Search Results for: computer science

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1     Background of the Study

One of the recent advances in the world of information technology is the rapid development of communication which has turned the world into a global village, we can send mails electronically, search for information online, buy goods online, withdraw/ transfer money, school online; all this has affected the society positively to a great extent, as a result, computerization of project management should not be exempted in this revolution, for proper record keeping (Agbo, 1999).

Educational Project Management is the discipline of planning, organizing, and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of a specific project goals and objectives. In practice, the management of projects have been seen as being virtually done manually in Tertiary institutions in Nigeria, where the student supervisors accept project topics from the students, possibly allocate the students projects to do or suggest for the students.

The primary challenge of project management is to achieve all of the project goals and objectives while adhering to given rules and formats that are specific to departments project, there are a number of constraints usually scope, quality, time and budget. The secondary and more ambitious challenge is to optimize the allocation and integration of inputs necessary to meet pre-defined objectives. A project is a carefully defined set of activities that use resources (money, people, materials, energy, space, provisions, communication, motivation, etc.) to achieve its goals and objectives (Kazakov, 2010).

Project management is quite often the province and responsibility of an individual project manager. This individual seldom participates directly in the activities that produce the end result, but rather strives to maintain the progress and productive mutual interaction of various parties in such a way that overall risk of failure is reduced. A project manager is often a client representative and has to determine and implement the exact needs of the client, based on knowledge of the firm they are representing. The ability to adapt to the various internal procedures of the contracting party, and to form close links with the nominated representatives, is essential in ensuring that the key issues of cost, time, quality, and above all, client satisfaction, can be realized (Lewis,2006)

Regardless of the approach employed, careful consideration needs to be given to clarify surrounding project objectives, goals, and importantly, the roles and responsibilities of all participants and stakeholders (Joseph, 2003).

In many tertiary institutions in the country, students seek a project in a given field of specialty as part of the upper level of their degree programme. Usually, a project can be filled by at most one student, though in some cases a project is suitable for more than one student to work on simultaneously. To give students something of a choice, there should be as wide a range of available projects as possible, and in any case the total number of project places should not be less than the total number of students. Typically a lecturer will also offer a range of projects, but does not necessarily expect that all will be taken up.

Each student has preferences over the available projects that he/she finds acceptable, whilst a lecturer will normally have preferences over the students that he/she is willing to supervise. There may also be upper bounds on the number of students that can be assigned to a particular project, and the number of students that a given lecturer is willing to supervise. In this study we consider the ways of allocating student project in our institutions.

1.2     Statement of the Problem

The traditional way of allocating project to students in the department need to be reconsidered since project/research writing is sensitive aspect of student education in the higher institution.  The traditional system create room for allocating a single topic to more than one students or group of student thereby creating inefficiency in the purpose of student project writing.

It has become widely recognized that manual storage of student projects has inherent problems. Looking at the Department of Mathematics and Computer, students usually submit hard copies of their projects to the department. Computerized or storage system is more efficient in terms of retrieved time or access time. Existing system is faced with challenges of difficulty in tracing records to avoid duplicate and accurate records online outside the University. Therefore an automated system would be developed to address these problems in this study.

1.3     Aims and Objectives of the Study

The aim of this research study is to develop a student project management system for the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Benue State University to effectively manage students’ research projects.

The objectives of this research study are as listed below;

1. To design a database for the system
2. To implement the system designed in (i)

iii.      To test the performance of the system in (ii)

1.4     Significance of the Study

The significance of this study is to move from manual documentation of projects to computerized documentation of projects for easy retrieval, storage, accuracy and security.

1.5     Scope of the Study

The scope of this project covers Students’ Research Project Management in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science Benue State University only.

1.6     Limitations of the Study

This research study is limited to some constraints. Most prevailing among the constraints would be the limited time for the conclusion of the study; another factor considered as challenging in the cause of this work is reluctance by the officials to freely give out official information on how projects are being managed

1.7     Definition of Terms

Verification System: is a set of actions used to check the correctness of any element, such as a system element, a system, a document, a service, a task, a requirement, etc.

Duplicate: This means having one project topic, assigned to 2 or more students.

Monitoring: This implies being able to observe or notice happenings in a system

Project Allocation: This entails the process of assigning a project topic to a student.

Project: A project is a research or design which is carefully planned to achieve a particular aim under a specified time constraint.

 Milestone: A significant event in the project, usually completion of a major deliverable. A milestone, by definition, has duration of zero and no effort.

Data: A collection of facts made up of numbers, characters and symbols stored on computers in such a way that it can be processed by the computers.

CHAPTER ONE

1.1 INTRODUCTION

This study is on Transcript generation system for mathematical /computer science. Before Education, in the beginning for many years, children taught themselves using everything around them (surrounding, friends, themselves etc.), they taught themselves by being self-directed, playing and exploration. Regardless, if parents did not force children to go to school, they would not be competent adults when they are grown.

Education in the most populous black nation “Nigeria “blessed with a lot of ethnic groups; Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo being the most recognized in the world started with the first mission school which was founded in 1843 by Methodists but the Anglican Church missionary society expanded it in the early 1850’s by finding schools where children are taught about culture, social activities and work for the western education but this was prohibited by the northerners who focused primarily on Islamic education for themselves(Muslims). Post-independence brought about a major development of education in Nigeria with increase in the number of the formal education system which includes 6 years of primary schooling, 3 years of junior secondary schooling, 3 years of senior secondary schooling and 4/5 years of university education, finally directing towards a bachelor’s level degree in majority of the subjects (Sherif 2016).

Compiling of results for quite a number  students was a burden to lecturers and alongside getting a transcript for each student’s result was to be solved by building a platform where registration of courses, result processing and transcript generation could be made easy with one having a desktop. The manual method of checking results for example; Students going to the notice board to check results. With student’s mentality, they calculate to make sure what they were given was actually what they deserved. Most times some students get undeserved marks, while others get unfairly marked down, this causes delay of results for corrections, which might be unfavorable to students especially the final year students. All this happens because a lecturer was tired and calculated wrongly. Transcripts would be needed to have meaningful information about the result without stressing yourself on the details of the results because it has a clear description of what the student has and final grades. With all this, security would be needed because without this platform having security students could try to get access the result and manipulate it in their favor.

With the use of computers for information processing, the accompanying are conceivable: moment access to understudy’s close to home and course data, moment understudy data refreshing, programmed calculation of the Grade Point Average (GPA), era of the graduating understudies list, checking of fizzled courses, staying up with the latest record of the whole understudy body in the foundation, putting away course data, for example, course code, course portrayal, course unit, and scores with the end goal of GPA calculation, and creating easy to understand information section screens for convenience. It is unfortunate that all educational establishments in the creating scene, for example, the Universities, Colleges of Education and polytechnics in Nigeria, still work under the manual technique for record keeping calculation of GPA and very inclined to blunders (Emmanuel, B and Choji, D.N 2012). Example of Universities that operate under manual method is Benue State University.

Transcript can be defined as the statement or record of academic Performance of a student within the period of study in an institution. An academic transcript is used to inform an institution or organization the general performance of the student.

The manual system of applying for the transcript has not been efficient. Hence there has been enormous cost incurred as well as delay in submitting application for the processing of transcript. Owing to those problems the researcher looked at designed an efficient design and implementation of web-based transcript system.

1.2  BACKGROUND OF STUDY

Most universities and polytechnics still use the manual way of viewing results, going to the board and they crowd is always unbearable coupled with the errors due to human imperfections. One out of some Universities that still operate using the manual way or result viewing includes Benue State University. The university was set up by Benue State Government in 1991, the state government shaped a 13-part directing board of trustees to get ready for and acquire endorsement for the college. The university started offering classes for the 1992/1993 school year in four colleges: Arts, Education, Sciences, and Social Science. Two more colleges, Law and Management Sciences went ahead stream in the 1993/94 scholarly year. A post graduate school took off in the 1998/1999 scholastic year while the College of Health Science was set up in the 2003/2004 scholarly session. Benue State is owned by the state Government, and it is authorize by the National Universities Commission (NUC). This university alongside many other universities use the 5 grade point for result accumulations.

1.3   STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The problems encountered in using the already existing manual system for applying for a transcript are:

1. It contributes to de delay in processing of the transcript, as well as stress on the part of the applicants and huge amount of money spent by applicants, as long distance transportation has to be made in order to apply for the transcript.
2. Retrieving of relevant information used in processing the transcript poses a lot of difficulty as the applicant makes some grammatical error or gives some irrelevant information instead of needed information.
3. The manual system lacks adequate security. Measure since applications are easily misplaced arising from carrying of files from one office to other.
4. Filling and keeping (or storing) of these applications takes up much of the limited space in the office.

1.4    AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

What promoted this research work, is to design online method of applying for a transcript, is due to the stress the applicants undergo in applying for a transcript. Other objectives are

1. To reduce time delay and money spent on transportation by the applications by the applicants in the course of submitting the application for the processing of transcript.
2. To reduce physical spaces occupied by these application letters.
3. To increase speed and security of applications through backup storage of data kept in a database beneficiaries of this research work are the staff of Exams and Records and the graduates of Benue State University, Makurdi, Benue State.

1.5    SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The scope of this project work in centered on the Academic unit of Benue State University, Makurdi.

1.6     LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

The following are the limitations of this study:

1. Insufficient Time: Time limit for the completion of the study is too short the researcher found it difficult to cover a wide area.
2. Date Collection: through some staff complied to give out relevant information, some documents are been derived access due to some security reasons.

• Finance: the cost of acquiring the needed materials to execute this project is expensive. The researcher thereby solicits for found.

1.7    SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Proper implementation of this research work will solve the problems encountered presently in Exams and Records department.

It will also enhance processing of transcript and efficient delivery through the use of available database record. It allows for updating by authorized personnel and sorting as well. This research work may as well serve as a reference materials to anyone who any want to carry out further research on this work.

1.8   DEFINATION OF TERMS

TRANSCRIPT: It is the statement of academic performance of a student within the period of stay in the institution.

WEB: The web, sometimes referred to as worldwide web, in an enormous worldwide network of hypermedia documents that contains information in the form of text, pictures, video, clips and sound.

COMPUTER: It is an electro-mechanical equipment or device that collects data, processes the data in a pre-defined way using some set of instruments and produces some results that are sent to the user through its output display.

WEBSITE: This is a collection of related hypertext files i.e web pages.

HYPERLINK: HYPERLINK is a clickable object (i.e an image or text) that enables the user to navigate to a different location in either the page or a different page within the same website or a different website.

HTML: It is an acronym for Hypertext markup language, a formatting language used to present a web document.

BROWSER: This is client software that allows the user to display and interact within a web document.

GRADE POINT: This is a numerical value, an equivalence of point obtained by a student in a particular subject.

GRADE POINT AVERAGE: This is obtained b multiplying the grade point score of the candidate in each course with the number of course credit assigned to that course.

ADDRESS: It is the identification for a register location in storage or other data source or destination the identification may be a name, label or numbers.

POINT SCORE: This is the production of score unit and rating.

INTERNET: It is a global network of many different types of computers and the computer network that are linked together for the purpose of communication and information sharing.