DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF AN ONLINE CLEARANCE SYSTEM FOR GRADUATING SYSTEM

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

This chapter covers the ideas of what this project entails, why is the project is carried out and what is to be achieved at the end of the work.

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

The internet has changed the face of the world and make receiving and sending of information spread widely and easily, this can be done at the tips of people’s hands and without wasting any time. Compared to when the internet has not evolved, before information could be received another end, it takes time depending on the distance of the journey. According to (Adesanya, 2002).  The Internet is a global collection of many types of computers and computer networks that are linked together. It is increasingly becoming the solution to much information, problems, information exchange, and marketing. According to Awuzie (2013) Clearance is the process of determining and negotiating any permission that is needed to include the use of someone else’s intellectual property in a creative project. Clearance systems for graduating students are vital incessant procedures and processes in every University that is inevitable. The clearance must be carried out so as to check if the student is eligible to go for NYSC service and not owning the school anything. It is the University practice to carry out these processes at the completion of the last exam in school, where the student did not have any carryover left. An online clearance system is a web-based system that makes use of the internet. Federal University of Technology’s current method of clearance is not an internet base which increases the stress of students going from school to school to sign the forms. The form given to students must be signed by the following; Dean of all school, University Liberian, Head of Department, Sport official, Dean of student affairs. Thus the need for a web-based clearance system for graduating students is inevitable to save the time and the cost of transportation from one location to another.

1.2   STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

In the Federal University of Technology Minna, clearing of graduating students has always been a manual process. An effort has been made by the University to replace the existing manual process with an automated clearance system for graduating student but to this day clearance is still a manual process. It is evident that the registration is incapable of totally replace the manual process of the online clearance system for graduating students. It is obvious that we are now in a technology era where science and technology applied to almost every aspect of life to make work faster, easier and efficient. As a University of Technology, it is our duty to lead the way into Science and Technology for other institutions and organizations to emulate by implementing automated systems that will replace all manual processes within our University System. The manual process of clearing student has a lot of limitation which include

i.   The integrity of information is not fully guaranteed, as there is a high risk of information getting to unauthorized or wrong hands that may manipulate the information illegally making the information inaccurate.

ii. In the absence of personnel in charge of any of the clearance form processes, the entire clearance registration process is delayed until such personnel is available

iii. Too much time is wasted before a student successfully completes his/her clearance registration form

iv. The manual process is only capable of attending to a limited number of students a day, hence students who are not attended to will, have to come back the next day until they successfully complete their clearance form registration.

1.3  OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

Listed below are the objectives of this project work;

i.  To identify issues associated with the current process of clearing final year students in the Federal University of Technology Minna,

ii. To design and implement an automated clearing system for the Federal University of Technology Minna.

1.4  SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The online clearance system is basically designed to save user information, facilitate the manipulation of data at a faster rate, provide concurrent access (access too many users at this time) to authorize users, and also ensure the integrity and accuracy of the information system store by the authorized users. The online clearance system for graduating students will help to ease the student from queuing to have them cleared by the University.

1.5. SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The online clearance system for graduating students has been designed to manage the clearance process for graduating students of only Computer Science Department students of the Federal University of Technology Minna.

1.6 LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

For the purpose of this project, the service provided by the Online Clearance System For Graduating Students (OCSFGS) is only restricted to the Computer Science Department. It does not extend to other departments in the University at the moment. The application can be extended if the University management is interested in it.

1.7 DEFINITION OF TERMS

v  OCSFGS: means Online Clearance System for Graduating Student.

v  Online: is the condition of being connected to a network of computers or other devices.

v  Clearance is the certification of blamelessness, trustworthiness, faithfulness or suitability. The definition by the free dictionary.

v  System: an assembly of interrelated elements which we find interesting to study, it could be a process or machine.

v  Graduating Student is a student that has completed his/her 4 or 5-year course of study at the University.

v  Computer network is a group of connected, communicating devices such as computers and printers.

v  Internet: is composed of hundreds of thousands of interconnected networks.

v  Database is a collection of data or file purposes to assist many users at the same time.

v  Database management system or DBMS: is software designed to assist in maintaining and utilizing large collections of the database.

v  Website is a collection of web pages that have an image and/or text for the purpose of passing information to the users.

v  Server is a process that provides requested services for clients.

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