DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A UNIVERSITY ELECTRONIC EXAMINATION TIME TABLE

CHAPTER ONE

1.0     INTRODUCTION

1.1       BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Time-table is a structured schedule of an event with time at which they occur, especially time of arrival and departure according to Adedokun J. B. (2014)

A time-table is an organised set of courses in a tabular form, which makes information available about a series of arranged events such as the time range for the event to take place, venues, invigilators and supervisors that will monitor how the event is carried out.

It will be very important for us to know that time resources is the most valuable asset in the world, which may result to failure if there is no proper planning, scheduling and management so time-table has come into existence which serves as solution to the world wide time planning and management challenges, which when applied appropriately will yield fulfilment of the aim.

School of Information and Communication Technology, Federal University of Technology, minna, applies manual approach in constructing an examination time-table. This is done by the examination officer, who ensures that examinations are conducted effectively and free of hitches. This is done by collecting all the list of courses that are offered by all the departments in the School of Information and Communication Technology. The examination officer uses this list to form a tentative Examination time-table.  The time-table is liable to changes if there is any observation either from the staff or student in the faculty, if there are any clashes or omission of courses, it will be effected before the final time-table is released. This is always done two weeks before the commencement of the examination.  

The manual construction of time-table (in Universities, Polytechnics, Monotechnics, colleges and other lower academic Institutions) is time consuming and particularly involve straining up of brain which may eventually result to some errors as it were, which may still demand for setting of another time-table with the mindset of attaining a desired and favourable Examination Time Table as the case may be.  Computer solution to the problem can give more flexibility, make it easy to incorporate new requirements and save effort and it’s time conserving even as the world is approaching paperless era.

Examination time-table scheduling is an optimization problem to which either maximization or minimization of the available resources takes place depending on the choice.  The variables are very large and combinatorial explosive and the primary aim is to schedule the Examination time-table such that a clash of schedule does not occur and the time-table should be a good one that is acceptable.

1.2       STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

  For many years in the Faculty, time-table has always been generated using common type of time-table generation technique, which is the manual technique.  However, there have been errors on the generated manual examination time table, these errors include the following: inability to spread courses evenly, clashes in the examination time-table (i.e. two courses offered by a student are assigned to the same period).  Invigilators are also affected due to the fact that an invigilator may be assigned more than one courses at the same period.

Also, the officer in charge has his own challenges in the process of generating the examination time-table.  The challenges are: stress involved during the process, time spent in the process which otherwise can be used for another productive work.

1.3       AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The main aim of this project is to Design and Implement a University Time-table System that will provide an effective and efficient way of generating Examination time-table.

The objectives of the project are:

i.                    To study the existing method of examination time-table generation

ii.                  To design a system that will schedule courses, venues, invigilators and supervisors

iii.                To implement the designed system

1.4       SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Considering the importance and vital role Examination time table plays in the University system, this project will definitely be of tremendous benefit to the university.  This project is very significant in the sense that it will assist the University timetabling team and the users of the Examination Time-table officer, the lecturers and the students who are the benefactors of the generated Examination time-table.

Some benefit of the generated Examination time-table is in providing best possible solutions that can foster/enhance:  Productivity, Quality of services and Quality of Education.

This is achieved by providing the following listed features:  User friendly program, better scheduled Exam Time-table, Error free time-table, easily generated time-table and Clash free time-table.

1.5       SCOPE OF STUDY

This project titled “DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF AUNIVERSITY ELECTRONIC EXAMINATION TIME-TABLE SYSTEM (A CASE STUDY OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY)” intended to cover the School of Information and Communication Technology Examination Time-table, the main users are the officers in charge, the lecturers and the students. It will be limited to: Registration of Courses, Venues, Invigilators and Supervisors, and Generation of the Time-table as the system will handle inputted information and allocate them across the Time-table appropriately.

1.6       LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

This project research is limited only to the Examination timetabling process of the faculty, School of Information and Communication Technology, although the same procedure can as well be used for scheduling Lectures time-table.  Reasons are due to the time factor and because it covers many fields.

In the course of this research work, the following limitations are encountered:

a.        Time-table for all courses offered by the Student of Federal University of Technology Minna, were not put into consideration

b.      Spill over courses were not put into consideration

1.7       OPERATIONAL DEFINITION OF TERMS

Examination: A formal test involving answering or writing in a particular place at set out time.

Optimization: the design and operation of a system or process to make it as good as possible

In some defined sense

Slot: A space where some information will display such as Time, Courses, Invigilators, Venues etc

Simulated: Made to imitate manual outlook

Automation: The act of converting the controlling of a system or approach into an electronic controls by using computer