ACADEMIC PORTAL FOR ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA NSUKKA

ABSTRACT

Internet is  a  huge technology that has brought life  to computer and its applications. Most forms of information management and data sharing are done using the internet. The World Wide Web has made this possible. With a browser running on your PC, you can get connected to the entire world. The Internet has been used in different aspects of life most especially in the area of education. Web portal is  that area in which the  huge resources available on the Internet are being tapped. A web portal presents information from diverse sources in a unified way. Apart from the standard search engine feature, web portals offer other services such as e-mail, news, stock prices, information, databases and entertainment. Portals provide a way for enterprises to provide a consistent look and feel with access control and procedures for multiple applications and databases, which otherwise would have been different entities altogether. This research work focuses on academic portal for the department of Electronic Engineering, University of Nigeria,  Nsukka.  The  Academic  Portal  is  designed  to  automate  the Academic  processes  of  Electronic  Engineering  Department.  The functionality of the portal captures new students’ admission, POST UTME online registration, online payment using transaction ID model, online result management, students and staff record keeping etc.

The methodology used in this research work is Object Oriented Analysis and design (OOAD). The software packages used in the implementation of the system are Dreamweaver CS6 (for code editing and interface design), SQLyog for database management and design, WAMP server for offline test running. The chief server side programming language used in the implementation and programming of the  academic portal is  PHP (PHP:

HyperText Preprocessor). Other languages include HTML5 (for user interface design), Cascading style sheet CSS (for web styling), JavaScript (for client side instant response implementation) and MySQL (for database management). The Academic portal for the department of Electronic Engineering created in this research was tested with test data and the desired results were generated. The results generated met the set objectives of the research.

Chapter One

INTRODUCTION

1.1     Background of the Study

Initially the term Web portal was used to refer to well-known Internet search and navigation sites that provided a starting point for Web visitors to explore and access information on the World Wide Web[1]. The term Internet Portal or Web Portal began to be used to describe such mega-sites such as Yahoo!, Excite,  AOL,  MSN,  Netscape Netcenter  and  others  because  many  web visitors used them as a starting point for their Web surfing. Since then, portal technologies have significantly matured and specialized and a diverse range of portal types have been developed and used in different contexts[2].

A web portal is not a single technology[3], but it brings together a wide range of technologies and enables them to work together for the benefit of the individual.  A  Web  portal can  be  defined  as  a  Web  site  for  a  specific audience  that  aggregates an  array of  content  and  provides  a  variety of services  including  search  engines,  directories,  news,  e-mail  and  chat rooms[4].

According to the analyst and consulting company Ovum – as described in their study “Enterprise Portals: New Strategies for Information Delivery”,

2000 – the ideal portal is based on eight functionality areas[5]:

            search and navigation

            information integration (content management)

             personalization

             notification (push technology)

             task management and workflow

             collaboration and groupware

             integration of applications and business intelligence

             infrastructure functionality

Although most of the functionality is not new, what is new is the idea that the business value of the whole is considerably more than the sum of its parts.  Thus,  a  successful portal does  not  only consist  of  either  a  good collaboration support  or  a  good  integration  of  the  information sources. Rather it consists of – just like a successful cooking recipe – a well-integrated mixture of the basic portal functionalities.

Academic portal is a typical example of web portal which concentrates more on school activities rather than entertainment or social network information sharing. In the quest to automate every activity of a college/university or any tertiary institution, academic portal was born. Academic portal is a platform

for keeping school records, result  management, computer based examination, e-learning system[6][7], online registration, admissions, online payment  of  school  fees  and  so  on.  Web  portals  are  based  on  cloud computing [8][9][10][11][12]. Cloud computing[13][14][15]  is a computing platform that resides in a large data center and is able to dynamically provide servers the ability to address a wide range of needs, ranging from scientific research to e-commerce[5]. Cloud computing is a set of IT services that are provided to a customer over a network on a leased basis and with the ability to scale up or down their service requirements[8]. Cloud computing emerges as one of the hottest topics in the field of information technology. Cloud computing is based  on  several other  computing research areas  such as  virtualization,

utility computing and grid computing[12][13]. Cloud computing is a solution to many problems of computing[14].

In academic record keeping, portal is very useful because it allows information to be stored electronically in the cloud for wide range access and 24 hours availability to the entire school. The department of Electronic Engineering academic portal helps to automate virtually all academic processes in the department starting from POST UME registration down to computation of final year results of the students.

This project work is targeted at building a well secured web application[16] for managing both staff and students’ information in the department. This web  portal allows  the  prospective Jambites  to  register  for  POST  UME online. The registration process starts from generating transaction ID for bank payment using branch collect. After the confirmation of payment, the student proceeds to fill the online form. On completion of the registration, both SMS and email alerts are sent to the applicant to confirm the registration. It is worthy to note that this package does not make provision for online POST UME. It is expected that after manual examination, the administrator will upload successful candidates so that they can start making use of the academic portal in full.

The admitted students can now go online and pay their fees such as school fees, hostel fees etc. The bank payment system is handled by a third party web application[17] called branch collect. Branch collect is used in the bank to automatically update the academic portal when any payment is  made unlike other banking applications where the student still need to go online to update  his/her  payment.  Branch  Collect  works  hand  in  hand  with  the banking institution and the academic portal. Branch collect is an e- payment/e-banking system with highly secured firewall [18]. Each designated bank has their login access for proper security measure. The providers of

Internet banking services must be more responsive towards security requirements[18]. Just like e-commerce [19][20], payment[22][23]  is usually authenticated online  for  further transaction. E-payment system[24]   is  fast growing and many organizations and institutions now use it but the security[25]  challenges are in the rise as well. The description of functionalities of Branch collect is totally out of the scope of this thesis, we

only made mention of  it  because it  was used for the  payment gateway therefore, let us focus on the subject matter.

When students have paid their school fees, the next academic activity is online semester course registration. It is expected that at the end of the semester,  students  can  login,  view  and  print  their  results  including the Course Great Point Average (CGPA).

The administrator of the portal handles the work of uploading Jambites, admission list, result publication and staff record creation.  The staff on the other side can also publish their individual course results and view students’ results.

1.2     Statement of the Problem

Till date, most academic records and result processing are done manually thereby causing unnecessary delay. Missing result is a common problem for

graduating students because of the manual storage of results. Wrong CGPA computation is  another problem being encountered in traditional manual computation.  Other  problems  encountered  in  manual  data  processing include:

     Records  to  be  kept  in  educational  system  are  often  too  large, diversified and complex to be processed manually.

     The  record  maintenance  and  operations  required  on  a  day-to-day basics are extensive.

     Varieties  of  services  carried  out  in  different  departments  of  the institutions necessitate considerable efforts to ensure that all transactions are taken into proper account.

     A lot of calculations are involved in the result processing; hence the manual method is prone to errors.

     Students are made to contend with time wastage involved in manual registration, result processing and transcript processing.

     Information  can  be  lost  when  records  are  stolen,  misplaced  or vandalized

   Inaccuracies often ensue from human error in manual record keeping.

1.3     Objective of the Study

The objective of this project is to develop an effective and efficient educational   management   information   system   for   the   department   of Electronic Engineering, University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The new system will help to actualize the following:

   Online Admission and Registration of Jambite

   Online Payment System using branch collect

   Online Student Registration

   Online Course Registration

   Online Result Processing

   Online Statement of Results

   Build a database for the lecturers and courses assigned to them

   Maintain a database security

1.4     Significance of the Study

Computerization of any academic process makes life easier for the school administration and for the students as well. With the academic activities being automated, there will be no more delay in the processing of any form of students’ data be it admission, registration, results, profile etc.

Similarly, since all the academic processes will be computerized, students and staff will be brought closer to computer world thereby improving their skills in information communication technology (ICT).

1.5     Scope of the Study

Academic portal system is a broad subject matter. It covers a range of work which involves both academic and non-academic issues. So, this study is designed to re-engineer educational management information system with respect to admission, registration, result processing, and student information related academic activities.

1.6     Limitation of the Study

Due to time constraint, program developed covers all aspect of student’s admission processing, registrations, fee payments and result processing. Areas left out such as course allocations, E-library, etc were as a result of time and finance.

1.7     Project Methodology

The methodology used in this research work is Object Oriented Analysis and design (OOAD)[28][29]. In Object Oriented Analysis[30], the entire system is seen as a model of an object, all the attributes methods were analyzed.  The main functionalities of this project are broken down into parts especially in the software programming aspect. There are several classes of PHP program which encapsulate the core attributes of the system. In modern software development, Object Oriented Programming Language is usually the main

tool for achieving the package. The following software packages were used in the implementation of the system

a.  Dreamweaver CS6: for code editing and interface design b.  SQLyog: for database management and design

c.  WAMP server: for offline test running.

Apart from PHP, other programming languages used include:

i.        HTML5: for user interface design

ii.       Cascading style sheet (CSS): for web styling and beautification iii.      JavaScript: for client side instant response implementation and iv.      MySQL: for database management.

v.       Ajax: for combining both client side and server side operations.

1.8     Plan/Organisation of Thesis

This thesis is divided into six chapters and each chapter is further divided into sub-headings in order to break down and analyse the  main points. The IEEE referencing method is adopted in this work. This style of referencing makes use of superscript numbering using enclosed in square brackets []. Diagrams are used to illustrate some of the ideas that cannot be strictly done with texts and symbols. The six chapters in this work discuss different aspects of the thesis.

Chapter one contains the introduction to the thesis. The introduction captures significantly the background to this study, objectives, statement of problems and lots more.

Chapter two contains the literature review of the thesis. This chapter highlights the building blocks of Web Portal, existing works on academic portal and the new features in this latest version.

Chapter three discusses in details the methodology adopted in the project work. Most Applications are developed nowadays using Object Oriented Programming Language. In the analysis of such an application, it is always good to use a more suitable methodology therefore Object Oriented Analysis and Design (OOAD) was chosen for this thesis methodology. In this methodology, UML diagrams were used to show the flow of the system in view.

Chapter four explains the System Design and Implementation. It gives a detailed analysis of system tests and results. Tables and figure were used to show the relationship between the results obtained in the course of the project work.

Chapter five contains the Result Analysis and Program Documentation and finally chapter six summarizes the thesis with some recommendations made for future studies.

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