Software Implementation for Computerized Student Academic Advising System

PRELIMINARY PAGES

• Title page
• Approval page
• Dedication
• Acknowledgement
• Table of Contents
• Abstract

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

• 1.1 Introduction
• 1.2 Background of Study
• 1.3 Statement of Problem
• 1.4 Aim and Objectives of the Study
• 1.5 Significance of Study
• 1.6 Scope of the Study
• 1.7 Limitations of the Study
• 1.8 Definition of Terms

CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

• 2.1 Introduction
• 2.2 Conceptual Review of Study Academic Advising
• 2.3 Traditional Academic Advising Process
• 2.4 Challenges faced in the Traditional Advising Process
• 2.5 Benefits of Academic Advising
• 2.6 Prospect of Student Advising Services
• 2.7 Contributions of Web-based Advising System
• 2.8 Theoretical Framework
• 2.9 Concept of Student Registration
• 2.9.1 Online System User Registration
• 2.9.2 Usage of Online Registration Forms
• 2.10 Web Portal
• 2.10.1 Types of Web Portals
• 2.11 Database for Web Portals
• 2.11.1 Merits of Integrating Databases in Web Applications

CHAPTER THREE

SYSTEM ANALYSIS AND DESIGN

• 3.1 Methodology Adopted
• 3.1.1 Problem Identification Using SSADM
• 3.2 Analysis of the Existing System
• 3.2.1 Dataflow of the Existing System
• 3.2.2 Disadvantages Of The Existing System
• 3.2.3 Weakness of the existing System
• 3.3 Analysis of the Proposed System
• 3.3.1 Data Flow Diagram of the Proposed System
• 3.3.2 Advantages of the Proposed System
• 3.3.3 Justification of the Proposed System
• 3.4 Functional Requirements
• 3.4.1 Use Case Diagram Of The Admin / User Privileges
• 3.5 Data Requirements
• 3.6 High Level Model of the Proposed System

CHAPTER FOUR

SYSTEM DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION

• 4.1 Objectives of the Design
• 4.2 Cohesion and Decomposition High level Model
• 4.3 Control Center / Overall Dataflow Diagram
• 4.3.1 Proposed System Operation Flowchart
• 4.4 System Specification and Design
• 4.4.1 Input and Output Specification
• 4.4.2 Database Specification and Design
• 4.4.3 Data Dictionary
• 4.5 Choice and Justification of Programming Language
• 4.6 Program Documentation
• 4.7 Implementation Techniques
• 4.8 Programming Module Specification
• 4.8.1 Installation
• 4.8.2 Security Design Specification
• 4.8.3 System Architecture
• 4.9 Computer Hardware Minimum Requirement
• 4.10 Software Requirement
• 4.11 Personnel / User Training

CHAPTER FIVE

SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

• 5.1 Introduction
• 5.2 Summary
• 5.3 Conclusion
• 5.4 Recommendation

REFERENCES

APPENDIX A - “SOURCE CODE”

APPENDIX B - “OBJECT PROGRAM”

1.1 Introduction

Student Academic advising is an important and time-consuming task and different tools and techniques can be used to make it an effective and efficient process. Most of the process, however, relies on personal interactions between students and counselors, which leads to problems such as inconsistencies among different advisors and poor utilization of resources, since very often a good portion of the advisors’ time is spent answering recurrent questions and solving trivial class scheduling problems. In addition to hiring new faculty to take charge of the undergraduate advising tasks, the department also welcomed innovative ideas that could help improving the efficiency of the advising process.

As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Limitation of the study and Definition of technical terms.

1.2 Background of Study

Academic advising or counseling is said to be key to student success and academic achievements. The present academic advising method vary considerably and little is known about it productivity and effectiveness. These days, with the increase in poor academic performance by students in the current educational environment, strong academic advising system is an essential ingredient to improve students’ academy success, support the present advice system aimed at productive and efficient learning. Academic advising is an important key and activity of an academic institution. It provides guidelines and counsel to students to explore future careers paths, academic disciplines and other challenges accompanied with peer pressure. An automated, accurate and full functional advising system can be an effective tool for both students and academic advisors. The complex nature of academic syllabus, especially with recent changes in academic to general education and other degree requirements, this challenges poses a continuous challenge to faculty advisors to remain up-to-date. Academic counselling plays a vital role in creating an enabling educational environment for academic institution students. Furthermore, faculty advisers find it difficult cause the process is time consuming for academic advisors especially with the dynamic nature of combing other school activities with counselling. Despite these challenges, academic counsellors always try their very best to offer accurate, up-to-date and consistent advising information to their students.

Therefore, with the advancement in technology, there is a need to improve the educational counseling system, surely there is a need to advance even faster than the manual procedure. Since it affects a large percentage of students from different academic disciple. With the computerized system, they would be a great improvement in student academic performance, as the system will acts as a bridge to help bring better information to students and improve academic skill.

1.3 Statement of Problem

The Current method of giving counsel to students entails a lot of paper work and documentation, which sometimes leads to loss or damage, this traditional method depend greatly on the effort of the advisers to find the best counsel and suggestions to improve students’ academic performance. In institutions with large amount of students, academic advising is time-consuming and the only means to improve the way counsel is given to students is to implement an automated system that will make the process successfully and efficient.

There is a need for a computerized system that can give advice and offers immediate counselling to a large number of students at the same time, anytime any day. In the research, we outline a smart system, the system will assist students in improving their academic performance by giving academic advice relating to courses, students’ personal issues that meet their current needs and overall improve their academic performance.

1.4 Aim and Objectives of the Study

The aim of the study is to Design and Develop a Web-Based Student Academic Advising System that will offer Student Academic Advice and Orientation of the pros and cons of the Institution. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows to design and develop an application system that will:

1. Provide an automated student academic counseling system for schools, to ease the work load on school student advisers.
2. Provide real time counsel and advice to students anywhere, any time.
3. Help in the fight against students’ poor academic performance.
4. Store students’ complaint for easy retrieval.
5. Protect submitted entries from unauthorized personnel.
6. Establish a secured system against theft or loss of vital information.

1.5 Significance of Study

Academic advising is an important and time-consuming task and different tools and techniques can be used to make it an effective and efficient process. This study will be of immense benefit to other researchers who intend to know more on this study and can also be used by non-researchers to build more on their research work. This study contributes to knowledge and could serve as a guide for other study.

1.6 Scope of the Study

The scope of the research is focused on designing an automated secured student academic Advising System for tertiary institutions, when fully implemented, the system will solve the challenges of students’ record keeping, tracking complaints, reports and generally improve students’ general welfare.

1.7 Limitations of the Study

During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:

1. Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
2. Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
3. Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
4. Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet).

1.8 Definition of Terms

• Student: A student is primarily a person enrolled in a school or other educational institution who attends classes in a course to attain the appropriate level of mastery.
• Automated: operated electronically, that functions automatically, without continuous input from an operator.
• Adviser: An adviser or advisor is normally a person with more and deeper knowledge in a specific area.
• Academic: relating to education or school.
• Complaint: express dissatisfaction or annoyance about something.
• Computerized: to control, perform, process, or store (a system, operation, or information) by means of or in an electronic computer or computers.

Account Details - For USSD / POS Transfer

Account Name: Sparklyn Services Account No: 1222599051 Account Type: Current Bank Name: Zenith Bank PLC

Proposal Writing Format under Computer Science

Computerized Student Academic Advising System is a proposal topic for final year research work, which comprises the major and elective project proposal writing sections for Computerized Student Academic Advising System research work.

Major Sections

• Motivation for Embarking on the Project

• Brief Background of Study

• Statement of Problems

• Aim of the Study

• Specific Objectives of the Study

• Significance of the Study (Who benefits from the project and how?)

Elective Sections

• Methodology and Reason for Using It (such as; models, SSADM, or OOADM)

• Tools (programming languages and software used)