1.1 Introduction
Computerized Lecture Reminder is a tool that permits academic students and lecturers to know like due dates and locations. Lecture Reminder has turned to be a very important tool in time management and it is a common saying in time management that it is better to keep track of things using a system rather than your memory. A Computerized Lecture Reminder System is important for busy people because we do not have to remember all our academic works, and writing them down somewhere is not a very good idea because then we have to keep track of that piece of paper. The Reminder System lets you “set and forget” and then gets reminded when the lecture time comes and so it becomes a perfect tool for lecturers and students.
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
According to Wikipedia (2021), lecture reminder software is a type of time management computer software that is designed to alert the user of important events that they have input to the program. Most programs provide a calendar or list view of events, as well as a reminding technique. Most common reminding techniques are pop-up dialog boxes and auditory alarms (Wikipedia, 2021).
Events may include birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, various one-time events. Often the software comes with a set of pre-installed events (such as holidays) and allows the user to create custom events. As software has made the transition to web services, a number of online reminder services have appeared. Users subscribed to those services usually receive their reminders by email or SMS. Context-aware reminder systems can set reminders based on the user's current location (Wikipedia, 2021).
Modern mobile devices such as smartphones have become increasingly powerful and also part of day-to-day lives of the people. As mobile devices become more like PCs they will come to replace objects we tend to carry around such as planners, to do list etc. and also help in accomplishing our daily tasks. (Divya et al, 2012)
The increasing growing in the popularity of the android devices is part of the few reasons I decided to choose this platform for the implementation of this project. Lecture time table reminder system is an application which is meant to prevent users (both students and lecturers) from being forgetful about the lecture they have according to the information they have entered.
Therefore, in Federal Polytechnic Nekede, Owerri, Imo State where the research was carried out, the activities that was conducted is to implement the Computerized Lecture Reminder System.
1.3 Statement of Problems
Investigation reveals the problems of the existing Computerized Lecture Reminder System:
- The staff and lecturers forgets an appointment that has been arranged, thereby not teaching / lecturing the course for the schedule date.
- Some Students omits lecture classes due to wrong scheduled venue and time as a result of an impromptu change of venue and time.
- Lack of compatible devices to execute the existing application software, hence the new system will be designated for all browser accessible devices with data required,
- There too many messages sent at one time and the messages received are not fully managed by administrative staff and cause the staff not alerts with the important messages,
- The staff need to login the e-community to check for urgent and important message, where is take time to check the appointment.
1.4 Aim and Objectives of Study
The aim of the study is to design and implement a Computerized Lecture Reminder System that will notify students and lecturer about the scheduled lecture date. In achieving this aim, the specific objectives were set out as follows:
- To develop a Computerized Lecture Reminder System application software that will be compatible in any browser accessible devices,
- To implement a system that will facilitate early notification / reminder of scheduled lecture date,
- To design a system that will flexible in terms of serving as a reminder toward rescheduling of an impromptu lecture by course lecturer, thereby notifying students about the new venue and time of lecture.
- To develop a system that helps out the staff to make their message receive are more manageable and easy to the check their task within the system.
- To build a system that give alert message using SMS application at the same time make things easier for staff and lecturer to check their lecture scheduled date and venue.
1.5 Significance of Study
Computerized Lecture Reminder System has many features that very helpful to the user. The first that can be described is calendar system. Calendar will be use as a reference to the dates and the days that users are going to set. The user can view the current date and month or the previous and next month calendar. The system will also help to arrange the lecture with furtherance to their order of priority.
Finally, this research work will be of immense importance to the researchers, since it is a practical requirement for the award of Ordinary National Diploma (OND) in Science Technology of the Institute of Management and Technology (IMT), Enugu. Besides, the study will serve as reference material for subsequent researcher in the field or related topics.
1.6 Scope of Study
The study focuses on the development of lecture reminder application software that will notify students and lecturer about the scheduled lecture date and also reschedules lecture as instructed by the course lecturer.
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.
1.8 Definition of Terms
Online Classes: These are classes conducted via electronic media, especially via the Internet.
World Wide Web: World Wide Web simply called www is the most important tool of the Internet.
Web Site: A website is a collection of many interconnected web pages organized by a specific college, organization company etc, containing web pages (good and commodities) on the Internet.
Hyperlinks: Hyperlinks are highlighted words and phrase you find on web documents that you can click on as to jump to some other documents or Internet services.
