectural Design Specification (link)
Detailed Design Specification (link)
Poster (link)
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