1.1 Introduction
A project research search system is simply software developed for retrieving of research material without going through the stress of moving from one shelf to another in the research library. These activities take place in the library with the help of a library administrator. The goal of this research work is to provide a solution to the problem of a research library, by designing a computerized system which is user-friendly and GUI-oriented that will be compatible with the existing manual systems. The software to be developed will solve the problem of sorting and retrieving of research materials. Usually, a project can be filled by at most one student, though in some cases a project is suitable for more than one student to work on simultaneously. To give students something of a choice, there should be as wide a range of available projects as possible, and in any case the total number of project places should not be less than the total number of students. Typically a lecturer will also offer a range of projects, but does not necessarily expect that all will be taken up.
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 to the Study
One of the recent advances in the world of information technology is the rapid development of communication which has turned the world into a global village, we can send mails electronically (e-mail), search for information (www), buy goods online (e-commerce), withdraw/ transfer money (e-banking), school online (e-learning); this has affected the society positively to a great extent, as a result, computerization of project management should not be exempted in this revolution.
Project Management (PM) is the discipline of planning, organizing, and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of a specific project goals and objectives. A project is a finite endeavor having a specific start and completion date, undertaken to create a unique product or service which brings about beneficial change or added value. This finite characteristic of a project stand in sharp contrast to processes, or operations, which are permanent or semi-permanent functional works to repetitively produce the same product or service. In practice, the management of these two systems is often found to be quite different, and as such requires the development of distinct technical skills and the adoption of separate management philosophy, which is the subject of this study.
The primary challenge of project management is to achieve all of the project goals and objectives while adhering to classic project constraints usually scope, quality, time and budget. The secondary and more ambitious challenge is to optimize the allocation and integration of inputs necessary to meet pre-defined objectives. A project is a carefully defined set of activities that use resources (money, people, materials, energy, space, provisions, communication, motivation, etc.) to achieve its goals and objectives.
Project management is quite often the province and responsibility of an individual project manager. This individual seldom participates directly in the activities that produce the end result, but rather strives to maintain the progress and productive mutual interaction of various parties in such a way that overall risk of failure is reduced. A project manager is often a client representative and has to determine and implement the exact needs of the client, based on knowledge of the firm they are representing. The ability to adapt to the various internal procedures of the contracting party, and to form close links with the nominated representatives, is essential in ensuring that the key issues of cost, time, quality, and above all, client satisfaction, can be realized.
1.3 Statement of the Problem
Investigation reveals the challenges of the existing Computerized Student Research Project Search Engine System which is stated as follows:
- Research/Projects are sorted and stored manually on its appropriate shelf
- Retrieving of research/projects material takes a lot of time depending of the number of topics involves.
- Loss or damage of any of the research material may leads to loss of a resources information
- Too cumbersome and time consuming to maintain
- Backing up projects becomes a problem since more space will be employed.
1.4 Aim and Objectives of the Study
The aim of this study is to develop a Computerized Student Research Project Search Engine System for the University of Port Harcourt to effectively manage students’ research projects. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out to design and implement an application system that will:
- Create a database management system (DBMS) which store research material and provides security for the stored data.
- Provide quick and efficient means retrieving student research/projects material through a search system.
- Improve the management of a research library which can be uses as a model in building digital research library.
1.5 Significance of the Study
Projects provide a flexible framework for engaging students in exploring curricular topics and developing important 21st century skills, such as communication, teamwork, and technology skills. In addition, students are motivated by the fun and creative format and the opportunity to make new friends around the world. For teachers, a school portal enables quick and easy management of student accounts and review of project work. Both staff and student will benefit from this feature in that one can easily search for a project by the project name, student name or year. The office in charge of keeping and handling student projects will now have better support for storage of graduates’ projects and easy retrieval on request.
The proposed system could serve as an educational environment for many internet users and researchers. It will encourage researchers to take up further research on a subject matter (like a project) and thereby add to the body of knowledge. This repository also covers authors of the projects and because it clearly attributes the student name (author) to its content.
1.6 Scope of Study
The study focuses on the Design and Implementation of a Computerized Student Research Project Search Engine System using University of Port Harcourt as a case study. A single material (like a project) will contain only the project topic, student name, abstract and the year of project submission. A user will only be able to search the project catalog for a project either by the project topic, student name, keyword and year of submission.
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.
- 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
Search Engine: Search engine is a software system that is designed to search for information on the World Wide Web.
Hyper Text: Hypertext is text displayed on a computer display or other electronic devices with references (hyperlinks) to other text that the reader can immediately access, or where text can be revealed progressively at multiple levels of detail (also called StretchText).
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