Implementation of an Online Results Issuing System in the Faculty of Commerce and Management Studies, University of Kelaniya

Abstract

The Faculty of Commerce and Management Studies of the University of Kelaniya, has implemented a Student Information System that is capable of handling complex administrative processes; from student registration to the issuing of final examination results. This will immensely benefit the students and the staff alike and will help streamline the processing of information. Currently student examination results are handled by a central location and marks are fed into the system by a single user in the Faculty Office. This is a time-consuming endeavor and tends to create a lot of inefficiencies and has limited data retrieval capabilities. This process not only delays the issuing of the results, but also has no traceability if needs arise for tracking for any errors or duplicity. Also, the current system possesses no method of retrieving data for research purposes and decision-making purposes for academics and administrators. This manual process causes prolonged turnaround time, unnecessary document transferring, inability to track delays, complications in data entry and report dispatch. A newer mechanism was required to address the issues faced. Efficient data retrieval for research purposes and decision making was also considered important. The objective was to design, develop and implement an online result issuing system that would benefit diverse parties: students, staff, administration and the environment. Data entry will be done by the examiners themselves, right after the marking of papers; ensuring data integrity in order to overcome unnecessary delays and errors. Further this will permit progress tracking for top management. The efficacy, transparency and ability to avoid human error and delays would support decision making by enabling the top management to analyze the time taken, quality and quantity of work done by the students as well as the examiners. Furthermore, the students would experience the convenience of accessing their results as soon as they have been issued whether they are present at the university or not. In addition to seeing the final grading for the relevant semester, they would be able to self-evaluate their academic performances based on the report they can view indicating their semester GPA through four years in a graph. Additionally, this online system would prove to be environmentally friendly with the reduction of paper printing. This web-based application was developed using open source scripting languages and databases: PHP, HTML 5, CSS, JavaScript, Ajax and MySQL. The system is hosted on the faculty premises and available 24/7 from anywhere. The system supports both windows and Mac operating systems via desktop and mobile devices and is accessible on IOS and Android devices, using any commonly used modern web browser with use of a log-in. This would mean the staff and student would no longer require a complex processes and lengthy timelines for the issuing of examination results