DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A RESULT PROCESSING AND STUDENT REGISTRATION SYSTEM

1.1 Introduction

The Result Processing and Student Registration System is an academic operation method by which each lecturer calculates each student's grade in a course to ascertain each student's performance in the course. The institution has a tradition of carrying out these processes throughout the first semester of each session, when each student is expected to be aware of their performance in each topic that was covered. These important processes supply the vital performance of students at all levels of the university system.

The purpose of computer programming is to load these papers and data files into a computer system in an interactive way. Managerial decision-making will be enhanced as a consequence of more efficient data management and processing. The system gives students the ability to register bio-data and courses, receive their grades on their phones as soon as they are available, and request their grades. In addition to providing access to both new and old grades, the system uses secret information passwords to guarantee security.

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, Limitation of the study and Definition of technical terms.

1.2 Background of Study

In 1990, Nigeria had three distinctly different educational systems: the native system, Quranic schools, and official European-style schools. Children in the rural regions where most of them resided learned the skills necessary for farming and other jobs, as well as the responsibilities of maturity, via communal involvement. Age-based schools, where groups of young boys received instruction in civic duties from older men, were frequently used to augment this process. By the 1970s, education experts were asking how the system could be integrated into the more formal schooling of the young, but the question remained unresolved by 1990. Western-style education came to Nigeria with the missionaries in the mid-nineteenth century. Although the first mission school was founded in 1843 by Methodists, it was the Anglican Church Missionary Society that pushed forward in the early 1850s to found a chain of missions and schools, followed quickly in the late 1850s by the Roman Catholics. In 1887 in what is now southern Nigeria, an education department was founded that began setting curricula requirements and administered grants to the mission societies. By 1914, when north and south were united into one colony, there were fifty-nine government and ninety-one mission primary schools in the south; all eleven secondary schools, except for King’s College in Lagos, were run by the missions.

Exams were a major feature of the educational system. The first governor of the consolidated colony, Frederick Lugard, established a school inspectorate in 1916. The efficiency of a school was evaluated based on several factors, including facilities, teaching staff quality, and discipline, but the examination results and rankings were the most important factors. Exams continued to be the main means of evaluating student performance in school and obtaining credentials for positions in the public and commercial sectors in 1990.

Efficient management of information/data is becoming increasingly important as more data is made available in multiple places, mediums, and forms. Both employees and members of the public desire easier access to and storage of stored information. By implementing an integrated automated database system, the university aims to increase the efficacy and efficiency of its processes related to student registration and result processing.

Caritas University is made up of four (4) faculties namely:

1. Engineering with the following departments: Computer, Mechanical, Chemical and Electrical and Electronics Engineering.
2. Environmental with the following departments: Architecture, Urban & Regional Planning and Estate Management.
3. Management and Social Sciences with the following departments: Accountancy, Economics, Business Administration, Public Administration, Political Science, Industrial Relation and Personnel Management, Mass Communication, Marketing, Banking and Finance.
4. Natural Sciences with the following departments: Biochemistry, Computer Science & Information Technology, Industrial Chemistry, Mathematics & Statistics and Microbiology & Biotechnology.

Automated data storage has always been necessary in universities such as Caritas. Software has been created and even sold globally in large quantities to address this issue. I've examined this software and found that a great deal of it is ineffective. Although students have done their own research and development of software, they have not been able to provide or create error-free software that will help with the creation of results, automated student course registration, or the creation of a database of results at the university that would make transcripts for students easier.

This problem at hand is to the postponement of graduation results, which has resulted in some students choosing not to participate in youth service at all or not at all when it was appropriate for them to. In order to close this gap or resolve this issue, precise, error-free software must be developed because the issue has placed a great deal of strain on university administration, records, and tests.

1.3 Statement of Problem

Investigation revealed that in today's educational environment, databases are essential for processing test results and registering for courses. Due to the amount of time students spend attempting to determine how many credit units they will be earning each semester, this has become a highly important issue. This issue has resulted in time wastage, inaccurate findings, and possibly fraud susceptibility. Exam processing has become more challenging and delayed due to the documented cases of missing results.

1.4 Aim and Objectives of the study

The aim of the study is to design and implement a computerized result processing and student registration system. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows to develop an application software that will:

1. Provide an objective system for recording aggregating and computing students’ result.
2. Provide a reliable solution to result processing that is corruption free.
3. Ensure that normal credit load in line with the school is maintained.
4. Generate result that is accurate, timely and error free.
5. Reduce the possibility of making error or mistakes during the result grading and computing.

1.5 Significance of Study

The proposed system when implemented will help in a good number of ways to ease the delay in manual examination processing. The software developed will help schools management to achieve efficient information management system. There are many other advantages, and some of them are listed below:

1. It saves time during examination processing
2. Database for student’s course registration and examination result is maintained
3. References are very fast and delays can be avoided.
4. It allows easy access to stored information.
5. Help in reducing the costs such as labor, inventory and stationary.
6. Generation of accurate results/information on transactions is sure.

1.6 Scope of the Study

The scope of the research is focused on the Design and Implementation of Result Processing and Student Registration System. This proposed system will concentrate on student registration and result processing system using Caritas University (Computer Science & Information Technology Department) as a case study. The system developed will only cover registration of students, course registration and result processing.

1.7 Limitations of the Study

During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials.

1.8 Definition of Terms

Result Computing:

This is the process of computing each student’s result in a course by each course lecturer to determine every student’s performance in their course. A student’s result consists the individual courses results of the courses registered by the student.

Information System:

It is a collection of procedures, people, Instructions and equipment to produce information in a useful form.

Technology:

It is study of techniques or process of mobilizing Resource (such as information) for accomplishing objectives that benefits man and his environment.

Information:

Information can be defined as the process of gathering, transmitting, receiving, storing and retrieving data or several items put together to convey a desired message.

File Transfer:

Any kind of computer file can be sent via the Internet from one Internet user to another. Table of accounts on spreadsheets, design by a graphic artists, music sound files etc, can all be exchanged in this way.

Computer Network:

Computer Network is a system that connects two or more computers together using a communication link.

Databases:

A systematically arranged collection of computer data, structured so that it can be automatically retrieved or manipulated. It is also called data bank.