Creating a Student Portal for Bataan Peninsula State University

IntroductioN The project is to create a Student Portal for Bataan Peninsula State University. Its purpose is to raise the availability of certain students’ records like the grades, finances/billing, and curriculum checklist. Along with, is the process of encoding students’ final grades and the forming of the dean’s list. Using the student portal, data can be accessible at any time and location over the Internet.

Background of the Study

The Bataan Peninsula State University was established by virtue of Republic Act 9403, signed into law on 22nd of March 2007. It is a conglomeration of fine leading higher education institutions in Bataan seeking to contribute to the national and regional development through providing excellent quality of services in instruction, research, production and extension.
Guided by one Vision of becoming a university of excellence acknowledged not only in the country but also in the Asia-Pacific Region, BPSU shall continue to gear toward the realization of its mission of providing quality and relevant education in order to contribute to the national and regional development.
Before the conversion, BPSU used to have three campuses; two are located in the City of Balanga while the third is situated in Orani. The passage of RA 9403 resulted to the expansion of BPSU's campuses as the said Act duly integrated the Bataan State College in Dinalupihan and its satellite campus in Abucay (formerly Bataan National Agricultural School). The five campuses of the university have very humble beginnings and yet they all emerged with glorious histories to be proud of. More empowerment is expected to be bestowed to each campus as their strengths shall be utilized for the success of the 111 programs and other services of the university. On June 2008, the University made education more accessible to the residents of the towns of Bagac and Morong by establishing an extension in the Municipality of Bagac. The extension offers some of the most in demand courses in the country like BS Entrepreneurship, BS Hotel and Restaurant Management, first two years of Nursing, and General Engineering courses.
Contributing to national development has always been the topmost priority of the university; therefore BPSU relentlessly keeps itself updated on the recent trends to be responsive to the present and future demands of the community. At present university has three programs granted with Level 1 Accreditation from AACCUP. Fifty-six (56) programs are scheduled for accreditation from 2008 to 2012. Moreover, the university continues to equip itself with faculty and employees who have remarkable skills and knowledge in order to uphold academic excellence and maintain its capacity of producing quality graduates. At present, 6 percent of its faculty have Doctorate degrees and 31 percent have master's degrees. The rest are still working on their post-baccalaureate studies.
It is not surprising that the enrollment continues to increase over the years as the university has proven its capability to match and even to surpass the performance of other reputable universities in the country in various competitions and also in the licensure exams. Other than this, low tuition fee rates, and pollution-free and safe environment further encourage the Bataeños and those from other nearby provinces to patronize BPSU.
For BPSU, a life without challenges to conquer would be futile as the university always stretches the limit to adapt to the changes and to turn trials into opportunities. Even cuts in the budget will not impede BPSU from attaining its goals. Aside from relying on its several IGPs to augment the budget and sustain its programs, the university continues to strengthen and to establish partnerships with local and international agencies that are more than willing to work side by side BPSU as it continues its journey towards a more dignified future. [bpsu.edu.ph]
Every educational institution has its sole priority to give the best learning out from their best performances of teachings, processes and resources to their students. And, BPSU which is one of these institutions had already proven that they can absolutely give it.
In the University’s actual operation, there are lots of offices and departments that are responsible on producing, maintaining and keeping every student’s records. Two of these are the Registrar’s department and the Finance’s department.
Along the Registrar’s department is where the student’s documents are piled. Student’s documents consisting of personal data and academic information from their previous schools and from BPSU itself which are produced due to the span of years of the student’s admission in the University, for instance, are the grades.

Another department mentioned is the Finance’s department; this also conducts one of the main tasks required for tracking the admission of the student every school year. That task is to keep files with regards to all of their finances, including all of the payments that are made, balances and other financial issues. These certain information of a student can also be found in the enrollment system that was used by the Registrar’s Office, it is how the Registrar has the authority to view the financial status of a student.

Students must know every transaction that was made in the University especially when it has to do with their own concerns. They must always be informed of all the latest records that were kept and reported to the offices responsible for their stay-in within the institution.

On the registrar’s part, a student is not allowed to have an update or a look within their record every time they desired. Considering that the registrar is also busy for other major works assigned to him. Seemingly, it will just consume time and effort for finding a particular record in their repositories. A student can only be given the opportunity, which depends on the situation. Naturally, grades were available every end of the semester in a printed form, though, some of the instructors are considerate in informing a student of the grades as often as possible.

While on the finance office part, the records kept are confidential. In order for a student to be informed of the balances remaining on their account, the student should ask the finance officer. But it’s not that simple, as the officer is not free to answer every student’s questions or uncertainties at anytime. At some point in a semester, the finance’s department issues the statement of account of each student that still has remaining balances that must be paid in order to be given a permit that is a requirement before taking an examination

On pondering on these unwanted situations experienced by the students, the thought of having a medium that will grant access to student’s account as often as they want sprung up. The medium is what we called a Students’ Portal. A portal or a web portal, also known as a links page, presents information from diverse sources in a unified way. Apart from the standard search engine feature, web portals offer other services such as e-mail, news, stock prices, information, databases and entertainment. Portals provide a way for enterprises to provide a consistent look and feel with access control and procedures for multiple applications and databases, which otherwise would have been different entities altogether.

Some related studies are researched and included on the documentation for further comprehension of the proposed system.

Orani Water District Intranet Based Public Information Kiosk This thesis is made by the IPiK Group, BSIT students of Colegio de San Juan de Letran - Bataan that aims to create an integrated public access information system to be used by employees and visitors of Orani Water District that will improve the current process of dissemination of information. Also, the developers target the replacement of old bulletin boards with digital ones. All the information contained and posted on a bulletin board will be encoded and displayed in a public access computer, with a web-based interface to access the information. The public access computer will be implemented in a client-server environment. A domain controller will be used to apply access control and policies to the public access computer. The officer-in-charge only has to encode the information on the system rather than printing it and then posting it on the bulletin board. The system will only be updated by an administrator. The company’s system administrator will handle the updates and backups. The backups will be made using MS SQL Server 2005’s automatic backup service. The backup files will be stored on a backup DVD-ROM. The system will not be available online, only through the intranet. It will be available only from 8 AM to 5 PM. The proposed system named as Letran-Abucay Students’ Portal has the same objective with the IPik Group thesis that is to render information for the users. The main users of the Orani Water District Intranet-based Public Information Kiosk are the customers, while for the Students’ Portal are apparently the students. What will be the difference of the two is that the Students’ Portal will be a web-based application and is accessible using a web browser which is opposed to the public information kiosk that is a window-based application.
Bataan Information System
This thesis is made by the STI-Bataan students under the advisory of Ms. Cristina de Leon, who is now a Letran IT Professor. It is about the designing and developing of a Bataan Information System in a multimedia form and to solve the problems encountered by the provincial government in promoting Bataan. The Information System will be easy to access and directed to the end-user and will support an interactive environment with a user-friendly feature in promoting the province of Bataan.
Information system is frequently used to refer to the interaction between people, processes, data and technology. In this sense, the term is used to refer not only to the information and communication technology (ICT) an organization uses, but also to the way in which people interact with this technology in support of business processes (Wikipedia)
Giving information is how the two systems, which are the Bataan Information System and the proposed students’ portal, are similar. Both render numbers of information that are accessible by an authorized user in a computerized process.
Campus Portals a Framework for Development Accommodating End-users’ Online Activities (an International Thesis) This thesis is about the development of a campus portal created for the University of Wollongong; thus was prepared by Tharitpong Fuangvut on 2005.
A Campus Portal is an exciting recent phenomenon forming part of the new generation of online services for all stakeholders in institutions of higher education. Conceptually the general notion of a Portal should be to be distinguished from that of other Web- based applications and the traditional Intranet of the institution.
The major objective of this research is to propose a development methodology specifically suitable for Campus Portal projects. While there are many accepted development methodologies for traditional and Web-based Information Systems, no clear body of knowledge on the development of Campus Portals has yet been recognized. Additionally, as this is a new area, the definitions, terms, concepts and important issues agreed to by academic researchers and practitioners, are still evolving. This research, therefore, needs to clarify and identify some important issues regarding Campus Portals and their development, prior to composing the development methodology. In the second and third phases of the research, two studies were carried out, a preliminary study and a case study. These generated more understanding of the issues and extended the body of knowledge on Campus Portals, especially concerning their development.
The preliminary study explored and investigated the online services and Campus Portals of 40 higher education institutions’ sites in Australia, New Zealand, the USA, the UK and Canada. The findings of the preliminary study show that there are no standard patterns in the function of personalization and customization in Campus Portals.
The case study was conducted in an Australian university among the major stakeholder groups, namely, the development team and the end-users (students and academic staff). Students were the primary focus of the end-user study, from which data was collected using a survey to build up usage patterns of their online activities.

Statement of Goals Due to the data gatherings that the researcher had conducted many thoughts lead the proponent to know and study more of the certain dilemmas and inefficiencies that taking place within the process wherein the people affected perhaps are not aware. Currently, students are given limits on viewing their own records kept by the University due to several uncertainties it will cost, uncertainties that include lack of time and extensive work of the people involved. Furthermore, the proponent had also studied prior concerns which will benefit everyone that are included on the process once implemented on the system:

Security of data that will ensure a protected system that traces and prevents unauthorized access;
Encoding of the final grades that is one of the tasks of the faculty every end of a semester;
Downloadable and printable documents such as the Grades Slip coming from the Registrar’s office and a variety of forms coming from the Dean’s office.
Availability of students’ list with final grades which will help the Dean to generate the Dean’s list.

The following goals are made and collected by the proponent through the aim of resolving the concerns mentioned. The goals are as follow:

General Goal
To develop a Student’s Portal for Bataan Peninsula State University that will enable students to access their personal, academic and financial records.

Specific Goal
To implement an authentication of users through the use of ID no and password, as to prevent intruders and to assure the safety of all the data transmitted over the network.

To incorporate a module for encoding the final grades of students every semester that the faculty uses.

To provide downloadable and printable forms those are being retrieved from the Dean’s, Registrar’s and Finance office.

To include a module that will enable the Dean to view the academic status of the students that she can use as basis for retrieving the Dean’s list.

Significance of the Study

For the Students
Students are the ones that have a great benefit on the students’ portal because it will provide them quick access of their taken subjects prior to the curriculum they had enrolled with the corresponding final grades for each. Also, the system ensures the confidentiality and the update of records for each semester as long as new grades are issued to help the students be informed of their academic performance in the University. Aside from grades and subjects that can be viewed, a student will also have the privilege to view some his or her financial data that was managed by the finance office.

For the Dean’s office
Using the students’ portal, the Dean is able to view the academic status of the students that include detail such as the final grades and to gather the names of those that are included on the Dean’s list. And also, as the portal offers a module for downloadable forms that are coming from the office, the task for issuing these certain forms will be eliminated thus reducing the workload of the Dean.

For the Registrar’s Office As the students will be provided of options on determining their academic records, whether to just view it on the portal or to still ask for a printed copy coming from the Registrar’s office, somehow there will be a lessening of task on the Registrar’s part.

For the Finance Office
The Finance office can gain benefit from the students’ portal since the students can already check over their financial records online reducing the printing of documents such as the statement of accounts if permitted.

For the Future Researchers
The future researchers can acquire fundamental knowledge from and be able to use this thesis documentation as basis of their own research study if it’s all about developing a students’ portal.

For the Developer
To the developer, this will also provide better comprehension of her proposed system that will lead her to the further understanding of the entire study that surely they can use on preparation of a brighter future that awaits her as IT professional.

Scope and Limitations

This study will focus on creating a students’ portal for Bataan Peninsula State University which is web-based where student records are the prior concern and accessible online. Student records that include:
Student’s personal information
Curriculum checklist that comprises all the subjects taken and to be taken by the student based on the University’s curriculum and the final grades for each
Grades records that consist of all the grades of the student for all his subjects that he can query through supplying of a school year or semester.
Financial information that comprises the tuition fee with miscellaneous fees and discount fee, if there’s any, of a student.
Subject offering that pertains to the schedule of each subject that a student had enrolled belongs. The student can use this link to plan for his schedule for the upcoming semester.
Class Schedule encloses all the subject schedules of a student.
As part of the authentication that was implemented on the portal, the users must provide an authorized username and password. On the system there will be four types of user’s account: the student the faculty, the dean, the registrar and the administrator.
In the Student account, the authorized tasks that users can do are:
Viewing of their records in through selecting from the following links: myProfile; myGrades that contains sub links such as Semester Grades, Curriculum Checklist, Collection of Grades; myFinance, mySubjectOffering and mySchedule.
Viewing other student’s or faculty staff’s records through selecting mySearch link, sending and receiving of messages through myInbox which is a form of messaging.
And, printing and downloading of forms such as Grades slip, curriculum checklist and forms issued by the Dean and Registrar(eg. Change of Grade Form)
Second, in the Faculty account, the authorized tasks that users can do are:
Entering student’s final grades for a particular subject, section school year and semester through the use of myClassRecord.
Viewing other student’s or faculty staff’s records through mySearch.
Uploading of lessons for the students
Third, in the Dean account, the authorized tasks that Dean can do are:
Viewing of the Dean’s list for the current and the previous school year and semester.
Searching students to review their academic performance from the first year of his admission up to the present.
Searching class schedules by entering the assigned beginning and ending time of a class, in order for the Dean to be informed of what particular class is was going on for a moment.
Viewing faculty subject loads and schedules.
Fourth, in the Registrar account, the authorized tasks that Registrar can do are:
Viewing of student’s general weighted average.
Updating the grades of a student that obtained a INC remarks from the past school year.
And, selecting the students that will form the Dean’s List.
Lastly, the Administrator account, the authorized tasks that Registrar can do are:
Conversion of tables of records from MS Foxpro format to MS SQL.
Setting the current school year and semester.
Uploading of downloadable forms.
And, reset users’ passwords.
The following are the limitations of the Students’ Portal:
Only the “Other Information” part and the password are the only records in the student’s page that can be altered.
Only the administrator can convert the tables from MS Foxpro format to SQL/simply add records on the database, can set the school year and can upload forms.
Only final grades are to be encoded by the faculty. Faculty cannot edit anymore the grades of the students that belong to the previous school year and semester.
Only the faculty user and student users can exchange messages.
Only the Registrar can update the INC remarks of students that completed the subject.
Lastly, only the registrar can form the dean’s list.

Definition of Terms

Transaction – a transaction usually means a sequence of information exchange and related work. A transaction is a unit of work that you want to treat as "a whole". It has to either happen in full, or not at all.
Records – In computer data processing, a record is a collection of data items arranged for processing by a program. Multiple records are contained in a file or data set. The organization of data in the record is usually prescribed by the programming language that defines the record's organization and/or by the application that processes it.
Portal – a term, generally synonymous with gateway, for a World Wide Web site that is or proposes to be a major starting site for users when they get connected to the Web or that users tend to visit as an anchor site.
Web Portal – also known as a links page, presents information from diverse sources in a unified way. Apart from the standard search engine feature, web portals offer other services such as e-mail, news, stock prices, information, databases and entertainment.
Links – Using hypertext, a link is a selectable connection from one word, picture, or information object to another. In a multimedia environment such as the World Wide Web, such objects can include sound and motion video sequences.
Search Engine – designed to search for information on the World Wide Web. The search results are usually presented in a list of results and are commonly called hits. The information may consist of web pages, images, information and other types of files.
Database – is a collection of information that is organized so that it can easily be accessed, managed, and updated. In one view, databases can be classified according to types of content: bibliographic, full-text, numeric, and images.
Client-server – describes the relationship between two computer programs in which one program, the client, makes a service request from another program, the server, which fulfills the request.

Web-based – refers to those applications or services that are resident on a server that is accessible using a Web browser and is therefore accessible from anywhere in the world via the Web.
Technology – the usage and knowledge of tools, techniques, and crafts, or is systems or methods of organization, or is a material product (such as clothing) of these things. The word technology comes from the Greek technología téchnē 'craft' and -logía, the study of something, or the branch of knowledge of a discipline. The term can either be applied generally or to specific areas: examples include "construction technology", "medical technology", or "state-of-the-art technology".

Application – program or group of programs designed for end users. Software can be divided into two general classes: systems software and applications software

Methodology

Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) provides a set of models, principles, and guidelines for designing and developing enterprise solutions in a way that ensures that all elements of a project, such as people, processes and tools, can be successfully managed. MSF also provides proven practices for planning, designing, developing, and deploying successful enterprise solutions. The researcher had intended to use MSF for her methodologies especially because they are in use of Microsoft solution tools such as the Microsoft.NET Framework and the Microsoft SQL Server.

MSF has five phases these are the: Envisioning, Planning, Developing, Stabilizing and Deploying.

Envisioning Phase - This phase broadly describes the goals and constraints of the study.
During this phase, the reseacher gathered necessary information and resources for developing a students’ portal. One of the activities that were conducted is an interview with BPSU’s database administrator to further determine what are the things and transactions necessary to put on the portal to satisfy the needs of the University and the predicted users.
Some of the approved transactions are the viewing of student’s profile including the personal, academic and financial information; encoding of final grades and forming of the Dean’s list.
Risk assessment regarding the developing of the system is also accomplished. On the process, the impact of the consequence is learned by determining the likelihood of its occurrence and the severity of the outcome relative to established project objectives.
The envisioning phase culminates in the vision approved milestone. This milestone is the first point at which the project team and customer agree on the overall direction for the project, including what the product will and will not include.

Planning Phase - This phase determines what to develop and how to develop it. The process of information is modified, gathered and undergoes three design processes namely conceptual, logical and physical perspective.
During this phase, the researcher planned how to develop the Bataan Peninsula State University students’ portal on the way its functionality can achieve the requirements of the educational institution.
For conceptual design process, the expectations of the users or beneficiary of the study must be achieved like the proposal that students by using the portal can easily view their own records.
For the logical design process, this meet the developer’s steps and requirements on how to develop the said system, like in an instance the system software solution will be developed using Microsoft Visual Studio and SQL Server Management studio. This solution is able to interact and communicate with other transaction processes, applications and data source.
Lastly for the Physical design process, with the developer’s perspective, the development of the system will be a great help and ease not only for the students but also for the offices of the University that handles student’s information keeping considering the volumes of users and transactions. There would be a web-based implementation of a portal which will be used as the primary means for dissemination of the student’s profiles and information.
The planning phase culminates in the Project plan approved milestone. This milestone is the point at which the project team, the customer, and key project stakeholders agree on the feature set and the design of the application. The Project plan approved milestone is essentially the contract with the customer to proceed with the project.
Developing Phase – During this phase, the solution is developed and optimized until it is deemed ready for production use.
On this phase, the student’s portal is developed. The researcher experienced several revisions on the design, the basic functionalities and on the core transaction in order to follow the needs of the identified users.
The development phase culminates in the Scope Complete milestone. At this milestone, all features are complete, and the product is ready for external testing and stabilization. This milestone is the opportunity for customers and end users, operations and support personnel, and key project stakeholders to evaluate the product and identify any remaining issues they need to address before it ships.

Stabilizing Phase - This phase conducts testing of the complete solution.
During this phase, the researcher focuses on resolving and prioritizing bugs and preparing the solution for release.
The stabilization phase culminates with the release of the product. The Release milestone occurs when the team has addressed all outstanding issues and shipped the product or placed it in service. At the Release milestone, responsibility for ongoing management and support of the product officially transfers from the project team to the operations and support organization.

Deploying phase – the developer deploys the core technology and site components, stabilizes the deployment, transitions the project to operations and support, and obtains final customer approval of the project. After the deployment, the developer conducts a project review and a customer satisfaction survey.
During this phase, the developer tested the usability of the students’ portal and determined whether it has achieved the requirements of the University that are identified during the envisioning stage by letting some selected persons from the proposed users/customers.
The deployment complete milestone culminates the deploying phase.