Design and Development of a Web-Based Student Academic Advising System
Chapter One
AIM AND PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The primary aim of the study is to design an automated system that will offer Student Academic Advice, with the following objectives:
- Provide an automated student academic counselling system for schools, to ease the workload on school student advisers.
- Provide real-time counsel and advice to students anywhere, at any time.
- Help in the fight against students’ poor academic performance.
- Store students’ complaints for easy retrieval.
- Protect submitted entries from unauthorized personnel.
- Design a secured system against theft or loss of vital information.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
INTRODUCTION
Student advising is fundamental in university education in Saudi Arabia. It aims to guide the students to get the best results and accomplish Graduate Requirements, adapt to the university environment, exploit the opportunities available to them, and providing academic skills that raise their level of education. Further it involves effective and efficient communication between the student and the advisor. It also requires considerable [1] planning on the part of both students and advisors, many universities and institutions around the world use Academic advising systems. They are helpful for both advisors and students in that they contribute to assist in making better-informed decisions and improved services.
AAS is considered Decision Support Systems (DSS) because it deals with informed cases and semi-structured decisions [2], furthermore if we considered it as a boundary object, it will fits in process more than product.
The importance of this research is to answer the question of how to build AAS successfully, due to the special nature of this system, another disciplines may be Software Engineering and Knowledge Management, because Software development of AAS is a knowledge intensive activity, an understanding from a Knowledge Management perspective offers important insights about Software Development Methodology [3] for designing and implementing AAS. Further Knowledge management has often been described as comprising [4] of three main elements: people, processes and technology, which is shown in figure 1.
Universities always look for suitable technologies for their educational process, Introducing technology to the advising process aims at leveraging repetitive tasks on software and dedicating time to helping a student plan his/her education road map. On the one hand, this view to AAS as a system could be achieved by optimizing customer interactions, and reduce operational costs.
CHAPTER THREE
SYSTEM ANALYSIS AND DESIGN
INTRODUCTION
As with all complex systems, an Academic ADVISING SYSTEM cannot be started from, or based on nothing. An intensive planning is required to properly build a typical Academic ADVISING SYSTEM, including obtaining all requirements (analySAAS, design and user) else the system crashes, probably before it even starts. This chapter analyses the performance of the current system with the outlook\intention of designing a new system; as an Academic ADVISING SYSTEM is partly evolved from a growing necessity for better management of information and having a user-friendly system propose a better experience. It also endeavours to provide a thorough description of the phases and approaches in the development of the research project.
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE EXISTING SYSTEM
University of Uyo, Uyo, an educational institution like others in the country, offer educational services to students, granting knowledge and thus equipping the students for the outside world. The university currently uses a manual system for managing students’ information. A manual database system may include a bundle/heap of binders, file folders and filing cabinets. Files here are traditionally arranged either in an alphabetical, chronological, or hierarchical order. Once these files have compiled to an enormous state, searching for a record can take much longer than an electronic database. Records have been known to be misplaced here, and only found often long after it is no longer needed, hence its purpose is lost. Sometimes these misplacements are permanent, requiring the administrator to create a new file record for the entity, be it student or employee.
CHAPTER FOUR
SYSTEM DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION
INTRODUCTION
This chapter describes the steps involved in the implementation of the proposed system, in line with the analySAAS and methodology provided in the previous chapter. It also provides the system requirements for successfully implementing the proposed system; the basic requirements for running the system on a client’s computer, the design features used in implementing the system, as well as the various functionalities provided by each module of the proposed system.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
INTRODUCTION
Here in this chapter, the reports, descriptions and findings made in the preceding chapters are summarized here, along with recommendations for effectiveness and efficiency, and limitations faced in implementing the research project.
SUMMARY
A student Academic ADVISING SYSTEMis aside from being feasible, more advantageous than the traditional method of storing records. Because it can be run on the university’s intranet, one does not have to be at the storage servers to access stored records.
The developed Student Academic ADVISING SYSTEMsupports multi-user access, securely stores records, and performs automatic computations, thus addressing several issues encountered in using the traditional filing system: security issues, slow record retrieval, manual computation, etc. among others.
The aforementioned features of the system makes it robust, flexible and can be integrated with another Database Management System, if the need arises. Various software development methodologies were also reviewed, and the desired one implemented.
CONCLUSION
From this research proposal, the introduction of Information Technology has made basic educational activities easier, faster and more secure. A Student Academic ADVISING SYSTEM, as opposed to the traditional method of storing records, will facilitate ease and orderliness in the university system.
Students will be more wont to carry out the course registration process because it’ll be made easier by the developed Student Academic ADVISING SYSTEM. Results will not be made available for public consumption, but rather seen only by the particular student to whom it belongs to; this also applies to information intended only for authorized access, thus implementing confidentiality, availability and data integrity on records.
LIMITATIONS
The following limitations prevent the Student Academic ADVISING SYSTEMfrom reaching its full potential:
- The System only functions on the Windows® desktop platform, hence users of the mobile platform (Android and iOS) and other Operating Systems (Mac OS and Linux flavours) would not be able to access the System.
- The System was not implemented as a web application, so it can only be accessed on the university’s intranet within the campus, not on the internet. Users not within the campus premises cannot hence have access to the System.
- Due to financial restrictions, a physical server was unavailable for use for testing the application before presentation. For this purpose, a localized network between PCs was used.
RECOMMENDATION
Based on findings of the study, the following recommendations are suggested for consideration:
- The university should replace the traditional filing system with the developed computerised Student Academic ADVISING SYSTEM.
- The university should set up a wider range intra-network than the one in place now, one accessible from anywhere within the campus with which the System can be accessed. Wi-Fi repeaters, in conjunction with the installed network routers and switches, may be used to enable this function.
- A unique team of staff with the necessary skillset should be employed by the university to manage the Student Academic ADVISING SYSTEM, among which is the System Administrator.
- Since the Student Academic ADVISING SYSTEMis built on the Windows® desktop platform, the E-Library at the school and the computer systems in it should be made available for students without their own PCs to access the System.
- 24/7 power should be made available to power up the servers, as well as the network devices in use. This can be implemented with the provision of a backup generator that starts up in the event of a power failure.
- The Student Academic ADVISING SYSTEMshould be studied more to improve it, maintain and debug the system in the event of issues coming up.
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH
The developed Student Academic ADVISING SYSTEMcan be further studied and researched to either integrate it with other applications, such as a Hospital/Clinic Management System, or a System for managing school fees paid by students; or to develop the aforementioned as subsystems to the Student Academic ADVISING SYSTEM, thus broadening the scope of the project.
It can also be upgraded to a different platform, making use of only the stored data in the database, as well as its structure, in order to improve security, ease of use, or functionality.
REFERENCES
- Huges, K. (1994). Entering the World-Wide Web: A Guide to Cyberspace. Enterprise Integration Technologies.
- Kochmer, J. (1995). Internet passport: Northwestnet’s guide to our world online. Bellevue, WA: NorthWestNet and Northwest Academic Computing Consortium, Inc.
- McIsaac, M.S. & Gunawardena, C.N. (1996). Distance Education. In D.H. Jonassen, ed. Handbook of research for educational communications and technology: a project of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology. New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan.
- Moore, M.G. & Anderson, W.G. (2003). Handbook of distance education. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.
- Moore, M.G. & Thompson, M.M., with Quigley, A.B., Clark, G.C., & Goff,
- G.G. (1990). The effects of distance learning: A summary of the literature. Research Monograph No. 2. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University, American Center for the Study of Distance Education. (ED 330 321).
- NUC (2001), The virtual (digital) library university project, National Universities Commission, Abuja, Nigeria.
- Omolewa, M. (1981), Historical antecedent of correspondence education in Nigeria, West Africa Journal of Education.
- Omolewa, M. (1985),Origins and development of distance education in Nigeria, Nigeria Educational Forum, 8(2): 143-149.
- Verduin, J.R. & Clark, T.A. (1991). Distance education: The foundations of effective practice. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
- Webster, David (2006). Learning about e-learning, Kookabura Studios Pty Ltd.
