Development of an online examination system. Case study: YABATECH

Description

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.0       BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

This research is on Development of an online examination system. Case study: YABATECH. Online Examination System is a web base application that establishes a network between an institution and candidates or students. Institutes enter on the site and input questions they want in the examination, these questions are displayed as a test to the eligible students. The answers enter by the students are then evaluated and their score is calculated and saved. This score then can be accessed by the institutes to determine the number of students that passes the examination and evaluate their performance. Online examinations are conducted through the internet or in an intranet if within the Organization to test a remote candidate. Candidate is given a limited time to answer the questions and after the time expiry the answer paper is disabled automatically and answers is sent to the examiner. Online Examinations System provides a platform to select eligible candidate out of numerous candidate that participate in an examination. The institution has an administrator who keeps an eye on the overall functioning of the system.

The online examinations system is application software, which aims at providing services to the institution with an option of selecting the eligible students or candidate without any politics or partiality. Online examinations are conducted through the internet or in an intranet (if within the Organization) to test a remote candidate. Candidate is given a limited time to answer the questions and after the time expiry the answer paper is disabled automatically and answers is sent to the examiner. The examiner will evaluate answers, either through automated process or manually and the results will be sent to the candidate through email or made available in the web site. Online examination system will help to evaluate student’s achievement, and helps to give fair scores. The main objective of Online Examination System is to efficiently evaluate the candidate thoroughly through a fully automated system that not only saves lot of time but also gives fast results. For teachers, it would give flexibility to fit their needs and to the students there will be no loss in time for the need of using extra thing like paper, pen etc. This system also focuses on how to provide a secure environment for Online Examination.

In this study, YABATECH has been chosen as the case study. Examination in YABATECH is conduct manually. During examination students always looking for center, due to this some student who are not familiarize with the school infrastructure miss the examination. Every morning before the examination commence, the school will paste each examination center on the notice board.

1.1       STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Yaba College of Technology is a one of the leading tertiary institution in Nigeria, and every year many candidate are apply to the institution and examination is conducted manually i.e. paper base system for the entrance examination and the school examination. Due to this manual examination process, every semester result is always delayed towards the next semester examination. This manual process of conducting examinations has led to some problems in YABATECH. These includes the following:

• Delay in releasing of result.
• Examination malpractice.
• Changing of result.
• Students meeting lecturer for help.
• Insufficient question paper and answer sheet in the examination hall.

1.2 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

The purpose of this system is to eradicate the manual operation and to reduce the costs associated with conducting examination in YABATECH, and to achieve total automation of examination process, to provide online facility examination for YABATECH.

1.3       OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

Online examination system will improves the conduct of examination in Yaba College of Technology. The objective of this system includes:

• To save the time of examination section and minimize the use of manpower.
• To store the logs of candidates and their marks and backup for future use.
• To reduce paper work.
• To reduce the hectic job of assessing the answers given by the candidates.
• To conduct examination in an efficient manner and reduce the tedious paper work.
• To generate various reports almost instantly when and where required

1.4       BENEFIT OF THE STUDY

Online examination system will be of benefit to student and Yabatech. This system will reduce the cost of conducting examination in Yabatech.  With this system, Yabatech will experience free and fair examination. Students are able to access their result on time. The system will help students to maximize their potential since they know that the examination is computer based and there will be no cheating.

1.5       SCOPE OF THE STUDY

This online examination system is a web based application which is limited to YABATECH examination system. It can also be useful in all academics institution. This system will have the ability to Response to candidate request if necessary. Online Examination system will reduce the hectic job of assessing the answers given by the candidates. Online Examination system suits the need of Educational Institutions such as Primary, Secondary, Colleges, Professional and Vocational Institutes, Universities or Training Academies.

1.6       RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This research is all about web based software development for academic institution system. With this, software development methodology needs to be adopted in the research. General standard software development approach includes the following:

• Data collections
• Data analysis
• System design
• System coding
• System testing
• Implementation

The data methodology approach adopted for the data collection of this system is interview. During the interview process both staff and students were interview in order to know the challenges they faced from the existing examination system. The technique adopted for the data analysis is the descriptive statistical methodology. Flow chart is used to break the system design in to module in order to comprehend what the structure of this software will look like. In my system coding, programming language that support the operation of the develop system was used. PHP is the preferred programming language used for the realization of this software because of the dynamic features of the language. PHP MYSQL is a web based programming language that supports the features of the software. Microsoft structure query language is used for the data manipulation of the software. Microsoft structure query language is database application software. In the system testing, in order to ascertain the operation of the software, module testing was used. This system was implemented in YABATECH.

1.7 DEFINITION OF TERMS

Examination:  is a set of questions or exercises evaluating skill or knowledge

Examination malpractice: unethical or misconduct in an Examination Hall

Structure Query Language: It’s a data base application that store different forms of data or information.

PHP: It is a programming language used to develop web based application

SOFTWARE: Written programs or procedures or rules and associated documentation pertaining to the operation of a computer system and that are stored in read/write memory