A proposed cloud‑based platform for facilitating donation services in support to needy-students

The prevalence of needy-students who cannot afford their university fees has become a phenomenon in countries like Jordan. Thus, supporting such students by establishing a reliable cloud-based platform for collecting donations from wealthy people is a very noble action. Such donations will enable needy-students to continue their education to up their development, reduce their poverty, improve their health, scale-up their gender equality, promote peace across their communities, enhance stability in their societies, and enrich the field of cloud-based services development. This paper proposes a new cloud-based platform that aims at connecting donors with needy-students in a very discrete way that preserves and honors the privacy and confidentiality of their information. We claim that our proposed cloud-based platform depicts a unique novelty that can be easily anticipated from the perspectives of its status as a cloud-based donations and financial support services platform; its ability to interconnect its users privately and confidentially; and its ability to easily verify the credentials of its users and confirm their eligibility to receive financial support.


Introduction
Given the phenomenon increase in poverty around the world, the number of needystudents at universities like our university (e.g., Jordan University of Science and technology) has become a phenomenon as well. Thus, supporting such needy-students by connecting them with the wealthy people who are willing to donate money is with no doubt a very noble action. Such donated money will enable needy-students to continue their university education and that will help upward their development, reduce their poverty, improve their health, scale-up their gender equality, promote peace across their communities, enhance stability in their societies, and enrich the field of cloud-based services development [1,2]. This paper proposes a new cloud-based platform that aims at connecting donors with needy-students discretely while preserving and honoring the privacy and confidentiality of their information. In our capacity as the authors of this paper and as the developers of the said platform, we claim that our proposed cloud-based donations platform depicts a unique novelty that can be easily anticipated from the perspectives of its status as a cloud-based platform, its ability to privately and confidentially interconnect donors with needy-students, and its ability to easily ensure that the applicant student is a needy one based on his/her uploaded documents and his/ her information fetched from the university admission and registration system, and from the university financial management system.
As we speak of cloud-based computing, it is important to provide a quick overview of this subject matter. Cloud-based computing is simply defined as the ondemand availability of shared computing resources (e.g., cloud-based data storage, cloud-based computing power, cloud-based development tools, etc.) with no direct management by the user (e.g., development and technical staff, customer, etc.). Cloud-based computing can (i) help organizations optimize their initial information technology (IT) infrastructure setup costs, (ii) allow enterprises to speed-up their software systems, improve their manageability, and reduce their maintenance, and (iii) enable IT teams to adjust their resources rational to any demand fluctuations [3].
Thus, making an IT platform as a cloud-based one would make it much easier and less expensive in terms of the required logistics for installing, updating, upgrading, backing-up and managing that platform. A cloud-based platform is installed one-time on a dedicated (or shared) cloud-based server by the administrator of that server. For each new customer (e.g., an organization), the server administrator is the one who creates a dedicated workspace (e.g., an instance of that platform) with the required access privileges, including the creation of an administrative account for that workspace [3].
As indicated earlier in this paper, the main objective of this research is to facilitate a cloud-based discrete connectivity between donors and needy-students at our university (i.e., Jordan University of Science and technology-JUST), through which they can privately and confidentially get some financial support to complete their studies. The proposed platform is planned to be integrated with the students' admission and registration system and the financial management system of JUST, as well as with a third-party online payment system. The first is to provide our proposed platform with all necessary details of the needy-students, and the second is to facilitate the online donations.
The administrator of our proposed platform is the one entitled to approve or decline the requests submitted by needy-students based on their details. The validation of needy-students is based on their records as fetched from the university systems of admission and registration, and financial management.

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A proposed cloud-based platform for facilitating donation… This paper comes in several sections. Section 1 is this introduction. Section 2 presents our literature survey and elaborates on the existing related platforms. Section 3 provides a comparative view between our proposed platform and its related existing systems. Also, it presents a preliminary evaluation that we conducted based on the feedback received from a sample set of needy-students. Section 4 elaborates on our proposed platform in terms of (i) its architecture, components, and design; (ii) its components interactions and sequence diagrams; (iii) its use-case diagrams; (iv) its workflows for the various actors including the admin, student and donor; and (v) its security, privacy and confidentiality, and development and integrations aspects. Section 5 presents the sets of test cases that were used to test the various perspectives of our proposed platform along with their results and links to their snapshots. It also presents some preliminary evaluation results. Section 6 presents some discussions, potential future works, and conclusions.

Literature review of related-academic-papers and articles
Agrawal et al. [4] introduced a cloud-based food donation application to interlink donors, needy people, and orphans. Each user can submit his/her information. The said application uses the global positioning system (GPS) to track the users' movements. The application searches the closest location path to identify who would receive the donated food. Donors as well as needy people are expected to register in this application to be able to benefit from its services.
Srividhya et al. [5] aimed at building an online child foundation helping system that would be a link between needy orphans, and individuals ready to assist them. Donors can donate through internet banking or an online money payment application to make the process easier.
Ramadhan et al. [6] proposed a cloud-based blood bank information system that connects donors with blood banks to help their blood supply availability. The said system aims at ensuring that blood from all types is available for emergencies.
Pyne et al. [7] proposed a smart cloud-based application that enables people to donate blood or any other organ, as well as enable needy people to obtain all blood donation information on their portable system rather than going out and searching for it which eases the process for the donors.
Sharma et al. [8] proposed a simple mobile-based application to link those who want to donate books to others who are in need allowing them to obtain books from those who have finished using them.
Mandale et al. [9] presented an android-based blood bank application that strengthens the communication across hospitals, blood banks, donors, and the receptors.
Akkas et al. [10] proposed a blood donation management system that aimed at connecting blood donors with needy people. A user has to register in the system and enter his/her details and exact location using the google maps.
Pandiaraj et al. [11] developed an android blood bank application that users can use to schedule appointments to donate blood and check for available blood at neighboring blood banks. The application uses GPS to detect the user's location and provide the nearby blood banks.
Lunawat et al. [12] proposed a blood and organs application that aimed at connecting blood and organs donors with the needy people through a website and an android application. The said application uses GPS to trace the way to the blood banks and hospitals.

Survey of existing related systems
In addition to the above academic articles, the following is an elaboration on several of the existing donation systems that we surveyed before proposing our new cloudbased one. These related systems are explained as follows: (a) Hayat Educational Fund [13] is a charitable association that is licensed by the Ministry of Social development since 2009. It is a national fund specialized in supporting students at universities and vocational institutes. It provides grants and loans for the post-secondary needy-students to enable them to complete their studies and to build a better future for themselves and their community. It also provides grants and loans for many other types of beneficiaries. Table 1 presents the main "Pros and Cons" of the Hayat Educational Fund system. (b) Furejat [14] is meant to help non-criminal prisoners by contributing to their release non-criminal financial cases. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia uses the "Furejat" service through the "Absher" application. This application is used to transfer money to the concerned authorities electronically. Table 2 presents the main "Pros and Cons" of the Furejat system. (c) Naua [15] is an electronic platform meant to increase charitable work through interconnecting donors, companies, and needy people. One of its programs is called ‫ألتخرج"‬ ‫."ساعدني‬ It targets final year university students to support them 1. It helps supporting needy post-secondary students as well as to many other types of beneficiaries by providing them with grants and loans 2. It facilitates receiving donations from different sources 1. It is not a cloud-based platform 2. It has no direct online donation via website 3. An approved needy-students and his/her sponsor needs to sign a legal contract and bill of exchange at the value of the grant/loan he/she receives 4. An approved student is required to provide (25) hours of community service work each semester, in addition to participating in the fund's various activities and programs 5. Loan repayment begins (in the form of monthly installments) one month after receiving the first support 6. Non-usable system 1 3 A proposed cloud-based platform for facilitating donation… financially in partnership with the Hayat Fund [13]. Table 3 presents the main "Pros and Cons" of the Naua system.  Table 4 presents the main "Pros and Cons" of the Feenix system. (e) Scholar [17] was developed with a main goal of making the world a better place to live for everyone. It offers a set of donation and services programs to communities; funding innovative initiatives and advocating for change. Table 5 presents the main "Pros and Cons" of the Scholar system. (f) JazzEmpowers [18] was meant to facilitate collecting donations to help transforming the lives of youth in underserved schools through jazz education. It was driven by the belief that every child in America has the right to a high-quality 1. It facilitates direct online donation 2. It provides a range of programs to support needy people 3. It provides multiple options to speed-up the donation process, particularly, the quick donation option 4. It facilitates multiple payment options 1. It is not a cloud-based platform Table 3 The main "Pros and Cons" of Naua Pros: Cons: 1. It facilitates financial support for needy university students 2. It facilitates direct online donations 3. It facilitates donations with multiple payment options 1. It is not a cloud-based platform 2. It is limited to supporting final year university students Table 4 The main "Pros and Cons" of Feenix Pros: Cons: 1. It facilitates financial support for needy university students 2. It facilitates direct online donations 3. It facilitates donations with multiple payment options 4. It enables donors to select specific students or direct their donations to the Feenix Pool Fund, which is then distributed among needy-students such that (i) at least 75% of donations goes toward Black/Colored/Indian students; (ii) 50% goes toward female students; and (iii) the preference is given to students who are active and involved 1. It is not a cloud-based platform 2. It exposes students' identities music education. Table 6 presents the main "Pros and Cons" of the JazzEmpowers system. (g) North Shore ConneXions Society [19] was meant to collect donations in support to families (children and adults) who are living with intellectual disabilities. Such donations would be used to provide quality programs and services that help the development of independence and empowerment of adults, children and families. Table 7 presents the main "Pros and Cons" of the North Shore ConneXions Society system. Table 8 provides an intuitive comparison between our proposed platform and seven of the existing related donation services systems. In comparison with Table 5 The main "Pros and Cons" of Scholar Pros: Cons:

A comparative view
1. It facilitates direct online donations 2. It is an easy-to-use system 3. Its site is linked to social media platforms 4. It facilitates multiple online donation methods and options 1. It is not a cloud-based platform Table 6 The main "Pros and Cons" of JazzEmpowers Pros: Cons: 1. It facilitates direct online donations 2. It is an easy-to-use system 3. Its site is linked to social media platforms 4. It facilitates multiple online donation methods and options 1. It is not a cloud-based platform Table 7 The main "Pros and Cons" of North Shore ConneXions Society Pros: Cons: 1. It facilitates direct online donations 2. It is an easy-to-use system 3. Its site is linked to social media platforms 4. It facilitates multiple online donation methods and options 1. It is not a cloud-based platform

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A proposed cloud-based platform for facilitating donation…  other existing donations systems, it is clear that our system (e.g., the most-left column in Table 8) offers a complete cloud-based set of the donation services.

A preliminary evaluation
In addition to the above comparison (e.g., Table 8), we conducted a preliminary survey among a sample set of needy-students at their university. As the MAR is coordinating a course with about 900 enrolled students (e.g., he teaches two of its 13 sections), and teaches another senior course with about 100 enrolled students, he randomly selected and approached a set of 300 students as a sample set of potentially needy-ones. Luckily, we received responses from 102 of them. Table 9 presents the survey questions along with the statistics of the responses received from these 102 students who turned to be mostly needy-students. The said survey was composed of seven questions. All of the responding 102 students answered five of the seven questions (Q#2, Q#4, Q#5, Q#6, and Q#7). While only 99 of them answered the first question (Q#1), and only 100 of them answered the third question (Q#3). We find the overall feedback (e.g., the preliminary evaluation) to be very encouraging to continue their efforts to leverage their system to a level where it would be fully implemented at their university and probably commercialized in the future given that an initial investment fund will be secured. Figure 1 presents a high-level view of the architecture of our proposed platform. It clarifies the bonding among the platform's components. Our system is designed based on the pipe and filter architecture as we need to ensure a loose and flexible coupling of components, and to be conductive to parallel processing. Figure 2 presents the Check-Validity-Sequence diagram (e.g., the Check-Validity Use-Case). It composes four lifetimes (e.g., those of the Request-Management-UI, admin, JUST-DB, and Student components). The parallel dashed lines refer to the object's lifelines, and the horizontal arrows refer to message exchanges among them. This can be best described as follows:  Q#3)→Would you feel comfortable and trustfully with uploading your personal documents onto a donation and financial services system (e.g., for needy-students),

The check-validity-sequence diagram
simply to confirm that you are currently an active student and that you have an outstanding balance that you must pay to the university as soon as possible? 6.91 Responses to Q#3)→  Table 9 (continued) Q#5)→ Do you agree with that integrating our donation and financial support system (e.g., for needy-students) with social media make the system more trustful by students?

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Responses to Q#5)→ Q#7)→Would you feel comfortable with our donations and financial support system (e.g., for needy-students) when it is integrated with the admission and registration system as well as with the university financial system? This will be needed to be able to confirm your status as an active student as well as to confirm that you are a needy-student 8.00 Responses to Q#7)→ (a) The needy-student uploads his/her a copy of his/her identification card (ID) and his/her documents when he/she registers on the system through the Registration-Management-UI component. (b) The system will then check the student's status to confirm that he/she is a current student. If the student is a current student, then the system will accept his/her registration. (c) Then, the admin will review and process the needy-student's documents and decide to accept or reject the application. Then, the system will notify the student with the admin's decision. The acceptance criteria require that the applicant is currently registered at the university, and his/her uploaded documents are valid, legitimate, and errorless. Figure 3 shows the Donate-Sequence diagram (e.g., the "Make-A-Quick-Donation", and "Specific-Student-Donation" Use-Cases). It composes four lifetimes (e.g., those of the Donation-Management-UI, Donor, Third-Party-Payment-System, and Persistence components). This can be best described as follows:  Figure 4 shows the Create-A-Request-Sequence diagram (e.g., the "Create-A-Request" Use-Case). It composes four lifetimes (e.g., those of the Request-Management-UI, Student, admin, and JUST-DB components). This can be best described as follows: Fig. 2 The check-validity-sequence diagram (a) The needy-student keys in the amount of financial support that he/she needs via the Request-Management-UI component. (b) This said amount is then verified by the system to find-out if it is less or equal to the needy-student's debits using the details obtained from his/her account at JUST. (c) If the documents are accepted by the admin, then the request will get accepted and make its status "Pin Request." (d) The needy-student will then be notified with the outcome of the said verification whether it's refused by the Committee or accepted by change its status to "In progress." Figure 5 shows the admin's main Use-Cases (e.g., Log-In, Check-Document, Validate-Requests, Add-Admin, Delete-User, Edit-Profile, and Log-Out). This can be best described as follows:    Figure 6 shows the donor's main Use-Cases (e.g., Log-In, Register, Make-Quick-Donation, Make-Specific-Donation, Online-payment, Review-Transaction and Log-Out). This can be best described as follows:

The donor's use-cases diagram
(a) The donor logs into the system (e.g., if the donor doesn't have an account, he/ she needs to register in the system and create a new account). (b) The donor can then make a quick donation or choose to donate to a specific student. (c) The donor can review his/her donation and edit his account.  Figure 7 shows the needy-student's Use-Cases (e.g., Log-In, Register, Make-Request, Review-Request, Edit-Profile and Log-Out). This can be best described as follows:

The needy-student use-cases diagram
(a) The needy-student logs into the system (e.g., if the needy-student doesn't have an account, he/she needs to register in the system and create a new account). (b) The needy-student can then create a request. (c) The needy-student can review his/her requests, edit his/her account.

Workflow diagrams
Workflow diagrams are used to specify the processes and their steps that should be possessed by the system's Actors (users) in order to complete their activities . This section is dedicated to presenting our proposed workflow for each of the three Actors of our system (e.g., admin, donor, and needy-student).  Figure 8 shows the steps that will be taken during the admin's lifetime in the system. The admin has to login first and then, can do various actions (e.g., Delete-User, Check-Document, and Add-Admin). Figure 9 shows the steps that will be taken during the donor's lifetime in the system. Figure 10 shows the steps that will be taken during the needy-student's lifetime in the system.

The platform's aspect of security
Our system is currently using the Firebase as a free cloud-based hosting service provider. Thus, our system (e.g., similar to any cloud-based online system) relies on the Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) provided by the Firebase (e.g., similar to other cloud service providers), which encrypts data in transit (e.g., between a web browser and a website) and logically isolates customer data. We will also utilize the Firebase Security Rules Language to set up the authentication component of their system. For further details on Firebase, readers may refer to the Firebox support page through the following link (https:// fireb ase. google. com/ suppo rt/ priva cy). We are planning to use an online payment system such as the Stripe which has the highest certification level from the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (e.g., PCI-SSC Service Provider Level 1) [22]. This is the most stringent level of certification available in the payments industry.
In general, using a cloud hosting service provider that follows the PCI-SSC Security Standards will enable developers of cloud-based systems to:

The platform's aspect of privacy and confidentiality of its user's information
By utilizing the cloud authentication rules structuring and management service, each user (e.g., student, or donor) will be able to access his/her own data and information. No one else other than the platform administrator (e.g., admin) can access their information, which is stored in our platform's database.
Also, by utilizing the security aspects of the online payment system such as the Strip, donors are guaranteed that their transactions will be kept private and confidential. No one else other than the administrator can access the details of their donations' transactions and the way they were payed whether to singular needy-students or across more than one needy-student.

The platform aspect of development and integrations
We built our platform almost from the scratch using the C# and ASP.Net to handle donors' donations and needy-students' requests. Donors can make quick or specific donations based on their interests. While students can upload their requests if and only if they are currently registered as JUST students, and their uploaded documents confirm their need.
As the platform's admin is required to validate the students' identities and debits, the platform is to be interlinked with the Students Admission and Registration and the Financial Management systems of our university.
As it is very convenient to donors to submit their donations online, the platform is to be interlinked with a third-party online payment system such as the Strip online payment system (e.g., a legitimate license will be acquired).

Software testing (Black-box testing)
The black-box testing plan that shows the latest sets of test cases along with their results is available via the following link (https:// www. just. edu. jo/ ~marad aideh/ P6_ DON/ BBTes ting. pdf). Table 10 lists the test cases that were used to test (e.g., black-box testing) the process for signing up into the system along with their results. Table 11 lists the test cases that were used to test the process for submitting a request. Table 12 lists the test cases that were used to test the payment functionalities. Table 13 lists the test cases that were used to test the admin functionalities. Table 14 lists the test cases that were used to test the donor functionalities. Links to snapshots of some of these test cases are provided across Tables 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14.

Discussion and conclusions
As indicated earlier in this paper, our proposed platform can help connect donors and needy-students in one platform securely and privately using the firebase cloud. We believe they fulfilled the objective of our research by conducting a reasonable

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A proposed cloud-based platform for facilitating donation… 6 Verify that a needy-student cannot submit a new request if his/her current request is still "In-progress" or "Pinned" A pop-up warning notification shows that there's a request that is still running in the system

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A proposed cloud-based platform for facilitating donation… Similar to what was claimed in [3], we claim here that our proposed cloud-based donations platform depicts a unique novelty that can be easily anticipated from the perspectives of (i) its status as an easy-to-use and less expensive cloud-based platform; (ii) its ability to securely and privately interconnect donors with needy-students at our university; (iii) its functional comprehensiveness; (iv) its easy-integration with the students admission and registration system as well as with the financial management system of JUST, and with any third-party online payment gateway; and (v) its easy validation of the credentials and details of its users.
In respect to the challenges that we have been facing during the past year since we started this project, we can indicate that challenges include obtaining the official endorsement from our university to include our platform as part of the university portfolio of students services, and securing the necessary financial fund and support that will enable us to enhance and expand our platform.
In terms of future additional work, we are planning to extend our proposed platform in order to (i) cover all other universities in Jordan to help needy-students across these universities; and (ii) add more methods for receiving online donations.

Author contributions
The contributions that were made by the NIM and MMM (both of them equally) can be summarized as follows: They defined the early version of the requirements, architecture, and design for the proposed platform, then all that was carefully reviewed and finalized by the MAR. They drafted the early version of the implementation plan, then that was carefully reviewed and finalized by the MAR. They executed the reviewed implementation plan for their pilot version of the said platform. They drafted the test plan for their pilot and executed it after it was carefully reviewed by the MAR. They prepared the early versions of all diagrams and snapshots that are included in this paper. The MAR then reviewed them and directed the NIM and MMM on how to revise and finalize them. They reworked all diagrams and the lists of test cases (e.g., preparing them, running them, and collecting their snapshots) to address the requirements that were made by the first-round respected reviewers of this paper. The contributions that were made by the MAR can be summarized as follows: He reviewed and finalized the list of requirements, architecture, and design that were initially drafted by the NIM and MMM. He reviewed and finalized the test plan before it was executed by the NIM and MMM. He reviewed all diagrams and snapshots and directed the NIM and MMM on how to revise and finalize them. He wrote and articulated the early version of this paper. Then, he rewrote and rearticulated it to address the requirements that were made by the first-round respected reviewers of this paper.

Data availability
The snapshots of the various perspectives of our platform can be viewed and/or downloaded via their associated links as listed in Table S1. The diagrams in the figures of Fig. 1 to Fig. 10 are to be submitted (e.g., as 300 dpi) along with this paper. The black-box testing plan (e.g., along with the overall testing results) can be viewed and/or downloaded via this link (https:// www. just. edu. jo/ ~marad aideh/ P6_ DON/ BBTes ting. pdf). The black-box testing snapshots can be viewed and/or downloaded via their associated links as listed in the tables of Table 10 to Table 14.

Declarations
Conflict of Interest We confirm that there are no potential conflicts of interest that this paper may run into. However, we will consider expanding our project such that our proposed platform becomes available to needy-students from other universities in Jordan and more methods for online donations will be added. If such a plan succeeds, we may then consider commercializing the platform.

Human or animal rights
We confirm that there have been no animals involved this research. However, some of our students in the SE103 Introduction to Information Technology course were involved in the preliminary evaluation process (e.g., as in Table 9 above).

Informed consent
We confirm and consent that this project was entirely compiled/developed by us throughout the past two academic semesters. We also confirm and consent that all of the ideas and opinions presented and/or demonstrated throughout this paper represent us, but do not necessarily represent our department/university and/or any other organization worldwide.