1.1 Introduction
Examination invigilator schedule allocation is a term which is basically concerned with the allocation of halls for exam invigilators that will organize and supervise students writing a particular course within stipulated period of time. Invigilator venue scheduling is based number students appearing for and appointing the faculties for invigilation duty happens to be a tedious job for the exam coordinator. The framework is additionally a data framework that will robotize and give precise insights concerning the quantity of invigilators to be apportioned based on the available classroom. It will likewise furnish the school the board with the fundamental data they may require. The essential features of a computerized invigilator examination hall allotment framework incorporate the database where the student designation subtleties would be gotten to and adjusted; the interface that will be given by the developer is a simple to get to interface and simple to be comprehended.
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
Lens Polytechnic is a polytechnic incorporated in Nigeria by the same management that owns and runs Lens school of management, Offa which is an innovation enterprise institution. Lens Polytechnic is an expansion from Lens School of Management and Technology (Lenspolytechnic, 2021). The school was established on 20th April, 2012. Lens polytechnic was founded by Azeez Yisa Bukola and Abdulazeez Isahq, an educationalist and a banker of high repute, the school was accredited duly by National Board for technical education.
The Proprietors have always been concerned with education and had always been disturbed with the situation of Nigeria youth who struggle to get admitted into tertiary institutions but cannot. Another set of concern are those that studied in the tertiary institutions and then find it difficult to get employed. They cannot integrate well into the industry or they cannot start up something on their own because they lack entrepreneurship skills. As part of remedy to all these situations, the Proprietors then decided to establish Lens Polytechnic.
In the past practices, most of the invigilation duties preparation will be managed by the examination committee which approximately consists of 10 members. The committee will be concentrating on the invigilation duties preparation after the examination placement of venue is completed. Once the examination placement is verified and accepted, the committee will be requesting data such as the list of invigilators, ratio of invigilator to the number of candidates or capacity of the examination rooms, records of examination from the first day until the final day of examination together with the examination venue which has been placed and list of constraints.
Examination invigilator scheduling is a largely studied class of timetabling problem concerning the scheduling for allocating examination coordinators within a specified period of time. A good examination invigilator timetable ensures that student, lecturers and the school management are satisfied with the examination arrangement, making sure that all examination invigilators are scheduled within the stipulated time frame and both hard and soft constraint are well satisfied.
The manual system of accessing and scheduling of examination time-table in higher institutions is always very tedious. The scheduling is done by the school’s exams and record department. Manually scheduling of this time is confusing and takes a long period of time to produce and excellent and perfect result that is free from clashes. According to Hanum, Romliyah, and Bakhtiar (2015), the manual system fails to consider the hard constraints and the invigilators are unhappy with the invigilation duties received.
It is against the background that the developments of this software to innovative approach to producing invigilation schedules that could minimize errors and simultaneously allowed lecturers to request for their preferred invigilation dates and time.
1.3 Statement of Problem
Investigation revealed that preparing the examination invigilation schedule has always been in itself a challenging task as the examination department has to take into consideration numerous factors and lecturers’ constraints such as getting the invigilation schedules ready within a limited time frame, ensuring the invigilation duties assigned to the lecturers do not disrupt their marking and that the lecturers do not invigilate their own subjects. As the invigilation duties were assigned randomly there was a lot of mutual swapping amongst the lecturers resulting in confusion, misunderstandings, and complaints on uneven duty distribution.
The following are some of the challenges encountered in the Manual Process of Examination Invigilator Schedule Allocation System;
- The current manually prepared exam invigilators time table scheduling is always error prone and takes a lot of time to reschedule.
- Manual system of planning and accessing this time table is stressful.
- Actual invigilators are not captured and as such there is error in venue allocation.
1.4 Aim and Objectives of the Study
The aim of the study is to Design and Implement an Examination Invigilator Schedule Allocation System. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows:
- To develop flexible and interactive examination scheduling software that enables automatic generation of invigilators schedules for tertiary institution in Nigeria.
- To develop a simple easy-to-use software which an individual with little or no idea of software application can interact with a great deal of comprehension.
- To develop a system that will capture the actual available invigilators and allocate venues accordingly.
- To develop a system that will create room easy amendment where there are errors.
1.5 Significance of Study
The implementation of the proposed system will help to eliminate the manual way of scheduling examination invigilators in the school. It will more also eliminate stress in planning of the examination invigilators time table.
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 Study
The scope of this research is focused on the Design and Implementation of an Examination Invigilator Schedule Allocation System in Lens Polytechnic, Kwara State Offa.
The system is web based so it will be hosted on a server and run on a browser. For the purpose of this project, the system will be hosted on a localhost. The system has a login page which restricts access to unregistered users, an interface for the registration of courses and classes.
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.
- Research Material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
- 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
Exam:
An entrance examination offered the system, have some question and multiple choices answer.
Lay-men:
It is a person who is not a member a particular profession.
End-user:
A person that users a software developed by another person
