Design and Implementation of an Online Journal Management System (a Case Study of Sokoto International Journal of Counselling Psychology).

Design and Implementation of an Online Journal Management System (a Case Study of Sokoto International Journal of Counselling Psychology).

CHAPTER ONE

AIM AND OBJECTIVES

The aim of this project is to design an online journal management system that will replace the present manual system. The objectives of the study are as follows:

1. To design a system that will allow online submissions of articles for contributors and researchers instead of the manual system of submission
2. To allow contributors to track their submissions i.e. every contributor can view all his submissions.
3. To enable the administrator to view and download all submissions made by contributors for the purpose of assessment before publication
4. To allow the administrator to upload all published papers online according to their volumes and issues

CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

INTRODUCTION TO JOURNAL

Thomas (2011) defined a journal is an academic magazine published on a regular schedule. It contains articles written by experts in a particular field of study, based on research or analysis that the author, or authors, did.

According to Oxford English Dictionary, a journal is defined as “a newspaper or magazine dealing with a particular subject”.

Also Okon (2011) defines a Journal as a newspaper or magazine that deals with a particular subject or professional activity. He further defines a journal “As a magazine especially one that deals with specified subjects.

From the above definitions, we can say that a journal is made up of collection of articles contributed by different people (Authors or Contributors) of the same profession or different profession. All articles contributed are reviewed and assessed by experts of the same area with the author before publication. Some examples of Journals are:

1. Sokoto Educational Review; Published by Faculty of Education and Extension Services, Usmanu Danfodiyo University,
2. Nigerian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences; Published by Faculty of Science, Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto
3. Conference Proceedings for Nigeria Computer Society(NCS).
4. International Proceedings for Computer Science and Information Technology(IPCSIT).
5. The Counsellor: Published by Counselling Association of Nigeria(CASSON).

CLASSIFICATION OF JOURNALS

Thomas (2011) classified Journals into three (3) common classifications namely:

1. Scholarly & ResearchJournals
2. Professional, Trade & IndustryJournals
3. Popular & Newsmagazines

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CHAPTER THREE

SYSTEM ANALYSIS

INTRODUCTION 

Systems are created to solve problems. One can think of the systems approach as an organized way of dealing with a problem. In this dynamic world, the subject System Analysis and Design (SAD), mainly deals with the software development activities.

According to Williams (2010), Systems analysis is a process of collecting factual data, understand the processes involved, identifying problems and recommending feasible suggestions for improving the system functioning. This involves studying the business processes, gathering operational data, understand the information flow, finding out bottlenecks and evolving solutions for overcoming the weaknesses of the system so as to achieve the organizational goals. System Analysis also includes subdividing of complex process involving the entire system, identification of data store and manual processes.

CHAPTER FOUR

SYSTEM DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION

 INTRODUCTION

Based on the user requirement and the detailed analysis of the existing system, the new system must be designed. This is the phase of system designing. It is the most crucial phase in the developments of the system. The logical system arrived at a result of system analysis is converted into physical system design.

Williams (2010) stated that, normally design proceeds in two stages: Preliminary or General Design and Structural or Detailed Design.

CHAPTER FIVE

SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

SUMMARY

The system for Online Journal Management system (A case study of Sokoto International Journal of Counseling Psychology) has been successfully designed. This project research work consists of five chapters are will be summarized below:

In chapter one, background of the study, statement of the problem, aims and objectives, motivations, scope of the study, limitations of the study and definition of some terms were discussed.

In chapter two, relevant literatures were discussed; concept of journals, classifications of journals, online (electronic journals), features of online journals, advantages of online journal, disadvantages of online journals, review of existing online journal system and software tools that were used in the development of the system such as HTML, PHP, JavaScript, MySQL etc.

In chapter three, analysis was carried out in terms of; analysis of the current manual system, analysis of the input, analysis of the output, analysis of the existing system procedure, files maintained, web-design methodology and the expectations of the new system were discussed.

In chapter four, a detailed explanation of the new proposed system was given in a general term covering; new input requirements, new system procedure, new output requirements, new files maintained, new system requirement (both hardware and software), use case modeling, database design(modeling), system implementation which include all user interface implementations were all discussed.

Finally, chapter five gives us a brief summary of all the previous chapters. Also in this chapter, all necessary documents used in the course of carryout this research will be well referenced. The chapter also contains conclusion, recommendation and suggestions for further research, references and appendices.

CONCLUSION 

The effort being putten together for this project research have finally yielded a positive result. The Online Journal Management System will now have a positive impact on the current manual system being used by the Journal Administrators. This lead to the conclusion of saying that the aim of the project has successfully been achieved. Proper and well usage of the developed system will facilitate and ease almost all the processes involved from the stage of article submission up to the stage of article publication. The developed system also need to be hosted onto the World Wide Web (www) so as to be accessed and used by other researchers and users around the world.

RECOMMENDATIONS 

Having developed the new system for Journal Management to Sokoto International Journal of Counselling Psychology (SIJCP), below are my recommendations/suggestions:

1. The designed system should be hosted on the World Wide Web (www) so that other researchers and users around the world can fully use the
2. If hosted on the www, the system should be periodically updated with latest information about call for articles, review process or any other information concerning the Journals
3. The system should be fully implemented and adopted by the Journal Administrators i.e. all functionalities right from the stage of article submission up to the last stage which article publication should be fully used by users, administrators, reviewers and researchers.

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

The system at its current state can be implemented and will function effectively. But for the sake of other interested students that will like to extend this project in the near future, I have the below suggestions for them:

1. The result of the analysis obtained after the usability test shows that payments methods used by this system are not sufficient therefore I will suggest and improvement in the methods of payment such as adding more payment options like Paga, Interswitch, and PayPal which are globally accepted and
2. Also the result indicated that the review process has not been accepted by many respondents, so I will suggest an improvement in that
3. Tracking of submission should be a little bit made easier by having a module where a researcher can only supply his submission Id to check the status of his submission without login into his

REFERENCES

• Achebe. I. D. (2002): Comparative Studies on Web Design Methodologies: Retrieved on 3^rd March, 2014 from: http://www.dsic.upv.es/~west2001/iwwost01/.
• Akinade, E. A (2010): Students Guideline for Research projects/papers writing. A Paper presented at the orientation ceremony of the newly admitted Postgraduate students of University of Lagos.
• Brooks, T. (2007): Introduction to Web-Development using HTML, PHP and JavaScript: 3^rd edition. London: Stanley Thrones.
• Kautz, K. (2004): The Utilization of Information systems Development in Practice. Journal of Information Technology Cases and Applications. 6(4), 1-20.
• Monica, L. (2009): Methodologies, Tools and Techniques in practice of web application development. Journal of Technology Research. 7, 1-10
• Okon, A. F (2011): An Introduction to Journals. Retrieved on 22^nd, June 2013 from: http://www.limkokwing.net/students/lec3.pdf. 
• Oxford Dictionary of Current English (2006): Fourth Edition. Oxford University Press Inc, New York.
• Scoles, S. O. (2012): Introduction to Electronic Journals: (Management students lecture guide), University of East London. Retrieved on 19^th June, 2013 from: http://www.uel.ac.uk/malaysia/fcsit/lect761.pdf

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