Design and Implementation of a Computerized Assignment Submission System (a Case Study of Computer Science Department (OGITECH))
Chapter One
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The main objective of this project is to create a paperless environment and automated system by developing a Computerized Assignment Submission System for NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF COMPUTER SCIENCE STUDENT, OGUN STATE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, IGBESA. In addition to assist the student, it also reduces unnecessary workload of lecturers.
Other objectives of the project are as follows:
- To make sure the student submit their assignment on time and safely.
- To help the lecturer know whether his or her student has submit their assignment on time as required and find out who does not submit their assignment.
- To let the student know that the lecturers have received their assignment safely and when the lecturer finish marking it, they can collect it again.
- To avoid the loss of assignment after the lecturer finish marking it, only the student can take his or her own assignment.
- To give a room for interaction among the lecturers and students also, among the students
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATION REVIEW
INTRODUCTION
There are many system can be developed in order to manage the student records.
Some of the institutional still used the manual system of managing records. However, computerized system can be developed to replace the manual system using the latest technology nowadays. A good system helps to make the process of storing data easier and managing the records efficiently. Replacing the manual system with the computerized system required a lot of effort of adaptation to a new environment.
The Western Oregon University developed web-based Online Assignment Submission (OAS) system is a robust assignment handling system designed to replace the manual, unpractical physical assignment submissions for students. The previous assignment submission was too resource intensive and had not been successfully accepted by stakeholders, primarily the students and tutors. There are 5 various stages in of the OAS process from the specification of assignment submission to the student’s retrieval when marking is complete by tutor and subsequently released by the course coordinator (lead instructor). The OAS Repository Database (OAS_RD) is the central and major component of the system which stores all stakeholders’ information such as students’ personal information, enrolments classes, assignments for the enrolled classes, tutors’ personal information, etc. Figure 2.1 illustrates how stakeholders interact with the OAS. As shown in the diagram, there are separate web interfaces for different stakeholders to accommodate differing stakeholder requirements, as needs from the three sets of stakeholders vary.
With the full implementation of the OAS system across the 6 regional offices, no paper assignments or email submission are needed, which has dramatically helped reduce the time consuming administrative work the lecturers. The system enables easy and safe access through the internet so students can conveniently submit and check their assignments status at their own convenience. This in turn helps students who are enrolled at outstations, on a job assignment, or elsewhere.
Studies on distance education courses contend that there are many benefits associated with online assignment submission compared to the physical delivery of hard copy assignments. According to Weir (2015), a network-based e-submission (online) provides greater convenience and flexibility to match local conditions and preferences compared to physical submission.
The e-submission of assignments has been widely used in classrooms for many years in forms such as electronic (email), file transfer protocol (FTP), shared file locations or even web-enabled (online). (As Bridge and Appleyard 2013) noted ‘the use of online assignment submission and management is recommended for in Higher Education establishments where students may be remote.” The web-based (online) assignment system and electronic marking system, at Queensland University of Technology was created in response to the growing number of students and wide acceptance of use of electronic methods for receiving and processing student’s assignments and examinations. The OAS have been well received by students where they find it convenient to submit their assignments from home and later retrieve marked assignments through the web compared to having to collect hard copies. The key advantages of implementing such a system is that it provides the functionality of submitting assignments but also provides a convenient facility to assist the lecturers in marking the assignments all in a web browser environment. The system, however, was aimed towards particular subjects assignments such as C programming, databases, Visual Basic, Java programming and written documents.
The BOSS system was among the earliest developer of automatic assignment submissions. The BOSS system allows students to submit programming assignments online to run those program languages against the test data. Although it is not an automatic marking system and the lecturer still needs to manually undertake a marking scheme, compared to non-computer-mediate schemes it helped the administrative staff and lecturer reduce the time involved considerably.
(Griffiths and Joy 2005) extended the functionality of BOSS to improve plagiarism detection and enhanced the user interface in HCI design to increase acceptance by student users. Work on BOSS was again carried in the academic year 2004 – 2005 by evaluating the BOSS system from three perspectives – technical, usability, and pedagogy.
The group of researchers study reported that at the technical level the system is robust with regards to integration of plagiarism detection software, platform independence with client-service architecture that enabled the adoption of technology changes (such as Unix or windows or Mac-based). Pedagogically, the BOSS system has sufficient features and functions that adequately support the needs of all stakeholders for course management and assessment tools besides traditional face-to-face classroom and lab classes. In terms of usability, their study reported the current web interface for lecturer users is regarded as overly complex due to its depth-emphasising programming structure. A similar online assignment submission system was developed at the Open University of Israel that provides alternative ways for students send their assignments via regular email. The assignment system is a Wed-based system that enables students to submit assignments online, track its status, and receive feedback from the graders.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
INTRODUCTION
The systems development life cycle (SDLC), also referred to as the application development life-cycle, is a term used in systems engineering, information systems and software engineering to describe a process for planning, creating, testing, and deploying an information system. This section describes the phases undergone during the project development and implementation. Implementation is the strong point of any system. Before implementation, the following stages of system development are necessary.
SYSTEM DESIGN
In order to design a web site, the relational database must be designed first. Conceptual design can be divided into two parts: The data model and the process model. The data model focuses on what data should be stored in the database while the process model deals with how the data is processed. To put this in the context of the relational database, the data model is used to design the relational tables. The process model is used to design the queries that will access and perform operations on those tables.
SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE OF THE PROJECT
The systems development life cycle (SDLC), also referred to as the application development life-cycle, is a term used in systems engineering, information systems and software engineering to describe a process for planning, creating, testing, and deploying an information system. This section describes the phases undergone during the project development and implementation. Implementation is the strong point of any system. Before implementation, the following stages of system development are necessary.
CHAPTER FOUR
SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION AND TESTING
INTRODUCTION
This chapter focuses on the implementation of the system. The features of the Implementation languages used in this research are JAVASCRIPT, PHP, MYSQL, HTML and CSS. The system testing strategies, the target computer requirements as well as the software maintenance issues that would arise in the system would be discussed also
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, RECOMMENDATION AND CONCLUSION
SUMMARY
This project work through critical design and dedicated supervision has been carried out and presented as a contribution to the use of information technology.
The existing system of the assignment submission process in NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF COMPUTER SCIENCE STUDENT, OGUN STATE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, IGBESA was studied. It was discovered that the existing system is manually run. The major problem of the existing system which was discovered showed that, students need to reach school before submitting assignment. The new system has been designed with PHP (Hypertext Pre-Processor) and MySql to take care of the inefficiencies of the old system. This system carries out online assignment submission with maximum structures and accuracy. It is depressing that there is slow adaptation to new technology in various organizations. But I hope that after the introduction of this software, there will be a change.
CONCLUSION
The conclusion of this project work is based on the advantage of computer-based system over a manual system. This project work in success has produced a database driven software which can be used for submitting assignment. This is software helps students to submit their assignment to lecturer online. It is also provide an avenue where student can be able to forward question pertaining to a course to the lecturer in charge of the course through message.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Computer has become an indispensable tool to all fields of human Endeavour. For the lecturers to be able to perform the functions which include collecting and grading of assignment? There is need for a computerized system.
When all assignment are received online by the lecturer, it will go a long way to help the lecturers and students. I therefore, recommend this software to the school, if not now, should consider it in future.
REFERENCES
- Alberton, Y. (2007). The online assignments submission system: A survey of tutors who have been using the system. Internal report, the Evaluation department, The Open University of Israel (Hebrew).
- Bridge, P. and Appleyard, R. M. (2013). A comparison of electronic and paper-based assignment submission and feedback. British Journal of Educational Technology, 39 (4), 644 – 650.
- Buzzetto-More, N. A. (2008). Student perceptions of various e-learning components. Interdisciplinary Journal of E-Learning and Learning Objects, 4, pg113-135.
- Chan, M., & Waugh, R. (2007). Factors affecting student participation in the online learning environment at the Open University of Hong Kong. The Journal of Distance Education / Revue de l’Éducation à Distance [Online] 21(3), 23-38.
- Weir (2015), :Introduction To COBOL Programming and Thesis Writing, Aba: Zemek Graphics Production.
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- Heng, P.S., Joy, M., Boyatt, R., and Griffiths, N. (2005). Evaluation of the BOSS Online Submission and Assessment System, Research Report RR-415, Department of Computer Science, University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom.
- Jeyaraj, A., Rottman, J. W., & Lacity, M. C. (2006). A review of the predictors, linkages, and biases in IT innovation adoption research. Journal of Information Technology, 21(1), 1-23.
