INTRODUCTION

1.1    Background of the Study

Technology is changing the way teacher teaches and learner learns. Difficulty in obtaining higher education increases for a number of reasons. It could be their possible limit of capabilities with an educational environment or disabilities that limit their access to educational institutions. There are also a
number of people that live a great distance from the educational institutions. The need to commute becomes an encumbrance to achieving higher education. Also, the job markets are so competitive that teachers find that they must obtain higher education for further employment success. With synchronous schedules in present educational institutions, individuals are required to resign from their current employment to further their education. Typically, individuals are not willing to surrender their income due to the need to support a family or their current lifestyle. Some form of educational reform must take place to address the problems. Distance education or Distance learning programs are the solution to the above problems. The greatest appeal of distance learning is that one can study without having to leave home or a job to obtain higher education. These programs made it possible for students to complete their education without having to sacrifice their career and family time

E-tutoring/learning covers a spectrum of activities from blended and hybrid learning to learning that is entirely online (distance learning). E-learning mainly takes the form of online courses, where the dominant learning technology employed today is a type of system that organizes and delivers these courses. E-learning models are attempts to develop frameworks to address the concerns of the learner and present the technology challenges to deliver effective quality e-learning. When implementing e-learning model, it is very important not to take too narrow view of what constitutes e-learning and where its main value might lie. It is very important to widen our vision to what the added value the technology offer on the learning process. It allows remote learners to interact with the subject matter, subject material, and with each other in the form that could not be achieved for learners without technology. The role of technology is to get remote learners into a position to learn as though they were in-campus. And arguably, from the pedagogical view, it may provide a new way to achieve a deep understanding of the subject.

That is to say, using technology to achieve better outcomes, better engagement and interaction for the new digital generation, effective assessment and more cost-efficient way of bringing the learning environment to the learners. E-learning models have evolved from classroom replication towards models that integrate technology and pedagogical issues. In this article we illustrate an e-learning model that emphasized the role of technology in providing electronic access services and rich contents, and focus on the pedagogical issues such online instructional design and the creation of online learning communities and social networks.

1.2    STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Currently higher institutions still use the age long face-to face teaching method to pass knowledge to students. Although this method of teaching aid in learning as the students have direct contact with the teacher. This method of teaching happens to be slow and time consuming. Students have to travel long distances regularly to be able to attend lectures. Late coming to the lecture might result to student missing the lecture. Students who are shy in class will not follow in the lecture and they will not have the boldness to ask questions.

Electronic tutoring (e-tutoring), which facilitates education using communications networks, has made learning possible from anywhere at any time by using the Internet, wide area networks or local area networks. Notably, e-Learning applications which have become central to the learning process may be developed using proprietary programming. A possible solution to these problems is to utilize highly flexible open source application that allows software engineers and institutions the right to reuse, study, distribute and localize the codes to satisfy user’s requirements.

1.3    Objectives of the Study

The main aim of this report is to design and implement an electronic tutoring system for higher institutions in Nigeria that allows interaction between instructors and students. To achieve the stated aim, the following specific objectives were laid out:

i.)                to develop non-expensive interactive tools like message board tool,
discussion group tool and chat tool to provide interaction between the student and the instructor,

ii.)              to foster better and cordial interaction among members of the academic community(staff and students), and

iii.)           To develop a cost effective and efficient system (almost free) for
disseminating educational resources between the students and lecturers.

iv.)            to design a system with reusable components, feasibility and
provision for system expansion without compromising system performance.

1.4    Scope of the Study

This study revolves around the design and implementation of an e-tutoring system for undergraduate students. The system will be able to get and store student’s profile information, educational information. Students will be able to access notes and lecture materials dropped off by the lecturers. They will be able to ask questions and receive answers during online sessions, submit assignments and get their scores. Due to some limitations met during the research, the system does not cover the calculation of the overall grade points at the end of the session.

1.5    Justification of the Study

This work could be useful for students or officers in any schooling organization. The system provides a user friendly system that facilitates quick and efficient learning to cover larger section of students no matter their location and distance. The software also provides paperless and cashless transaction solution and also has network based solutions to operate multiple counters simultaneously in a closed environment.

1.6    Limitations of the Study

The following are some factors, which acted as an impeachment or constraints to the progress of the project work;

·        Lack of Documented materials:  It was difficult to start the project initially because reference materials at my disposal are limited.

·        Financial constraint is another factors that limited the researcher in owning out this project effectively.

·        Reluctance by the respondents in giving information fearing that the information sought would be used to intimidate them or print a negative image about them.

To counter this, I carried a pilot study to establish the possible cause of non-compliance in filling the questionnaires and adjusted the questionnaire accordingly. Also I encouraged the respondents to participate without holding back the information they might be having as the research instruments would not bear their names.

1.7 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY

The report is organized as follows:

This chapter (chapter 1) gives the technologies used to deliver distance education, it describes the problem statement and the main objective of this project.

Chapter 2 gives background information on electronic tutoring system. It details the related literature on e-learning

Chapter 3 gives the methodology and analysis of the system

Chapter 4 describes the design and implementation aspects of this proposed and new system.