1.1 Introduction
The Seminar repository stores all versions of Seminar files and directories. It also stores all the derived data and Meta data associated with the files and directories. Depending on the size of a Seminar there could be multiple Seminar repositories, and each Seminar repository could contain tens of thousands of files and directories. The number of files in any given Seminar repository will depend on the size of the machine on which the repository server is running, and the number of users expected to concurrently access data. The repository server handles read / write traffic to the Seminar repository (Sceweb, 2021).
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
Storage facilities may hold aggregations of learning things as a circulation focus may store books, or they could hold collections of information about learning articles as a library record may hold portrayals about books. Storage facilities offer parts to bolster the disclosure, exchange and re-usage of learning articles (Richards, McGreal and Friesen, 2002).
The School of Information and Communication Technology (SICT) repository, Federal University of Technology (FUT) Minna is an online application with a user friendly interface that will provide access for a user to easily lay hands on all the Undergraduate Seminar written by graduates of SICT. The information provided about a Seminar is majorly the Seminar abstract and a hand full of other relevant pieces of information such as the student name, the year of Seminar submission (the year the Seminar was written) and the Seminar topic.
This repository will provide a user the ability to browse the Seminar catalog and search through by the student name, Seminar topic or year of Seminar submission. Hence, this will help potential graduates of the faculty (SICT) to know the topics that research has been carried out on, the area of concentration of the research done and the extent to which the researcher stopped.
1.3 Statement of the Problem
Investigation revealed that Seminars already submitted to the SICT cannot be accessed anywhere and at anytime without having to come to the school building and reaching the office in charge. In case of fire incidence or water, the copies of the Seminars curated by the school could be damaged or totally lost. Searching of Seminars is very hectic and slow due to the quantity of Seminars and limited human effort. Also, access to Seminars can be delayed due to the official procedures and protocols involved in the process. Therefore, this work tends to develop a repository to solve this problem.
1.4 Aim and Objectives of the Study
The aim of this study is to develop a web-based repository for Undergraduate Seminar of SICT, FUT Minna. This will be achieved by the following objectives:
- To design a web-based seminar repository for undergraduate for SICT, FUT, Minna.
- To implement the design a web-based seminar repository for undergraduate for SICT, FUT, Minna using PHP and MySQL.
- To evaluate the proposed web-based seminar repository for undergraduate for SICT, FUT, Minna.
1.5 Significance of the Study
A key function of this research is that the SICT repository provides a unique storage identifier for every object, therefore making it feasible with the aid of the search module incorporation into the web-based repository application to efficiently search, discover and retrieve objects (Seminars) from its database. Both staff and student will benefit from this feature in that one can easily search for a Seminar by the Seminar name, student name or year. The office in charge of keeping and handling Undergraduate Seminar will now have better support for storage of graduates’ Seminars and easy retrieval on request.
The SICT repository could also 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 Seminar) and thereby add to the body of knowledge. This repository also covers authors of the Seminars and because it clearly attributes the student name (author) to its content.
1.6 Scope of Study
This study only takes Undergraduate Seminar of the SICT of Federal University of Technology Minna into regard. A single material (like a Seminar) will contain only the Seminar topic, student name, abstract and the year of Seminar submission. A user will only be able to search the Seminar catalog for a Seminar either by the Seminar 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 Seminar 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
Learning Objects: In the context of this research, a learning-object-is-a-resource with a clear educational-application. It is in digital form − examples: a Microsoft Word Document or a PDF document.
Catalog: This research applies the word ‘catalog’ as a container that presents all the SICT Seminars logged/stored in an organized tabular format, showing relevant information about each Seminar. It can be compared to a library catalog containing all the information about books − their titles, author, number of pages, published year, ISBN etc.
Repository: A repository (in this case; SICT repository) is an archive, storehouse or container that allows storage, cataloging, accessing all SICT Undergraduate Seminar and thesis, and viewing each object’s content.
