Online_student_clearance_system_case_stu.doc

FACULTY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE Level V

FINAL YEAR PROJECT PROPOSAL: FINAL YEAR PROJECT PROPOSAL:

ONLINE STUDENT CLEARANCE SYSTEM ONLINE STUDENT CLEARANCE SYSTEM CASE STUDY (CUR) CASE STUDY (CUR)

Submitted by: Geofrey TWESIGYE 1CUR11AK02182 FST-CUR/WP-2014

Done at TABA, the 19th December 2014

Table of contents i

1.

INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................................1 1.1.

PROBLEM STATEMENT................................................................................................1

6.1.

RELEVANCE AND CHOICE OF THE TOPIC...............................................................2

6.2.

RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS............................................................................................2

6.3.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES.............................................................................................2

6.4.

RESEARCH METHODS.................................................................................................3

6.5.

SCOPE OF THE PROJECT..............................................................................................4

6.6.

ORGANIZATION OF STUDY........................................................................................5

6.7.

PLAN OF ACTIVITIES...................................................................................................5

ii

1. INTRODUCTION Information and communication technology (ICT) is widely used for enabling societies to produce, access, adapt and apply information in greater quantities and for more varied purposes. In the recent years Information Technology (IT) has become very impressive in services, this is due to his extraordinary contribution in the field of management of the information. Indeed, the According to [1], computer means the automated processing of information by a specific system machine or abstract. It also includes IT, all the science and technology related to the processing of information. According to United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in many countries, education is considered as a key factor of sustainable development [2].Rwanda continues to be one of the fastest growing African countries among those countries in ICT and there are several avenues for growth for the ICT sector – from e-commerce and e-services, mobile technologies, applications development and automation to become a regional center for the training of top quality ICT professionals and research [3]. Nowadays, services are intended to be improved according to the use of ICT. Therefore, Clearance is a status granted individuals, typically members of the military, university graduates and employees of governments and their contractors, allowing them access to classified information, i.e. state secrets. The term "clearance” is also sometimes used in private organizations that have a formal process to vet employees for access to sensitive information. A clearance by itself is normally not sufficient to gain access; the organization must determine that the cleared individual has a "need to know" the information. No one is supposed to be granted access to classified information solely because of rank or position, but once a clearance is obtained, access to certain information or gain of freedom could be granted. 1.1.

PROBLEM STATEMENT The process of clearing students of a named institution CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF RWANDA after graduation requires that the students must be cleared in their various departments and information units. Among which are:

2. Dean of Faculty Clearance 1

3. Director of Finance Clearance 4. Director of Library Clearance 5. Dean of Students Clearance 6. Registrar

Furthermore, for a graduating student to carry out his/her clearance form from all these departments it normally takes a lot of time and a lot of processes and delay in clearing the student for youth service as well as collection of statement of results. Hence, it became imperative for computer software based online clearance system to eliminate the shortcoming of the manual system in place. This project will propose the best solutions based on Information Technology (IT) that may efficiently resolve the above problems and also illustrate the advantages, and disadvantages of using such well detailed conceptions in establishing parameters for better system rather than using the existing system with its inconsistencies and deficiencies. 1.3. Objective of the project 1.3.1: General objectives  To analyze the current system and provide solutions to the problems.  To design the database application that can store all Clearance system used for the computational of how clearance are progressing and use the stored information for making the decision.  To guarantee the security and fairness of the system.

1.3.2: Specific objectives The main objective of this research project is analyzing the current system and come up with a system that provides the following a solution.

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 To alleviate the problems and stress of travelling and queuing up of student during clearance.  To effectively and efficiently process students clearance.  To provide a reliable and transparent system devoid of personal inclination and interest.  To provide borderless access  To ensure prompt clearance.  Use faster search engine on the system  Support students to know how clearance are progressing  Support staff to get information about how students are clearing

1.4 HYPOTHESIS OF THE PROJECT Hypothesis is to provide an effective and efficient Student Clearance by developing a system that can offer better data handling and time saving by offering Clearance certificate online and Students get a notification on their mobile phone or/and on his/her e-mail once there is something done on his or her Clearance like Student Clearance registration etc. This helps to overcome the Student Clearance issues between Students sharing the same borders of the Clearance. 1.5. INTEREST OF THE PROJECT 1.5.1 Personal interest Personally, this research work added more input to my knowledge and helped me to master the Information Technology skills acquired at the university. This is also an opportunity to be familiar with new IT tools which was used during my project development. 1.5.2 Institution and public interest Clearance System was ease the tasks of the staff who has responsibility of monitoring Student clearance because it can improve the quality of services and can reduce time of computational. In addition, it can improve performance, speed, accuracy and efficiency, can reduce paper cost, and 3

can maximize productivity. This system was helping the other public person to view information and it was facilitating also to generate all needed student clearance form automatically and to limit the risk of data loss. 1.6 PROJECT SCOPE This project work is to develop a computer software based online clearance system for doing clearance for graduating students of Catholic University of Rwanda. The software development will be carried out using PHP-MySQL, JavaScript, HTML, Adobe Dreamweaver, XAMP and Ozeki to manage both the database and at the same time make the software online.

6.1.

RELEVANCE AND CHOICE OF THE TOPIC

As we are in the developing University, we want to shift from traditional application to the computerized system.  This will speed up the development of the University in the field of information technology and it easy to use.  My project will contribute to the development of the University by using Information Technology tools which was used during my project development. 6.2.

RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS Hypothesis is to provide an effective and efficient Student Clearance by developing a system that can offer better data handling and time saving by offering Clearance certificate online and Students get a notification on their mobile phone or/and on his/her e-mail once there is something done on his or her Clearance like Student Clearance 4

registration etc. This helps to overcome the Student Clearance issues between Students sharing the same borders of the Clearance.

6.3.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

The main objective of this research project is analyzing the current system and come up with a system that provides the following a solution.  To effectively and efficiently process students clearance.  To provide a reliable and transparent system devoid of personal inclination and interest.  To provide borderless access.  To ensure prompt clearance.  To alleviate the problems and stress of travelling and queuing up of student during clearance. Also this research project will facilitate me to develop system that will provide easy to use interfaces in couple of minutes. 6.4.

RESEARCH METHODS

Software methodology that can be used in the system that I develop is Waterfall model. To solve actual problems, software developer or a team of developers must integrate with a development strategy that includes the process, methods and tools layer and generic phases. This strategy is often referred to a process model or a software developing paradigm. My project will follow the waterfall model. The steps of waterfall model are:  Requirement Definition  System and Software Design  Implementation and unit testing  Integration and System Testing  Operation and Maintenance

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Figure 1: waterfall model

During design and implementation of my project, the following software and hardware will be needed:

 Hardware  Development PC:

PC with MS Windows Win7

 Minimum Display Resolution: 1024 * 768 with 16 bit color  Server PC:

PC with 250 Gb hard drive

 Software  MySQL :

For our database.

 PHP:

Programming languages.

 Adobe Photoshop:

For graphic design.

 Adobe Dreamweaver: for designing the website. 6

 XAMPP :

Local host.

 Ozeki:

For mobile application

SCOPE OF THE PROJECT

6.5.

This project work is to develop a computer software based online clearance system for doing clearance for graduating students of Catholic University of Rwanda. The software development will be carried out using PHP-MySQL, JavaScript, HTML, Adobe Dreamweaver, XAMP and Ozeki to manage both the database and at the same time make the software online.  In time, the project will be conducted in a period of four months that will start from April, 2015 up to July, 2015 6.6.

ORGANIZATION OF STUDY

The work is divided into five chapters and is organized as follows: Chapter 1 deals with the general introduction. Chapter 2 is merely the theoretical concept and literature review. Chapter 3 describes in brief, the research methodology used to design and implement this project. Chapter 4 deals with the system analysis, design and the implementation of the system. Chapter 5 finally presents the completion of our work where conclusion will be given as well as some recommendations.

6.7.

ID

PLAN OF ACTIVITIES

TASK NAME

2015 April

May

June

July

August

September

7

1

Preliminary Investigation

2

Problem Analysis

3

Requirements Analysis

4

Decision Analysis

5

Design

6

Construction

7

Implementation

Figure 2: Plan of activities

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