Description
CHAPTER ONE
1.1 INTRODUCTION
Man has continually been working for better, easier and faster ways of doing things. Technological development through the years has enabled us to do things with less effort new development in computer technology has allowed us to expense our capabilities. This is also applicable to our learning system.
Student at all levels of learning (i.e. primary, secondary and tertiary institutions) are expected to see their performance in classroom, exercises and examinations are carried out at the end of each term (semester) to enable grade performance monitoring and keep record for decision-making based on the instructions (school?s policy)
Grading of performance is needed to measure the level of understanding of lectures, lessons and the ability to accommodate accordingly; decision such as knowing the record of the highest student down to the lowest student in sequential order and to enable processing of result.
Normally, the examination recording involves arithmetic manipulations which are presently handled manually. Since this operation involves human operations problem arise from errors as a result of imperfection and inaccuracy, show speed, insecurity as well as high expenses are bound to exist.
In Kogi State Polytechnic, Lokoja which is the pivot of this research, a general application package (i.e. Microsoft excels) is use in result compilation and recording. However, it is observed that some short comings are still exhibited by the package owing to the fact that development is for general purpose applications. It involves about 80% manual and 20% computerization.
In the course of this research, a verbal discussion and examination recording revealed that a lot of time and human efforts are being wasted at the operation end of every semester result compilation. This makes the result recording a tedious and boring venture.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Result recording and compilation in Kogi State Polytechnic, Lokoja is associated with various problems. This project is step towards identifying this problem, which is likely to militate against god decision-making in the institution and ways to alleviate the burden associated with the existing system.
The head of department of various schools in the institution are involved in result recording of students in their departments. With the growing number of student in this institution, the need for comprehensive evaluation of each student performance, the existing system in use becomes so complex and tedious that the hands involved can no longer cope with the task at hand as such, the following problems are identified:-
a. Delay in recording exams result and decision making.
b. Poor security to data and information, hence giving room to illegal access to information.
c. Incorrect data entry giving rise to wrong information resulting in wrong decision making.
d. Inaccurate record keeping (on academics).
e. It becomes expensive involving too many hands.
1.3 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
The main aim of this study is to create a program that will allow for easy examination i.e. result recording system in the institution (i.e. Kogi State Polytechnics); it shall:-
a. Study and identify the limitation of the existing system.
b. Determine the deficiency in the package and hardware being used.
c. Reducing time and labour required in the existing system.
d. Facilitate accuracy and data security during and after recording.
e. Reduce to minimum or eliminate entirely, the problems encountered during updating of examination recorded.
The main objectives of this research work is to determine what the meaning of examination is and to develop a computer program using visual basic that could be used for documentation of examination result recording.
1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The under-listed are the significance of the proposed system:
a. Increase speed in result recording system thereby allowing for timely protection of exams record and taking of decision by management.
b. Eliminate drudgery (irrelevancy).
c. Reduce cost involvement and improved skill of the users.
d. Improve the accessibility and updating of data or information.
1.5 SCOPE AND LIMITATION
The scope of this project is to develop an automated examination recording that can handle result compilation and recording of the entire departments in the institution with ease.
The limitation of this research work is restricted for the automation of examination result recording. Also, the time factor poses major barriers to the researchers, in gathering enough facts within the period necessary for the completion and subsequent submission of this project.
1.6 DEFINITIONS OF TERMS
a. EXAMINATION: This is the gesture of the school program, which make demand on lecturers to test the student assimilation of the things they were taught in the lecture room.
b. RECORDING: Recording can simply be defined as the process of keeping record of the student exams offered in a semester.
c. VISUAL BASIC PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE: This is a high level language used to code and subsequent running of a program.
d. MICROSOFT ACCESS: This is one of the database management system (DBMS) that is capable of storing a large volume of data.
e. RESULT: This is the outcome of an examination conducted for students.
f. NOTATION: Such as;
1. RCU- Registered credit unit
2. TCU- Total credit unit
3. CCP- Cumulative credit point
4. GPA-Grade point average
5. CGPA- Cumulative grade point average
6. CRCU- Cumulative registered credit unit
7. C/O- Carry over
8. GP- Grade point
9. U- Unit
10. CP- Credit point.