Information System Development Plan for University of the Immaculate Conception

Submitted by

Kristine Mae M. Adlaon Graduate School University of the Immaculate Conception Davao City, Philippines, 8000

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements in Management Information System Practicum and Project Course

Submitted to:

Mr. Francis Rey F. Padao, MIM Professor

November 2012

1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Organizations nowadays specifically medium to large scale organizations are utilizing the benefits that Information Systems can offer. Information System utilization is defined to be the application of Information Technology to support the major functions and activities of an organization. While in the past, organizations recognized the importance of managing resources such as labor, capital, and raw materials. Nowadays, it is widely accepted that managing the information resource is very often equally important. University of the Immaculate Conception being one of the pioneering and one of the largest universities here in the region embraces and supports the implementation of Information Systems. Being known as the pioneering university in Region XI that offers Bachelor of Science in Information Technology (BSIT) the University therefore is fully utilizing Information Technology in almost all of its departments including the different processes of student registration (enrolment) from beginning to end. One of the department or program in the university is the ITE program or the Information Technology Education program. One of the problems that the program and other programs in the university are currently experiencing is the process of evaluating the grade of the students and crediting the subjects every start of the semester; it is said that the evaluation alone takes time. With this, the idea of automating the Student Grade Evaluation was conceptualized, with that the proponent would like to propose the Student Grade Evaluation System.

1.1 Current System Activity Diagram

Figure 1. Shows the activities involve when an evaluator evaluates the grade of the student.

Figure 2. The figure above shows the different data or document that is involved in the student grade evaluation system.

1.2 Description of Operations The steps below explain the detailed operation that a student and the evaluator undergo in the student grade evaluation process: Step 1: Student approaches the evaluator and gives the printed or validated copy of his or her grades. Step 2: Evaluator Check and Review Grades. Step 3: Check the student probationary status. Step 4: If status is probationary 1 maximum number of subject units to take is than the maximum allowed number of units. less than 3 units

Step 5: Proceed to Step 9. Step 6: If status is probationary 2 maximum number of subject units to take is than the maximum allowed number of units. Step 7: Proceed to Step 9. Step 8: If status is probationary 1 maximum number of subject units to take is than the maximum allowed number of units. Step 9: Evaluate Grades. Step 10: Release the student plotting form with the allowable subjects to take. Step 11: Student Proceed to the Enrollment Process. less than 9 units less than 6 units

2.

PURPOSE, SCOPE AND OBJECTIVES OF ISDP

2.1 Statement of the Problem

Although if viewed from the outside, we can say that the enrollment process or rather the student grade evaluation process is quite in the average pace as of the moment even if it is done manually, but in the evaluators side, the following problems are encountered: 1. The student could possibly get more than the maximum number of units that the student supposed to get. 2. It takes time to trace and scan the prospectus of the student for subject crediting.

3. The evaluation process will cause delay on the enrollment process especially if there are a
lot of enrollees.

2.2 Objectives of the ISDP

In general, the objective of this study is to help the ITE program of the University of the Immaculate Conception increase the pace of the subject evaluation of the student. Specifically the study aims to: 1. Standardized the process of crediting the subjects of the students by providing an automated list of subjects that the student can get upon evaluation. 2. Create a system that automatically determines what the probationary status of the student is. 3. Develop a system that lessens the tendency of giving the students more than the allowable subjects to take for a certain academic period.

2.3 Scope and Delimitations

This study was materialized to fulfill the subject requirement in Management Information System (MIS) of the researcher. Due to some consideration and constraints the researcher identifies the following scope and delimitations of the study: 2.3.1 Scope The research project will cover the Information Technology Program Student Grade Evaluation of the UIC alone. The researcher will create a web-based system that will evaluate the grade of the student. Also, no need to get a copy or printed output of the students grade from the ITE secretarys office since the system that the researcher will propose is capable of retrieving student records. The researcher is given five months to create and finish the system. 2.3.2 Delimitation Due to some constraints, especially time limitation only the curriculum of the BSIT specializing Software Engineering students will be used for this study as for the time being.

3.

COMPANY BACKGROUND

The RVM Community

The religious community, called the beaterio, becomes a center for spiritual enlightment of yndias, mestizas and even Spanish women of nobility at the time when women are denied of education, political power and a chance to be equal to men in the hispanized society. Despite wars, revolutions and suppression brought about by a patriarchal society, the beaterio flourishes until the present time when the religious community takes the form of the Congregation of the Religious of the Virgin Mary (RVM).

3.1 Vision
We, as a community, envision the transformation of society in response to the signs of the times to be in harmony with God's creation.

3.2 Mission
We, the members of the UIC family with strong faith in God inspired by Mary, the Mother of God and our Mother and guided by the life of Mother Ignacia del Espiritu Santo commit ourselves to:

Love and serve God and our neighbor in our personal and communal life; Respect the dignity of the human person, especially the poor; Work for justice, promote peace and preserve the integrity of creation; Promote and strengthen our Filipino culture and values in the midst of modernization and globalization; 8

And exercise leadership in the pursuit of academic excellence in humanities, science and technology.

3.3 Goal
In order for us to approximate and live our mission, we dedicate all our human resources to transform the members of the UIC family to become enlightened, empowered, proactive and liberated Christian leaders living on a humane and harmonious community for love of God and love of country.

3.4 Institutional Direction

To keep UIC at par with other Catholic Universities of excellent / prestigious stature. 3.5 Table of Organization

3.6 How do managers make IT decision in the organization?

Being one of the members of this organization I have observed that the organization follows what we call as Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) in making decisions. Of course the highest decision body would be coming from the top management. From the top management there are different directors that are assigned for the specific concern of the member of the organization.

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4.

STRATEGIC ROLE OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN UIC

4.1 Relationship of IS and the organization The proposed Information System I believe will play an important role for the organization. If implemented according to its desired functionalities, the researcher firmly believes that it can contribute and give an impact to one of the significant activity of the university which is the enrollment.

4.2 Conceptual framework of the Identified IS

A conceptual framework has been defined as to be used in research to outline possible courses of action or to present a preferred approach to an idea or thought.

Repository for student academic Grades Student Handbook

Student Process of Crediting the Subjects (the proposed system): 1. Check the student current academic records 2. The system will determine the probationary status of the student 3. The system will check if the pre-requisite for the subjects to take is Passed 4. The system will evaluate the grades then displays the credited subjects.

List of Credited Subjects Evaluator

List of Credited Subjects

Figure 3: Conceptual Framework

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Database Management Strategy

4.3 Database Management Strategy

Figure 4: The figure above shows the Entity relationship diagram of the different tables of the system.

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5. COMPANY, NETWORKS, HARDWARE, SOFTWARE AND ITS APPLICATIONS 5.1 Hardware Requirements 5.1.1 Network Layout

Figure 5: The figure above shows the proponents proposed network layout.

University of the Immaculate Conception is composed of three branches: Bajada branch where in the primary and the secondary students of UIC are located. Then we have the Annex Campus located at Bonifacio St., Bajada Davao City, courses offered in the Annex Campus are the following: Accountancy, Engineering, Education, and etc. The main branch of UIC is the Main Campus located at Father Selga St. Bankerohan Davao City. Courses offered in the main campus are the following: Information Technology Courses, Pharmacy, Liberal Arts, Music, Medical Technology and others.

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Based on the layout, the data center of the three main campuses is located in the main branch of UIC. Users (Students, Faculty, Staff, and Administrators) can access their own data using the Internet. 5.1.2 Communication Protocol According to some resource, communication protocol is a system of digital message formats and rules for exchanging those messages in or between computing systems and in telecommunications. A protocol may have a formal description. Protocols may include signaling, authentication, and error detection and correction.

For me as the proponent, the appropriate communication protocol to be used in this kind of network topology proposal is the Internet Protocol Suite. The Internet Protocol Suite is the set of communications protocols used for the internet and similar networks, and generally the most popular sack for wide area networks. It is commonly known as TCP/IP, because of its most important protocols: Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP), which were the first networking protocols defined in this standard.

According to some resource, TCP/IP provides end-to-end connectivity specifying how data should be formatted, addressed, transmitted, routed and received at the destination. It has four abstraction layers, each with its own protocols. From lowest to highest: 1. The link layer (commonly Ethernet) contains communication technologies for a local network. 2. The internet layer (IP) connects local networks, thus establishing internetworking. 3. The transport layer (TCP) handles host-to-host communication. 14

4. The application layer (for example HTTP) contains all protocols for specific data communications services on a process-to-process level (for example how a web browser communicates with a web server). 5.1.3 Media Base on my interview with one of the in-charge in the MIS department of our school the media that they are currently using right now is Fiber Optics. What is it? Fiber-optic has been defined as a method of transmitting information from one place to another by sending pulses of light through an optical fiber. The light forms an electromagnetic carrier wave that is modulated to carry information. First developed in the 1970s, fiber-optic communication systems have revolutionized the telecommunications industry and have played a major role in the advent of the Information. Because of its advantages over electrical transmission, optical fibers have largely replaced copper wire communications in core networks in the developed world. The process of communicating using fiber-optics involves the following basic steps: Creating the optical signal involving the use of a transmitter. Relaying the signal along the fiber, ensuring that the signal does not become too distorted or weak, receiving the optical signal, and converting it into an electrical signal.

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5.1.4 Network Operating System

I think the most appropriate Network Operating Systems to be use in this Client/Server Network Architecture are the following: 5.1.4.1Novell Netware Operating System NetWare is a computer network operating system developed by Novell, Inc. It initially used cooperative multitasking to run various services on a personal computer, with network protocols based on the archetypal Xerox Network Systems stack. 5.1.5 Network Hardware

5.1.5.1Gateway A device sitting a network node for interfacing with another network that uses different protocols. 5.1.5.2 Router A specialized network device that determines the next network point to which it can forward a data packet towards the destination of the packet. Unlike a gateway it cannot interface different protocols. Switch o A device that allocates traffic from one network segment to certain lines (intended destinations) which connect the segment to another network segment. So unlike a hub a switch splits the network traffic and sends it to different destinations rather than to all systems on the network. 16

Proxy Server o A computer network service which allows client to make indirect network connections to other network services.

Firewall o A piece of hardware or software put on the network to prevent some communications forbidden by the network policy.

5.2 Software Requirements 5.2.1 System Software The system was developed using Free and Open Source Software application and is intended to run on different platforms. The proposed application will can run on Linux Operating System and Windows Operating System. 5.2.2 Application Software Programming Language o Since the proponent would like the system to be available on the web, the proponent prefer to use the PHP as the programming language in creating the system since PHP is believed to be the easiest programming language to use when creating web application based on the proponents perspective. Database Management System o The proponent prefers to use Free and Open Source software applications so MySQL is the preferred for Standard Query Languages. Server

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o WAMP is the preferred server application in creating the proposed system. Aside from it is a free software, it has the capabilities as well to satisfy the needs of the proposed system.

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6. IT ORGANIZATION AND PERSONNEL STRATEGY

6.1 Present the IT organization structure 6.2 Staffing and Manpower 6.2.1 IT Positions Proposed Administrator Subject Evaluator Database Administrator Network Administrator Programmer Encoder

6.2.2 Description of Position Administrator Has the highest authority of all end users. He or she has the authority to manage curriculum (includes: subject code, subject description, no. of units). Also the administrator can determine and manage the pre requisites of each subject.

Subject Evaluator He or she is the direct user of the system. In the case of UIC, Program faculties are the Subject Evaluator. They are granted the evaluator account of the system. They have the following authorizations: o View students academic records o Evaluate students grade

Database Administrator This user has the authority to manage the database of the Information System.

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Network Administrator This user has the authority to manage the network infrastructure of the Information System.

Programmer This user is of course the one who will manage the development of the Information System.

6.3 Identify IS training needs The proposed Information System was designed to be very user friendly that a rigid IS training for the said system is not that much of big importance but is needed. The fact that the system was designed not to far from the current system; the users will surely have an easy time coping up with the proposed Information System. For the technicalities, I used common applications and have used easy to understand programming schemes for it to be very understandable when a new developer will take over the task of modifying and improving the said system.

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7. IMPACT OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS TO THE ORGANIZATION

Ethical Issues Since the proposed information system is to be developed In-House, the information regarding the development process, style and coding will be very accessible to user, hence partial disclosure of information will take place. What I mean with partial disclosure is that, there might be a slight chance where in unauthorized person might know about the source of data and some other information reflected in the system. Also, there might be some instances where in the administrator (super user) will not be around during the evaluation time and could possibly grant any member of the other level of users an access to the information. With this, privacy to information (access rights) might be violated. Social Issues In general when we say social issues, it reflects aspects of society, its people and institutions that people want to, and can, do something about. These may include the cost of switching to computer based systems. As we all know, in every organization even though how much they try to consider them as non-profit organization they are still up to this what we call as income. As they say if we want to attain something, there are certain things that we need to sacrifice. In switching to computer based systems, it is a sure fact that there are some things that needs to improve (means more cost allocation); such as the cost of deploying the system, developing the system, the training needs and etc., with this the organization must be ready what to sacrifice in order for the computer based system to be materialized.

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8. INFORMATION SYSTEMS IMPLEMENTATION 8.1 Over-all time frame

8.2 Investments Of course, as the proponent of this project I could say that in order for this project to be fully materialized it needs time and focus especially on the development and integration of the system. Regarding with the cost, I think ample amount of money will be used during the deployment part (integration).

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9. APPENDICES

Figure 6. Home Page

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Figure 7. List of student current grades.

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Figure 8. Sample result when the evaluate button in figure 7 is clicked.

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