Design and implimentation of web – based academic information system (webais) for nigerian universities

Project Abstract

<p> A common challenge faced by universities is effective management of large amounts of<br>data that are encountered in day-to-day operations. Access to these data requires various<br>privileges and restrictions to cater for the various user categories. Traditional paper-based<br>approach to managing these data, as practiced in many Nigerian universities, is costly,<br>error-prone and ineffective. Existing solutions to this problem, where they exist, are ad hoc<br>or not comprehensive. In this thesis, we developed a web-based information (WeBAIS)<br>capable of managing large bodies of data effectively for Nigerian universities. Evaluation<br>feedback of WeBAIS received from the two pilot universities where it was deployed<br>showed that WeBAIS met its design objectives. We believe WeBAIS will receive further<br>favorable assessment as further research is conducted to polish its other modules. <br></p>

Project Overview

<p> GENERAL INTRODUCTION<br>This chapter discusses the introductory part of the thesis which includes background of the<br>study, research motivations and goals, the research questions the thesis attempts to answer,<br>the methodology used to answer those questions and finally the summary of the thesis<br>contribution to knowledge.<br>1.1 Introduction<br>A major challenge faced by university academics is the effective management of large<br>amounts and various types of data that are encountered in day-to-day operation, ranging<br>from personal data to varied types of documents. The data have various access privileges<br>and restrictions and will be input by a variety of sources, ranging from individuals<br>themselves (e.g., a current student or applicant submits a resume), to a member of the<br>faculty to a member of the departmental administration (e.g., Head of Department who<br>manages the affairs of the Department), to automatic uploading of transcripts or test scores<br>for an applicant. Automatically generated statistics regarding this information will be used<br>by many different stakeholders, both inside and outside the department. Traditional paperbased<br>operation is not only costly but also ineffective.<br>We designed and implemented a Web-Based Academic Information System(WeBAIS), to<br>effectively manage school information. The design of the overall system follows the<br>guidelines from the Design Science for Information System (Hevner A., et al, 2004)and<br>benefits from the study in Computer-Supported Co-operative Work (CSCW) (Grundin,<br>Computer Supported Cooperative Work History and Focus, 2005). To increase the usability<br>2<br>of our system, we followed Computer-Human Interaction (The Apache Software, 2007)<br>and Iterative Design guidelines (Denning, 1997).<br>1.2 Research Motivation and Goals<br>The greatest challenge of today’s information system design is to provide users with the<br>required functionality needed for the organization which, in many cases, happens not to be<br>possible or requires huge resources including money, time and highly skilled personnel.<br>Information systems of many Nigerian Universities suffer from some of the following<br>challenges:<br>a. Ineffective management of the large amounts and different types of data<br>b. Inability to cater for different user categories with various access privileges and<br>restrictions<br>c. Lack of related components that need to be integrated together such as registration<br>and academics.<br>d. Lack of robust, portable and extensible components that support efficient data<br>management.<br>The objective of the research in this thesis is to develop a robust information system with a<br>single integrated data store that overcomes these limitations and more.<br>1.3 Research Question<br>The study is set up to answer the following question:<br>3<br>Can an information system be developed for Nigerian Universities that is robust, portable,<br>extensible and user-friendly?<br>1.4 Research Objectives<br>The objectives of the research undertaken in this thesis is to design and implement a webbased<br>academic information system (WeBAIS) that<br>a. is robust, portable and user-friendly<br>b. makes it easier for stakeholders (managers, staff and students) to carry out their<br>normal activities<br>c. improves efficiency of delivering university services<br>d. includes a student evaluation of teaching (SET) module for improving the learning<br>process<br>1.5 Methodology<br>The following are the proposed steps needed for the realization of this research work.<br>a. Literature review to determine best practice in modern information system design<br>b. Develop the architecture of the proposed WeBAIS system<br>c. Implement the WeBAIS system<br>d. Deploy WeBAIS in pilot universities<br>e. Collect feedback from WeBAIS users<br>f. Analyze user-feedback against WeBAIS objectives<br>4<br>1.6 Contributions to Knowledge<br>The main contribution of this work is the design and implementation of a university<br>information system that significantly improves efficiency of a university’s daily operations.<br>The application has been tested over a list of more than ten thousand (10,000)<br>undergraduate students from various departments and faculties for three academic sessions.<br>It also captures the list of all members of staff both academic and non-academic staff of<br>Kano University of Science and Technology, Wudil, and North-West University, Kano.<br>WeBAIS significantly improves the efficiency for many daily university operations. For<br>example, the traditional paper-based graduate program application involves a sequence of<br>procedures: paper submission of all materials to be sorted and collated into paper – based<br>folders, which are passed sequentially from admissions chair to faculty members to review.<br>The average processing time is several months. Identifying high priority applicants was<br>difficult and often results in losing good ones. With the help of WeBAIS, we are able to<br>electronically submit almost all application materials from applicants, references,<br>admission related documents and perform automatic importing of test scores,<br>undergraduate institution, etc. As a result, an application can be reviewed by all faculty<br>members immediately and decisions can be made in days, making it easy to identify<br>excellent applicants.<br>We can now do many things with WeBAIS that we could not do before. First, WeBAIS<br>makes information sharing possible and convenient, e.g., in undergraduate/graduate<br>admission, HODs’ of the faculty members are able to view any application and<br>recommend; Admission Committee Chairman/Member is able to view and grant admission<br>5<br>to applicants. Second, generating statistics is very easy in WeBAIS while it required much<br>bookkeeping and manual processing before.<br>In WeBAIS, we designed and implemented a set of web utility classes. These classes are<br>general, self-contained, and greatly increase the reusability and maintainability of our code.<br>By building on top of the web utility classes, the development of WeBAIS application<br>becomes relatively easy. Furthermore, the web utility classes can be used for other web<br>applications. We plan to make them open source software in the future.<br>Although WeBAIS is an information management system for the university (KUST –<br>Wudil as case study), it can easily be configured to be used by Colleges, Monotechnics,<br>Polytechnics and the like. WeBAIS can be extended to support other services apart from<br>academic system such as administrative system of a university. So far, WeBAIS has<br>generated a lot of interest in KUST and North-West Universities, encouraging further<br>research of the application.<br>1.7 Outline of Thesis<br>Chapter II describes related work from different fields that are used to inform the design of<br>WebAIS. Chapter III presents the definition of requirements and functionality of our<br>system, WeBAIS. Chapter IV presents the design of the system. Chapter V describes the<br>deployment, user appraisal and results implementation status for our system. We conclude<br>in Chapter VI. <br></p>