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

COURSE REGISTRATION AND RESULT PROCESSING SYSTEM IN COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA, NSUKKA

AMAH MARYLYN CHIDIMMA PG/MSc/12/62093

Being an M.Sc project submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of Master’s degree in Computer Science of the University of Nigeria.

SUPERVISOR: DR M.C. OKORONKWO

DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA, NSUKKA

JUNE, 2015

CERTIFICATION

I hereby declare that the work presented herein was done by me, and not a third party. Should I be convicted of having cheated in this work, I shall accept the verdict of the university.

AMAH, MARYLYN CHIDIMMA. PG/MSc/12/62093

APPROVAL PAGE

This Project is approved for submission

DR M. C. OKORONKWO

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DEDICATION

I dedicate this research work to my loving mother Mrs Elizabeth Amah who amidst all toils remained very supportive to the project work. Her consistent and warm advice in the face of trouble pushed me through. Mum may God Bless You.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I sincerely send my profound gratitude to Almighty God for his goodness. In fact, God used this research process to expose me to his unfathomable saving graces.

I earnestly send warm appreciation to all the staff of the Computer Science Department UNN. They in no small measure contributed to the realization of this project. The framework of the project, the system analysis and the data collation are all contributions from various lecturers of the department. My most profound gratitude goes to my Supervisor Dr M.C. Okoronkwo for his commitment and dedication towards making this research a success. Doc! I’m immensely grateful. I will not fail to thank a loving brother and a friend Mr Emma Ukekwe for making this project a reality. Mr. Emma went extra mile to develop modules that were implemented in the project. Alongside are Engr. Collyns Udanor, Dr. (Mrs.) Ebem, Mr. Chinwuko and others. I pray the good Lord to reward you abundantly.

I use this medium also to thank my family members especially my mum, Mrs Elizabeth Amah, Mr Innocent Ike and Revd Christian Amah for their financial support. To my friends and well wishers Revd Fr Fidelis Ajamugha, Honorable Collyns Owhonda, Honorable Ibrahim Adeoti and Mr. MackJames Ukwueje who supported me morally and financially in the cause of this project. I am immensely grateful to you all. Remain Blessed.

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 was 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.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF ITEMS PAGE NUMBER

Title Page …………………………………………………………. i

Certification page …………………………………………………. ii

Approval Page ..…………………………………………………... iii

Dedication …………………………………………………………. iv

Acknowledgement Page …………………………………………... v

Abstract …………………………………………………………….. vi

Table of Contents.…………………………………………………... vii

List of Figures……………………………………………………..... ix

List of Tables………………………………………………………... xi

Chapter 1: Introduction ………………………………………… 1

1.0 Introduction …………………………………………….. 1

1.1 Statement of Problem .………………………………….. . 3 1.2 Objectives ……………………………………………… . 4 1.3 Scope of the Study ……………………………………….. 4 1.4 Significance of the Study…………………………………. 4

Chapter 2: Literature Review ...... 5

2.0 Introduction……………………………………………….. 5 2.1 Theoretical Background …………………………………... 5 2.2 Review of Related Literature………………………………. 10

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Chapter 3: Systems Analysis and Design…………………………. 21

3.0 Introduction ……………………………………………… 21 3.1 Analysis of the Existing System………………………….. 22 3.2 Description of the Proposed System……………………… 25 3.3 Design of the Proposed System…………………………... 27 3.3.1 Design Methodology……………………………... 27 3.3.2 Justification for the use of the design methodology. 27 3.3.3 Design tool………………………………………… 28 3.3.4 Database design…………………………………… 32 3.3.5 Input and output design…………………………… 35 3.4 Systems Architecture………………………………………. 45

Chapter 4: System Implementation………………………………… 46

4.0 Introduction………………………………………………… 46 4.1 Development Environment…………………………………. 46 4.2 Choice of Programming Language used……………………. 47 4.3 Implementations Architecture………………………………. 47 4.4 Software Testing……………………………………………. 48 4.5 Documentation……………………………………………… 49 4.5.1 Software Modules……………………………...49 4.5.2 User Guide/Manual…………………………… 52 4.5.3 Software Installation………………………… 54

4.5.4 Source Code Listing………………………...... 54

Chapter 5: Summary and Conclusion………………………………. 55

5.0 Summary……………………………………………………. 55 5.1 Conclusion………………………………………………….. 56 5.2 Recommendations………………………………………….. 56

References

Appendices

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LIST OF FIGURES Figure 3.1 The Use Case Diagram of the System - - - 28 Figure 3.2 The Class Diagram - - - - - 31 Figure 3.3 Screenshot of the Database tables - - - 32 Figure 3.4 The Student’s Login design Form - - - 35 Figure 3.5 Admin Login design Form - - - - 35 Figure 3.6 Student’s Course Registration design Form - - 36 Figure 3.7 Design form of an ongoing course registration - 37 Figure 3.8 Design input form for uploading student’s result - 38 Figure 3.9 Design input form for adding courses - - - 39 Figure 3.10 Design of the Course Registration Printout- - - 40 Figure 3.11 Design of the View Result Form- - - - 41 Figure 3.12 Design of the Semester Transcript Result - - 41 Figure 3.13 Design of the Lecturer’s Grade Sheet - - - 42 Figure 3.14 Design of the Official Semester Broadsheet - - 43 Figure 3.15 Design of the Official Cumulative Broadsheet- - 44 Figure 3.16 System Architecture------45 Figure 4.1 Design of the Implementation Architecture - - 47 Figure 4.2 Screenshot of the Homepage - - - - 60 Figure 4.3 Screenshot of the Admin Login Page - - - 61 Figure 4.4 Screenshot of the Add Course Form - - - 61 Figure 4.5 Screenshot of Uploaded Result file from excel- - 62 Figure 4.6 Screenshot of the Course Registration Form - - 62 Figure 4.7 Screenshot of the Error Registration Page - - 63

Figure 4.8 Screenshot of the Semester Broadsheet Report - 63 Figure 4.9 Screenshot of the Lecturer’s Grade Sheet - - 64 Figure 4.10 Screenshot of the Class List - - - - 65 Figure 4.11 Screenshot of the Semester Transcript Report - 65 Figure 4.12 Screenshot of the Student’s CGPA Report - - 66

LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1 Sample Table for Calculating Student’s GPA- 24

Table 3.2 Student’s Bio-data Table - - - - 33

Table 3.3 Admin Table - - - - - 33

Table 3.4 Course Table - - - - - 33

Table 3.5 Course Registration Table - - - 34

Table 3.6 Result Table ------34

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

xii 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

xiii 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.

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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

xvi 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

xviii 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 man power 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

xix 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.

(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.

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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

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• 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.

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(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

xxiv 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

xxv 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.

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• 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.

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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.

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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

xxix 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 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

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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.

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CHAPTER 3: SYSTEM ANALYSIS AND DESIGN

3.0 Introduction

System Analysis and Design is the process of examining the business of an organization with the intention of improving it through better procedures and methods. Analysis of a system specifically involve looking at a system, determining how well it functions, specifying changes that needs to be made and the quality or impact of the output that will be achieved. Designing a system involve integrating various procedures into the subsystems components and articulating them together into the main system in other to achieve the expected goal. Analysis and design of a new system requires a modeling methodology. The modeling methodology creates a representation of the real-world entities of the system[9].

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The object-oriented model was used for the design of the course registration and result process system because it simplifies the software design process by presenting each module as an object and provides an efficient way of communicating with these objects. Object-oriented model represents the real-world entities as systems objects. The objects are described by their attributes, behaviors and relationships.

3.1 Analysis of the Existing System

The existing result processing system of Computer Science dept is a manual process. Students who have duly paid their school fees are thus eligible for course registration. As they open the school registration portal, they enter their personal detail and fill in the courses as prescribed by the department. This registration form is printed and sent to the department and faculty officials for validation. Three Personnel are responsible for this validation.

i. The Academic Adviser ii. The HOD iii. The Faculty Officer

The essence of this validation is to ensure that the student is eligible for that registration and that the required courses have been registered. After validation, photocopy of form is submitted to each of the lecturer in charge of the registered

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courses. The forms collected by the lecturers from various students are used to compile the class list. Exams are taken and lecturers compile result. Each lecturer submits his/her result to the HOD for approval. After that, a copy is sent to the result processing unit. The various results from the different lecturers are collated and kept together. The exam officer enters the student’s grades for each course in the student’s work sheet and results are computed.

The courses offered in a degree programme are allocated a number of credit units which vary from one course to another, because the courses vary in their needs and scope. Hence some courses are allocated greater credit units than others. The measure of performance of a student in any course is given by the grade-points obtained in that course. The grade-points (GP) obtained by a student in any course are determined by multiplying the value of the grade (numeric grade) by the credit units of the course. The total grade-points are obtained by summing up the grade- points of all the courses offered. The Grade-Point Average (GPA) is computed by dividing total grade-points by the sum of credit units of all the courses offered in that period. Thus;

Total Grade-Points of the courses offered in the year GPA = ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Summation of the credit units of the courses in that year

The GPA is manually computed as illustrated above. The Cumulative Grade-Point Average (CGPA) for a period is obtained by dividing the cumulative sum of the total grade-points over the years by the cumulative sum of the credit units over the same period. Thus,

Cumulative sum of the credit units of the courses up to the present year. CGPA = ………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………….. Cumulative sum of Total Grade-Points of the courses from year one up to the present year xxxiv

When the result of student A is to be computed, the exam officer searches through each published result to locate the result of a particular student and fills in the course grade in the corresponding column of the student’s work sheet. The same process is repeated until all the results for all courses registered by the student are found and entered. Then the grade is computed. Table 3.1 is an example of a result computation sheet for a particular student.

TABLE 3.1 CALCULATION OF GPA Course code Credit unit Scores Grade Grade-point

Cos 351 2 64 B 2*4 = 08 Cos 371 2 71 A 2*5 = 10

Cos 372 2 58 C 2*3 = 06 Cos 313 2 58 C 2*3 = 06 Cos 315 3 67 B 3*4 = 12

Cos 322 2 77 A 2*5 = 10 Cos 333 2 80 A 2*5 = 10

Cos 312 2 63 B 2*4 = 08 Cos 322 3 52 C 3*3 = 09

Total 20 79

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Total Grade-Points = 79 Total Credit-Units = 20 Grade Point Average = 79/20; GPA = 3.95 After the analysis of the current system, the following problems were identified.

• Students do not register courses as prescribed by the department. This leads to delay in computing their result as the courses registered will not correspond to that required by the department. • Manually tracking of results before computing the GPA and CGPA for each student is laborious, especially with increasing number of students, and this is prone to error. • There is no centralized database system that can track registered student’s list for a course • The system does not have any means of showing all semester results for all courses in a single sheet. 3.2 Description of the Proposed System

The new result processing system automates all operations and administrative activities related to course registration and examinations result processing in a department of a university. Thus the basic activities carried out in a manual system are performed by a computer. The system has two actors, the student and the administrator. The primary source of student’s list comes from the admission list.

The admission list is typed in an excel spreadsheet and submitted to the administrator. He uploads the file into the MYSQL database for storage. When a student comes to register for courses, he logs into the portal with a username and a

xxxvi password. The password “computer” is general for everybody. This is to enable the student log on to the portal. After logging in, the portal opens a window with his surname scrolling across the window. This is to show that this student has logged into the software. At this level, he cannot access the registration form or view result if he is a first time user. A first time registration requires the student to change the password to any name of his/her choice. When this is done, he will be given access to register courses, edit courses or print registered courses. Student registration is stored into the MYSQL database in a registration table. Lecturers prepare students’ results in an excel spreadsheet with their own systems. The result is saved in an excel format and transferred into a CD. The CDs are submitted to the administrator who uploads the softcopy result into the MYSQL database. The system provides a component that is capable of tracking each student’s result from the result sheet and automatically calculates the GPA for each semester. With this, the student is able to view all his results together with the GPA for the semester.

The software was designed by articulating the manual processes and automating the processes. The automation is carried out by presenting each manual data process as data objects. The data objects represent real-world entities e.g. course registration. It has a set of attributes or properties and operations that can be carried out on it. The object-oriented software captures the various data objects of the system and establishes relationships and interaction among the objects. In the result processing system, data objects are represented as a class object. The classes are: student class; course class; registration class; result class and administration class. Each class is an entity of its own with a known set of characteristics and operations that can be performed on it. The student class contains the student admission list. The administrator can add or delete a student’s record. He can also print the list of registered students. The “course-class” contains all the courses that

xxxvii are offered in the department. The administrator can equally add or delete courses according to the current national universities commission (NUC) and departmental specifications. The “registration-class” contains the name and registration number of student together with the courses registered for a semester. If a student registered for a module that he will not take, he will be required to meet the administrator to drop the module. Only the administrator is authorized to access the registration table. The result class contain the student’s result uploaded from excel file. The administrator’s class contains the administrator’s ID and his profile. He performs the following functions. Add or delete a student’s record, Add or delete courses, Upload result, Calculate GPA and CGPA.

3.3 Design of the Proposed System The envisioned system will be realized through the following processes viz:

3.3.1 Design Methodology

An Object-oriented programming (OOAD) was used for this design. Object- oriented programming (OOAD) is a programming paradigm that presents software design process as real life objects. These objects are entities that have data fields (attributes that describe the object) and associated procedures known as methods. Objects, presented in a code format are usually instances of classes and they interact with one another to implement a computer application and programs. It has two main components: the state (data) and the behavior (method).

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3.3.2 Justification for the use of this Design Methodology

An Object-Oriented software enables:

• Increased understanding - Software design process when presented with the Object- oriented analysis makes the understanding of the software easier. Using the course registration and result processing system for example, the system will have objects such as Students, Courses and Staff. The system will support behaviors such as course registration, student’s profile update and staff profile update. Further class refinement can be achieved by breaking down the objects into different levels. Example, the course class can be refined as 1st year, 2nd and 3rd year courses. Each year courses can further be broken down into first and second semester courses. • Code Reusability: the code for a particular function is articulated under one file, this function can be called up as often as possible for reuse. E.g. the header file. The header or title for the software “course registration and result processing system” is placed in one Html file and it is called up for reuse in all the files such that every web page has the header name or title. • Ease of maintenance: Problem with one file do not affect the other files. Diagnosis can easily be traced to the source and corrected.

3.3.3 Design Tool

The design tool used in this work is the UML. The Unified Modeling Language is a standard graphical notation for describing software analysis and designs. UML has symbols to assist in describing and documenting every part of the application development process. When a standardized notation is used, it provides an efficient

xxxix means of communication. In the course registration and result software, I identified two objects as actors and are modeled as follows: i. Students

ii. Administrator Upload Biodata

Print Courses STUDENT View Results Upload Students

Add Courses

Add & Edit Staff ADMINISTRATOR

Print Class List

Print Course List

Upload Results Print Results Figure 3.1 is a use case diagram that represents a summary of activities of the Update Session course registration and result processing system. The two major actors of the Figure 3.1 The Use Case Diagram system are:

1. The student: the student can register for a course, he can revisit the site and edit the courses, prints a form that contains a list of all the courses registered, and he can also view his result. 2. The Administrator: this is a staff authorized to have access to the software. At the beginning of the session, he first of all updates the session and uploads various files in an excel format. He uploads courses that will be taken that session, students who have registered

for their respective courses and then uploads result when it is ready. The administrator also calculates the student’s GPA and CGPA.

Functionality of the Use Case diagram.

The functional use case explains the functionality of each of the activities symbolized in the use case diagram.

1. Upload Biodata:- this is a web-page that inserts the student’s profile data into the database system. The raw data is gotten from the department and transferred into a digital form by typing into an excel template. The excel data is then upload into the system. 2. Register/Edit Courses:- this page allows a student to register for his/her courses online. 3. Print Courses:- A view is created where the student can view all registered courses before printing the courses. 4. View Results:- A student is also given the rights to see results of all registered courses. 5. Upload Students:- this is a module that transfers student’s list from excel file to the portal system. 6. Add Courses:- the web-page inserts into the database system all courses and course description that is offered in the department. 7. Add & Edit Staff:- this is a page that adds the names and qualifications of all staff in the department into the database. 8. Print Class List:- A list of class members is generated from database. This list comes from the excel data and uploaded by the administrator in the upload student’s page.

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9. Print Course List:- this generates list of all courses offered in the department. The list is generated according to the specification by the admin officer. 10. Upload Results:- the admin is given the rights to upload student’s results that is given by the examiner. 11. Print Results:- the admin can print the student’s result from the database 12. Update session:- the admin officer has the privileges to allow student’s registration at the beginning of the session and terminates the registration at the end of the session.

Figure 3.2 shows the technical representation of the various classes.

Students Course Serial No (varchar (2)) Course Title (varchar(20)) Reg. No (varchar(10)) Course Code (varchar(10)) Surname (varchar(30)) Unit Load (varchar(10)) Othernames (varchar(30))

Gender (varchar(10)) 1 *

Level (varchar(10)) Registration OPERATIONS Department (varchar(10)) Student’s Name varchar(30) Add courses () Programme (varchar(4)) Delete courses () Student’s Reg.No varchar(10) Faculty (varchar(17)) * * xlii Course Code varchar(20) Local Government(varchar(5))

State (varchar(10)) OPERATIONS Result

Hometown (varchar(50)) Add module () Student’s Name varchar(30)

3.3.4 Database Design

Database is a collection of entities with related information. In the design of the course registration and result process system, the various related entities are: adminlogin, studentlogin, bio-data, course, level, result, semester and session file. The Student Bio-data table shows the student’s profile, the course table contains all courses that are offered in the department. The registration table pulls data from the Bio-data table and the course table. The result table is a combination of the student’s biodata and the course registered, score, grade and grade-point. The

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Admin table is the necessary profile information that the Admin would have in order to access the software. Figure 3.3 is a screen shot of the database tables.

Figure 3.3 Screenshot of the Database tables

The table structures are shown below.

Table 3.2 Student Bio-data

Field Type Null Extra Reg.no Varchar(11) No Primary key Surname Varchar(15) No Table 3.3 Admin Othernames Varchar(30) No Gender Varchar(7) No

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Field Type Null Extra Surname Varchar(15) No Level Varchar(20) No Othername Varchar(20) No Session Varchar(20) No password Varchar(10) No Primary key Department Varchar(30) No Programme Varchar(30) No Faculty Varchar(30) No

Local Govt Varchar(30) No State Varchar(30) No Table 3.4 Courses Hometown Varchar(30) No Field Type Null Extra Sponsor’s Varchar(30) No Course-code Varchar(10) No Primary key Name Course-Title Varchar(30) No Sponsor’s Varchar(30) No Unit-Load Varchar(2) No Contact Address Phone No Varchar(30) No Student’s Varchar(30) No Photo

Table 3.5 Course Registration

Field Type Null Extra Surname Varchar(30) No Othernames Varchar(30) No Reg.no Varchar(11) No Foreign key Level Varchar(1) No

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Session Varchar(9) No Course-code Varchar(6) No Foreign key Date Date No

Note: the two foreign keys: Reg.no and Course-code uniquely identifies the course registration table. Reg.no is the primary key of the Bio-data table and course-code is the primary key of the Course table.

Table 3.6 Result table

Field Type Null Extra Surname Varchar(15) No Othernames Varchar(30) No Reg.no Varchar(11) No Foreign key Level Varchar(1) No Session Varchar(9) No Course-code Varchar(6) No Foreign key Assessment Int (2) No Score Exam Score Int(2) No Grade char(1) No Date Date No

3.3.5 The Input and Output Design

The input design shows the template for the user’s input. Data is entered into the system through the input form. The students enter data through the course registration forms while the admin officer has separate forms for uploading the

xlvi students’ biodata and students’ result. The login forms are shown in figures 3.4 and 3.5

Input Form for the Student’s Login

Student Login Form

Student Course Registration and Examination Result Portal

Home Student login Admin Login About

Enter Your Reg.No and Password to log in

Reg. No

Password

Figure 3.4 Student’s Login Form

Input Form for the Admin Login

Admin Login Form

Student Course Registration and Examination Result Portal

Home Student login Admin Login About

Enter Your Password to log in

Password

Input Form for the Student’s Course Registration Log in

Figure 3.5 Admin Login Form UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA, NSUKKA

STUDENTS’ COURSE REGISTRATION AND RESULT PORTAL

WELCOME, ASIRI YOUxlvii HAVE SUCCESSFULLY LOGGED IN

PROFILE REGISTER COURSES VIEW REGISTERED COURSES MY RESULT LOGOUT

Students’ Course Form at the point of registering courses.

UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA NSUKKA DEPARTMENTAL STUDENTS’ COURSE REGISTRATION AND RESULT PORTAL xlviii WELCOME, ASIRI YOU HAVE SUCCESSFULLY LOGGED IN

MY PROFILE REGISTER COURSES VIEW REGISTERED COURSE MY RESULT LOGOUT

The Input Form for Uploading the Student’s Biodata and Result

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Figure 3.8 Input Form for uploading student’s result

Input Form for Adding courses

Figure 3.9 Input Form for adding student’s courses

Output Design The output design is the design of the results the user expects to get when he logs in and uses the software. The major thing a student does with the software is to register courses and view result online. After registering for courses online, he/she can print the registered courses. Figure 3.10 shows the printout of the registration forms. UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA NSUKKA

OFFICE OF THE REGISTRAR

STUDENT’S COURSE REGISTRATION PROFILE REPORT

passport

NAMES REG.NO FACULTY DEPARTMENT SESSION SEMESTER SEX

ASIRI TIMOTHY 2014/123456 PHYSICAL SCIENCES COMPUTER SCIENCE 2014/2015 FIRST MALE

MARITAL STATUS RELIGION LEVEL PROGRAMME NATIONALITY STATE GSM

SINGLE CHRISTIANITY 100 B.Sc NIGERIAN IMO STATE 08012345678

DATE OF BIRTH LGA HOMETOWN HOSTEL SPONSOR’S NAME SPONSOR’S ADDRS SPONSOR’S GSM

26/04/1995 ORSU AMAZU 202 BALEWA MR ASIRI 22 AWO ROAD 08011234567

COURSE TITLE UNIT

BIO151 GENERAL BIOLOGY I 3 COS101 INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTER SCIENCE 2 MTH111 ELEMENTARY MATHEMATICS I 3 MTH112 ELEMENTARY MATHEMATICS II 3 PHY191 PRACTICAL PHYSICS I 2 STA131 INFERENCE I 3 ………………………………………..TOTAL CREDIT UNIT EARNED = 16………………………………………………………….

ACADEMIC ADVISER’S SIGN …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. DATE…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. HOD’S SIGN ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………lii . DATE ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… PRINT REGISTRATION FORM In order to View Result, the student will have to specify the session, the semester, the level and then click on the view result button underneath before the result will be shown. Figure 3.11 shows the screen shot of the process. Also figure 3.12 produces a screenshot of the semester transcript result.

UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA NSUKKA STUDENTS’ COURSE REGISTRATION AND RESULT PORTAL

MY RESULT PROFILE REGISTER COURSES VIEW COURSES LOGOUT GPA CGPA

WELCOME, ASIRI YOU HAVE SUCCESSFULLY LOGGED IN

..SELECT SESSION.. ˅ ..SELECT SEMESTER.. ˅ ..SELECT LEVEL.. ˅

VIEW RESULT

Figure 3.11 The view result form

Design of the student’s semester result

****************OFFICIAL STUDENT SEMESTER TRANSCRIPT REPORT***************** NAME: AMAH MARYLYN CHIDIMMA

REG.NO: 2011/175769

DEPT: COMPUTER SCIENCE

SEMESTER: SECOND

LEVEL: 100 Course Title Unit Score Grade Point Bio 151 Basic Biology 3 56 C 9

Chm 111 Introduction to Chemistry 2 78 A 10 Cos 101 Introduction to Computer 2 56 C 8

GSP 101 Use of English 2 67 B 8 Mth 111 Introduction to Mathematics 3 43 E 3

Mth 112 Calculus 3 44 E 3 Phy 104 Introduction to Physics 3 45 D 6 Total Credit Earned…18 Total Grade Point…47 Grade Point Average...2.61 Checked By ………………………………………………………liii ..Sign:………………………………Date……………

Figure 3.12 the semester transcript result

UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA

OFFICIAL GRADE REPORT & CLASS ROSTER

Title of Course INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTER SCIENCE

Examination Date

Department COMPUTER SCIENCE Course No: CS101 Session: 2014/2015 Units 2

Faculty PHYSICAL SCIENCES Semester FIRST Academic Year 2014 Name of Lecturer DR. G.A.M IKEKEONWU EXAM S/N NAMES REG.NO DEPARTMENT LEVEL TEST SCORE TOTAL GRADE 1 Asiri Timothy M 2014/123456 Computer Science 100 15 40 55 C

2 Eze Frank Jude 2014/123457 Computer Science 100 14 30 44 E 3 Asogwa Samuel J 2014/123458 Computer Science 100 23 42 65 B

4 Okoye Ruth I 2014/123458 Computer Science 100 20 51 71 A

5 Oleka Franklin 2014/123458 Computer Science 100 23 45 68 B

6 Uturu Daniel Luke 2014/123458 Computer Science 100 18 62 80 A

7 Okenna Joy Getrude 2014/123458 Computer Science 100 13 34 47 E

8 Ndu Obilor I 2014/123458 Computer Science 100 27 40 67 B

9 Agbo Kelvin Jude 2014/123458 Computer Science 100 09 20 29 F

10 Obetta Samson 2014/123458 Computer Science 100 21 54 75 A

11 Asadu Ndubuisi 2014/123458 Computer Science 100 15 45 60 B

Lecturer’s Sign…………………………………….Date…………………

Head of Dept’s Sign………………………………Date………………..

Name of Head of Dept……………………………………………………. liv SUMMARY OF GRADES A’s…………………B’s………………….C’S……………………D’S……………………E’S………………………………F’s………………

Figure 3.13 Lecturer’s Result Sheet

The design in figure 3.13 is the lecturer’s result report after uploading result from excel file. The administrator uses the existing data of the database to query the system and produce this Official Result Sheet.

The Semester Broadsheet Report

The semester broadsheet report as shown in figure 3.14 produces all the semester results of a class in a single sheet. In the broadsheet report represented below, each row contains a student’s name with his/her result details. The column titled “courses offered” lists courses registered by a student. Each course is enclosed in a bracket together with the course code, the credit load for the course, the grade obtained in the course and the grade point. The system picks the information and then generates the total credits unit of all registered courses, total grade point earned and the grade point average of a particular student.

UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA, NSUKKA OFFICIAL SEMESTER BROADSHEET REPORT

S/N NAMES REG.NO COURSES OFFERED TOTAL TOTAL GRADE

COURSE CODE: CREDIT LOAD: GRADE: POINT CREDIT GRADE POINT EARNED POINT AVERAGE

1 ASIRI TIMOTHY 2014/123456 (COS101:2:B:8)(MTH112:4:A:20)(BIO151:3:A:15) 9 43 4.7

2 EZE FRANK JUDE 2014/123457 (COS101:2:B:4)(MTH111:3:A:15)(BIO151:3:C:9) 8 32 4.0 3 ASOGWA SAMUEL 2014/123458 (COS101:2:B:8)(MTH112:3:A:15)(BIO151:3:A:15) 8 38 4.75

4 OKOYE RUTH 2014/123459 (COS101:2:A:10)(MTH111:3:A:15)(BIO151:3:B:12) 8 37 4.62

5 OLEKA FRANKLIN 2014/123460 (COS101:2:C:6)(MTH111:3:A:15)(BIO151:3:B:12) 8 29 3.6

6 UTURU DANIEL 2014/123461 (COS101:2:A:10)(MTH111:3:A:15)(BIO151:3:A:15) 8 40 5.0

7 OKENNA JOY 2014/123462 (COS101:2:A:10)(MTH111:3:A:15)(BIO151:3:C:9) 8 34 4.25

8 NDU OBILOR 2014/123463 (COS101:2:D:4)(MTH111:3:A:15)(CHM111:2:A:10) 7 29 4.14

9 AGBO KELVIN 2014/123464 (COS101:2:A:10)(MTH111:3:A:15)(BIO151:3:D:9) 8 34 4.25

10 OBETTA SAMSOM 2014/123465 (COS101:2:A:10)(MTH111:3:A:15)(BIO151:3:A:15) 8 40 5.0

11 ASADU NDUBUISI 2014/123466 (PHY104:4:A:20)(PHY191:2:A:10)(BIO151:3:D:6) 9 36 4.0 lv

Figure3.14Official Semester Broadsheet Figure 3.15 shows the aggregate of all the GPAs accumulated by a student in the cause of his/her study. Each year has the first and second semester GPA and then computation of all the GPAs gives the CGPA.

UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA, NSUKKA

OFFICIAL CUMMULATIVE BROADSHEET REPORT

S/N Names Reg.No First Year GPA Second Year GPA Third Year GPA Fourth Year GPA CGPA 1ST 2ND 1ST 2ND 1ST 2ND 1ST 2ND

1 ASIRI TIMOTHY 2014/123456 4.75 4.65 3.65 3.73 3.95 4.0 4.24 4.43 4.175

2 EZE FRANK J 2014/123457 4.35 4.57 4.45 3.95 4.00 4.23 4.57 4.12 4.280

3 ASOGWA SAMUEL 2014/123458 3.55 3.77 4.12 4.00 3.98 3.65 4.36 4.55 4.125

4 OKOYE RUTH I 2014/123459 2.56 3.00 3.58 3.91 4.10 4.23 4.11 4.62 4.002 5 OLEKA FRANKLIN 2014/123460 3.71 4.11 4.12 4.45 4.35 4.12 4.30 3.55 4.152

6 UTURU DANIEL L 2014/123461 4.00 3.57 3.76 4.01 3.55 4.23 4.16 4.35 4.000

7 OKENNA JOY G 2014/123462 2.95 3.21 3.75 3.19 4.00 3.91 4.41 4.25 3.952 8 NDU OBILOR I 2014/123463 4.11 3.90 3.87 4.10 3.63 3.75 4.07 4.45 3.890 9 AGBO KELVIN J 2014/123464 4.24 4.56 3.56 4.53 3.12 3.20 3.23 3.78 3.863

10 OBETTA SAMSON 2014/123465 3.75 2.65 3.90 3.55 3.45 3.65 3.75 4.00 3.755 11 ASADU NDUBUISI 2014/123466 4.22 4.13 3.24 2.65 2.98 3.00 3.67 3.55 3.457

Figure3.15Official Cummulative Broadsheet

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3.4 Systems Architecture

The system was designed in a 3tier architecture as shown in figure 3.16. The 3-tier architecture comprises of :-

(1). The Presentation Tier:- This software level presents the user with the interface. It was designed with a HTML.

(2). The Middle Tier:- This level serves as an intermediary between the interface and the database. It picks data entered by the user through the interface and either inserts it into the database or compares with the already existing data in the database

(3). The Data tier:- This is the third tier of the software architecture. It is the database that allows the insertion, storage and retrieval of any information.

The System Architecture The Database Tier

The Presentation Tier

Student’s Input Form

Profile Update The Middle Tier List of all registered students Course Registration List of courses offered SQL QUERY in the department Admin Input Form Class result for a course LANGUAGE Individual Student’s Upload Student AND PHP CODE transcript Result Broadsheet Report Upload Result Cummulative

Add Courses Broadsheet Report

Add Staff lvii

Figure3.16Diagram of the System Architecture

CHAPTER 4: SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION

4.0 INTRODUCTION

System implementation has to do with the conversion of the system’s conceptual and logical designs into a physical implementation. Implementation activities include selection and installation of chosen language, coding, debugging, testing, documentation, training and user manual. In this project work, a WAMP server was installed on a system and the software was coded on its IDE and deployed on a localhost. The coding involves a systematic representation of the system’s model in an automated form under a choice development environment. Debugging and testing the software include removing the errors of the system at the different stages of its development and running the system severally as each error is debugged. The software runs well on a local server following the architectural structure stipulated in the design.

4.1 DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT

The development environment used in this project work “Course Registration and Result Processing System” is HTML and MYSQL database. HTML was used to create the interfaces, the forms and the logins. It enables a formal presentation of the PHP code to the web and facilitates the creation of web-pages. MYSQL server is a web-based database software that allows a multi-user access. The minimum attributes of a system required to run the package on a localhost are: Pentium 4 system, windows XP operating system, 100GB dataspace and 1GB memory space.

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4.2 CHOICE OF THE PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE USED

The choice of programming language used depends on the suitability of the language attributes to the scope and usage of the system developed. PHP is a scripting language. It facilitates the development of a web-based program and creation of web-pages. The WAMP server has some sets of scripts, logs, SQL manager and php code that enable communication between the MYSQL database and HTML. The system developed is an online system that allows multi usage. The wamp server enables data to be shared among users online and secures the data from the various users. The cascading style sheet formats the presentation of a web page to the end-user. It creates a suitable and user friendly outlook for the user interface. These attributes informed the choice of the language used.

4.3 IMPLEMENTATION ARCHITECTURE

Figure 4.1 shows a diagrammatic representation of all components involved in the software and their linkages. In this project, only two persons are guaranteed access to the software Home Page

Administrator Login

Student’s Login Upload Students Add Courses

View Broadsheet

Upload Result Course Administrator Registration Check Result Promote Student

PRINT TRANSCRIPTlix Logout

Student Home Page Figure 4.1 Implementation Architecture

4.4 SOFTWARE TESTING

The system was tested at every stage of its development in other to detect and remove errors. During the development, a parallel testing was conducted to check the correspondences between the manual output report and automated report. Though the presentation format of the automated report slightly vary,there is a uniform information.

Integration of modules: Some modules were found to work better when they were independent than when they were integrated together.

I tested the performance of the software in different web browsers. It was found to perform better with a Mozilla Firefox browser.

The query language was used and tested to know its ability to generate different kinds of report. It was found out that the input data structure in the database design must correspond to the user’s input. Eg entering a course code with space in between as in “COS 101” in the course input table would not generate the adequate report if the table design structure does not have the space in between. Again, character length specified in the design table must be used in the character data entry.

The cascading style sheet was tested by changing the settings until a suitable rendering was achieved. The higher the parameter’s value the more visible and suitable outlook it presents. The system was run on a localhost at the end of the implementation and it was found to work well.

4.5 DOCUMENTATION

This piece of write up presents the user on how to install and use the system. The software was designed with a wamp server. The wamp server contains the PHP development environment, HTML and the MYSQL database. The wamp server used, is Wamp5_1.7.2. It will be installed on a system following a normal installation process. During the installation process, it creates a folder called www folder. Locate the www folder and copy the developed software folder into www folder. Then create a database in the MYSQL server with the name result. Move back to the software folder and locate the database queries saved in a notepad. Copy the contents of the file one after the other into the result query window. This creates the various tables of the result database. Right click on any part of the result window and click on reload. The system is refreshed and is ready for use. The admin who has been given a password, clicks on the wamp5 server icon and clicks on a localhost. The localhost window opens with menus “Tools ; Your Projects ; Your aliases” under “tools”, click on phpMyAdmin2.10.1 to access the database tables. Under “your project”, click on result and the software opens. The procedure for the system’s usage is given in the user’s manual.

4.5.1 Software Modules

The software package was saved in a folder called result in a file pathway: computer > window(c)> wamp> www> result. The main software developed is called result. The Result folder comprises different modules developed in a piecemeal with a scripting language. The database is designed with a

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PhpMyadmin. The database comprises 11 different tables each with a unique field. Selection of records from the different tables generates the software output. The software modules together with the database tables are integrated together to form a larger application. They are as follows:

i. The Homepage module:- this is an index file. It marks the beginning of all programming module and establishes a link or connection string that connects to the other module files. ii. The changepassword:- this file contains the change parameters that confirms a student’s registration and assign a new identification parameter to him. The student’s password uniquely identifies a student. iii. The add file:- this is the interface for adding courses into the databases. The header code, the input code, the footer code and the image code are embedded into the folder. iv. The addcheck file:- this is the folder that contains the middle tier code that connects the software interface and the database. It makes use of SQL statements to insert data from a user to a database. v. The Adminlogin file:- the module contains link to the other programme interfaces. It accepts the admin’s password and marches between the one entered by the admin and the one in the database. vi. The biodata file:- the biodata file is contained in a module that allows students to register and to edit their personal information. vii. The register file:- this is the module that contains the course registration interface. It enables a user to select courses he would offer for a semester and code that will view all registered courses. viii. The registercheck file:- this is made up of SQL statement that establishes a handshake between the user interface and the database. It checks the

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database and confirms the validity of the student’s entry. If the course registration requirements are not met, a check code will restrict the student from submitting the registered courses. ix. The Addstaff, Adddepartment, Addfaculty file:- these modules allow the addition of a new staff into the database, addition of a department or a faculty into the database. x. The uploadresult file:- this file contains the method that imports result file from an excel spreadsheet into the MYSQL database. xi. The uploadresultcheck:- it checks the excel template so as to match the field parameters of the template to the existing MYSQL database. xii. The viewbroadsheet file:- this module presents the interface that shows the summary of every student’s result of a particular session and a particular level. xiii. The viewbroadsheetcheck file:- this is the connection string between the interface and the database. At a click of view broadsheet button, the code here loads the contents of the result database into a template for the user’s view xiv. The viewresult file:- this is a module that generates the student’s semester result. It combines the indexes keys of the session, semester and level table in a query and produces the result of exactly that semester xv. The viewtranscript file:- this is a query module built into HTML file that generates a particular student’s result from first year to final year. xvi. The viewclasslist file:- the classlist module concatenates the unique strings of a department, session and year of study of a particular class and prints a list of their results. xvii. The courselist file:- the course list presents the user with the list of all courses offered in each class for a department.

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xviii. The uploadimage file:- this file into the database student’s photo. It connects to the database and places the student’s photo together with his Reg.no, and name and saves as a blob in the database.

4.5.2 User Guide/Manual

1. The administrator enters the portal with a password. He has the following list of menus to use. Home; Activates session; Upload students; Update Staff Profile; Add courses; Upload result; View or print broadsheet; Print Lecturer’s Grade sheet report; Print Class List; Print Registered students for a course; Promote students; End registration; Logout 2. He activates the session in other to keep the registration portal open so that students can register their courses 3. He uploads the student’s list into the database from an excel template. The list is gotten from the department’s admission list. The admin can upload a list of old students or the new students. At the upload of the new students, each student is given a general password. He logs into the system with it and then changes it to a personal password. The difference between the old and new upload interface is that the old interface request for the year of study of those particular students. 4. He inputs courses offered in the department through the add course form or can as well upload from excel template. He inputs the course code, course title and unit load of all courses offered in the department. 5. The Admin is given the privilege to insert into database the profile list of a new staff in the department. He can also add departments and faculty into the existing list in the database. He also has the right to call up the information in a database and make necessary changes to it.

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6. He views or prints the result of a particular student for a semester or for a period of time. He can also print the result of a particular class for a semester. The print student’s result interface request for the student’s registration number, his year of study, session and department. The class results interface request for the class year of study, department and session then produces the result which can be printed. 7. The admin views or prints various lists in the database. he views the class list or course list in which case the relevant fields in the database uploads into the view interface. He can also export files from the system’s database by clicking on the saving button on the user interface and the data is exported. 8. The admin has rights to validate registration, edit registration and backup information in the database. He backs up the information by saving in a CD Rom or another Hard Drive. 9. The student logs into the portal with a password and registers his courses. The student’s portal page has the following list of menus. Home; Register courses; Edit courses; View or Print Registered courses; View Result; View or Print GPA; View or Print CGPA; Logout. The Home menu and the logout menu take the student to the homepage of the system. A click at the Register courses opens a page that request students to indicate their faculty, department, year of study, session and semester before the registration page opens. The page opens the course registration form and the student fills in courses as specified by the department. A click at the view result button requests for the student’s level, semester and session before the result interface opens to show the student’s result. Note: The student’s result sheet will only be available if the student has duly registered for the courses and the result was successfully uploaded. The

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View CGPA module shows the student’s result for a period of time. The View CGPA can equally serve as a transcript. The only difference is that in the View CGPA, the user can opt to view his result for a particular period of time while transcript generates result at the end of the student’s programme. A click at the edit course level request from the user the course code of the affected course and then upload the course details for the user to correct. The view registered course presents to the user all courses he registered, the total unit load of the courses and the student’s profile information. 10. At the end of the course registration, the admin officer ends the registration session such that the system will not allow any further course registration. 11. The student’s result file are submitted by the lecturers in an excel template. The admin officer uploads the result file for the semester from the excel template into the database. 12. The admin ends registration at the end of each semester and at the beginning of a new semester, he activates the semester and the students continue with the course registration of the new semester. 13. At the beginning of a new session, the admin activates the session and the semester and promotes students to the next level. 14. The same process starts again and continues until the student graduates.

4.5.3 Software Installation

A WAMP server will have to be installed on the system first. During installation, choose the type of web browser that will drive the system on a localhost. Then you upload the software script languages in a www folder. Install the tables using SQL create and insert statements or you export them from the original system and import into the user’s system. The system is ready to use then the Admin will be given the Admin password.

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4.5.4 Source Code Listing

This is a list that contains the program source codes. The codes are placed in the appendix II of this project report.

CHAPTER 5: SUMMARY & CONCLUSION

5.0 SUMMARY

The new course registration and result processing system is an enhanced automated software that is built to eradicate the major problem inherent in the current system. The development of this system arose because of the growing rate at which students overstay in the school and the semi manual/digital method of result computation. A study investigated the cause of these problems and conclusion was drawn that it is caused by improper course registration and the manual method of result computation. Therefore the new system targets to arrest this situation by building features in the software that could not only produce a better system but mandate students to register any of their failed outstanding courses before registering for the new courses in the current session and rewriting the exam on time.

Secondly, study into the result processing system exposed the laborious nature of the system; it is time consuming and less effective. The new system is developed with the capability to extract students result from an excel result template and calculate the semester GPA for the student. This will not only enable the students to access themselves and improve their performance but will also help the exam officer to articulate and compile students result at final year.

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5.1 CONCLUSION

In conclusion, this project presents a software application that is capable of storing and processing students’ results with high speed and accuracy and presenting the output in a certain required forms. It’s qualities include enabling error free registration, reduction in the cost and time spent in computing GPAs/CGPAs, faster generation of a semester transcript per student and enabling the exam officer to view every session result of a whole class in a single sheet called the broadsheet, The Application is easy to use, reasonably secure and enforces data integrity resulting from the use of a relational database management system.

5.2 RECOMMENDATIONS

The findings of this study exposed some salient issues in the student’s course registration process that would require further automation. It is hoped that these issues will advance and promote further researches in schools and colleges. The recommendations derived from this study are:

1. Student’s awareness of their past academic performance increases their performance in subsequent semesters in school. It is recommended that students result should be made available on time so that he/she can access himself before registering for new courses.

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2. Methodologies deployed in the system can be harnessed to allow the excel software to interface with the MYSQL server in other to generate and present the broadsheet report from it. This is the only way that the broadsheet can be shown on a single sheet. 3. The system can be reprogrammed to allow semester transcript result to be duly endorsed by any staff in charge online before the student can print a copy of the result. 4. A component should be built into the excel result template so that the HOD can endorse the result on the spreadsheet file and then submit it to the administrator himself. This is to increase the reliability of the data in the result template. Once the HOD handles and endorses the result, changes cannot be made to the result.

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REFERENCES

[1] Moses E. Ekpenyong.‘A Real-Time IKBS for Students Results Computation’, International Journal of Physical Sciences (Ultra Scientist of Physical Sciences) Volume 20, Number 3(M), (2008) Page 2

[2] Akinmosin James. Automated Students Result Management System Using Oracle’s Database, Forms and Reports. Journal of Information Engineering and Applications. Vol.4, No.11, (2014) Page 1

[3] Ukem Eyo O. and Ofoegbu Francis A. ‘A Software Application for University Students Results Processing’ Journal of Theoretical and Applied Information Technology. Vol. 35 No.1, (2012) Page 1, 34-39

[4] Ezenma A. Añulika. Design and Implementation of Result Processing System for Public Secondary Schools in Nigeria. Department of Information Technology,National open university of Nigeria Lafia, Nasarawa state.Vol 3, Issue 01. January 2014. Page 123

[5] Anigbogu, S.O. Computer Application and Operation First Edition. Optimum Press, Awka. (2000). Page 18.

[6] Emmanuel B and Choji D.N. ‘A Software Application for Colleges of Education Students Results Processing’. Journal of Information Engineering and Applications. Vol. 2, No.11, (2012) Page 12-18

[7] Marcandy. Design and Implementation of Course Registration and Result Processing System. Caritas University, Amorji Nike Enugu. (2012). Page 13, 50-60

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[8] Cardiff University. ‘Examination Result Processing Manual’. External Examiner Handbook, http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/regis/ifs/exex/index.html. (2012).Page 16-25

[9] MySQL Expert Guide: Available online: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.6/en/tutorial.html. [10] Ukem E.O and Onoyom-Ita E.O‘A Software Application for the Processing Of Students Results’, Global Journal of Pure and Applied Sciences Volume 17 No.4. (2011) Page 1

[11] Ekpo Dan. ‘Registration and result processing system in Covenant University’ (2002) page 9-12 [12] Odera Tom Akal and Oloko Margaret A. ‘Effect of Online Registration on Exam Performance in Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education Enrolment.’ American International Journal of Contemporary Research. Vol. 3 No.7 (2013), page 118

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Appendix I

Below are screenshots of the system interfaces, the logins, input and output forms of the application.

Figure 4.2 shows the homepage with menu for the user’s login.

Figure 4.3 shows the Admin login page where he can either add a course, add staff, upload results, view broadsheet and prints reports etc.

Figure 4.4 shows the form the Add-Course Form.

Figure 4.5 shows the result uploaded interface. Here the Admin can select the necessary details of a course and then upload data from an excel file.

Figure 4.6 shows the form for student course registration. Students select the session, the semester and the level. Click on the select course combo. It enlists all courses offered in that semester for the student’s registration.

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Figure 4.2 The Homepage

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Figure 4.3 The Admin Login page.

Figure 4.4 The Add Course Form

Figure 4.5 Result Upload Interface from Excel file.

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Figure 4.6 Student Course Registration Form at the point of registering.

Fig 4.7 An error page that disallow student to continue registration

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Figure 4.8 The Semester Broadsheet Report for a class or a level. Here only two students are duly registered.

The Lecturer’s Grade Sheet Report.

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Figure 4.9 The Lecturer’s Grade Sheet The Grade Sheet report shows result for all students whose results were duly uploaded but indicate their department and year of study only if they register for the courses.

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The Class List.

Figure 4.10 The Class List. This list displays the names of students who are duly registered in a class.

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Figure 4.11 The Semester Transcript Report for a single student

CGPA Report of a single student for a period of two years.

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Figure 4.12 The CGPA result for a period of two years

APPENDIX II:

SOURCE CODE LISTING

The Homepage Module

$myusername = $_SESSION['myusername'];

$myusername = strtoupper(stripslashes($myusername));

$host="localhost"; // Host name

$username="root"; // Mysql username

$password=""; // Mysql password

$db_name="result"; // Database name

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$tbl_name="studentlogin"; // Table name mysql_connect("$host", "$username", "$password")or die("cannot connect"); mysql_select_db("$db_name")or die("cannot select DB");

$sql="SELECT password FROM $tbl_name WHERE Jambno='$myusername'";

$result=mysql_query($sql);

$row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result);

$passwords = $row['password'];

$names = strtoupper(stripslashes($names)); if($passwords=='computer'){ session_register("myusername"); header("location:changepassword.php");

}

Course Registration

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$sql="SELECT names FROM biodata WHERE Jambno='$myusername'";

$result=mysql_query($sql);

$row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result);

$names = $row['names'];

$sql="SELECT image FROM photos WHERE Jambno='$myusername'";

$fetch = mysql_query($sql); while($rows = mysql_fetch_array($fetch)) {

$names = $row['names'];

}

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The Module That Upload Student’s List

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Course Registration

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0) { $file = fopen($filename, "r"); //$sql_data = "SELECT * FROM biodata "; while (($emapData = fgetcsv($file, 10000, ",")) !== FALSE) { //print_r($emapData); //exit(); $sql = "INSERT into biodata(Regno,surname,others,gender,level,session) values ('$emapData[0]','$emapData[1]','$emapData[2]','$emapData[3]','$emapData[4]','$e mapData[5]')"; $sql1 = "INSERT into studentlogin(Regno,surname,others,password) values ('$emapData[0]','$emapData[1]','$emapData[2]','computer')";

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$sql2 = "INSERT into endtime(timer,session) values ('0','$emapData[5]')"; $sql3 = "INSERT into session(session) values ('$emapData[5]')"; mysql_query($sql); mysql_query($sql1); mysql_query($sql2); mysql_query($sql3); } fclose($file); echo 'CSV File has been successfully Imported'; } else echo 'Invalid File:Please Upload CSV File'; } ?>

The Module that Registers Students

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$myusername = $username; $myusername = strtoupper(stripslashes($myusername)); $host="localhost"; // Host name $username="root"; // Mysql username $password=""; // Mysql password $db_name="result"; // Database name $tbl_name="studentlogin"; // Table name mysql_connect("$host", "$username", "$password")or die("cannot connect"); mysql_select_db("$db_name")or die("cannot select DB"); $sql="SELECT surname FROM $tbl_name WHERE regno='$myusername'"; $result=mysql_query($sql); $row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result); $surname = $row['surname']; $surname = strtoupper(stripslashes($surname)); ?> Course Registration

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The Module that Upload Result Course Registration

The Module that Generates Student’s Semester Result

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$sql="SELECT surname FROM $tbl_name WHERE regno='$myusername'"; $result=mysql_query($sql); $row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result); $surname = $row['surname']; $surname = strtoupper(stripslashes($surname)); ?> Course Registration

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The Module that generates a Graduate Student Transcript

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The module that Generates Broadsheet

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$username="root"; // Mysql username $password=""; // Mysql password $db_name="result"; // Database name $tbl_name="studentlogin"; // Table name mysql_connect("$host", "$username", "$password")or die("cannot connect"); mysql_select_db("$db_name")or die("cannot select DB"); $sql="SELECT surname FROM $tbl_name WHERE regno='$myusername'"; $result=mysql_query($sql); $row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result); $surname = $row['surname']; $surname = strtoupper(stripslashes($surname)); ?> Course Registration

The Module That Produces Grade Sheet

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$username = $_SESSION['myusername'];

$myusername = $username;

$myusername = strtoupper(stripslashes($myusername));

$host="localhost"; // Host name

$username="root"; // Mysql username

$password=""; // Mysql password

$db_name="result"; // Database name

$tbl_name="studentlogin"; // Table name mysql_connect("$host", "$username", "$password")or die("cannot connect"); mysql_select_db("$db_name")or die("cannot select DB");

$sql="SELECT names FROM $tbl_name WHERE Jambno='$myusername'";

$result=mysql_query($sql);

$row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result);

$names = $row['names'];

$names = strtoupper(stripslashes($names));

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Course Registration

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Select Faculty:	cvi
Select Department:
Select Course:
Select Session: