Sunday 29 November 2015

DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A WEB BASED TIME TABLE SYSTEM (A CASE STUDY OF COMPUTER SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENT, FEDERAL COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE ISHIAGU EBONYI STATE.)



ABSTRACT
Web –Based Time Table and course allocation is a research work designed to effectively manage information system for a tertiary institution. The system was designed to be accessed by students and lecturers alike to get update on lectures and practical time table thus eliminating all forms of delay and stress involved in the manual system. The web-based system was implemented using Apache, MYSQL for database and PHP language.        



CHAPTER ONE
1.0            INTRODUCTION
The academic environment has gone so complex that an automated system may be required to automate certain aspects of the academic system. One such area of difficulty is timetable scheduling; those saddled with the responsibility of time table creation are always faced with challenges of creating effective system that will deliver its purpose.
Automation has been seen a way of enhancing Manual activities. For instance, Manual operations are characterized with some setbacks such as erroneous computation etc. with automation, those setbacks are either eliminated or reduced to barest minimal. To this effect application are being created to hide the manual operations and project automation.
The general task of solving timetable scheduling problems is iterative and time consuming. In real world application, the participants in the timetable scheduling have conflicting preferences which make the search for an optimal solution a problem. In order to solve the problem it is necessary to find a compromise between all the parties involved in the requirement, usually conflicting (e.g. day, time). The constraints are related to the availability, timetabling and preference of each of the instructor, to rooms availability, number of student and curricula. In order to solve this problem for the particular case of university system, timetable scheduling has to adopt the computer-base approach. Computer-base approach enables the institution to automate certain manual task and work efficiently. Also, in the particular case of timetable scheduling, the automated system could find an optimal or a sub-optimal solution using mainly inter agent communication.
1.1     BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
The federal college of agriculture, Umudike now at Ishiagu as the training wing of national root crop research institute situated at Umudike, in Abia State. She still trains staff of the college to ishiagu in 1993 made way for the establishment of Federal University of Agriculture, Umudike.
Ishiagu being the new location is quite suitable for academic and Agricultural work. Presently, the college occupies an area of about 200 hectares.
Also in 2010, Computer Science Technology department was introduced by former Provost Dr. Paul Ajah  in its inception. After 4 years of existence, the department has attained the age of maturity like the good and faithful steward, the department has achieved a lot.
The project work goes into the development of web based lectures and practical’s timetable, the efforts is to eliminate the manual way in which all students and staff have access to be web based when it has been implemented and functional capabilities available to the user. Timetabling present a key information concern for all education providers. The scheduling of multi-dimensional event (where curriculum activities, teaching staff must be synchronized), the recording of this information integration with appropriate lectures data sources (eg for student enrolments on representative lectures) and the presentation of such information in convenient formats to staff and students communities all represent significant challenges. However well known procedures that have in some way provide motivation in a web based system in the department. A good college/academic sector is built on the basis of proper management of data for which purpose it is meant for. A system needs certain throngs include secured students data, for this system to communicate well more especially within the academic sector as we have in our own case. 
1.2 PROBLEM DEFINITION
The scheduling problem can be defined as a problem of finding the optimal sequence for evaluating a finite set of operation (task or job) under a certain set of constrains that must be satisfied . below are some of the problems:
1)                It delays students registration process.
2)                It results to high cost of data processing each semester.
3)                 It wastes much paper and make filling of form cumbersome.
4)                It delays other departmental duties that are also important
5)                It result to inefficiency of course allocation
All these problems and more are to be solved so that the proposal solution for timetable scheduling will be an enchantment over the manual.

1.3      AIMS AND OBJECTIVES.
In solving problems of timetable scheduling, there is need for an effective and efficient techniques or methods.
The only method proven to be effective and effective is the computer-based approach. The approach that automates all the manual concepts of timetable scheduling thereby eliminating all the problems associated with the manual technique.
To this end, this project work is designed to introduce computer bases approach to the manual method of timetable scheduling.

1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY.
Timetable scheduling is a complex and time consuming process. For the purpose of this work, time table creation will be based on National diploma(NDI&NDII) only with focus on NDI and NDII  courses, this will be an effective way to start the process of time table creation.
Also, the work will be made to run on the internet backbone this will make the application distributed and network based.
1.5 LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
The proposed development is a time consuming process, the project will be streamline to NDI and NDII programme due to time limitation.
Another limitation is the inadequate research materials on the subject of timetable scheduling and creation. This project work made use of the little available materials.

1.6 ORGANIZATION OF THE WORK
The project work is organized into chapter for the purpose of clarity. The remaining part of this work is organized thus:  chapter two discussed the review of relevant literature on timetable scheduling and optimization.
Chapter three focuses on the design of the processes are discussed on this chapter.
Chapter four discusses the implementation of the system while Chapter five concluded the work with relevant and recommendations
1.7 DEFINITION OF TERMS
HTML – this is one of the programming languages which could be used for developing web documents. HTML stands for hypertext markup language. Other languages that could be for web development are XML (extended markup language) and XHTML (extended hypertext markup language).
Time-Table:  A schedule listing the times at which certain events. A plan of things that need to be done and the times they will be done.
Website: - A location connected to the internet that maintains one or more pages on the World Wide Web.
Programming language – this is a set of operation of grammatical rules (syntax or protocol) use for written and developing instructional codes given to the computer for task performance.
Interpreter – this is a kind of language translator that translates high level programming codes equivalent and at the same time executes the program codes line after line, this is achieved if and only if the line of code is error free.
Compiler – this is a kind of language translator that translates high level programming language code into its low level programming language codes equivalent and makes it executable only if this entire program code is error free.
Media – these are those things, materials or tools used for storing and delivering of information or data. Media can also imply channels, links or materials that convey data or information.
APACHE: Apache is the actual web server application that processes and delivers web content to a computer.
PHP: PHP stands for hypertext pre-processor. It is a server-side scripting language that powers most of the world’s web sites.
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