DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF TRANSCRIPT GENERATION SYSTEM

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Over the years several efforts has been made to alleviate the burden of result processing and transcript generation on the desk officers who are in charge of the five departments that made up the School of Engineering Technology both at the Exams and Records and Statistics. Adigwe P.K and Okoye P.V.C (1998) data processing is defined as the entire process of converging or manipulating data into definite and meaningful data information. The information obtained at the end of the process is the result. Therefore result processing can be seen as a continuous process of converting data (which can be scores, grade points, credit units etc) into definite and meaningful information which can be either be statement of result or transcripts. The end point of data processing activity by the administrative unit is the product of basic documents and information (statement of result or transcript) from basic data which can be (which can be scores, grade points, credit units etc) for managements’ use. In Federal Polytechnic Nekede, Owerri the result produced informs the management about the performance of each student in their various courses. These results contained are used to check the students’ level of understanding in the entire subject taught. In the course of research an intensive investigation was carried out on how all the departments in the School of Engineering of Technology (SET) performs its result computation, processing and transcript. From my findings it appears that current method adopted needs improvement. Introduction of computer into the system will do much required magic in result processing. Structured system analysis and design methodology will be applied in other to arrive to the development of the new system thereby introducing the use of Visual Basic dot net for the software development

1.2    BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

It is an established fact that after every assessment, examination or research work, a result must be obtained. In every academic environment there is need to have results to be aware of the student’s performance in order to generate the student’s transcript whenever the need arises. To achieve this here in this institution, it involves the registration of courses, student’s personal data, examination score, records updating and so on. The problem been faced now is how to carry out these activities presently, the result processing and transcript generation of all the department are performed manually.

1.3    OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The primary objective is to computerize, design and implement software which will take care of result processing and transcript generation for all departments in FCAI. Also only authorized desk officers are permitted to have access to the result of students. This can be achieved by introducing a password.

1.4    SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Research carried out in the College which constitute the all the department in the college shows that results are still being processed manually as well as transcript generation. This leads to various problems which include,

a)   Insecurity of results.

b)   Duplication of results.

c)   Loss of results when files are been carried from one table to the other.

d)   Wrong calculations during computation.

e)  Omission of results.

This project will achieve the following:

i)  Increase in deficiency

ii) Easy detection and correction of errors.

iii) Reduce pressure of work on examination officers.

iv) Makes computation less labor intensive.

Hence, the need for the design of software and the implementation in the processing of results and generation of transcripts for the five departments of the School of Engineering Technology cannot be over emphasized.

1.5    SCOPE OF THE STUDY                                                       

This project work covers the registration of courses and computation of students examination score in order to process their results and also generate their transcripts.

1.6    LIMITATION OF STUDY

This project work is faced with a restricting factor, which made the work impossible to go beyond this scope.

The restricting factor is this:

•       Inadequate supply of data from some departments.

1.7    DEFINITION OF TERM

a)  SOFTWARE: these are sets of logically related instruction given to the  computer to perform specific tasks.

b)  TRANSCRIPT: It is a paper that outlines all the courses, course codes, grades and grade points for each semester.