Design and Implementation of a Student Grade Point Average System
Chapter One
AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The aim of the study is to design and implement an online application capable of running on mobile phonesfor the computation and storage of students CGPA. This aim is to be achieve through the following objectives:
- To calculate the semester grade point average
- To calculate the performance of total academic year
- Develop a log-in platform to ensure privacy and authentication to various users.
- To keep a database for each user’s academic records and computations for future use.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
Education and Grade System
Education is the process of facilitating learning, or the acquisition of knowledge, skills, values, beliefs, and habits. According to Satish and Sajied (2010), education may be defined as a purposive, conscious or unconscious, psychological, sociological, scientific and philosophical process, which brings about the development of the individual to the fullest extent and also the maximum development of society in such a way that both enjoy maximum happiness and prosperity. In Short, education is the development of individual according to his needs and demands of society, of which he is an integral part. Generally the word education has been proved by many researchers to be a learning process, it involves every method, processes or approach of acquiring or increasing Knowledge. Therefore, education is as old as man. This work is focused on the formal education, precisely the Universities. Reviewing basically grade system in Nigeria Universities.
Formal educationis aneducationalmodel to deliver a pre-defined curriculum and offered byinstitutions. Formallearning, normally delivered by trained teachers in a systematic intentional way within a school, academy, college, institute or university. Formal educationcorresponds to a systematic, organized education model, structured and administered according to a given set of laws and norms, presenting a rather rigid curriculum as regards objectives, content and methodology(Claudio, 1997). In Nigeria, there is a sequence of higher educational levels. Three possible channels are illustrated in figure 2. 1. The first channel assumes that a graduate went through NCE and then to the university. The other two channels are the more common ones, that is, those who went straight form Secondary school to university and those who went through polytechnics to university. This assumption is predicated on experience from the labour markets and the years of schooling involved in each higher education levels, which place a higher value on university, polytechnics and NCE, in that order. Second and as an alternative, the other higher levels of education (Nigerian colleges of education and the polytechnics) are alternative routes after secondary education.
When students are admitted to a higher education institution there is an inferred assumption that they will be capable of successfully completing the course in which they are permitted to enroll. To knowingly admit students who, for whatever reason, have no chance of academic success would be immoral. Therefore, it is necessary to have entry requirements that permit valid student selection decisions to be made.
Assessments differ widely in nature and quality, and assessment policies as well as practices are often applied in different ways across school and programme types. It is a process prescribed for testing qualification, an exercise designed to examine progress or knowledge (Tobih, 2012). Diverse means of measuring students’ success exist and this includes: Continuous Assessment (CA) and Examination, Grade Point Average (GPA), Graduation and retention rate etc.
Examinations which is an organized activity aimed at determining the cumulative or broad knowledge in a students’ educational development (Tobih, 2012), have been widely used to evaluate student’s success and performance in formal school settings. At a higher education level, it helps to establish the integrity of the degree or certificate awarded by any higher institution. When CA and Examination are used to find out students’ level of understanding, the examiner must consider the validity and reliability of the test instruments used for this purpose. Anikweze (2005) suggests that the purpose of test is to identify or discover what a person can do under certain controlled circumstances. Thus the examiner must not deviate from the objectives upon which the tests are based. Tobih (2012) further assert that the test can be rendered invalid and unreliable if not administered under a favourable condition no matter what effort went into the preparation of the test. Thus examinations serve evaluation purposes and are meaningful to all parties involved if it is used to motivate average learners.
Grading therefore, is a system showing the range of marks that can be assigned a specific letter grade. Grading is generally the weighing point of a student’s performance, it’s the key medium of evaluating a student academic endevours. Under the A-F grading system, students feel much academic pressure, and they study hard more than necessary to keep good GPA or to get scholarship. In essence, grading is an exercise in professional judgment on the part of teachers and lecturers. It involves the collection and evaluation of evidence on students’ achievement or performance over a specified period of time, such as nine weeks, an academic semester, or entire school year. Through this process, various types of descriptive information and measures of students’ performance are converted into grades or marks that summarize students’ accomplishments.
CHAPTER THREE
METHODOLOGY AND SYSTEM ANALYSIS
Methodology Adopted
There are many established design methods, each with its set of dedicated supporters. However, the methodology adopted in this project is the Object Oriented Analysis and Design Method (OOADM). It is the principal industry-proven methodology for developing high-quality object-oriented systems, which are systems that are composed of interacting objects. It is a way of organizing software as a collection of discrete objects that incorporate both their data structure and behaviour. Each object represents some entity of interest in the system being modeled, and is characterized by its class, bits state (data elements), and its behavior. Various models can be created to show the static structure, dynamic behavior and run-time deployment of these collaborating objects. There are three development methodology aspects:
- Object Oriented Analysis (OOA): looks at the problem domain, with the aim of producing a conceptual model of the information that exists in the area being analyzed. The result of object-oriented analysis is a description of what the system is functionally required to do, in the form of a conceptual model. The logical design description of the whole Grade Point Average computation, which is the output of the stage will serve as the input to the next stage. This stage focuses on describing what the system should do in terms of key objects in the problem domain.
- Object Oriented Design (OOD): involves the translating of the analysis into functional components of interacting objects, with the eye of representing every identified object. ). The concepts in the analysis model are mapped onto implementation classes and interfaces. The result is a model of the solution domain, a detailed description of how the system is to be built. Different design tools are implemented here to further explore the proposed system.
- Object Oriented Programming (OOP): with the output of the previous stage coming into this phase, an object oriented programming language will be used to actually write codes that will produce the desired output. The object oriented coding style is the key in this phase.
CHAPTER FOUR
SYSTEM DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION
Objective of the Design
The objectives of the design are as follows:
- Develop a system which will be able to compute student grade point average without errors.
- To ensure a secured system with the use of valid passwords and other security measures such as encrypting some sensitive records on database
- Again, the design ensures a quick search and retrieval method, which enables user to find records from the database storage more easier.
- To make the software fault-tolerant i.e. resistant to and able to recover from component failure. On wrong inputs, the system is able to suggest to the user other possible solutions.
- To make the software robust; that is able to operate under invalid input, this is achieved by enforcing some input filters.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, RECOMMENDATION AND CONCLUSION
Summary
In this research work, design and implementation of a Grade Point Average(GPA) Calculator System, all necessary efforts and analysis were implemented in order to develop a suitable database management system that will solve the problem faced by students in calculating his GPA and CGPA each semester and session respectively, by efficiently reducing the time taken in storing varied information of the numerous scores attained on paper and jots, reducing the chances of miscalculations and errors.
A suitable system methodology was adopted during the design of this system after a detailed examination and analysis of the existing system was carried out, hence paving way for the design and implementation of the new system. Again, a better and responsive tool (JQuery Mobile) was adopted in the implementation to enable the system function effectively on mobile devices. This propelled its device responsive view on any screen-size adjustment.
This new system addresses the shortcomings currently experienced in the way data are being stored and processed. The new system can also be an optional tool (for verification and backup) hence, that is the reason we adopted the parallel changeover procedure, so a student can use both the traditional and the new approach in keeping records of his academic performance.
Recommendation
This software is recommended to all students of all higher institution though the scope of the study is limited to Computer science department of NnamdiAzikiwe University, Awka. All data used in the system functionalities correspond with that of the above mentioned institution, these includes course tittle, credit unit loads etc. Having presented all that is necessary for a successful implementation of this research, the following recommendations are suggested by the researcher aimed at improving and correcting some lapses.
- That the exams and records unit of the department employs an online and computerized method for keeping student records, this will make data collection to our GPA system more efficient as both system and interact responsively using database queries.
- The need to incorporate carryover module in the system is also significant, due to time and other constraints the system scoped out the carryover module.
Suggested Areas for further studies
This work covers the basic aspect of GPA computation performed by an undergraduates and it is restricted to computer science department of NnamdiAzikiwe University, Awka. The suggested areas for further research include extending the work to integrate the other department in the institution. The research could further be extended to other higher institutions within the country and worldwide.
Conclusion
The CGPA calculator system was designed and developed for fast and easy way of handling student grade point calculation and storage. It reduces error usually encountered in the management of large and varied data from different sources. In essence, the software is designed to help the computer science students handle processes of calculating, storing, retrieval and updating of semester results of NnamdiAzikiwe University. The software eliminates data redundancy as it handles each student data based on a unique identity (Matriculation Number)
REFERENCES
- Agbulu, O., (2013 ) Statistical Hand Book on Assessment and Analysis of Cumulative Grade Point Average For Nigerian University Graduates.Almond Publishers, 17, Barracks Road, Makurdi,Nigeria.
- Ali, N., Jusoff, K., Ali, S., Mokhtar, N., Salamt A., and Syafena, A. (2009). ‘The Factors Influencing Students’ Performance at UniversitiTeknologi MARA Kedah, Malaysia’. Canadian Research & Development Center of Sciences and Cultures: Vol.3 No.4.
- Amaghionyeodiwe, L. and Osinubi, T.(2006) The Nigerian Educational System And Returns to Education International Journal of Applied Econometrics and Quantitative Studies Vol.3-1(2006)
- Anikweze, (2005).Measurement and Evaluation in Education.Enugu: Snaap Press Ltd.
- Bhattacharya, I. & Sharma, K. (2007), ‘India in the knowledge economy – an electronic paradigm’, International Journal of Educational Management Vol. 21 No. 6, Pp. 543- 568.
- Daniels J.S. (2002) “Foreword” in Information and Communication Technology in Education–A Curriculum for Schools and Programme for Teacher Development.Paris:UNESCO.
