ABSTRACT

 

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

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 DECLARATION…………………………………………………………………………………………….. iii
CERTIFICATION …………………………………………………………………………………………………..iv
DEDICATION…………………………………………………………………………………………………………v
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ………………………………………………………………………………………..vi
ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………………………………………………. vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS………………………………………………………………………………………. viii
LIST OF FIGURES ……………………………………………………………………………………………… xiii
CHAPTER ONE: GENERAL INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………..1
1.1 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………..1
1.2 Research Motivation and Goals …………………………………………………………………….2
1.3 Research Question……………………………………………………………………………………….2
1.4 Research Objectives …………………………………………………………………………………….3
1.5 Methodology ………………………………………………………………………………………………3
1.6 Contributions to Knowledge …………………………………………………………………………4
1.7 Outline of Thesis …………………………………………………………………………………………5
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW……………………………………………………………….6
2.1 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………..6
ix
2.2 Related Work ……………………………………………………………………………………………..6
2.3 Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) …………………………………………………………10
2.4 Modern IS Design ……………………………………………………………………………………..12
2.4.1 Information System……………………………………………………………………………..12
2.4.2 Computer-Supported Cooperative Work ………………………………………………..13
2.4.3 Usability…………………………………………………………………………………………….14
2.4.4 Database Design …………………………………………………………………………………15
2.5 Summary ………………………………………………………………………………………………….17
CHAPTER THREE: DESIGN OF WeBAIS………………………………………………………………18
3.1 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………18
3.2 Students: WeBAIS-graduate and WeBAIS-undergraduate ……………………………..20
3.3 WeBAIS-graduate Specific Functionality……………………………………………………..21
3.3.1 Graduate Admissions…………………………………………………………………………..22
3.4 WeBAIS-undergraduate Specific Functionality …………………………………………….23
3.4.1 Student Admission Module ………………………………………………………………….23
3.4.2 Student Registration Module ………………………………………………………………..23
3.4.3 Student Result Checking Module ………………………………………………………….24
3.4.4 Student Evaluation of Teaching (Questionnaire) (SET)……………………………24
3.5 Faculty (WeBAIS-faculty) ………………………………………………………………………….24
x
3.6 Department Programs and Processes: WeBAIS-department ……………………………25
3.7 Staff: WeBAIS – Staff ……………………………………………………………………………….25
3.7.1 Staff Module ………………………………………………………………………………………25
3.7.2 Level Coordinator (Course Advisor) Module………………………………………….26
3.7.3 Departmental Examination Officer Module ……………………………………………26
3.7.4 Head of Department Module ………………………………………………………………..26
3.8 Summary ………………………………………………………………………………………………….27
CHAPTER FOUR: IMPLEMENTATION OF WeBAIS……………………………………………..28
4.1 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………28
4.2 System Design…………………………………………………………………………………………..29
4.3 System Architecture …………………………………………………………………………………..29
4.4 Application Architecture…………………………………………………………………………….31
4.5 System Design (Data Flow Diagram – (DFD))………………………………………………36
4.5.1 Difference with Flowcharts ………………………………………………………………….37
4.6 Web Interface Design…………………………………………………………………………………38
4.7 Database Design………………………………………………………………………………………..39
4.7.1 User Role Database Structure ……………………………………………………………….40
4.7.2 Content Management DB Structure……………………………………………………….41
4.7.3 SET – Database Structure …………………………………………………………………….42
xi
4.8 Code Design……………………………………………………………………………………………..43
4.8.1 Web Utility Classes …………………………………………………………………………….43
4.8.2 Authentication Related Classes …………………………………………………………….45
4.8.3 Data Object Related Classes …………………………………………………………………46
4.8.4 Tool Related Classes……………………………………………………………………………46
4.8.5 Summary……………………………………………………………………………………………47
4.9 System Security…………………………………………………………………………………………47
4.9.1 Authentication…………………………………………………………………………………….48
4.9.2 Authorization ……………………………………………………………………………………..50
4.9.3 Encryption and Decryption…………………………………………………………………..51
4.10 Summary ………………………………………………………………………………………………….52
CHAPTER FIVE: DEPLOYMENT and APPRAISAL ……………………………………………53
5.1 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………..53
5.2 WeBAIS Implementation Status……………………………………………………………….53
5.2.1 WeBAIS Deployment Requirements………………………………………………..56
5.3 Deployment …………………………………………………………………………………………….57
5.3.1 Questionnaire design ………………………………………………………………………..57
5.3.2 Results Presentation and Analysis…………………………………………………….58
5.4 Summary…………………………………………………………………………………………………64
xii

 

 

CHAPTER ONE

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

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