an online flea market in higher education using c2 c e commerce model a requirements model -...
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AN ONLINE FLEA MARKET IN HIGHER EDUCATION USING CONSUMER-TO-CONSUMER ELECTRONIC COMMERCE
MODEL: A REQUIREMENTS MODEL
Salaheddin Khiri M.Beskri1, Dr. Azida Zainol2 1Universiti Utara Malaysia, Malaysia, [email protected]
2Universiti Utara Malaysia, Malaysia, [email protected]
ABSTRACT. In higher education district, college students are special con-
sumers. Second hand goods are their main needs while they are in college.
Thereby public e-commerce websites may not fulfill their requirements.
Trustworthiness and security, between e-commerce websites’ users, are also
other issues that students, as buyers or sellers, are concerned about that pub-
lic e-commerce users are still paying off its repercussions. Thus, it is essen-
tial to have an online flea market in higher education that specifically tai-
lored to the students’ needs and demand. This study proposes a comprehen-
sive requirements model that can be referred as guidelines to developing an
online flea market for a higher education district. The methodology for con-
structing the requirements model involves four main phases, which are theo-
retical study, requirements elicitation, requirements’ analysis and require-
ment validation. The requirements model consists of several Unified Model-
ing Language (UML) diagrams, content, hypertext and presentation model-
ing; as well as list of requirements and use case description. The results
form the requirements validation and it is very promising. Moreover, it
demonstrated a significant efficiency of the requirements model towards a
higher education district. After all, this work contributes to the requirements
engineering domain specifically and to the body of software engineering
generally.
Keywords: Online Flea Market, requirement model, C2C e-commerce
INTRODUCTION
E-commerce has brought the world to a new era of trading, nowadays. Using Internet be-
comes easier for most people regardless their ages and incomes whereby social networks and
mobile phones are the main causes. The consumer to consumer e-commerce model (C2C)
refers to a concept of which exchanging a set of transactions among consumers (Du, 2005). In
this model, sellers sell products directly to consumers as well as negotiations between buyers
and sellers about the price of the offered products is applicable to finalize the transaction.
Online marketing has dominated most traditional markets all over the world. Therefore,
traders do not need to find the best location to sell goods, and that in return, save the world
pollution, traffic jams, lots of money, effort and finally time (Villapol & Fuenmayor, 2007).
In china, 2012, consumer-to-consumer E-commerce markets have dominated marketplaces
with an 80% market share while 20% of the markets go for business-to-consumer E-
commerce markets (Hoffmann, Lannes, & Dai, 2012). Therefore, the significance of E-
commerce’s been increasing over the last decade and becoming more of interest of individu-
als, companies and organizations to deliver their products.
2
Apart from that, college students as a part of a higher education district indeed benefit
from the use of E-commerce technology in many ways. Students travel far away distances
from their hometown seeking knowledge that, as a consequence, leads to adapting themselves
with a new lifestyle in their universities for quite long time. As novices, they will start look-
ing for their personal and learning needs by contacting sellers, for instance, senior students
who are about to graduate and they have their own goods for sale. Eventually, students end up
spending a vast amount of time and money most frequently and they are restricted to the cli-
mate and the location of the market (Zhao, 2010).
Therefore, currently online flea market websites are well known and widely spread among
private organizations especially in higher education districts (Zhang & Liu, 2010). Online flea
markets are classified as unofficial websites in universities whereby students could look for
their goods or put them for sale on the website. The online flea market websites are usually
manufactured as a standalone websites (e.g., accessible on the Internet or on a Local Area
Network (LAN)).
PROBLEM STATEMENT
In many public and private places, posters are tremendously used which that ends up, un-
fortunately, in walls fully filled with posters, either invalid or still valid, and, moreover, con-
ducting physical flea markets is restricted to climate, a location and time (Wang &
Tomaszewski, 2010). As a consequence, robbery, traffic jams and left garbage on streets in
some cases are the repercussions of conducting the physical flea market (Villapol &
Fuenmayor, 2007).
Apart from that, the present revolutions of E-commerce are still of concern of researchers
in terms of security issues. Selling and buying goods online require a user to use his/her con-
fident information which that will lower the website’s reliability among the users. According
to the E-commerce report working group, 2012, reported that “lack of consumer-perceived
security and trust in vendors and payment systems is one of the main barriers to electronic
and mobile trade” and “According to Eurostat data, the main factors inhibiting the buying and
selling of goods online are concerns with the security of payments (11%), privacy (10%)”
(The European Online Marketplace Consumer complaints 2010-2011, n.d.). Therefore, the
proposed system is efficiently supported to enable students to buy and sell their goods secure-
ly and easily since there are no very sensitive and personal information regarding to payment
methods are required. Besides, the search for items is faster and more convenient (Zhang &
Liu, 2010).
Moreover, college students are unique consumers comparatively to other consumers
(Zhao, 2010). Second-hand goods are considered their main needs since they are temporal
residents who will be off a campus once he or she graduates. Besides, Trustworthiness be-
tween a seller and a buyer is another achievement of this study since students are the main
actors in this study and that, consequently, will provide more details about a seller’s history
and his/her background information which can be gained from his/her college. “To maintain
these items it’s important that seller doesn’t use nicknames and show he’s available and re-
sponsible with the transaction.” Said (da Cunha Julio A, Hamilton L, Joao L, & Dennys E,
2012).
Finally, developing an online flea market using C2C E-commerce model which is faced
with higher education district focusing on college students based on sufficiently elicited, in-
cepted and elaborated requirements is necessary and a key criterion to proceed to subsequent
software engineering but, unfortunately it is scarcely done (Roger, 2010). In other words, in-
consistency, omissions and ambiguity are still nightmares for most computer-based systems
whereby these systems are built on week foundations in terms of requirements engineering
(Roger, 2010). Therefore, this study proposes a comprehensive requirements model that can
be referred as guidelines to developing the online flea market.
3
RESEARCH’S OBJECTIVES
The main objectives of this study are:
1. To determine the functional and non-functional requirements for the online flea
market in higher education district.
2. To construct the requirements model based on functional and non-functional re-
quirements.
3. To evaluate the online flea market in higher education district in terms of useful-
ness and ease of use.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RESEARCH
The significance of this study is to give the higher education students a better alternative
of a traditional flea market based on in-depth negotiated requirements. The requirement mod-
els are specifically a sub domain of the requirement engineering domain whereas generally it
is a term that is linked to software engineering. However, the significant services of this study
can be categorized as follows:
One of the most significant services of the online flea market is to finding their
needed goods and putting their unneeded goods in an auction whereby Senior and
graduate students are enabled to put their unneeded goods on the website for sale
and likewise, junior students are also enabled to seek for their needs on the web-
site.
To deliver varieties of categorized products to buyers which that allow them to
perform transactions securely. Also, Users are not restricted to any conditions or
agreements that would impose them to fill in their private information such as
(Credit card number).
A requirement model that is an effective guide and reference for any further de-
velopments in the online flea market for higher education.
LITERATURE REVIEWS
In this study, A Venn’s diagram is adopted to visualize the literature reviews as it is de-
picted below in Figure 1:
Figure 1.A Venn’s Diagram Depicts The Themes’ And Models’ Logical Relations.
A Requirement Model
An Online Flea Market
An E-commerce Model
C2C E-commerce Model
Trading
Model
C2B
Model
B2C
Model
B2B
Model
Higher
Education
Public
4
Online Flea Markets
Online flea markets have widely emerged and been considered a significant term in e-
market research. The online flea market is a digital system which is developed and utilized for
users to benefit its services and features whereby sellers and buyers exchange information and
transactions to gain their own goods (Villapol & Fuenmayor, 2007).
Traditional Flea Markets
Some universities still adopt the traditional way whereby senior students determine a spe-
cific location in the university and establish their flea market for several days over several
hours per day according to Wang & Tomaszewski, (2010). In this way, some arrangements
must be done before the event day. A place, time and training managers are the main parts of
a preparation phase that are usually done 1 month before. Also, on the day of the event, cli-
mate and some security issues are most frequently considered to enjoy shopping peacefully
since markets are crowded and lots of stuffs are there that can be easily lost. Participants were
asked to sign and return the 3R Student Flea Agreement to managers to control the partici-
pants’ actions in the event day (Wang & Tomaszewski, 2010).
Modern Flea Markets
An electronic flea market has been established and adopted by several organizations. Ac-
cording to Zhao, (2010), an electronic flea market website had been developed in Hebei Uni-
versity of Engineering and Henan Higher Education District in China. In Hebei University of
Engineering the E-market website was developed and implemented using different develop-
ment tools from the Henan Higher Education District flea market website. Students also were
asked to adhere to an agreement to participate in the market in both educational institutions in
order to maintain selling and buying operations secured and reliable since online payment is
allowed for students (Zhao, 2010).
C2c E-Commerce Websites and Higher Education
E-commerce is electronic business activities that are run on the Internet to serve users ac-
cording to (Meng, 2009). E-commerce uses all technologies to deliver better services such as
the Internet and other electronic tools. In other words, e-commerce has opened a great oppor-
tunities for companies. In china, 2010, the total amount of e-commerce sales reached to RMB
460 billion and it was expected to be tripled after 3 years that will make china the largest e-
commerce market according to (Hoffmann et al., 2012). However, creating e-commerce solu-
tions leads to developing an e-commerce website that offer certain demanded services. E-
commerce has been classified into four categories namely (Zhao, 2010) :
Business to Business (B2B) model
Business to Consumer (B2C) model
Consumer to Consumer (C2C) model
Consumer to Business (C2B) model
The C2C model has been adopted in our study since it involves negotiation selling and
buying transactions which are conducted between consumers. College students are special
consumers looking for special needs. Many C2C e-commerce websites have found their way
to higher education districts and have achieved its objectives successfully whereby students
have sold their unneeded products to other students who are in need for them. According to
Shi,( 2009), a C2C e-commerce website was installed in a campus network server and had
been experimented for half a year by teachers and students in Zhejiang Gongshang Universi-
ty. Ideal results were achieved, ensuring the university e-commerce system integrity and
broader transaction space were delivered to students.
However, well-known C2C e-commerce websites have been widely used by individuals
and organizations to flourishing their businesses. The Amazon, EBay sites are e-commerce
websites which they offer all e-commerce services and transactions for specifically public
users regardless who they work for and what each of all those groups of users needs are.
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EBay
The EBay site is one of the largest e-commerce sites in the world whereby bidding, listing
and purchasing were happening every minute simultaneously by 90 billion active users and
the number is increasing everyday according to Zegian & Sundaresan, (2011). Even though
the EBay site is B2C and C2C e-commerce model-based and equipped with auctions and
fixed-price features, there are still some issues that are affecting some features in the EBay
system. A study reported that there is no a dominant bidding strategy when faced with mul-
tiple auctions each offering an item of interest according to Juda & Parkes, (2006). Which that
will make the number of auctions declines due to the inaccuracy in picking the right winner.
The study provided the truthful, dominant and simple bidding strategy by creating consisting
of an options-based and authorized auction protocols.
Amazon
Amazon is another popular e-commerce marketplace in the world. It offers items for sales
and buyers can pay by many ways similarly to the EBay whereby buyers can pay fixed prices
or bid in auctions. According to Zaman & Grosu, (2012), “the fixed price-based resource al-
location and trading mechanisms currently in use in cloud computing systems do not provide
an efficient allocation of resources and do not maximize the revenue of the cloud providers”.
Based on an economic theory that they supported their study with which is “when the auction
costs are low, auctions are especially efficient over the fixed-price markets since products are
matched to customers having the highest valuation.” (Zaman & Grosu, 2012). Bidding on
combinations of discrete items adds more value to each item rather than selling or bidding on
items separately. In other words, if you’d like to sell a single chair it will be less valuable by
bidders than if it is sold with a table.
Requirements Modeling
Requirements modeling have been of concern of researchers for many years. Various
technique tools and methods have been established and enhanced continuously to deliver bet-
ter end-to-end information system in terms of features and quality to users. Requirements’
modeling ensures the completeness and consistency of the system and plays an important role
in the System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) according to Pandey, Suman, Ramani, &
Ahilyavishwavidyalaya, (2011). An information system becomes more mature after iterative
development processes, methods and tools. Requirements model components are the repre-
sentations of the system activities and aspects and it can help understanding the system in the
development processes phases (e.g. elicitation of the requirements, requirements analysis,
design and implementation).
However, since using graphical requirements to describe the system’s activities and fea-
tures is worth rather than words, many requirement modeling applications have been estab-
lished (e.g. UML), Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) and System Modeling lan-
guage (SysML)). A research study , by (Pandey et al., 2011), has created a framework for
modeling software requirements using UML concepts for requirement modeling with more
focus on specific details. The study found that conventional requirement artifacts can be
mapped into system elements. Also, critics were found in using UML as a requirement speci-
fication language and can be solved using the UML tools and extensions.
Another study , by Nor, (2009), created a requirement model for Employee Training Man-
agement System (ETMS) in one of the private higher learning institution. The researcher has
found that using UML extensions such as Web Application Extensions (WAE) provides a
substantial, significant contribution to the comprehension activity and these results have been
verified only by developing a prototype of (ETMS).
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RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Building a requirement model prior to system design phase has been neglected by many
developers (Roger, 2010). Having a requirement model ensures a higher probability to reveal
any omissions, inconsistencies or ambiguity which that will, in return, results in a solid struc-
tured end system. Hence, this study is based on a framework as shown in Figure 2.
The framework consists of four major phases, namely: Theoretical study, requirements’
elicitation, requirements’ analysis and requirements’ validation.
Figure 2. The Research Methodology Framework
Theoretical
study
Literature study, previous
works and exploration.
Non functional and
Functional Re-
quirements are
elicited
Phases Technique/Approach Output
Requirement
Elicitation
- Interview
- Background study
- Questionnaire
- Observation
- Document Analysis
Requirement
Analysis
-Requirement Modeling.
-Content Modeling
-Hypertext Modeling
-Presentation Modeling
Requirement
Validation
Experts Review the
Framework using the be-
low criteria:
1. Omissions.
2. Inconsistencies.
3. Ambiguity. validated require-
ments models
Evaluate the usefulness and
ease of use by using a pro-
totyping.
The requirement
models
7
Theoretical study
A theoretical study of an interesting problem may come from multiple sources; and the
most important thing is to achieve the objectives and to scope this problem. In this phase, Non
functional and functional requirements are derived from other related works. The require-
ments for developing the E-flea market website will be identified and investigated from litera-
ture studies and previous works.
Requirement Elicitation
This phase focuses on collecting and gathering the desired and required requirements and
objectives from multiple perspectives. In this phase, stakeholders who are affected by the sys-
tem are determined and identified. The gathered requirements cover all aspects of the aimed
system (e.g. security issues, business requirements, user requirements and constraints). The
elicited requirements are raw requirements which mean unanalyzed requirements. Interviews,
background readings, observation, documents analysis techniques are used in this phase. The
output of this phase is the all desired functional and non functional requirements.
Requirement Analysis
There are four modeling activities involve in this phase, which are: functional, content,
hypertext and presentation modeling.
Functional modeling
In this phase, functional requirements are the main concern. A list of requirements, use
case diagram and use case specification are constructed. This model aims to obtain an integral
model which consists of the structure and the behavior of the targeted system. The list of re-
quirements, the use case diagram and the specification diagram will describe how the system
will function and its feature that the end-user will interact with.
Content Modeling
The content modeling level is of concern of the information that is included and shown on
the web either dynamically or statically. It aims to integrate and transfer all the information
and requirements in to a model. Class diagrams and interrelation diagrams are comprised in
the produced model. Therefore, Object-Oriented approach is adopted to model the contents of
the web application to ensure information redundancy avoidance.
Hypertext Modeling
Since web applications are hypertext-based, modeling the navigation system in the web
application is an important step in this phase. The aim of this step is to ease the user to navi-
gate through the web application without being lost using navigation paths. Hypertext struc-
ture modeling is based on nodes (pages or documents) and links between them. Usually,
hypertext model is considered as a view model for the contents model. Classes and objects in
the content model are the basics of the hypertext model.
Presentation Modeling
The presentation modeling deals with the user interface (UI). It determines the appearance
and the feeling of web applications. Graphic designs are involved in this model to simplify
and the use of the web application. In this model, headers and footers on the web application
are positioned as well as nodes, buttons, texts, images and audios. The output of this phase is
a fully designed requirement model.
Requirement Validation
The requirement validation phase is the last phase in the requirement model life cycle. In
this phase, two activities are performed to gain a pure and solid requirement model, namely:
Firstly, the requirement model is reviewed by two experts in order to ensure the requirements
model is clear, consistent and complete. Several critical questions are addressed by the re-
8
viewers to ensure that this is the right system is to be built (e.g. is each requirement consistent
with the overall objectives for the system?) (Roger, 2010).
Secondly, after the reviewers validated the requirements, the online flea market is devel-
oped based on the validated requirement model as well as the level of usefulness and opera-
bility is evaluated by giving out a questionnaire to a group of students after they experiment
the developed online flea market.
Web applications' designers have faced many challenges during development phase of the
systems. Most of these challenges are data handling, organizing, or structuring of the web
applications (Sridaran, Padmavathi, & Iyakutti, 2009). In this study the prototype will be de-
veloped using Microsoft ASP.NET 2008 Framework, which provides developers with the
opportunity to create and deploy applications and services via the Web. In addition, a SQL
Server 2005 database will be the data layer for the E-flea market website.
The evaluation will be performed to determine the level of usefulness and operability of
the system after the system has been developed. The evaluation is based on the usability test-
ing by using the System Usability Scale (SUS) proposed by (Davis, 1989). The prototype will
be evaluated by the stakeholders after the development process is done.
ANALYSIS AND RESULTS
In this part, the requirements models are described and documented using UML. The re-
sults of this study discuss the requirements models elements namely a list of requirements,
Use Case diagram, Use Case Specification, Activity diagrams, Class Diagram, Sequence dia-
grams. In addition, content, hypertext and presentation modeling were part of the require-
ments modeling. The results from the prototype evaluation were also presented.
The requirements model is based on the requirements gathered during requirements elici-
tation phase. There are 33 requirements as presented in Table 1 and Table 2 below.
In the priority column, the following short hands are used:
M – mandatory requirements (something the system must do)
D – desirable requirements (something the system preferably should do)
O – optional requirements (something the system may do)
Table 1. List of the Functional Requirements
No. Requirement ID Requirement Description Priority
OFM_01 User login
1. OFM_01_01 A User is able to login M
2. OFM_01_02 User Name or/and Password is invalid D
3. OFM_02 User logout M
OFM_03 User sign up
4. OFM_03_01 A User is able to sign up M
5. OFM_03_02 The password fields are not matched D
6. OFM_03_03 The entered email is duplicated D
7. OFM_03_04 The fields are empty D
OFM_04 Administrators manage item categories
9
Table 2. List of the Non-Functional Requirements
Consequently, a use case diagram is developed to visualize the functional requirements as
presented in Figure 3 below. It can be clearly seen in this figure, that there are five actors
with 10 use cases. Each actor associates with different use cases based on its role in the online
Flea Market system.
8. OFM_04_01 An administrator able to create a new item category M
9. OFM_04_02 An administrator able to view an item category D
10. OFM_04_03 An administrator able to update an item category D
11. OFM_04_04 An administrator able to deletes an item category D
12. OFM_04_05 The fields are empty D
OFM_05 Administrators manage all members
13. OFM_05_01 An administrator able to view peddlers records M
14. OFM_05_02 An administrator able to block a peddler’s record D
OFM_06 Members manage personal record
15. OFM_06_01 A Member able to view his/her personal record M
16. OFM_06_03 The password fields are not matched D
17. OFM_06_04 The entered email is duplicated D
18. OFM_06_05 The fields are empty D
19. OFM_07 Administrators manage all offers
20. OFM_07_01 An administrator able to view all offers M
21. OFM_07_02 An administrator able to block an offer(s) D
OFM_08 Members manage offer
22. OFM_08_01 A Member able to create a new offer record M
23. OFM_08_02 A member able to view his/her offer(s) D
24. OFM_08_03 A Member able to update his/her offer D
25. OFM_08_04 A Member able to delete his/her offer D
26. OFM_08_05 The fields are empty D
27. OFM_09 Users search offer M
OFM_10 Users comment/negotiate offer
28. OFM_10_01 The Users able to comment/negotiate an offer(s) M
29. OFM_10_02 A required field(s) is empty D
No. Requirement ID Requirement Description Priority
OFM_11 Reliability issues
30. OFM_11_01 Each peddler must only have access to his offers. D
31. OFM_11_02 If the system broke down, it should be recovered by backup files. D
OFM_12 Usability issues
32. OFM_12_01 peddlers must login to the E-Flea market at least once in 3 month D
33. OFM_12_02 Offers will last for only three months. D
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Figure 3. The Use Case Diagram of Online Flea Market.
The requirements of the flea market are presented using several UML diagrams. This is
important because each of the UML diagram visualize the requirements from different pers-
pective and usage. Thus, the following table represents the proposed requirements model and
the number of use of each element:
Table 3. The UML diagrams
No Diagrams Number of Diagrams
1 Use Case diagram 1
2 Use Case Specification 10
3 Activity diagram 10
4 Sequence diagram 7
5 Class diagram 1
Furthermore, the requirements model is also supported by content, hypertext and presenta-
tion modeling. This is important because the online flea market is a web based application
and therefore it is essential to show the dynamic aspect of a web application.
After having a comprehensive requirements model, it is crucial to validate it in order to
ensure the requirements model are complete, consistent and clear. Hence, the requirements
model is sent for the expert review to check on completeness, consistency and ambiguity. Af-
ter the expert reviews, the validated requirements model are transform into a prototype and
Administrator
Members
Peddler
Users
Buyer
User login
User logout
User sign up
Manage item categories
Manage all members
Manage personal record
Manage all offers
Manage offer
Search offerComment/negotiate offer
11
been demonstrated to the potential users. The users used this prototyped and then they need to
answer a set of questionnaire as it is shown in appendix A.
In this study, perceived usefulness scale and perceived of ease of use scale (PUEU) were
assessed, which are hypothesized to be fundamental determinants of user acceptance (Davis,
1989; Bangor,2008). However, the checklist included initially two fourteen-item scales for
each scale. After a set of studies and tests on its reliability, content validity and construct va-
lidity, the measures were refined and streamlined in two six-item scales for the perceived of
usefulness and the perceived of ease of use (Davis, 1989; Bangor,2008) as it is shown in the
appendix A. An each item out of the 12 items is scaled from one to five degrees based on a
psychometric theory. The scales 1 represents the term “Strongly Disagree”, 2 represents “Dis-
agree”, 3 represents “Moderate”, 4 represents “Agree”, 5 represents “Strongly Agree”.
A sample of 33 potential users were involved and randomly selected in the study using the
questionnaire to measure users’ acceptance towards the system. The checklist consists of two
sections namely General information and Evaluation Guidelines.
General Information
Demographic profiles are used in this study to descriptively conclude the number of fre-
quencies for each item. Table 4 and Fiqure4 below depicts that 6 respondents (19%) out of 33
respondents are majored in accountancy which makes most of the accountancy course fre-
quency number is the highest followed by 6 respondents (15%) for other courses .
Table 4. A Distribution of Respondents Based on Courses
Course Number of Respondents Percentage (%)
Marketing 1 3
Agriculture business 1 3
Finance 1 3
Education in IT 1 3
Banking 2 6
Strategic studies 1 3
Accountancy 6 19
Bachelor of Business Administration(BBA) 2 6
Information Technology (IT) 3 9
Applied Linguistics 1 3
Operation Management 2 6
Doctorate of Business Administration (DBA) 1 3
Economic 3 9
Information Communication Technology (ICT) 3 9
Others 5 15
12
Figure 4. A Distribution of Respondents Based on Courses
.
Respondents in different ages were responded to the questionnaire. Table 5 and Figure 5
shows that 17 respondents (51%) were between 18 to 22 years old and they were the majority
in the survey, Followed by 10 respondents (45%) who their ages were between 23 to 27 years
old.
Table 5. A Distribution of Respondents Based on Age
Ages Number of Respondents Percentage (%)
18-22 17 51.51
23-27 10 45.45
28-32 3 09.09
33-37 3 09.09
38-42 0 0
43-47 0 0
marketing
3%
agriculture
business
3%
finance
3%
education in
IT
3%Banking
6%
Stratigic
studies
3%
Accountancy
19%
BBA
6%
IT
9%
Applied
Linguestic
3%
Operation
Management
6%
DBA
3%
Economic
9%
ICT
9%
Others
15%
13
Figure 5. A Distribution of Respondents Based on Age
Moreover, respondents’ gender was one of the assessed items in the survey whereby 33
males and females responded to the questionnaire. As it can be seen in Table 6 and Figure 6
below, females were the majority in the survey whereby 18 (54%) were females and 15 (45%)
were males.
Table 6. A Distribution of Respondents Based on Gender
Gender Number of Respondents Percentage (%)
Male 15 45.45
Female 18 54.54
Figure 6. A Distribution of Respondents Based on Gender
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
18-22 23-27 28-32 33-37 38-42 43-47
52%45%
09% 09%
00% 00%
Pe
rce
nta
ge
Age
18-22
23-27
28-32
33-37
38-42
43-47
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
Male Female
45%55%
Pe
rce
nta
ge
Gender
Male
Female
14
Evaluation and Guidelines
Users’ acceptance towards the online flea market prototype is assessed in this section.
Since the system targets the higher education district, students are considered main actors in
the system and their perceptions of usefulness and ease of use were scaled. Table 7 and Figure
7 below illustrate the result of an overall assessment. Whereby, a majority of 59.08% of res-
ponses agreed that the prototype is useful and easy-to-use while 8.25% responses disagreed.
Therefore, the requirements model has succeeded delivering users’ acceptance.
Table 7. A Distribution of Respondents on All Items in Percentage
Items 1
(Strongly Disagree)
2
(Disagree)
3
(Moderate)
4
(Agree)
5
(Strongly Agree)
Item1 0% 9% 30% 52% 9%
Item2 3% 9% 30% 45% 12%
Item3 0% 9% 39% 39% 12%
Item4 0% 3% 48% 30% 18%
Item5 0% 6% 18% 64% 12%
Item6 3% 6% 33% 45% 12%
Item7 0% 15% 24% 42% 18%
Item8 0% 3% 24% 55% 18%
Item9 0% 0% 45% 39% 15%
Item10 0% 3% 42% 45% 9%
Item11 3% 24% 30% 39% 3%
Item12 0% 3% 21% 55% 21%
Averages 0.75% 7.50% 32.00% 45.83% 13.25%
Figure 7. An Overall Distribution of Respondents
0%3%
0% 0% 0%3%
0% 0% 0% 0%3%
0%
9% 9% 9%
3%6% 6%
15%
3%0%
3%
24%
3%
30% 30%
39%
48%
18%
33%
24% 24%
45%42%
30%
21%
52%
45%
39%
30%
64%
45%42%
55%
39%
45%
39%
55%
9%12% 12%
18%
12% 12%
18% 18%15%
9%
3%
21%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
Item1 Item2 Item3 Item4 Item5 Item6 Item7 Item8 Item9 Item10 Item11 Item12
1 (Strongly Disagree) 2 (Disagree) 3 (Moderate) 4 (Agree) 5 (Strongly Agree)
15
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
The paper discusses the major requirements needed for higher education district and how
it’s elicited, modeled and finally verified. UML was used as requirements specification lan-
guage to model all the web-based application models namely functional and non-functional
requirements modeling, content modeling, hypertext modeling and presentation modeling.
This paper has also presented the online flea market website whereby the other development
tools were involved in the development process namely MS SQL Express 2005 and MS
ASP.Net 2008 as it is shown in the appendix B. The prototype was uploaded in a local server
where all UUM-Zone access points’ users can communicate to the online market. According-
ly, checklist questionnaires were giving to evaluate students’ acceptance towards the proto-
type. A number of 33 users were involved in verifying the online flea market usefulness and
ease of use. Questionnaires’ measures were in two six-item scales for the perceived of useful-
ness and the perceived of ease of use. Results of the assessment revealed that the online flea
market successfully delivered useful and ease of use functions. However, further requirements
refinements are definitely needed for future work since the assigned time was barely suffi-
cient to elicit and analyze the most demanded requirements.
The requirements model for online flea market can be a guideline in the future for devel-
oping a flea market in higher education, It also can be a reference for researchers in visualiz-
ing the requirements using UML as well as the dynamic aspect of a web based application,
Therefore, this requirements model contributes to the domain of requirements engineering
specifically and to the body of software engineering generally.
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Appendix A
The Questionnaire form of an Online Flea Market Prototype
College of Arts and Sciences
University Utara Malaysia
AN ONLINE FLEA MARKET ( OFMARKET )
The OFMarket is a proposed web application that will mainly benefit
students of maintaining time and expenses to find their needs while they
accommodate in a university. This questionnaire aims to gain the web-
site’s usefulness and ease of use to achieve further understanding of the
system requirements.
All information will be strictly and only used for research purpose on-
ly. Your feedbacks are gratefully appreciated and do contact me through
my email: [email protected] for any enquiries or if you are in-
terested to know the result.
Section A: General Information
Please Tick () your answers:
Gender : [ ] Male [ ] Female Course:
Age : [ ] 18-22 [ ] 23-27 [ ] 28-32 [ ] 33-37 [ ] 38-42 [ ] 43-47
Section B: Evaluation & Guidelines
Firstly, Enter this URL http://10.19.183.140/OFM/ to open the Online Flea Market website.
Secondly, Complete this Questionnaire, using the following scale:
1 = Strongly Disagree
2 = Disagree
3 = moderate
4 = Agree
5 = Strongly Agree
Perceived Usefulness
Evaluation
1 2 3 4 5
The Online Flea Market
enables me to accomplish
tasks more quickly.
Using the Online Flea Market
improves my job perfor-
mance.
Using the Online Flea Market
increases my productivity.
Using the Online Flea Market
enhances my effectiveness on
the job.
Using the Online Flea Market
makes it easier to do my job.
Overall, I find the Online
Flea Market useful in my job.
Perceived Ease Of Use
Learning to operate the Online
Flea Market is easy for me.
I find it easy to get the Online
Flea Market to do what I want to
do.
My interaction with the Online
Flea Market is clear and unders-
tandable for me.
The Online Flea Market is flexible
to interact with.
I find it takes a lot of effort to be-
come skillful at using the Online
Flea Market.
Overall, I find the Online Flea
Market easy to use.
Appendix B
The Online Flea Market Prototype’s Webpages