Course Registration and Result Processing System in Computer Science Department

Course Registration and Result Processing System in Computer Science Department University of Nigeria, Nsukka

Abstract

Course Registration and Result processing system form the key activities in the life span of a student. The demand for effective and efficient result computation and output lead to the production of the automated result process. The digitalized process provides the capabilities of centralized repository for storage, management and dissemination of result information to those concerned. A study into the manual process reveals the inefficiencies and the rigorous nature of course registration and result processing; therefore the existing manual process was analyzed and converted into an automated system. The manual activities were modeled with an object-oriented methodology and the system was implemented with PHP (hypertext processor), a scripting language and MYSQL database management systems. It provides a robust database that generates various reports that is relevant to the department. The result of this research work is a system that automates the course registration and examination result processing for the Department of Computer Science, which can be used in any department of most universities in Nigeria.

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.0 INTRODUCTION

Automated course registration and exam processing system is a software that facilitates the students course registration and processing of examination result. It will build in an automated information system capability that will ease the stress and enhance all the activities involved in course registration and result processing. The occurrence of examination and assessment irregularities can seriously damage public confidence in the validity and legitimacy of examination and assessment results and should be dealt with as a matter of urgency within the judicial framework established for this purpose[12]. There are different computer programs in different tertiary institutions for computing examination results. However, beyond examination result computation, not many programs in use provide multi-level aggregated data of student population and academic progress at various stages of studentship. The need for data use to inform administrative decisions in tertiary institutions have been emphasized for the purpose of better planning[1]. Almost every section of the educational system requires information processing. With the deployment of a good information system, wear and tear occasioned during data retrieval and handling, and sometimes loss is greatly minimized. Data sharing is less difficult and reproduction becomes a lot more cheaper. Furthermore, information system when employed to the educational sector, prompts the following:- prompt access to students’ personal and course information, instant student information updating, automatic computation of the Grade Point Average (GPA), monitoring of failed courses, quick production of result, storing course information such as course code, course description, course unit and scores for the purpose of GPA computation, and producing user-friendly data entry screens for ease of use. It is unfortunate that most universities in Nigeria still adapt the manual system of course registration and examination result processing. The errors associated with the existing manual method of results computation make it not only desirable but imperative that automated approach be used to the full in measuring students’ progress. The manual methods being employed suffer a number of set-backs. They make the process to be time-consuming and prone to error. They lead to examination results being published late, sometimes with wrong grades being entered and students’ grade point averages being wrongly computed. They also lead to loss or misplacement of student’s result. In some cases, it leads to incoherent course registration. However some departments in some universities in Nigeria are gradually advancing with the new information system processes. Taking the University of Nigeria, Nsukka as a case study,

The current course registration in the university of Nigeria, Nsukka takes the following format. Students on resumption renew their registration and register for courses every new semester. Before the current system was implemented, students register their courses with the different lecturers handling the courses. The list is compiled and sent to the appropriate centre. Later the system improved, a better system came into place where students go online and upon entering their registration number and department, the list of available courses for a particular level for a semester is shown and they register for them by selecting the appropriate box against their chosen courses. This is then submitted online and a printed copy is taken to the appropriate centre for approval. Examination result processing draws all the registered courses together and applies a criteria to process each student’s result at different semesters, session and at the end of the school programme. But the system currently in use poses challenges to the exam officers in the departments. It is observed that students do not register courses as required by the department. This could either be because the students deliberately registered wrongly or the system cannot enlist all the semester courses at a time. Secondly, the current system is unable to enlist all failed courses that were taken in the previous semesters and does not compel students to register them before proceeding to the new ones. It does not have the capability to efficiently reconcile all registered courses with their respective result. Therefore this project work is targeted to eliminate most of the problems inherent in the current system. It would provide a set of structures that keeps databases of all registered courses at all levels enlisting the core courses, electives and required ancilliary courses, it keeps student’s personal information. It will also keep past record of student’s result and a database of all components required for processing results. It will have component that extract each student’s result corresponding to the registered courses and computes the required result at any level and time.

1.1 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The problems identified in the old system are as follows:

1. The old system does not have a unified database system.

2. There is no structure that compels students to register all outstanding courses before proceeding to the recent ones.

3. Student’s test and exam scores may be entered wrongly when manually done.

5. It is very cumbersome to manually reconcile all registered courses from different files sources into their work sheet for the purpose of result computation.

1.2 AIM AND OBJECTIVES

The main aim of this project work is to provide a centralized database system that prompts correct course registration and keep all result information of a student.

The objectives to realize the aim of this project work are as follows:

1. Enforce a system that would automatically pool fail courses into the student’s registration portal and allow them to register them before they can register new ones.

2. Put in place a unified database system that coordinates course registration and exam processing.

3. Provide a mechanism of transmitting course registration and examintion results to all stakeholders especially Department, Exams and Registry.

4. Produce all kinds of results expected from the university.

1.3 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The new system designed is meant to handle course registration and exam result processing for the Computer Science department in UNN only.

1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Students stand to greatly benefit from this project work. The new system will enable students to see all failed courses and give them the opportunity to register and rewrite them on time. There would be reduced case of overstay.

Result computation would be easier and convenient for the exam officers as all result information will be kept and generated from the system.

The new system would enhance the result processing performance as it will reduce delay in computing student’s result.

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.0 INTRODUCTION

Literature review is the assessment of previous work carried out on the same or related projects and extracts relevant points to serve as milestone in the project at hand. Various works were studied and analyzed. The review and the lessons learnt forthwith, informed the choice of technologies employed for the development of this research outputs which is contained in the theoretical background.

2.1 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

The theoretical background gives an overview of the technologies used in developing the system “Course Registration and Result Processing System” and the general concept of the research topic as seen by the other researchers. The technology is chosen in other to present a more user friendly system. The site developed comprises of various web contents written in HTML, PHP and MYSQL server used in the development of the database of the system.

2.1.1 Technology used

The HTML language comprises of forms, cascading style sheet(CSS) and HTML elements. The forms were used to collect student’s information eg Biodata and course registration. The cascading style sheet was used to format the presentation of the output. It adjusts the sizes and fonts of the window display area. The CSS file was used to implement the font sizes, the page body structure and the entire styling of the web page. Eg of a CSS code fragment is.

body, html { height: 100%; padding: 0; margin: 0; }

.wrapper { min-height: 100%; min-width: 950px;overflow: hidden; }

This code gives the margins and height of the web page. The wrapper shows the relative position of the web window to the laptop screen.

The HTML elements comprise of sequence of elements in this form.

This code fragment aligns a scrolling marquee on the screen that directs a user on the log in page.

The PHP code fragment

This Presents a link to the header file and navigational modules that connects one web page to the other.

The MYSQL query that creates a result table is given thus:

CREATE TABLE `results`

(`Names` varchar(70) NOT NULL,

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`Regno` varchar(12) NOT NULL,

`CA` int(3) NOT NULL, `Exam` int(3) NOT NULL,

`Total` int(3) NOT NULL,

`Grade`varchar(1) NOT NULL,

`Session`varchar(11) NOT NULL,

`Coursecode`varchar(1) NOT NULL,

PRIMARY KEY (`Regno`,`Session`,`Coursecode`) )

ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT

CHARSET=latin1;

2.1.2 Information Technology

Information technology is the application of a set of computer tools, processes and methodologies to collect data and present information in form that will sooth the present day business operations.

In the beginning of the 21st century, it is difficult to imagine the development of the modern world without extensive use of the information technology that is rapidly transforming the global, knowledge-based economy as well as the entire societies[1]. Information technology(IT), stands to address how business operations can be abstracted into a useful IT knowledge, and how such knowledge can be applied to ongoing operations.

The disintegration of record management program in organizations has led to the inefficiency in administration and loss of vital information needed for decision making. Therefore to ensure reliability, efficiency and transparency in the computation of results and development of ad hoc reports, the design and implementation of a Computer-based Result Information Management System must be integrated into the system[1].

Nearly every section of the educational system requires information processing. With the use of computers for information processing, instant access to the academic and administrative information will be possible[6].

According to [6], one of the largest investments in many organizations is the creation, maintenance, and retrieval of information. It has been estimated that in an organization such as a tertiary educational community, information is highly essential for correct students’ record and examination data. Student information, if not properly created and stored, will cause many errors in usage and may be lacking in integrity.

2.1.3 Course Registration and Examination Result Processing

Course registration is a process in which students upon resumption and registration proceed to register for the courses required of them for the semester. This, not only give a valid definition of the area of study but streamline the student’s academic activities according to a stipulated set of rules as specified by the national university commission (NUC).

Result processing is a process by which students will be examined on the courses they registered for and the result will be produced by the examiner. Worldwide, it is known that the imbalance between manpower availability and the magnitude of work to be done in processing examination results, leads to the delay in the declaration of examination results. An effective measure, which can improve the efficiency of the examination result processing is therefore the introduction of computerization [2].

It was observed that a number of problems associated with student academic record management include improper course registration, late release of students’ results, inaccuracy due to manual and tedious calculation and retrieval difficulties/inefficiency, According to him, the development of database concept is the answer to these problems where the amount of redundant data is reduced and the possibility that data contained on a file might be inaccurate because they were never updated[2].

According to [3], the increase in students’ population over the years has made the work of administrative officer in charge of processing students’ result a very tiresome exercise to deal with. The rise in the number of students in schools today made it imperative that we continue to seek out the best and most efficient ways to handle schools and school administration.

Similarly in [4], it was observed that the computerization of secondary school results processing system has the following importance;

(a) Efficiency: A computerized system will make the job of result computation a lot more efficient and students will obtain their results soon after the marking of the scripts is completed.

(b) Accuracy: Interactive processing indentifies and correct error due to negligence.

(c) Retrieve ability: Retrieval of information is a lot more easier.

(d) Safety and security: information stored in the computer is safe from animals, insects and intruders. Also a password can be used to make program assessable to only authorized persons.

Furthermore, in [5], it was stated that a college portal is personalized software that captures the entire education business process and makes all operations accessible via the web, thus allowing schools to effectively serve all stakeholders, students, lecturers, administrators and parents.

Also in [6], it was stated that Publication of student’s results in the manual system takes a very long time thus students remain idle for months waiting for their result. Sometimes the delay in declaration of result cause heavy losses to the students as generally they cannot join further studies or appear in competitive exams or join jobs because of the non‐availability of examination result in time.

The process becomes a lot easier and much more accurate when automated, because the computer is capable of accepting and storing raw data, processing it, and storing the results until when needed[10].

2.2 REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

The University of Nigeria, Nsukka has an existing portal system. The portal was developed with a MYSQL server and script languages. The system has the ability to handle student’s course registration but not result processing. Students update their biodata and register for courses online. The online activities stop at the level of registration as students have to print the registered course form and submit a copy to the academic adviser. The academic adviser checks and endorses the course registration form based on the oral report of previous performance given by the student. Examination is taken and result is published by the examiner. Copies of the result copy are sent to the exam officer of the department who computes the result through manual process. Problems identified with this system are:-

1. Result computation is not automated and therefore very cumbersome.

2. The system has no means of ascertaining the correctness of course registration report before the academic adviser validates it. ie there is no means of knowing students who registered their failed courses and those who do not.

3. The system is prone to impersonation and double registration.

Therefore the proposed system guarantees an efficient process. It builds in a mechanism that pools all failed courses and force the student to register courses starting from the failed ones. It has a robust database that generates all students’ result information reports.

Other attempts have been made to improve the result management information system. One of such works as reported in [3] was done with Adobe Dreamweaver, an Integrated Development Environment that creates the Graphic User Interface and writes the codes. MYSQL Server, a Relational Database Management System, was used to create the database tables and data. Personal Home Page Pre-Processor (PHP) was used to communicate with and manipulate the database. Thus the following is how the system works.

The computer software application has three sessions, namely: the “Super Administrator” session, the “Staff/Administrator” session and the “Staff” session. The Head of Department (HOD) has the authentication/permission of the Super Administrator. He performs the following functions.

• Register students in individual units of the Department.

• Register staff in the Department.

• Enlist courses offered in the Department.

• Assign courses to registered staff in the Department.

• Assign examination officers to individual units.

• And also perform the role of a staff and also of an examinations officer of a unit.

The second personnel in the department is the staff/administrator. He/she is a registered staff of the department and thus has a valid username and a password. He performs the following functions:

• Enter students’ scores and view students’ grades in the courses he coordinates.

• Process students’ results in his unit, which includes calculating the GPA and CGPA.

• View all the students’ results in his unit.

A Course Coordinator has the authentication of a Staff. Hence, he is registered by the Super Administrator and thus have a valid username and password. He should be able to perform the following functions:

• Enter students’ scores for the courses he coordinates.

• View the grades he entered.

The system is designed and implemented such that the following are carried out during its use:

(1) User validation: To be able to use the software, staff are to be registered by the HOD with a default username and password on the first login to the software.

(2) Students Registration: Students in the Department are to be registered on the system.

(3) Course Registration: courses offered from first year through final year are registered.

(4) Course Assignment: After course registration, staffs are assigned courses that they will teach.

(5) Usage: At the end of the period (semester or session) staff will login to the software and enter students’ marks for any course they are assigned. Staff can also view results already submitted, if they want, or change their password when desired,

Academic adviser is the one that has the authentication of a staff/administrator. He can process students’ results (i.e. calculate GPAs and CGPAs) with their respective units for any academic session they choose. An academic adviser can also view any student’s GPA and CGPA in his unit. Finally, HOD can view all staff, students and course registration, as well as be able to view any student’s result irrespective of the student’s unit.

The outputs from the system are various. They include a listing of registered staff, registered courses and registered students. Result for a single student in all the courses for one academic session can be shown. Processed results can be viewed for one student at a time, or for all the students in a Unit.

However, the problems identified with this system are thus:

1. The system does not provide a means of validating student’s course registration. The Super Administrator who registers students does not check the student’s past academic record before he registers him/her. The new system designed, runs through the student’s database record and extract courses he/she failed or does not have result, uploads into the form before the student can go ahead and register the remaining courses if the remaining credit units permits.

2. Each lecturer handling a course enters the student’s scores directly into the database. This allows the various lecturers to have access to the result file that is not under his unit. There is tendency for these grades to be altered. Therefore the new system developed drops this feature and allows only one access to the result file. After the HOD has approved the result, a soft-copy of it is sent to the administrator who uploads it through an excel file. He alone calculates GPA and grants access to students to view their result.

3. The old system allows an academic adviser to enter scores and view grades for the courses he coordinates. In the new system, entering and viewing of student’s grades should be restricted to the lecturer that handles the courses alone so that data in the result sheet can be reliable.

Nevertheless, the current system as designed, borrows some features of the system reported in [3]. It imitates the system’s ability to present a particular student’s result file in one sheet together with his GPA for the semester. That means it would generate student’s transcript for a semester.

The impact of these changes in the new system is the birth or production of a system that is more transparent and reliable. Access to the system is to be restricted to only one user so that the integrity of the database will be maintained. When students are able to view their transcript for a semester, it will facilitate improvement in their academic program. In the result system above, the course coordinator represent the lecturer that teaches and mark examination papers. The staff/administrator represents the academic advisers that handles and coordinates a specified number of students. The super administrator is the head of the department.

A portal for processing of results in colleges of Education was reported in [6]. The software application has three main sections namely: the login window, the main menu and sub menu. The login window requests a valid user name and password from the Administrator to be able to gain access into the software. The Administrator is any staff that is authorized by the management of the school to be in charge of exams and records unit, hence he has a valid user name and password created by him to be able to login to the software. The Administrator performs the following function:

• Create user account for Lecturers (academic staffs), Departmental Exams officers and Head of Departments.

The Head of Departments must have a valid user name and password to perform the following function:

• Register students in his Department

• Register staff in the Department

• Register courses offered in the Department

•Assign courses to registered staff in the Department

• Assign examination officers to Different levels (i.e. NCE 1, 2 or 3).

The Departmental Exams Officer of each level has the authorization of the Administrator. He/she must have a valid username and a password. He performs the following functions:

• Enter student’s scores and view students’ grades as it is in the raw score sheet.

• Process student’s results in the department, which includes calculating the GPA and CGPA

• View all the students’ results in management approved format (Agreed marked sheet)

The Lecturer (Academic staff) is authorized by the Departmental Exams officer.

Hence, he is registered by the Administrator, has a valid username and password.

He performs the following functions:

• Enter students’ scores for courses he/she thought.

• View the grades he entered.

The computation of student’s result is guided by the Five-Point Grading system used by all colleges of education in Nigeria. The five-point grading system is incorporated into the software for the result computation. However, the system though tested and trusted does not indicate if a student’s course registration is correct or not. The result sheet does not show a particular student’s result together with his/her GPA. The new system is built to enlist student’s result together with the GPA for each semester. Again, the system allows the academic adviser to enter grades for students in his unit. This access is revoked in the proposed system as only the lecturer is required to enter student’s grades. The overall impact of this in the new system proposed is that the integrity of data will be maintained.

The existing student’s information system in Caritas University as reported in [7] has the following functionalities:-

View Student: this function creates different views of all the student data.

When you click on the view student link, a page displays where you will be asked to add a student, search for a student or upload list of students.

ACCESS STUDENT’S RESULT: This link enables one to access and computes student’s result. The process of accessing student’s result entails that the course and the semester in which the course was taken already exist in the database as entered by the student before result can be accessed. The following functions are obtainable: Access student’s result; Find result and calculate result.

FACULTY/DEPARTMENT/COURSES: This link enables access to faculties, departments under the faculties and courses offered by the departments. Here you can check and explore the departments that exist in a faculty and the courses offered by each department.

The feature “Add Student” would likely create redundancy and decrease the reliability of the student data. Anybody can come from anywhere and add his/her name in the students’ list. The proposed system modifies this feature by the upload student function. Student’s list comes from the admission list, if any student is omitted from the list or has late registration, the name will be included in the department and sent to the administrator in an excel file. The administrator then uploads the list into the MYSQL database.

Secondly, the function “access result” finds a single result for each student at a particular time. It runs through the semester courses and brings out the result of a particular course while the new system checks the student’s level, semester and session. It then enlists all the results for the courses offered in that semester and calculates the GPA for that semester.

A portal system developed for Covenant university[11], deployed an ICT solutions that attends to the integral university’s academics and administrative problems. They developed and managed packages that is responsive to the changing needs of the users by

1. Automating the core university services

2. Automating data management services

3. Automating Technical Support Services

4. Website design and development

5. Design and Management of the University Portal

6. Coordination of data entry into the various database systems including students’ record/portal

7. Collecting and collating data and producing reports needed by external bodies and agencies like: WAEC, NECO, NYSC, NUC, JAMB and other professional bodies. The solutions provided by the Covenant university used Blade database server to provide data solutions to the school. The data information provided is as follows

University Basic Data:- Colleges; Branches; Departments; Programmes and Buildings.

Student’s Data:- Student’s Records keeps all the information that directly relates to the students. Such information includes: student’s application, entry and personal information.

Courses:- Course Listing (Code Description, Unit and Classification).

Staff:- Staff records showing personnel, departments, seminars and conferences attended.

Application Modules:- The modules of the application provide interfaces for the entry and update of student’s personal information, course registration information, course allocation information and student’s result information. The reports provided by the covenant university portal shows that it satisfied 80% of the expected output of data processing.

A study carried out in [12], determined the extent to which online registration has eliminated course registration and result processing problems. It was established that online registration has not only erased some problems inherent in the manual system but has enabled efficient process. A study revealed that it has greatly reduced multiple registrations, impersonation and registration flaws. These claims were weighed on a Likert scale and the result shows that the respondents “agreed” with a 90% confidence. The results show that online registration is quicker than manual system, it enables a student to know if s/he has been registered for the examination, it reduces paperwork and it is more reliable than manual, However, the results found out that the online portal has some draw-backs. Users usually experience Pin rejection, log in difficulty, inability of the portal to identify candidates, inability to attach picture, failure to save page, registration modification difficulty, irregularities in the course contents. These problems are addressed in this research work.

Course Registration and Result System carried out in Cardiff State University [8].

The system operates as follows.

1. Students

Students are the main target of the result process. They can log on to the site to register their courses or check for registration errors. They can

o Register their courses online

o Rectify any Course Registration Errors o View Results Online.

2. Registration Staff

A record officer accesses the list and approves or disapproves of student’s

registration for a course.

His function is to

o Add or Remove Student’s Registrations

Students that are not captured on the list but are taking the module will then need to approach the registration staff for rectification. Students that are on the list but not taking the module can be flagged by the module coordinator when the list gets to him and this information is passed to registrations staff.

When a class assignment has been issued, academic staff will validate the class list provided to them in registration list. Where errors or omissions have been discovered registrations will need to be amended accordingly. If a student is not registered for a module that he/she is taking, the student will need to be registered, however, if this student was not on an exception report, their registration record may need to be discussed with them ensuring that they are registered on all correct modules. If a lecturer discovers that there are students registered on the module but are not taking this module, these students will need to be contacted to rectify their record.

This review of the existing result processing system in other universities gave birth to the new system. The old system was modified, dropped some functions and incorporated some functions into the new system. The new system is a system that would solve the problem of improper course registration, impersonation into the exam hall, late release of students’ results, inaccuracy due to manual and tedious calculation and retrieval difficulties/inefficiency.