DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A COMPUTERISED COURSE REGISTRATION AND RESULT PROCESSING SYSTEM

CHAPTER ONE

1.1            INTRODUCTION

There were three fundamentally distinct education systems in Nigeria in 1990: the indigenous system, Quran schools, and formal European-style education institutions. In the rural areas where the majority lived, children learned the skills of farming and other work, as well as the duties of adulthood, from participation in the community. This process was often supplemented by age-based schools in which groups of young boys were instructed in community responsibilities by mature men. By the 1970s, education experts were asking how the system could be integrated into the more formal schooling of the young, but the question remained unresolved by 1990.  Western-style education came to Nigeria with the missionaries in the mid-nineteenth century. Although the first mission school was founded in 1843 by Methodists, it was the Anglican Church Missionary Society that pushed forward in the early 1850s to found a chain of missions and schools, followed quickly in the late 1850s by the Roman Catholics. In 1887 in what is now southern Nigeria, an education department was founded that began setting curricula requirements and administered grants to the mission societies. By 1914, when north and south were united into one colony, there were fifty-nine government and ninety-one mission primary schools in the south; all eleven secondary schools, except for King's College in Lagos, were run by the missions.

The education system focused strongly on examinations. In 1916 Frederick Lugard, first governor of the unified colony, set up a school inspectorate. Discipline, buildings, and adequacy of teaching staff were to be inspected, but the most points given to a school's performance went to the numbers and rankings of its examination results. This stress on examinations was still used in 1990 to judge educational results and to obtain qualifications for jobs in government and the private sector.

As more information is made available in a variety of formats and media and in a variety of locations, the need to manage information/data efficiently becomes more and more critical. Both staff and public users want access to stored information and want to access it more efficiently. It is the University Policy to improve both the efficiency and effectiveness of course registration and result processing operations and services through the implementation of an integrated automated database System.

1.2     BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Caritas University is made up of four (4) faculties namely:

1.     Engineering with the following departments: Computer, Mechanical, Chemical and Electrical and Electronics Engineering.

2.     Environmental with the following departments: Architecture, Urban & Regional Planning and Estate Management.

3.     Management and Social Sciences with the following departments: Accountancy, Economics, Business Administration, Public Administration, Political Science, Industrial Relation and Personnel Management, Mass Communication, Marketing, Banking and Finance.

4.     Natural Sciences with the following departments: Biochemistry, Computer Science & Information Technology, Industrial Chemistry, Mathematics & Statistics and Microbiology & Biotechnology.

In Universities like Caritas, the need for automated method of keeping data has been there. Software, so many of them has been developed and even sold worldwide to solve this problem. I have analyzed these software and discovered that very many of them are inefficient. Students as well has researched and developed their own software but they could not give or develop error free software that will assist in result generation, automated course registration to keep or build a database of results in the University that will facilitate students’ transcripts.

This problem has been delaying or delayed the results of graduating or graduated students that has made some of them not to go for youth service when they ought to or ought to have gone and has even made some not to have gone at all. To bridge this gap or solve this problem, there is a need to develop software that is accurate, error free as the problem has imposed so much stress on both exams and record and the management in Universities.

Organizational Structure

Fig. 1.1 Organization Structure

1.3     STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Database of information is vital in today’s education with respect to course registration and examination result processing. This has become a very vital issue as students spend so much time trying to know the number of credit units for each semester. This problem has lead to time wasting, inaccuracy of results and even open to fraud. Cases of missing results have been recorded thereby making examination processing more difficult and untimely.

1.4     OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The objectives of this study are to:

1.     Provide a reliable solution to result processing that is corruption free.

2.     Ensure that normal credit load in line with the school is maintained.

3.     Provide a software that will generate result that is accurate, timely and error free.

1.5   SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The project work will help in a good number of ways to ease the delay in manual examination processing. The software developed will help schools management to achieve efficient information management system. There are many other advantages, and some of them are listed below.

1.     It saves time during examination processing

2.     Database for course registration and examination result is maintained

3.     References are very fast and delays can be avoided.

4.     It allows easy access to stored information.

5.     Help in reducing the costs such as labor, inventory and stationary.

6.     Generation of accurate results/information on transactions is sure.

1.6     SCOPE OF THE STUDY

This research work will concentrate on course registration and examination processing system using Caritas University (Computer Science & Information Technology Department) as a case study. The system developed will only cover registration of students, course registration and result processing

1.7 DEFINITION OF TERMS/VARIABLES

Information System: It is a collection of procedures, people, Instructions and equipment to produce information in a useful form.

Technology: It is study of techniques or process of mobilizing  Resource (such as information) for accomplishing   objectives that benefits man and his environment.

Information: Information can be defined as the process of gathering,   transmitting, receiving, storing and retrieving data or    several items put together to convey a desired message.

Computer Network: Computer Network is a system that connects     two or more computers together using a communication link.

Databases: A systematically arranged collection of computer data, structured so that it can be automatically retrieved or manipulated. It is also called databank.

File Transfer:  Any kind of computer file can be sent via the Internet    from  one Internet user to another. Table of accounts on spreadsheets, design by a graphic artists, music   sound files etc, can all be exchanged in this way.