Computerized Thesis Enrollment System

Chapter I
INTRODUCTION
Project Context

The evolution in technology caused by the needs especially in business demonstrates that Information System and Information Technology is essential ingredient for success of today’s enterprises. But still, some organizations and offices used the traditional or manual system in managing their information. The Don Bosco High School office, particularly the enrollment committee face tons of work in their daily activities most especially after enrollment because of failure to seek ways and means on how to simplify their task.

The tasks are time consuming and sometimes end up with inaccurate reports. Thus, in this paper, the system developers aim to propose a computerized enrollment system specifically of use to the Don Bosco High School Enrollment Committee. According to the website reference.com, a computerized enrollment system is a multi-function processing operation that automatically manages and stores enrollment information.

Computerization of enrollment information interrelates different yet interdependent transactions in a systematized and functional way. The use of computerized enrollment systems by organizations to help coordinate people and information is increasing throughout the world.

Upon enrollment, new and transferee students will present their credentials to the enrollment committee. The credentials include form 138 (report card), certificate of good moral character, clear photocopy of NSO birth certificate, clear photocopy of baptismal certificate if baptized catholic and equivalent document for non-Catholics. On the other hand, the old students are required to submit their form 138 and summer grade if applicable for appraisal to the enrollment committee. After completing all the requirements, the enrollment committee will issue an enrollment form for the student to fill up. The enrollment form will be returned to the enrollment committee for verification. If in case there are some fields that were not filled up, the enrollment form will be returned to the student to have it completed. The duly filled up enrollment form will be submitted to window 2 or the assessment window section for verification and validation.

The students will need to wait for their names to be announced over the sound system. When student’s name is announced, the student will proceed to window 3 or the billing section window and pay necessary bills. After paying, they will proceed to the library and present their receipt for book rental for them to get their books. Then they will proceed to the Science Lab for the I.D. Finally, they will present again their receipt to the personnel in-charge. In the existing enrollment system of Don Bosco High School, the enrollment committee will sort all the enrollment form according to year level and section. The secretary will input the student details on the computer using Microsoft Excel. After entering all records, the forms will be filed on a folder and will be kept on a filing cabinet by the class adviser. The details about the students entered in the computer will be the basis of the secretary in preparing reports such as enrollment statistics, number of transferees, repeaters, balik-aral and reports on religious denominations.

All these data are sorted out according to year level and gender. Another report to be generated every after grading period is the report card of each student. The secretary will prepare a grading sheet form and distribute it to the subject teachers for them to fill up. Filled up grading sheet forms will be submitted to the class adviser for the preparation of report cards. The adviser will input the grades of each student per subject on the report card manually. Currently, updating records about students such as age, year level, status, number of brothers and sisters studying in the said school are done manually. Every enrollment, students are required to fill up enrollment form to update their records. Their previous records from their previous class advisers will be given to the present class advisers. The present class adviser will be the one to update the records of each student. Another important data that need updates in the student’s profile is the grade for each subject.

Grade details are updated on the report card of students by their class advisers and on their permanent records by the secretary. This means that every time a parent wants to check the record of a student, he/she needs to ask assistance from either the class adviser or the secretary. In case when some of the grades are not yet submitted to the class adviser, the parent needs to ask every subject teacher of his/her child. Occasionally, problems are encountered in updating and monitoring students’ records. Since students’ records are only filed in folders and kept in filing cabinets, there are instances that some records are lost or misplaced. In those cases, students are asked to fill up another copy of enrollment form. Students’ records are also hard to find since the class adviser or secretary needs to search the records manually.

Every time there are updates on the students’ records, this also means an additional workload to the teachers and secretary since searching and updating records are done manually. Regarding updates on the grades of students, there are cases that grades are not submitted to the class adviser on time. This will be a burden to the parents who will be checking the grades of their children because it will require them to ask the subject teachers one by one. With the manual system, preparation and generation of reports is time consuming and difficult. This is because the secretary can only finish his report after sorting all the enrollment forms after.

In the existing system, after sorting all the enrollment forms, the enrollment committee will sort and enter the details of students in Microsoft Excel for them to produce reports such as enrollment statistics, number of transferees, repeaters, balik-aral, and religious denominations; each of this information sorted out per year level and gender. These cause delayed submission of reports to the principal. On the part of the class adviser, preparing report cards of students is also time and effort consuming since he/she needs to write manually the grades of each student on their cards. These difficulties encountered by the employees because of their manual system push them to go for employing modern technology.

Purpose and Description

With the proposed system, updating and monitoring student’s records will be faster and more accurate. The parent will no longer go to the subject teacher of his/her child one by one or wait for the class adviser; instead he/she can go directly to the principal’s office and ask assistance from the secretary about the grades of his/her child/children. The secretary will just enter the ID number or the name of the student on the system and all details of the student will be displayed. In updating student records, the class adviser will no longer update manually. All modifications about student’s records will be updated directly to the system upon enrollment. The possibility of lost or misplaced student’s record will be greatly minimized since all student details are already saved in the system’s database and records are back up regularly.

The time allotted in generating reports will also be lessened and reports are more likely to be submitted on time at the principal’s office with the use of the proposed system. During enrollment, details about new students and updates about old student will be entered and stored directly on the system. This means that after enrollment, the secretary will no longer enter manually the details of student on the computer. Since the proposed system is capable of generating reports on the enrollment statistics, transferees, repeaters, balik-aral and religious denomination as to year level and gender, the difficulties being encountered by the enrollment committee will be minimized if not eliminated.

Another feature of the proposed system is its log-in form with three user accounts, the administrator (secretary and principal), the cashier, and the adviser. The administrator has a full access to the system. The teachers are only allowed to register students and print reports. The cashier has access to the assessment process only. With this, security of student records is secured and enrollment process will no longer time consuming.

Objectives

The study aims to evaluate the present enrollment system of the Don Bosco High School. It also endeavors to provide effective and efficient way for easy operation and access of student’s record. Specifically, it aims to:

1 Determine and evaluate the existing system in terms of:
a Monitoring Student Records
b Updating Student Records
c Reports Generation
2 Determine the problems encountered by the manual system in terms of: a
Monitoring Student Records
b Updating Student Records
c Reports Generation
3 Propose a solution that would address the problems encountered.

4 Determine the benefits that can be derived from the proposed system.

Scope and Delimitation

This study restricts its investigation on the existing enrollment system of the Don Bosco High School in Lagawe, Ifugao.

The proposed Enrollment System of Don Bosco High School will be designed to cover the major enrollment process of DBHS; student’s registration, monitoring student’s records and reports generation. It secures the important information of the student through personnel log-in. It can save the necessary data that the system should have through a manual process and produce backup into a storage device. The system provides the level of user accessibility. The system is designed to be manipulated only by the principal and the enrollment staff. It is not accessible to others. It is also designed to be reminders about unpaid school fees of the student and also there is an official receipt that can be printed by the system.

Review of Related Literature
A. COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY

Nowadays, technologies have become widely used in everyday lives of people that even simple tasks are done with the help of powerful technological inventions. These are the fruits of the innovativeness and knowledge possessed by men. Computers are making revolutionary changes in the way people live, play and work. In almost every field, computers proved to be valuable assets. For example, the contribution of computers in the business field has been undeniably strong and effective. Computers have the ability to perform a complex and tedious work in a very effective manner resulting to the widespread need of computers inside many establishments.

They are needed because of their usefulness like storing, retrieving, and clever of processing information. For effective execution of commands, software, just like the system proposed in this paper, are required to be installed to be able to handle processes in the computer’s working system. The microcomputer and development of various softwares are not just for scientific and engineering use but as well as for education purposes particularly the enrollment process which is the focus of this study. As soon as people realized that the means to make better decisions and to solve problems faster is at the tip of their fingers through the use of computers, the demand for them increases exponentially.

However, a computer is not an independent problem solver. But owing to the speed with which it can retrieve and manipulate large volumes of data, the computer is an essential aid on the problem solving process. Furthermore, electronic equipment permits fast and ecological processing of huge amounts of data. The computer can, with proper programming, process data towards logical conclusions, classify them, and make them readily available for a manager’s use (Greenwald et al., 2005). In fact, data do not become information until they are processed into a usable form that is readable to the users.

Information system projects sometimes are initiated to improve the accuracy of the processing data or ensure that a procedure prescribing how to do specific task is always followed (Connolly and Begg, 2004). In this study, a software, specifically a computer-based enrollment system for Don Bosco High School is created using Microsoft Visual Studio 2008. Using this language, codes representing a set of commands are organized into one software which when installed will enable a computer to execute enrollment-related-commands from the user.

B. COMPUTERIZED ENROLLMENT SYSTEM

A computerized enrollment system is a good example of a computer generated process. Computers are almost indispensable to most industries because of its ability to deal with voluminous records. Hence, in most academic institutions, the use of computers is an immense help in managing records and files. With the volume of files such as those from students’ records, finances, inventories, and others needed for its operation, the use of computer has made tasks simpler, faster and more efficient. The use of computers can lessen the workload and provides accurate information needed to the school. As a result, it will benefit not only the student but the administration as a whole. Thus, a computerized enrollment system is very essential to every school.

As an example, Long Beach City College in California, USA has gone live with a new Cognos-based enrollment management system that was designed by Irvine, CA-based professional services firm e2e Analytix. Prior to installing the new system, LBCC which has two main campuses and multiple satellites that support nine schools and 34 departments, handled its enrollment via manual spreadsheets. With no reporting, continuity, or standard practices, and with lengthy error corrections, the school’s enrollment management budgeting and planning took up three months to compile, consolidate, and implement. LBCC tapped e2e Analytix, which specializes in higher education, to design a web-based enrollment management system using Cognos Enterprise Planning software from Cognos Inc. (Ottawa,Ontario).

Using Cognos for enrollment management was a unique application for Cognos, according to Dan Galuppo, e2e’s director of professional services, but the result delivers real-time data collection, consolidation, workflow, and calculations to help LBCC enrollment staff in making faster and more informed decisions. On the other hand, although most schools here in the Philippines have their own computers, their functions are not fully maximized. The University of the Philippines has recently developed its own computerized enrollment system together with the other known universities. However, many still rely on the manual system of storing and retrieving files, thus in turn, make work laborious, time consuming, less efficient and requiring more manpower. The Pangasinan State University- Lingayen Campus currently uses the manual system of enrollment.

For years, this system has been employed and has indeed been a tedious process on the part of the students as well as the members of the enrollment committee. This entails the long process of filling up forms in three copies (student copy, accounts copy and registrar’s copy), class scheduling, assessment of fees, and issuance of student records. The continued adoption of this usual manual enrollment system has caused numerous errors, unnecessary delays, and has ultimately made the entire enrollment system a slow process to contend considering the influx of students each year. Fortunately, the design, development and implementation of EnrollmentAutomate: Pangasinan State University Computerized Enrollment System is introduced to address this long-standing slow process of enrollment and already in the process.

Technical Background
Table 1. Hardware Requirements of the Proposed System
Minimum Hardware
Specifications
Recommended Hardware Specifications
Processor – 1 ghz
Hard disk – 40 GB free hard disk space
Memory – 512 MB
Video Card—8 MB
Printer – Any Printer
Processor – 2 ghz or higher
Hard disk –160GB free hard disk space or higher
Memory-1GB or higher
Video Card—16 MB or higher
Printer – Ink Jet