Abstract:

This paper presents the design and implementation of a Web application for learning to design and manage an e-campaign online system, regarding the promotion of social, humanitarian, medical, ecological or other activism campaigns (on the NGO model), excluding political and commercial purposes. In the context of the actual pandemic challenges to learn how to create and use an online campaign for helping people in need and medical staff involved becomes an educational and civic priority. This tool was created as e-learning content for the virtual laboratory classes of the E-Activities subject, taught at the Information and Computer Systems Engineering master program, as part of the Easy-Learning online platform, developed and used as an original tool for virtual learning. Its purpose is to stimulate the involvement of students in the process of social and economic recovery of our society.
The application includes the full range of features necessary to accomplish and manage of such a system: forum platform, chat, online petition, online membership and donation system, connection to social networks, etc. In the design phase, the principle modeling and the functional conception of the application were realized. In the implementation phase, a related database was created and its management interface was implemented, provided with a user management system. The software tools (modeling tools, programming languages, development media) used to build the application, including the interface, are the following: HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, JavaScript, jQuery, C#, log4net, MVCForum, SignalR, ASP.NET MVC, Entity Framework, and Microsoft SQL Server. The application presents a simple and user-friendly communication and interaction mode, containing a page or module for each functionality.

Communication:
The application allows real-time chat communication. In this way, users can share their opinions quickly and efficiently. This module is implemented using SignalR. In order to use this module, users need to be authenticated using a local user or a Google, Facebook or Microsoft user, this being necessary to be able to easily identify the user sending or receiving messages.

Forum:
This is a separate application, which allows thematic discussions on certain topics. To add messages, user authentication is required. The local user involved here is different from the one in the main application, because of the complexity of integrating with it.

Petitions:
The application allows the creation and viewing of petitions. Users can enter any kind of data for the petition created, and then signing them to support the petition initiated.

Donations:
The application allows the donation of virtual money to support the causes promoted by an NGO. This module also contains the verification of the card number, the personal data not being stored in the database.

Administration:
The admin module does not imply a proper administration, but the visualization of the application logs in case of errors and the visualization of the donations made.

In the design phase it was chosen to create for each functionality a controller or a module. The access to the database was designed on the Repository model, with a distinct class dealing with each module separately. The modules represent different functionalities, each module being represented by a Controller or a Hub, which allows the client (browser) communication with the server. The modules are: Home, Petition, Donation, Forum, and Admin.

Keywords:

E-Campaign, e-learning, E-Activism, Web Application, Online Platform, Social Networks, Virtual Management Systems.