Paperless University Admission System

UNVERSITY ADMISSION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM | GROUP 36 | UNACHUKWU CHILEZIE REGINALD 09/1152 OJEME TOSERE 08/0770 |

1. INTRODUCTION

The University Admission Management System will be developed in order to automate the complete admission system starting from the notification to admission process. It will include the Statistical reports on daily activities in the admission process, selling and purchasing of forms and manuals, marks and verifications of filled forms for eligibility , sending call up letters to eligible candidates for entrance exams , online marks, checking and merit list, sending offer letters to shortlisted candidates, online payment, admission, hostel allocation to registration process of a new student in the college, it maintains all the details regarding the affairs and well-being of the students once they have acquired admission into the university . The project deals with inputting, accessing and retrieval of information through the INTERNET. Once admission is secured, It gathers related information from all the departments of the university to which each student is admitted to, maintains these files as the student progresses, which are then used to generate reports in various forms to measure individual and overall performance of the students.
The system enables online admissions saving the time of the geographically scattered students. It will enable reducing time in activities, centralized data handling and paperless admission with reduced manpower. It will improve the operational efficiency and reduce the cost. It will also include a view of data and integration with other institutions for verification of marks and details.

1.1 PROBLEM STATEMENT
1.2 EXISTING SYSTEM

The Existing system of admission management is not totally automated it entails Candidates buying Admission forms from a university's chosen selling outlets either directly from the school or from banks etc., fill them, attach the documents to meet the admission criteria and then return the already filled forms back to the university at a stipulated deadline. These forms are then be acted upon by the school and the necessary details or a reduced set of data is drawn out from those forms by the admission team and stored in a Spreadsheet. Storing and accessing the data in the form of Excel sheets and account books is tedious work. It is prone to a lot of errors and is very decentralized. It requires a lot of laborious work and is incredibly time consuming at the same time. It may often yield incorrect or undesired results. Maintaining these records as piles may turn out to be a costlier task than any other of the colleges and institutions.
This system is still in effect today even in most top universities and the candidates are the ones who suffer depending on how geographically scattered they might be with all the dangers of travelling from their various destinations. This system is obviously money and time consuming, prone to human error, very much tedious and taskful and quite insecure when it comes to access of information one must be more conscious during the entrance of details. So, more risk is involved.

1.3 RISK INVOLVED IN EXISTING SYSTEM
Present System is time-consuming and also results in lack of getting inefficient results.
During the entrance of marks and attendance, if any mistake is done at a point, then this becomes cumulative and leads to adverse consequences. If there is any need to retrieve results it may seem to be difficult to search. it is very prone to human error, The system can be easily compromised due to its decentralized nature, Data content could be easily manipulated by anyone who could afford access to it. The system is prone to record lose either due to system error or failure.

1.4 OBJECTIVE
The primary objective of this project is to develop a Paperless Admission Management System which addresses the limitations of the current system. The requirements for the system have been gathered from the defects recorded in the past and also based on the feedback from users of previous metrics tools, which can be implemented in a higher institution of learning. Other Basic objectives are to extend their reach to geographically scattered students, reducing time in activities, centralized data handling and paperless admission with reduced manpower. Cost cutting, operational efficiency, consist view of data and integration with other institutions are other factors. Main challenges are effectively sync internal and external operations in such a manner that job can be finished within time limit and integration with different agencies on an agreed upon common data format. The main focus is reduction of man power and ease of use.
Objectives Outlined :

Reach to geographically scattered students. One of the important objectives of the admission system is communicate with all the students scattered geographically.

Reducing time in activities. Reduce the time taken process the applications of students, admitting a student, conducting the online examination, verify student marks, and send call letters to selected students.

Centralized data handling. Transfer the data smoothly to all the departments involved and handle the data centralized way.

Paperless admission with reduced manpower. Reduce the manpower needed to perform all the admission and administration task by reducing the paper works needed.

Cost cutting. Reduce the cost involved in the admission process.

Operational efficiency. Improve the operational efficiency by improving the quality of the process.

1.5 SCOPE
The scope of this project entails the most basic module functions an admission system should cover and provide and is a modification of any existing system. This project’s aim is to automate the system, pre-checking the inclusion of all required material and automatically ranking each student’s application based on a number of criteria and giving special concession for admission. These criteria or concessions may include the ranking of their university, their grade at said university and their UME score. Giving Admission based on merit. Educationally less developed states, Candidates from these states are given special concession for admission. Considering catchment areas that is, Consideration is given to students who fall within the locality or area of the Tertiary Institution and Admission by direct entry. The data used by the system is stored in a database that will be the center of all information held about students and the base for the remainder of the process after the initial application has been made. It also covers creating different system users and assigning different roles with related permissions. Notifications will be sent and released online. Student’s applications can only be done online. Verification of marks/details done by interacting with different agencies like school boards or college management systems. Ranks will be generated depending upon the marks obtained for qualified candidates. Admissions will be done online, saving the time of students which is key to the project. Data will be made centralized and maintained, with access given to only those whose field it may concern. The seats management will be done by the convener online and availability of seats announced. Statistical reports on daily activities in the admission process will be generated. The system provides security through password authentication. The Administrative staff and system administrators have their own login ids and these ids help in maintain the integrity of the system.
The Department Committee draws up a time schedule for admission and also decides on the criteria for section and sends its recommendation to the graduation committee. Once this done, the following procedure is to be followed. 1. The university meets to finalize the draft advertisement, criteria for admission and preparation of the merit list. 2. All application forms are simultaneously received by the Departments and sent to the Admission Section. 3. A merit list is compiled according to the criteria as decided by the admission committee. 4. The admission section is then to proceed with the admission within the due date.
This enables things to be simplified and considerably quickened, making the jobs of the people involved easier. It supports the current process but centralizes it and makes it possible for decisions to be made earlier and easier way.

Goals
The main goal of the system is to automate the process carried out in the organization with improved performance and realize the vision of paperless admission. Some of the goals of the system are listed below: * Manage large number of student details. * Manage all details of student who registered for the course and send appropriate details about the course to the students account. * Create student accounts and maintain the data’s effectively. * View all the details of the students. * Create the statistical reports to facilitate the finance department work. * Manage the details of hostellers and facilitate the allotment of hostels rooms for the students. * Reduce the work load in interview the students for selection and Counseling should be very effective rather then direct methods. * Activities like updating, modification, deletion of records should be easier.

1.6 ANALYSIS
1.6.1 METHOD OF INFORMATION GATHERING
Our major source of information is the Internet. We got ideas as to what it would take to build a management system of this sort by going through existing systems saving as much pages as we can gain access to and took snapshots. We also discovered different kinds of relationships that are relevant between entities making up the design.

1.9 PROJECT FEASIBILITY AND PLAN
1.9.2 METHODOLOGY
We would achieve these goals through the method of studying existing systems and relying on detailed desk research on existing literatures and findings on university admission management systems and the theory behind it.
We plan to subject the development and implementation of this system on a development life cycle adopting the waterfall model which consists of different phases carried out one after the other.

WATERFALL PROCESS MODEL

1.9.3 FEASIBILITY
The requirement analysis is done after which the system analysis follows. Conceptual diagram will be constructed in order to explain the system. This basically concerned with the imaginary analysis of how the system will work. After this comes the implementation of the logical design of the proposed system.

1.10 LIMITATIONS
Lack of internet facilities in the area where the prospective student resides can pose a problem whereby the student may have to forfeit his admission without knowing it. Also, a poor knowledge of the system can also pose a problem. Other limitations that may arise include but not limited to lack of electricity or regular power outage and No (or lack of proper) backup facility in case of emergency.

1.11 ORGANISATION OF SUBSEQUENT CHAPTERS

Chapter 2: A literature review that concerns the system and a look at existing systems.
Chapter 3: Contains the system analysis and design of the proposed system.
Chapter 4: Implementation of the project and writing how the project works, testing of the system and a user guide.
Chapter 5: Conclusion of the project which contains additional contribution, recommendations for further study and errata.