The Development of Critical Undergraduate Program Selection System (CUPSS) for Admission to Malaysian Public Universities

Transcription

1 The Development of Critical Undergraduate Program Selection System (CUPSS) for Admission to Malaysian Public Universities Mustaffa Kamal Mohd Nor 1*, Omar Zakaria 1, Chang Sok Kin 1 1 Faculty of Computer Science & Information Technology University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Every year, many students in Malaysia with pre-university qualifications or equivalents with A-level are in dilemma in choosing an appropriate undergraduate program especially critical undergraduate programs such as medical, pharmacy, dentistry, engineering and so on. For instance, in the past, some students chose program which was not tally with their personality, interest and knowledge, and as a result, the students failed to achieve their ambition. Due to this problem, this paper discusses a development of online critical undergraduate program selection system which functions as a guidance for students to check the appropriateness between their qualifications and their personality, interest and knowledge characteristics. With this proposed system, a student is able to obtain appropriate program selection wisely. Besides this, this system also provides information on chosen career, work characteristics, admission criteria and etc. This system will be developed by using software requirements like Microsoft Window XP Professional, MS Access 2000, MS Visual Basic 6.0, Ulead PhotoImpact and Adobe Photoshop 7.0; and hardware requirements such as minimum main memory 128MB, computer with at least 486 processor, Network Interface Card (NIC). Furthermore, this system has five modules: Log In Module log in function, password change and log off, ii) Introduction Module explain on the system, iii)program Module explain on five critical program, iv) Student Module key in student information and their results and v) Search Module to know the result of appropriate program based on student's interest, personality and knowledge. 1. Introduction Education has become very important especially in recent years. Nowadays, Malaysians want to learn more in higher education because of the required higher education level when searching for a good job. It is caused more students want to continue their study in Local University. Most of them apply for the critical courses such as Medical, Dentistry, Accounting, Civil Engineering and Pharmacy because it can help them to find a good job easily after graduation. In order to step into a greater frontier, the Unit Pusat Universiti (UPU) in Higher Education Ministry plays an important role. A good Critical Undergraduate Program Selection System (CUPSS) will avoid the misallocation of the course for those students who obtain good results in STPM. Having realized that the importance of a more advanced technology is need to be implemented and adopted by the UPU, the idea of Critical Undergraduate Program Selection System (CUPSS) will be the focus of the project. CUPSS is a system, which enables students to log in and use the services and functions in it. The main purpose of CUPSS is to provide a more efficient function for every user in the system in order to accomplish their tasks. Besides, other miscellaneous services such as view information about each course, which will be studied by a student. Critical Undergraduate Program selection System will be the 21 st century s trend. With CUPSS, every student will satisfy and like on their given course. 1.2 Project Objectives The objectives of the project are as below: Enable student to choose the most suitable course according to their personalities, interest and knowledge. Enable student to know the information about each critical course such as minimum entry requirement, job description for each course, personalities that should have for each course and etc. Provide fast respond time to student to know which course is given to them after filled in all their information into the system. Enable the student to save a lot of time to apply a course in university. 2.0 Development Requirements Development environment has certain impact on the development of a system. Appropriate hardware and software chosen, the process of development will be more effective and efficient; otherwise the success of the project might be at stake. The hardware and software tools used to develop the proposed system are discussed below: 2.1 Hardware in Development Environment The hardware requirements for this project are as follows: Any compatible computer with recommended at least 486 Processor. A minimum of 64 MB memory. A minimum of 10 GB of free hard disk space. Network Interface Card (NIC) and network connection with recommended bandwidth at 10 Mbps or more. Higher resolution monitor. These requirements are about the same for the server and client side hardware requirements. ISBN

2 2.2 Software in Development Environment Below are the software tools utilized in the development environment: Table 1: Software of the Development Environment Software Description Usage Microsoft System Operating System Windows XP development Professional environment platform Microsoft Access Database Build database, store 2000 data and manipulate data stored into tables. Microsoft Visual System Designing user Basic 6.0 Development interfaces, create and execute coding. Ulead PhotoImpact System Graphical design and and Adobe Development image editing. Photoshop 7.0 Microsoft Word Documenting Documentation 2.3 Server and Client Requirements Server Side Requirement Server Hardware Requirement The hardware specification of server computer is listed below (see 2.1) Server Software Requirement Software Requirements for Critical Undergraduate Program Selection system (CUPSS) are: Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Professional Web Server Apache Server Database Management System Microsoft Access Programming Language Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Development Tools Adobe Photoshop Client Side Requirement Client Hardware Requirement (see 2.1) 3.0 System Analysis and Design 3.1 System Prototyping Prototyping is such as a sub-process to develop a prototype, a partially developed product a simple simulator of the actual to enable the user to examine some aspect of the proposed system and decide if it is appropriate for the final product. The prototype is a working version of information system or part of the system, but it is meant to be only a preliminary model. Once operational, the prototype will be further refined until it confirms precisely to user s requirements. For many applications, a prototype will be extended many times before a final design is accepted. Once the design has been finished, the prototype can be converted to a polished production system. In waterfall model with prototyping, the stage of system prototyping allows all or part of the real system to be constructed quickly to understand or clarify issues. The requirements or design require repeated investigation to ensure that the developer, user and customer have a common understanding both of what is needed and what is proposed. Besides that, prototyping system information is worthwhile for gathering specific information about user s information requirements. The initial reactions from the users to the prototype were sought. Then, the user suggestions about changing or cleaning up the prototyped system, possible innovations for it, and revision plans detailing which parts of the system need to be done first or to prototype next were searched too. A prototype of CUPSS will be built regarding to the project scope and the analysis of the system before start to build the actual system. REQUIREMENTS ANALYSIS PROTOTYPING SYSTEM DESIGN PROGRAM DESIGN Validate CODING Verify UNIT & INTEGRATION SYSTEM ACCEPTANCE OPERATION & MAINTENANCE Figure 1: Waterfall Model with Prototyping Figure 1: is a waterfall model with prototyping, which represent the CUPSS system development processes. Besides the main reason that we stated previously on why choose waterfall model with prototyping, there are another existing factors that influence us to make this decision which will be discussed in the following section. 3.2 Why Waterfall Model with Prototyping The waterfall with prototyping approach was used because the system consists of separate process phases, which cascade from one phase to another, except the System Prototyping stage. If the process phases were uncontrolled, developer may thrash from one activity to the next and then back again, as they strive to gather knowledge about the problem and how the proposed solution addresses ISBN

3 it. Besides, it also offer a means of making the development process more visible compare to other models. The system consists of several phases such as requirements analysis, system design, program design, coding, unit and integration testing, system testing, and operation and maintenance. Each stage is signed-off when it is defined and development goes on to the following stage. There is a cycle among the stages of requirement analysis, system design and program design. These three stages are keeping looping is the system prototype is to be changed, as it is not as ideal as what had been expected. In brief, waterfall model with prototyping is chosen for this project because: Ease to use, systematic and scope of project well understand. The advantages offered by prototyping technique such as: a) Changes can be made early in development. b) System developed can meet users needs more easily. c) It provides a common baseline and frame. Developers and users can communicate better. d) The developer can understand the system much better. e) Prototypes are easy to grasp because they simulate how the final product will work. f) Users, developers and the clients will focus on content, structure and functionality, and will not be distracted by the details of graphic design. g) Prototypes make it possible to get a formal approval of the design from both programmers and the client before proceed to the development process. h) Prototypes comply with the wish to show fast results to the client i) Prototyping legalizes experimentation and many revisions because it s inexpensive to alter. Prototyping is very important: To ensure the system meet the performance goals or constraints. To ensure the system are practical and flexible. To ensure the system fulfill the users requirement. To have an insight of how the module and submodules interact with each other. 3.3 Functional Requirements Functional requirements refer to the description of activities, functions and services or, features a system must provide. In these cases, the system should react to particular inputs and should behave in some particular situations. Sometimes, it is also stated that what system should not do. Furthermore, it is independent from the implementation of the solution. Critical Undergraduate Program Selection System (CUPSS) is a system that used to match students academic records with their personality, interest and knowledge in selecting a right program for their undergraduate studies. There are five components recognized as the most important functional requirements for this project as seen in Figure2 Figure 2: Structured Modules of CUPSS Login This module is used for student to log-in to CUPSS. Besides that, student can quit from the CUPSS by click on Exit button. Login The system shall enable the students access it only when the user ID and the user password is match. Change Password The system allows the existing students to change their password only after they login to system. Once a new password is assigned to the user, the old password will become expired automatically and cannot be used again. Exit This Exit sub-module used to help students go out from CUPSS system after students have finished use the system Courses This module is used for student to view job related to course, personalities that students need to have and the minimum entry requirements for each critical course such as Medical, Dentistry, Civil Engineering, Accounting and Pharmacy Student Student module is used to add and view new student s information such as personal information and exam result. Besides that, it can be used to edit or delete the incorrectly student s information. ISBN

4 Personal Information This sub-module used to add, view, edit and save student s personal information such as Name, Age, Date of Birth, Race, Gender, Religion, , Address, and Phone Number. Exam Result This module used to add, view, save and delete student s exam result. This module contains three sub-modules: Matriculation exam result, STPM exam result and Diploma exam result Search This module is used for student to search their undergraduate studies given by Higher Education Ministry after they submit this form. Result Students have to insert their name, and tick their personalities in appropriate boxes. Besides that, they can check course given by the Higher Education Ministry after they had submitted this module in the CUPSS. Search result Search Result module is the most important part in CUPSS because it used to match students academic records with their personalities, interest and knowledge in selecting a right program for their undergraduate studies Introduction This module is used for student to view the introduction of CUPSS. Introduction CUPSS Students can view the introduction of the CUPSS by going into this Introduction CUPSS sub-module. Figure 4: Module showing descriptions about a doctor Figure 5: Module of about a student s personalities 3.5 System Strengths Although this system does not have powerful features to some extent, but it still has some strengths of its own when compared to some existing system. Below are the strengths of CUPSS: Security This system is implemented with security login. For both administrator and student, login is required before using the system. The login screen requires username and password only. The username and password is casesensitive and the password is encrypted. For security purpose, only administrator login has the full access rights to the system and can makes changes to the records in the database. There will be limited access rights for other user login. User Friendly and Good GUI Design CUPSS is designed based on the criteria of user friendly and good GUI design. The interface is design in such a way that is suitable to users. The principles and techniques of good GUI design are applied when designing the interfaces for CUPSS. This is to ensure that the interfaces are simple, attractive, organized and easy to use. Besides that, it also will provide an easy way for novice users to learn to use the system effectively in shortest time possible. Confidentially and Integrity of Information CUPSS provides confidentially and integrity of information to certain level of users when using the system. The system protects confidentially and integrity of information by providing only restricted access to certain functionalities in CUPSS to authoritative users. Each type of users has different level of access control to the system. For example, only administrators are allowed to make changes and delete records from databases. ISBN

5 Provide Courses Information CUPSS provides information of courses such as job description of the course, personalities that student should have for each course and entry requirements to apply the course. View courses information can be made public at the click of a button easily, effectively and in a faster way. Support High Volume of Data CUPSS is deployed using the earlier database management system that is Microsoft Access Microsoft Access 2000 is one of the most powerful and stable database management systems in the market. This will makes CUPSS equipped to cope with large amount of data in the future securely. Error Messaging The CUPSS is a reliable system as it caters for almost any possible errors encountered. System will generate appropriate feedback to user when an error occurs. For example, the login module would generate a user-friendly message to inform the user that he or she has entered a wrong username and password when failure of password validation has occurred. Record Searching Capability Search function is included in each module to enable the student to search and view their personal record and exam result in a fast and convenient way. The search function in this system is simple in the way of understanding how to use it and it is powerful to some extent. For example, the student could retrieve their exam result by using search function in module. Selection Course By using the search result module, student can search their undergraduate studies based on their personalities. Besides that, course is offered to student depends on their exam result. After student submits their personalities in the module, system will inform the student about their first choice course, second choice course and third choice course. So that, student can makes decision about their course to be studied easily. Incorporate Data Validation Data validation is done before a new record to be inserted into database. All the fields in the form will be checked for invalid data type or null value. With this feature, error when inserting record into database will not occur. Error message will also be prompted to alert the user if required field is not fill in. There are many transactions or process would happen between the system and its database when the user is interacting with the CUPSS. Therefore, it is important to inform the user what the system has done when clicking on any command button. For example, when the administrator delete a record, the system would generate the message record has been deleted successfully to inform the administrator that the record has been deleted from the database. Database Backup Microsoft Access 2000 has provided the functionality of database backup. When the system is corrupted, all the records and information in the database could be restored from the backup file. These could enhance the powerful and performance of the system that developed in this database platform. References (1)Ron Weber. (2000). Information Systems Control And Audit. Prentice Hall. (2)Jeffrey L. Whitten, Lonnie D. Bentley, Kevin C. Dittman (2002). System Analysis and Design Methods. 5 th ed. Irwin/McGrawHill Publishers. (3)Stephen, R.S. (2005). Object-Oriented & Classical Software Engineering. McGraw Hill. (4)Students cannot forge results The Star, 6 July. (5)Jonathan, L Selection Criteria for University Courses Leave much to be Desired, Mail to Editor. The Star, 6 July. (6)Suhumaran, K. (2003). Christian E-Wedding System. Degree Thesis. University of Malaya. (7)Yuan, Y. C. (2003). Intranet System for Small and Medium-Sized Organization in Malaysia. Degree Thesis. University of Malaya. (8)Internet Reference: =doctor), 10/08/ /08/ /08/ (hons).htm), 12/08/ armasi/farmasi_kemasukan.htm), 12/08/2004. Displaying Processing Message ISBN