DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF AN ONLINE EXAMINATION TIME TABLE SCHEDULING SYSTEM

ABSTRACT

Examination Timetable Scheduling System is a software application that will computerize and deal with the allocation of examination halls and time of a specific academic course of study. The aim of the study is to Design and Implement an Online Examination Timetable Scheduling System. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out to develop flexible and interactive Examination Scheduling Software that enables automatic generation of examinations schedules for tertiary institution in Nigeria and 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. The motivation that led to the implementation of the proposed system is that, scheduling lectures and practical timetables for a large array of courses is a very complex problem which often has to be solved manually by the center staff even though results are not always fully optimal.

The methodology adopted in this study is the structured system analysis and design methodology (SSADM) which is a technical approach for analyzing and designing an application or system by applying object throughout the software development process. The programming language used is HTML, CSS, JAVASCRIPT, PHP, SQL and JQUERY. The reason why web programming languages was used is because, it is platform independent and it is a web based application. In this work, the course sets, halls and time allocations are represented by a multi dimensional array on which a local search is performed and a combination of the direct representation of the timetable with heuristic crossover is made to ensure that fundamental constraints are not violated. Finally the genetic algorithm was applied in the development of a viable timetable system which was tested to demonstrate the variety of possible timetables that can be generated based on user specified constraints and requirements. The expected result is an Online Examination Timetable Scheduling System that will eliminate the manual way of scheduling examination time table in the school and the stress in planning of the time table.

CHAPTER ONE

1.1 Introduction

Examination Timetable Scheduling System is a software application that will computerize and deal with the allocation of examination halls and time of a specific academic course of study. A timetable is the plan of lecture time and duration, lecture venue and lecture date between teachers and students in a prefixed time period (typically a week), satisfying a set of varying constraints. Timetables are crucial for lecture scheduling and proper allocation of resources such as time and venues for lectures or examinations. A perfectly planned timetable serves as a tool for aiding time management among individuals and organizations. This in turn leads to efficiency and positive outcomes in performances (Mathias, Abifarin & Imavah, 2019).

Every school year, institutions of education face the rigorous task of drawing up timetables that satisfies the various courses and their respective examinations being offered by the different department. The difficulty is due to the great complexity of the construction of timetables for lectures and exams, due to the scheduling size of the lectures and examinations periods and the high number of constraints and criteria of allocation, usually circumvented with the use of little strict heuristics, based on solutions from previous years (Jose, 2008).

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

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.

Examination scheduling is a largely studied class of timetabling problem concerning the scheduling for testing student’s performance after several meetings with their lecturers within a specified period of time. A good examination timetable ensures that both student, lecturers and the school management are satisfied with the examination arrangement, making sure that all examination are scheduled within the stipulated time frame and both hard and soft constraint are well satisfied.

Timetabling problem in educational institutions is categorized in three groups: university examination, university course, and school timetabling. University examination timetabling defines the exact day, time slot, and room that each exam is held. The main objective in the examination timetabling problem is no student takes more than one examination at any time period. This conflict can be regarded as a hard constraint and must be eliminated.

The need for automated information system for educational development cannot be over emphasized. The assertion by many professionals that information is power is continuously gaining affirmation as the countries of the world continue to witness dynamic trends in information technology. 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. The number of exams hall in the school and their various capacities must be put into consideration, if not there will be a clash of exam venues. For each of the sections, levels and departments, there will be a time slot for each of the examination day. 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.

1.3 Statement of Problem

Investigation revealed that the existing system has an improper examination timetable may result in students’ poor performance as it may not let them enough preparation between two sequential exams. In addition, there are many exams to be scheduled, large number of students who have taken different courses, the limited number of rooms or exam halls are available, and some constraints such as no conflict in a single student’s exams make it very difficult to schedule experimentally. The scheduling problem created by these set of circumstances clearly poses an interesting intellectual challenge. This study explores this challenge and proposes solution to this problem. The following are some of the challenges encountered in the Manual Process of Exam Time Table Allocation;

The current manually prepared exam time table is always error prone and takes a lot of time to reschedule.
Manual system of planning and accessing this time table is stressful.
Actual class sizes are not captured and as such there is error in Venue Allocation.
Clashes in take place in cases of carryover students.

1.4 Aim and Objectives of the Study

The aim of the study is to Design and Implement an Online Examination Timetable Scheduling 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 examinations schedules for tertiary institution in Nigeria;
To develop a system that will capture the actual sizes of the class and allocate venues accordingly;
To develop a system that will create room easy amendment where there are errors; and
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;

1.5 Significance of Study

This research work is greatly hoped to eliminate the manual way of scheduling examination time table in the school. It will more also eliminate stress in planning of the time table. It will also avail the students to go for their worship at Sundays that is no more writing exams on Sundays. Students will now write exams comfortably with good venue and much time and more also eliminate examination clash.

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 Online Examination Timetable Scheduling System. This proposed system is meant to cover examination time table scheduling for school of Industrial And Applied Science (SIAS) 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.
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

Exam: An entrance examination offered the system, have some question and multiple choices answer.

…

CHAPTER TWO

2.0 Literature Review

2.1 Introduction

The review of relevant literature is the main topic of this chapter. A literature review covers theoretical and methodological contributions to a certain issue in addition to the state of knowledge at the time of writing. It provides information about the state of the art in relation to the subject you are writing about. It examines the body of work on the chosen subject. The literature evaluation in this study comprises the …

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
PRELIMINARY PAGES

Title page
Approval page
Dedication
Acknowledgement
Table of Contents
Abstract
CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Introduction

1.2 Background of Study

1.3 Statement of Problem

1.4 Aim and Objectives of the Study

1.5 Significance of Study

1.6 Scope of Study

1.7 Limitations of the Study

1.8 Definition of Terms

CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Introduction

2.2 Conceptual Review

2.3 Overview of Electronic Learning

2.3.1 Audio-visual Theory

2.3.2 Constructivist Learning theory

2.3.3 Humanistic Learning Theory

2.3.4 Cooperative Learning Theory

2.4 Concept of Examination Registration

2.4.1 Online Examination Registration

2.4.2 Usage of Online Registration Forms

2.5 Examination Scheduling System Web Portal

2.5.1 Types of Examination Scheduling System Web Portals

2.6 Database for Examination Scheduling System Web Portals

2.6.1 Merits of Integrating Databases in Web Applications

2.7 Theoretical Framework of Examination System

2.8 Empirical Review of Related Literature

CHAPTER THREE

SYSTEM ANALYSIS AND DESIGN

3.1 Methodology Adopted

3.1.1 Problem Identification Using SSADM

3.2 Analysis of the Existing System

3.2.1 Dataflow of the Existing System

3.2.2 Disadvantages of the Existing System

3.2.3 Weakness of the existing System

3.3 Feasibility Study

3.3.1 Economic Feasibility

3.3.2 Technical Feasibility

3.3.3 Operational Feasibility

3.4 Analysis of the Proposed System

3.4.1 Data Flow Diagram of the Proposed System

3.4.2 Advantages of the Proposed System

3.4.3 Justification of the Proposed System

3.5 Functional Requirements

3.5.1 Use Case Diagram of the Admin / User Privileges

3.6 Data Requirements

3.7 High Level Model of the Proposed System

CHAPTER FOUR

SYSTEM DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION

4.1 Objectives of the Design

4.2 Cohesion and Decomposition High level Model

4.3 Control Center / Overall Dataflow Diagram

4.3.1 Proposed System Operation Flowchart

4.4 System Specification and Design

4.4.1 Input and Output Specification

4.4.2 Database Specification and Design

4.4.3 Data Dictionary

4.5 Choice and Justification of Programming Language

4.6 Program Documentation

4.7 Implementation Techniques

4.8 Programming Module Specification

4.8.1 Installation

4.8.2 Security Design Specification

4.8.3 System Architecture

4.9 Computer Hardware Minimum Requirement

4.10 Software Requirement

4.11 Personnel / User Training

4.12 File Maintenance Module

CHAPTER FIVE

SUMMARY, CONCLUSION, AND RECOMMENDATION

5.1 Introduction

5.2 Summary

5.3 Conclusion

5.4 Recommendation

REFERENCES

APPENDIX A - “SOURCE CODE”

APPENDIX B - “OBJECT PROGRAM”

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