School Management Systems Project

Anaglate Eyram

Interim Report For Senior High School Management System Project

Information Systems Project

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Table of content Content

Page

Title

4

Background

4

Development

4

Learning

6

Comparison

8

Changes

9

Planning & Progress

10

Appendix A – Feasibility Report

12

Appendix B – Business Case

15

Appendix C – Current System Analysis 17 References Information Systems Project

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1. TITLE Senior High School (SHS) Management System 2. BACKGROUND Ghanatha Senior High School runs a Senior High Schools. They operate a facility in Accra with teaching staff dedicated to teaching and attending to students’ personal problems. The presence of this school helps to educate more junior high School graduates in the area; there is approximately 45 staff in the school. After a series of interviews at Ghanatha Senior High School, it became apparent to the author that there is no utilization of IT and there was vast need for it. Ghanatha have used the traditional paper based system for school administration for almost 20 years. This system incorporates registering new students, recording fees paid, issuing books functions, but lacks recording and reporting features, updating school database, help functions, etc, beyond the creation of very simple lists. In recent years student in take have decreased and Ghanatha has become less resourceful, so the school see an urgent need to utilize contemporary IS to assist with administrative activities and hopefully improve or at least sustain their position in the school system. Ghanatha therefore needs a management system to help them in administrative activities pertaining to their system. The system was designed and developed Using

• VB.NET • •

Microsoft Access Word of Microsoft Office 2007 All front ends or user interfaces and all data queries were designed using VB.NET. Because of its portability and support for SQL for back-end transaction. In designing the application interfaces, I will considered

• •

The user friendliness of the system interfaces. The colors that will be used to design the forms in the system making sure they were consistent and more familiar to the user. • The menu buttons on the forms will be organized properly (not overcrowded) with keyboard shortcuts to ensure flexibility and easy navigation throughout the system. The database schema was designed and developed using Microsoft Access, because of its security, ability to integrate with VB.Net and


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ready availability. The database of the system comprises a number of properly defined tables, each used for storing data peculiar to a particular system’s activity. Each table has a primary key that is used to uniquely identify it and a number of foreign keys are present in each table to facilitate the interrelation between the various tables. Data Validation to ensure that the right type of data is entered in their correct data fields. Data Base back-ups will also be considered to prevent loss of data.

3. Development One of the aims of carrying out this project was to enable me acquire some new knowledge and skills. Accordingly I have used the Unified Software Developing Process which is one of the Software Development Processes that was treated in the Object Oriented Analysis and Design module of the BSc (Hons) in Business Computing and Information Systems course. Currently the Project is at the Inception Stage of the project and some deliverables achieved are: 1. Feasibility Study Report It is important that there is a fair assessment of the viability of this project. This report, as shown in the Appendix A aims at analysing the technical, economical and social feasibility of the project. 2. Business Case This discusses the potential cost and benefits that are associated with the project for a specified duration of time. The initial cost of producing this software is quite high but for subsequent years the cost to be incurred is likely to be lower since this will only be for maintenance. The benefits however will begin from nothing through gradual compounding benefits. The business case for this project will be over a four-year period as seen in the Appendix B. 3. Current System Analysis Yates D. and Wakefield Tony (2004, p. 40), suggest that an analysts examine the current system, if there is one, and discuss with the users the problems with that system and the requirements for a new one. This document therefore shows the critical functions of the old system that will be affected by the new system after a series of interviews with some Senior High School authorities. This document is shown in Appendix C. Objectives Information Systems Project

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A few objectives in the project have also been released in this project. First I have been able to identify area within the management of the school where there is redundancy or lots paper work and I have marked these areas as the aspects that could be automated. The admission of new students for instance involves lots of paper work where students are invited to fill the new student form and return to the administration. This is processed and the student is given a prospectus after parents have paid his/her fees. On paying his/her school fees, he/she is admitted to the correct class. Allowing administrator to access admission form in the application, fill and update to database is eliminating the paper work in this process. USE CASES a. Login to the application

b. Viewing and Registering Students Viewing and Registering Students

Login to the Application Scenario User 1. Open program 2. Enter user name and password 3. Click Login


User

Scenario 1. Open program 2. Login 3. Click the File menu item 4. Click Open

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ACTIVITY DIAGRAM

Start

Enter User Name Enter Pass Word Correct User Name Correct Pass Word

No

Display Main Form Display Menu

Yes

Open?

Display Registration Form

No Yes

View All?

Display Data Grid Form

No Yes

Logout

Display Login Form

No No

Exit?

End


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4. Learning Apart from the few objectives that have been met in this project, there have been some skills and new knowledge that I have acquired and used within the development of the system. New Knowledge and Skill Acquired • Process of Admission – Though the system that manages the results of the junior High School graduates post them to their Higher institution it does not guarantee them automatic admission into the class/grade of their choice. The principal will first check if there is vacancy in the particular class. Then the student will take examinations in Basic English Language and Mathematics before he/she will be admitted into the class if the mark gained in both is above 50%. Any mark below 50% means the student will be admitted into the class of his/her capability. The administrative staff will handle this process until the student is allocated a class and the teacher is then involved. This has been used in the requirements elicitation stage. • Curriculum & Syllabus Settings – One objective initially outlined in the project proposal was that the new system would help in setting the curriculum for every class. It was revealed by the principals that the syllabus is usually determined solely by the Ghana Education Service (GES). This is also helped my requirements. • Feasibility Documentation – Practically this is the first time I have produced a feasibility study report. (See Appendix A) • Business Case – In the preparation of cost/benefit there are a number of methods that can be used. For example, Cash Flow, Net Present Value, Internal Rate of Return, etc. I chose the Net Present Value because it takes into account the time value of money. • Unified Process - The Unified Process (UP) is a popular iterative and incremental software development process framework (Unified Process, 2007). The UP attempts to fulfill all the best current practices of a software development process in a form that is suitable for a wide range of projects. The four main phases of the UP are: o Inception – Feasibility study, Risk assessment, Business Case, etc. o Elaboration – Analysis and Design, Requirements Specification. o Construction – Implementing the design and testing the system. o Transition – Introducing the system to the user environment • Security Obstacle Mitigation Model (SOMM) - is concerned with developing trustworthy information systems that uphold the security requirements of confidentiality, integrity, availability, and authentication by countering obstacles that obstruct trust assumptions made by the analyst. The SOMM will be employed in my analysis and design of the system. • Cyclomatic Complexity – According to R. Pressman (2005, pg. 427), this is a software metric that provides a quantitative measure of the logical complexity of a


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program. It will be used to determine the number of independent paths in the program’s code so that I know the number of tests that must be conducted to ensure that each statement of the program has been tested at least once.

Comparison A plan is a statement of intent and a best guest of how and when things will be done, as mentioned in C. Bentley (2002). There will always be uncertainties however. This section compares the planned with the actual situation. Expected Situation After the submission of the Project Proposal it was expected that I would conduct a Feasibility Study into the SHS Management System. This was to begin the following week (Week 8). The next two weeks was supposed to used for analyzing the old system through an assessment of how the SHS is managed, interviewing of stakeholders to know what were good and bad about the old system and their expectation of the new one (Week 10). These expectations were then to be transformed into the specifications out of which a complete system analysis would be conducted and subsequently the design (Week 13). Actual Situation Careful looks at my deliverables show that I have not been able to achieve my plans especially the later deliverables due for week 13. During week 7 when the Project Proposal was to be submitted, I spent the whole of the week visiting schools to solicit the necessary support I will need if I had to undertake this project. This gave me no time to views the lecture videos and study for the other three modules in that wee and I then dedicated the following week for that. Then the Feasibility Study which went well for one week. The activity of studying the old system was also a problem area because I needed permission from principal before I could assess any information about the schools. The interviews that were scheduled with the stakeholders also took a little longer because it was the beginning of an academic year and schools were busy with preparing their schools for the year. The requirement elicitation stage was therefore delayed by a week (Completed on 11/20/2007). I therefore tried to outline the requirements specification but again had to hold on because examinations were getting close by and I had to use two weeks to prepare myself for it. This means as at 12/14/2007 I had been only been able to produce the requirements specification but not the design of the system as proposed.


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Changes Some knowledge gained emphasised that individual schools do not set their own curriculum. It will not the necessary therefore to include this is the new system. Also the schools will wish that their account systems are completely separated from the management of the academic aspects of the school. This new system does not need to manage the accounts then. Initially the software development process, I wanted to use was the Dynamic System Development Method. This has now changed with my better understanding of the Unified Process. No changes have been made with regards to the analysis and design methodologies to be used throughout the project. The UML is still a formidable designing technique for modern programs. The VB.Net Languages is still the programming language to be used in this development because of its ease of use as well as Microsoft Access for the database.


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5. Planning and Progress Below is the time plan for the rest of the project development:

ID 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Task Name

Duration (in days)

Start Date

Finish Date

Predecessor

Produce Requirement Specification Produce System Analysis

5

Mon 4/30/10

Thu 5/6/10

0

7

Fri 5/7/10

Mon 5/17/10

1

Design Modules

8

Tues 5/18/10

Wed 5/26/10

1, 2

70

Thu 5/27/10

Wed 9/1/10

3

13

Thu 9/2/10

Mon 9/20/10

4, 2

8

Thu 9/23/10

Mon 10/4/10

5

5

Mon 10/23/10

Fri 11/2/10

6

Write the codes for the program Testing Produce System Documentation Project Report

The refined project schedule still does not include the weekends when I get busier. There have been some gaps let also to ensure that tasks do not each into others time allocation. The continuous execution of the project will be monitored against this plan to check for any uncertainties. The Gnatt chart is as follows. This was produced with the Microsoft Office Project 2003 application. Screen shot 1

Screen Shot 2


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Screen Shot 3

Appendix A: Information Systems Project

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APPENDIX A Feasibility Study Report Terms of Reference Most Senior High Schools are managed manually by their principals and head teachers. The manual system involves lots of paper work and bottlenecks that makes it inefficient. This project is to evolve an automated Senior High School Management System that better runs the academic management of the school. Currently the management of these institutions is done manually – from registration, lesson schedules, and instructors’ appointment for subjects, allocation of classes etc. This of course comes with its attendant problems of inaccuracy, high probability of error and lack of speed. Prospective students will normally have to fill the admission form at the institution where they were posted, fill the form and return it to the principal of the school. This is followed examining the prospective student to know his/her standard of knowledge and to help allocate a particular programme for the student. When this program has been agreed by the parents, the fees as pertaining to the program is paid and the student is admitted. This process as well as the entire educational cycle the child goes through is largely manual and this is what the new SHS Management System seeks to remove. The reason for undertaking this feasibility study is to assess how viable the new project is and to find out its cost and benefit implications. Technical Feasibility The new SHS management system will not need any special hardware component apart from the normal PC equipments that are used already in many homes and offices. To develop this project I will need a laptop with a minimum 40GB hard drive, 512MB memory space, 1.50MHz processor speed and with a CD/DVD RW drive. This I already possess and therefore pose no problem. The laptop will also be facilitated with internet access and all the necessary software products that are going to be used in this project (i.e. VB.Net Development software and Microsoft Office suite). Implementing this system will not require any huge investment either. The school will need a Pentium 4 or higher specification machine to server as its server and the central point from where the system is used to manage the academic lifecycle of the school. There will also be a number of work stations sited in the staff common room of the school from where the teaching staff will be able to view the students enrolled into a class, enter the students’ grade and view the students’ performance. These can be simple Pentium 3 machines since the server will be doing most of the processing and data services.


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Economic Feasibility This will consider the financial viability of the new system and the benefits that may be accrued from the development of the system. As mention in the technical feasibility section, the school does not require any huge investment in hardware and software. There are a few PCs in the staff room as at now and the authorities will need ¢900 (Nine Hundred Ghana Cedis) to buy some additional three PCs in addition to what is present. Another ¢500 to purchase the server required to host the files and site that will be part of the project. They will not need to employ a systems administrator since they have already hired a Computer instructor for the students and he has some experience in the management of a desktop application. Some training will however will be required for the future Systems administrator and the other staff (both teaching and non-teaching staff) to make them familiar with the new system. This is not expected involve high cost anyway because most of the staff are computer literates. The school management authorities have pledged that they are committed to the project and will bear all these and many other costs that comes with the development. The summation of its cost from the initial year of implementation shows that it is very high and with no benefits. After implementation however the will only be maintenance costs but this time with rising benefits. The net benefit at the end of four years will therefore show that the project is economically viable. This is clearly illustrated in details the Business Case (Appendix B). Social/Operational Feasibility The implementation of the new system will be great improvements into the operations of the school. The school authorities will not have to deal with the crowding of the administration block during admission periods and they will consequently reduce the number of additional administrative staff they contract during such periods. The interface for the various functionalities are simple Graphical User Interface enhance with help facilities to assist even the computer novice who can read English to know his/her way around. Management and staff of the school will therefore have no problems using this system since they meet these requirements. Accuracy and speed are going to be main features of the new system. The teaching staff will also have less paper work to do because they will already have a database of their student already available to them and they will always get this from their PCs in the staff room to help enhance their work.

Recommendation With all these aspects of feasibility explained it can be noticed that the Senior High School Management System is a viable one as it will greatly improve the admission


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process, reduce some pertinent cost and increase the speed and accuracy with which the admissions process is done through the automated system.

Appendix B The Business Case The Business Case essentially draws out the cost and benefits analysis of the proposed project. This could be viewed as an Investment Appraisal where both the cost and the benefits are all quantified in monetary terms. Any cost or benefit that can not be quantified is not included in the Business Case. One way of doing the cost/benefit analysis is by doing the cash flow model. In the model below the cash flow is illustrate from the year of development (year 0) where the initial cost is heavy through to year 4 where the cost is only going to be that of maintenance. Hence the reductions in cost as the years go by. The benefits of the initial year however is zero (0) since there will be not benefit readily accrued in the development year. From first year of operations the benefits are realized and gradually rise through to the forth year. Cash Flow Model

Cash Flow (Value in Ghana Cedis (¢)) for SHS Management System Project Year Costs Benefits Net Benefits Cash Flow

0 3500 0 -3500

1 40 1100 1060

2 50 1700 1650

3 50 2300 2250

4 50 3400 3350

-3500

-2440

-790

1460

4810

This model lack some accuracy however because it does not present the true picture to management. It does not take into account the time value of money. It is a fact of life that money in-hand today is not of the same value as money expected tomorrow because it may depreciate according to the interest rate of the economy. There is therefore, the need for management to use a model that will factor in the time value of money. This Model is the Net Present Value (NPV) and is shown as follows: In the model the interest rate for the economy has been used to determine how much the value of the cedis will depreciate (i.e. Discount Factor) and therefore the real worth of the benefits (Net Present Value) at the end of the fourth year. The formula for the Discount Factor is given as 1/ (1+i)n, where i is the interest rate and n is the number of years. The Discounted Net Benefits is given as Discount Factor * Net Benefit.


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The first NPV will be the same as its Discounted Net Benefit since there will be no benefits at that stage. The subsequent NPV will be given as the NPV (of previous year) + Discounted Net Benefit (of current year). The Net Present Value

Net Present Value (Value in Ghana Cedis (¢)) for SHS Management System Year Costs Benefits Net Benefits Discount Factor (Rate=15.5%) Discounted Net Benefits

Net Present Value


0 3500 0 -3500

1 40 1100 1060

1.00 -3500.00

0.87 917.75

-3500.00

-2582.25

2 50 1700 1650

3 50 2300 2250

4 50 3400 3350

0.75 0.65 1236.86 1460.28

0.56 1882.42

-1345.39 114.89 1997.31

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Appendix C Current System Analysis The requirement specification is one of the most important stages in the lifecycle of software developments. According to Shelly, Cashman and Rosenblatt (1998), the purpose of this phase is to learn exactly how the current system operates, to determine and document what the new system should do through a series of fact-finding exercises. A number Senior High School authorities where interviewed to know how the school is run on a daily basis. I also sent out questionnaires to other stakeholders to know which part of the manual system they are not happy with and which aspects they will want to be automated. Some observations were also made whiles in the school. At the beginning of every academic year, graduates of JHS are being posted to the school by a posting system to the school’s administration for an admission. They student are invited over by the school to be assessed to help allocate them with a program and fill an admission form. On the form the parents state all details of their wards including their names and addresses, date of birth, previous history of education, the program they like to offer, any peculiar medical condition or disability, place of residence, nationality, language and whether they have siblings who already attend the school. After the assessment, the principal of the school will schedule a date of reporting for all students. This is however different for the different classes. The parents of admitted student are then asked to pay their wards’ school fees after which they are given the prospectus. This contain information about the rule and regulations of the school, what mode of dress is acceptable, who to contact when parent have issues to solve about their wards’ academic performance and the basic items needed to facilitate the learning process for the various students. Module leaders are assigned by the principal. Once the students have be admitted by various class list for the academic year is prepared and given to their class masters so that they will know the number of students to expect and how to schedule the lessons as well as make provision for the necessary equipments that may be needed to enhance teaching and learning. When studies begin, teachers are given the curriculum set by the Ghana Education Service for their respective classes and subjects. They will then use this as the basis for structuring their lesson notes for the particular term and how they deliver the content of the curriculum. Class leaders mark the students register of their classes and note which students are present or not. Whenever they conduct class exercises for they record the marks of


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each student in a continuous assessment book where the performance of each student is measured. Students who are not performing well will have their parents invited to the school for advice. At the end of the term, teachers will set examinations on what lessons have been taught for the various classes. These are marked after the students have done them and the marks are added to the continuous assessment. The examination marks together with the class exercises will tell the position of the student and the end of the term. It is out of this same continuous assessment book that the teachers will construct the terminal report for each student. These terminal reports are then mailed to the parents of the wards. The high level Use Case for the Current System is given as:

SHS System Allocate Class to new Student Evaluate Admission Request

Principal

Fill Admission Form

Pay Fees

<> Conduct Exams for New Students

Assign Module Leaderss

Parent Take Entrance Exams

Pick up books New Student

Take Lessons Structure lesson outline for a term

Teacher

Set Exams

Take Terminal Exams

Student

Mark Register


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Reference: Unified Process, 2007. Retrieved http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Process

–

14th

May,

2010.

From

Yates D. and Wakefield Tony, 2004, Systems Analysis and Design, 2nd edition, Prentice Hall, London. V Page, M Dixon and I Choudhury, 2007, Security Risk Mitigation for Information Systems, BT Technology Journal, Vol 25 No 1. C. Bentley, 2002, Managing Business Projects, 2nd edition, NCC Education Limited, ISBN: 1-90234-353-0. Shelly, Cashman and Rosenblatt, 1998, Systems Analysis and Design, 3rd edition, ISBN: 0-7895-4266-8.


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School Management Systems Project

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