1.1 Introduction
The term portal is known as links page which presents information from diverse sources in a unified way. It may contain services that provide standard search engine feature, e-mail, news, information, databases and entertainment. Portals provide a way for enterprises to provide a consistent look and feel with access control and procedures for multiple applications and databases, which otherwise would have been different entities altogether. Electronic registration or e-registration, web based registration or even online registration is a secure website that students enter to indicate that they will attend classes in the upcoming (fall or sprint) rain or harmattan semester (Strauss, 2000). Students can access the e-registration site from anywhere with an internet connection. Mostly these sites are portals. Pena-Lopez (2007) describes a web portal as a site that functions as a point of access to information on the World Wide Web and portals present information from diverse sources (Brakel, 2003).
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, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.
1.2 Background of Study
The trend shows that more Nigerians do financial transactions electronically via banks ATMs, internet banking and SMS-banking. It was reported that in Nigeria major bank, the number of ATM transactions is 3.5 to 4 million (of total 5 million transactions) in a single day. In another bank, the ATM transactions are increased by 32% annually. Still, the banks in Nigeria seem to be confident that the ATM transactions would keep on increasing in the next several years as they continue to add more ATMs in the entire areas of Nigeria. As reported, currently, web technology has also been used widely. In line with this trend, the internet transactions in Nigeria are also increased fantastically (up to87% in a single quarter) so is the SMS and mobile banking transactions. With this trend, it could be said that conducting transactions electronically has been becoming necessity and way of life of Nigerians.
By considering the trend, it is necessary that higher education institutions (HEIs) in Nigeria, where most depend on the students’ fees to operate, provide electronic payment services for the students. Since students in an HEI might origin from all over area of Nigeria, and their fees might be paid directly by their parents, it would be best if the payment system could be accessed through the banks wide ATM network, internet, and cellular network established in Nigeria. What a pity, though, the result of our survey on the HEI websites reveals that among more than 3000 HEIs in Nigeria, only less than one thousand have been operating “online system payment” where most of their online systems accept payment transactions conducted in limited or a few banks network only. Certainly, this could be considered as a drawback in terms of catching up with IT use and fulfilling the Nigerians needs of electronic transactions. By conducting limited survey on a few HEIs, I also found the fact that the financial HEI managements nowadays still encounter problems related to balancing the total of student bills with the actual payment made. They are also having difficulties in generating the up to date yet accurate financial reports. These, of course, cause inefficiencies in the HEIs.
Developing Electronic Payment System (EPS) to handle union bills and payment is a complex task, since students’ and parents’ behavior as well as their needs, HEI management requirement, integration with the academic information system, IT infrastructure, banks products offered and banks collaboration must be addressed. The task is also challenging as the literatures acknowledge that IT projects are high-risk. It was reported that 34% of IT projects were late or over budget, 31% were abandoned, scaled back or modified, only 24% were completed on time and on budget. Also reported that only 28% of software development projects were successful.
Contributions: Despite the urgent needs of EPS for HEIs and the challenge in developing one, we could find research results of EPS concerning with e-commerce or government institutions only. Therefore, this paper is intended to contribute in presenting the development method and model of EPS for student unions (a HEIs type with the largest number in Nigeria), which specifically ensure the project success. Our approach is: We define the key success factors in the early stage of requirement gathering, then, in the following stages, the student union government policies and system models are designed in such a way to ensure that key success factors are achieved. As the banks maintain confidentiality of their system for the sake of security, detailed discussion of the system development could only be presented for the system component owned by the student union. The research is conducted in a well-known polytechnic in Nigeria.
1.2.1 Case Study: Student Union Government OGITECH Chapter
Student Union Government (OGITECH CHAPTER) was founded in 2013 with some elected executives, legislative and electoral body; some of the executives are president, vice president, transport director, sports director general secretary and etc. The student union Government comprises of 3 organ namely:
- The Executive Council
- The Student Representative Council
- The Judiciary
Execution Council Functions
The management of the union shall be entrusted to an executive council, which shall serve for one academic year. The executive shall be elected in the second semester.
The executive council shall super intend and control the affair of the union and cater for the interest of its members. It shall submit its annual budget of less 15% of its total income to the student representative council within a month into a new academic session. The 15% saving will be paid into a separate account known as the student trust account, such savings would be used for contingency purpose (s) that are beneficial to the student body subject to the approval of the S.R.C PRESIDENT, DIRECTOR OF FINANCE and TREASURER. The executive council shall organize an annual student union week otherwise known as “POLYWEEK” in accordance with the article 2© of the constitution.
It shall be the responsibility of the union executive to fix union dues subject to approval of the student representative council which shall be paid into specified account in the bank. Membership fee shall be subject to review when necessary by the executive council to meet the needs of the union. Such fees shall be approved by the student representative council.
The executive council shall prepare the semester programme and present if to the house of representative within a month into the semester for approval. The house of representative shall within 7 days of receiving the programme return the vetted version to the executive council for presentation to the house of senate for ratification.
In the event of any matter arising which is not wholly or in any part covered by the rules of the union, the executive council with the approval of the student representative council shall have powers deal with such matter to the best of the union. Shall exercise any other duties that may be assigned to it by the student representative council
Officer and Qualification of the Executive Council
The executive council comprises of:
- President
- Vice President
- Secretary General
- Assistant Secretary General
- Director of Socials
- Director of Publicity
- Director of Welfare
- Deputy Director of Welfare
- Director of Finance
- Treasurer
- Director of Sports
Any student union member shall be qualified to vote and be voted for to serve in the executive council provided such student is:
- A fully registered student of the polytechnic
- Has obtained a cumulative grade point of not below 2.50 (with or without carry over) in the current session or in the absence of the first semester result a G.P.A of not less than 2.50 at the end of the previous session.
- Is not found to have been involve in fraud, misappropriation of fund and anti-union activities within then polytechnic
- Is not a member of any unlawful association within and outside the polytechnic
- Is not on industrial attachment
- Is not gainfully employed by any employer
- Does not hold execution position in any registered club/society or if he hold such position (s) shall relinquish same prior or nomination.
The post of the president and secretary general has been reserved for those student who have spent at least a session in the institution as matriculated student and have served the union in the past as a member of the student representative council or S.U.G executive of there is a strong evidence of leadership and service to the institution. This is also applicable to the senate president and speaker of the house of Representative.
Students Representative Council
There shall be a student representative council (SRC) which shall be the highest legislative body of the union. It consists of the House of Representative.
House of Representative
The House of Representative consists of members elected by popular vote on class basis. Each class consist a constituency. Member shall meet appointment date by SUECO after being duly elected to elect the officers of House of Representatives. Shall form a quorum by two-third of its members and shall carry any motion by a simple majority of the House. Shall exercise such other power to be delegated to it according to the provision of this constitution.
Officers of the House of Representatives
The House of Representatives have the following officers. Speaker, Deputy Speaker, Clerk of the house, Deputy Clerk, Sergeant at arms. The election of the above officials shall be such that no school in the institution shall fill more than on position. For the purpose of the first meeting at which above officers shall be elected by the SUECO Chairman or his Representative shall preside over the meeting and conduct the election.
- Speaker
- Deputy Speaker
- Clerk of the house
- Deputy clerk of the house
- Sergent of arms
- Judiciary
The judiciary comprises of the Judicial Council and the Court of Appeal.
Judicial Council
- There shall be a Judicial Council for the Students Union of OGITECH Polytechnic.
- The Judicial Council l comprise of two members from each school who shall hereafter be referred to as judges.
- Judges shall meet on an appointed day by SUECO after been duly elected to elect the officers of the judiciary.
- The Judicial Council shall be headed by the Chief Judge who shall be elected form among the judges.
- The Judicial Council shall be formed in the second semester.
- The term of office of the Judicial Council shall be one academic session.
- The Judicial Council shall be independent and members shall enjoy a secured tenure of the office and shall hold office until a new full Judicial body is constituted to replace them.
- There shall be a by-election in case of any vacancy.
- They shall comprise of HND students who must have spent at least one academic session in the Polytechnic.
Officers of the Judicial Council
There shall be:
- A Chief Judge.
- Deputy Registrar.
The tenure of office for the organs of the union or any office holder is one academic session.
1.3 Statement of Problem
Investigation revealed that the problems of the existing system are listed below:
- The existing system does not does not allow online student registration of the union;
- The existing system cannot check student details online and also it cannot be used to register students’ referee details;
- The existing system is not flexible, robust; and
- The existing system cannot be queried all because the size of the database is very small.
1.4 Aim and Objectives of the Study
The aim of the study is to design and implement a Student Registration and Online Payment Portal. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows to develop an application software that will:
- Find solution or suggest solution to the problems of automated Online Payment Portal.
- Identify the associated problems with the Online Payment Portal;
- Display the relevance and advantages of Online Payment Portal; and
- Create an online fees payment Portal which provides a pre-assessment module that allow payment verification to the students when login on the website.
1.5 Significance of Study
To the Students
Through this system, the students will be able to use the Online Registration Portal effective for their online registration process especially for registering their personal information, courses registration and exam registration. Example: It will also promote students easy access to information resources, materials etc.
To the Faculty Members
Through this system, the faculty members can provide all the necessary information and resource material to their students and also be able to get the student information from the website.
To the Future Researchers
The future researchers could gain knowledge from the study on the benefits, advantages and disadvantages, impact of developing web portals which they may apply to their research in the future. By improving on the portal in such a way that is being connected with inter-switch whereby students will be able to make any necessary payment through the website, payment like school fee, acceptance fee, and departmental fee and so on.
1.6 Scope of Study
The scope of the research is focused on the Design and Implementation of Student Registration and Online Payment Portal. The study intends to provide an online registration portal home page in which it should contain the description and brief overview about the students, courses and exam registration processes for Computer department. The scopes of the study are:
- Online Registration portal for student information registration
- Courses Registration
- Exam Registration
1.7 Limitations of the Study
During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:
- 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.
- Establishment Policies: Establishment policies posed a serious limitation as most staffs are not ready to release information needed for this project work. There were lots of information needed from the staffs of this institution to enhance the study which took them time to release or they did not release at all for security purposes, hence the scope was reduced.
- Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
- Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
- 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
Payment Gateway: An avenue where by payment can be made via web.
ATM (Automated Teller Machine): A cash machine.
Credit Card: A plastic card, usually with a magnet strip or an embedded microchip, connected to be a credit account and used to buy goods or services.
Online: This describes a system which is connected (generally electrically) to a larger network.
SUG (Student Union Government): The elected student representative body that represents the entire student of an institution within the school and outside the school.
Registration: This means to keep records received from the management for reference purposes.
Management: It is the co-ordination of all the resources of an Organization through the process of planning, Organization, directing and controlling.
