INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT

RESEARCH PROPOSAL
CT098-3-2-RMCT
Research Methods for Computing and Technology
UC2F1601SE
HEMA LATHA KRISHNA NAIR
Name: Peter Lee Bor Yeong
TP No.: TP040784
Hand out date: 11 July 2016
Hand in date: 26 September 2016

Table of Contents
1.

Introduction....................................................................................................2

2.

Problem Statement.........................................................................................2

3.

Problem Background.....................................................................................3

4.

Literature Review..........................................................................................4

5.

Aim................................................................................................................6

6.

Objective........................................................................................................6

7.

Research Question.........................................................................................7

8.

7.1.

Domain Question....................................................................................7

7.2.

Technical Question.................................................................................7

Research Design............................................................................................8
8.1.

Primary Data Collection.........................................................................8

8.2.

Description on the analysis of the data collected...................................8

8.3.

Secondary Data Collection.....................................................................9

9.

Research Timeline.......................................................................................10

10.

Personal Reflection......................................................................................11

11.

References....................................................................................................12

College Management System with

Digitalized Assignment Submission

1. Introduction
In a college, the jobs of management are done by paper and ink, it is very time
consuming and large amount of man power is needed to done the job. College
Management System (CMS) is designed to solve these problem. It is a centralized
platform to manage all functionalities of a college. It is a value-added service, which
facilitates colleges to maintain the management of the collage operation. College
Management System is a simple yet powerful integrated platform that connects all
the various departments of an academic institution from student transaction to the
decision making process of the management.

2. Problem Statement
In a college/institution, traditional manual filing system uses a lot of man power
in the management level. As the student enrolment amount of the colleges increased year
to year, more man power and costs are needed in handling the large amount of
information in management.

3. Problem Background
Manual filing system does the work manually by man power with ink and paper,
which has low efficiency and consume great amount of time and effort. In the current
world of innovation and technology, computers are influencing daily lives in more ways
than most likely know about. Digitalized management is a crucial option in maintaining
information of colleges and institutes. (Balasaheb, et al., 2014)
Records on paper are difficult to handle. The physical effort required to retrieve,
change,

and

re-document

the

records

are

all

non-value

added

activities.

(S.R.Bharamagoudar1, et al., 2013) According to (Fienhage, 2014), low efficiency of an

organizations management is one of the factor that the organization are not able to enter
a new market. Limited number of employee to handle the large amount of paper work
may lead to low efficiency in management. Therefore it will be hard to compete with the
competitor.
All the data and information that were recorded on paper can be lost or destroyed
by mistake. Based on (Vladimirou & Kokkinaki, 2013) findings, organizations perceive
that data loss of a company represents a business hazard. Although economic value is not
allocated to the data, but the negative impacts on operations can be serious. (Ernst &
Young, 2011) According to the survey of ( Ponemon Institute, 2013) 277 data loss cases
reports that the average data loss case for a U.S. organization costs $5.4 million.
Manual filing system uses a lot of paper in daily work, and by norm, it is not
environment-friendly. In 1961 nationals in creating countries, used only 3.5kg per person
per year, but by 2005, the number had increased to 23.55kg. (Smith, 2011) A survey by
(The World Bank, 2016) discovered there were areas of forests that cover 31.80% of
Earth. Now, the number had decreased to 30.825% in 2015. The consumption of paper
increased year by year and the number of trees kept decreasing, which is a serious
problem.
(Devasani, et al., 2013) finds that jobs completed manually could not produce a
report until the end of the session or as per the requirement because it consume a lot of
time to generate the report by man power. Decision making is one of, but not only the
basic job of management that lead an organization to the success or failure. (PUELJI,
3

et al., 2011) Therefore, as mentioned by (Akrani, 2011), decision making helps to utilize
the available resources for achieving the objectives of the organization.

4. Literature Review
College Management System (CMS) is a web-based system that aims to all the
levels of management delivering information within an institution. In the other words, it
is an information management system for the institution/college. The system organises
the operational needs of all the departments. (Lalit, 2015)
With CMS, there will be no paperwork for student/staff registration needed
anymore. Keeping all the detailed information of the student like account numbers,
intake, course taken, profile, attendance, library and the data of the staff of the college
like personal profile, department, mentee and others on CMS is reliable, has higher
security, and remotely accessible. (Yevale, et al., 2016)
Since all colleges are being evaluated for funding and program accreditation
mainly in terms of the colleges physical facilities, faculty, research, extension works, and
curriculum it is therefore important that a college to be managed professionally from
storing, to communication, update, distribution, and finally creation. CMS offers
comprehensive and brief information on these critical parts to guide a college
management in decision-making and scheduling. (Magno-Tan, et al., 2014)
A higher education does not bring an economic security or insurance of a decent
life. But the proof is overwhelming that for majority of the people, higher education is a
requirement for a secured life and significantly increases the chances of employment and
a stable profession with a constructive earnings path. It also delivers tools that help
people to live better, to join actively in civil society, and to produce chances for their
children. (Sandy, et al., 2013)

According to (Philip & Uros, 2013), unemployment rates are much higher for the
person who do not obtain a college degree whereas a college graduate has a higher
chance of securing a decent income job for their lifetime. The researchers (Sandy, et al.,
2013) have also stated that differences in income are statistically paired with education
levels. For those with only a high school diploma have an income on average off
$35,400/year, but for those with Bachelors Degree will have $56,500/year income or
average. Besides, the unemployment rate of those with only high school diploma is 5.4%,
but for those with Bachelors Degree only 2.8% (Snyder & Dillow, 2012)
As the result of the statements above, there are getting more and more high school
graduates encouraged by their parent to pursuing higher education. Higher education in
Malaysia started with the founding of University Malaya in early 1950s. (Arokiasamy,
2011) To date, the amount of public universities have been increased to 20. Besides, there
are 40 private universities, 25 private university colleges, 8 foreign branch campuses and
421 private college have been established in Malaysia. Moreover, there are total 508,258
enrolments in public sector and total 428,973 enrolments in private sector. (Aini, 2014)
Interest in gaining knowledge has raised by the technology in numerous ways of
presenting knowledge. (Farideh, et al., 2011) Technology was started to be used in
education in early 1970s. (Fouts, 2011) Started from then, it has been an advancement of
best practices. PCs and related innovations/technologies are now in every college all
around the world. As software picked up in modernity, the computer became the guide or
surrogate instructor. Earlier abstract concepts could now be demonstrated and used
because of technology improvements.
By evolving the education atmospheres at the start of 21st century, societies and
individuals placed heavy responsibility on educational institutions and their traditional
structures by their increasing need of education. Today several communicational and
informational technologies have the capability of helping the learning process and
education. Likewise there is a proof declaring that ITs offer flexible and effective
methods for professionally growing lecturers. (Jung, 2012)
5

5. Aim
The aim of this project is to develop a web-based system which manages
all the information of the college such as student/staff information, student attendance,
students fees statement etc. to decrease the weighty paperwork, manual labour as well as
cost.

6. Objective

To reduce the paper work and save of time in college management.

Increasing the efficiency and decreasing the management work load

Provide flexibility of generating the required documents either in the hardcopy or

softcopy form.

Make administrative works of educational institutions much easier.

Handle all the day to day functions of the institution in a comprehensive manner.

User-friendly

7. Research Question
7.1. Domain Question
1. What are the reasons that affecting the efficiency of the management with using filing
system?
2. How the assignment is delivered and summited by using current system and what
problems are encountered?
3. What are the problems faced by administrator in arranging the time table?

7.2. Technical Question

1. What are the hardware needed in developing proposed system?
2. What programming language is used for developing the system?
3. What is the best development tools used to develop the proposed system according to
user expectation?

8. Research Design
8.1. Primary Data Collection
One of the method that has been chosen for primary research is survey.
Quantitative data will be collected through survey. Quantitative data is required in a large
amount from huge sum of individual. Survey is suitable to collect data that is needed in
huge form. The outcome got from a survey (questionnaire) can be measured and
compared with other outcome easily.
Next, another chosen method is interview. Qualitative data will be collected by
using interview. Interview is selected as primary research technique because the
researcher can discover the particular opinions, point of views, and experiences from a
characteristic on the particular research area. Hence, it will get more knowledge on the
research topic from the data obtained by interview.

8.2. Description on the analysis of the data collected

In relation to the research purpose, to identify the sample size, a specific
calculator will be used. Before the sample size are able to be calculated, the confidence
level, response distribution, population size, and margin of error need to be known first.
In survey activity, questionnaires about domain question will be given out to students and
employees in college while questionnaires about technical question will be given out to
software engineer. Study the ideal approach to develop a CMS is the purpose of survey in
the research. In this way, the research can distinguish the situations and obtain the
answers needed in the research questions.
In relation to the research purpose, domain and technical question can be solved
by conducting the interview. Sample size will be determined with the use of purposive
sampling. It is selected as the sampling technique because the researcher wants to select
particular people so it is appropriate for focusing on individuals that is satisfying research
designs requirements. For technical research questions, an interview will be conducted
between researcher and software engineers to gather more understanding of technical
area of the research. Software engineers has extensive skill and knowledge on developing
a system, so the ideas on developing a good system will be obtained by conducting
8

interview with them. For domain research questions, interview will be conducted with
managers and employees of management department of colleges. They are the peoples
who has the most understanding and information on how is the colleges management
work process. By conducting interview with them, the problem faced in management of
college will be obtained.
Before the research is done, the information and data obtained from the research
will be studied. For the quantitative information obtained from survey, the information
will be separated into various segments of which the question is carrying. The
consequences of one single segment will be analyzed with graph or table. Therefore, the
researcher can catch a statistical summary of each element. Then, the researcher can
easily adjust the information. The way to analyze the qualitative information obtained
from interview is to build a theme that is justify the need of the research. Research will
begin filtering the information by placing the information in the designated theme. The
information that is unrelated will be reject while the information that match the theme
will be keep.

8.3. Secondary Data Collection

The method has been chosen for secondary data collection is book materials.
Information are collected from article, conference paper, journal, research paper, report
and others. It has been selected for secondary data because the information are gathered
through survey by the other researcher and it has been approved by different group of
audiences. From those paper, information regarding the problem of current system can be
found.

9. Research Timeline
No.

Activity

Prepare Technical Questions

Prepare Domain Questions

Interview Software Engineers

4
5
6
7

Week
1

Conduct Survey with Software

Engineers
Interview Employees and
Managers
Conduct Survey with Students
and Employees
Analyzing Collected Data
from the Research

10

10

11

12

13

14

15

10.

Personal Reflection
The data obtained via survey and interview might not represent all colleges in

Malaysia. Some colleges might not have problem stated above. For example like small
college, they may not have too much paperwork to be done by the staff since they may
only have small amount of the student.
There is also a possible that college may reject using the purposed system because
for them, CMS might be an optional system. For example, again, if the particular college
just a small-scale college, then CMS might not really useful for them since they have
enough man power to handle the works.
Besides, to conduct the interview, researcher have to travel to the college.
Nevertheless, it may be a tough duty for researcher to book a session from interviewee
and actually conduct the interview because interviewee may not be free. Hence, the
researcher may encounters problem like not able to collect the necessary information on
time.
Moreover, adding Artificial Intelligence into CMS will significantly increase its
functionality. For example, CMS doesnt arrange time table by itself, it has to be key-in
by the staff. Including AI into this module may let the system arrange the time table by
itself according to the algorithm applied to it.

(2222 words)

11

11.

References
Ponemon Institute, 2013. 2013 Cost of Data Breach Study: Global Analysis,

Michigan: Ponemon Institute.

Aini, I., 2014. Globalisation & Higher Education in Todays Context :
Collaborations and Competition. Universiti Putra Malaysia.
Akrani,
Available

at:

G.,

2011.

Kalyan

City

Life.

[Online]

http://kalyan-city.blogspot.my/2011/08/importance-of-decision-making-

in.html
[Accessed 23 9 2016].
Arokiasamy, A. R. A., 2011. An Analysis of Globalization and Higher Education
in Malaysia. Australian Journal of Business and Management Research, Volume 1.
Balasaheb, J. S. et al., 2014. Web Based College Admission System. IJEDR, 3(1).
Devasani, Y., Shinde, Y., Patil, B. & Bangal, G., 2013. Automation for
Management System. International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced
Engineering, 3(4).
Ernst & Young, 2011. Data loss prevention: Keeping your sensitive data out of the
public domain. Insights on governance, risk and compliance .
Farideh, H., Maryam, M., Maryam, R. & Mehdi, J., 2011. Information
Technology in Education. Procedia Computer Science 3.
Fienhage, L., 2014. Evaluation of the X-Efficiency Theory in the Supply
Management Context, Netherlands: University of Twente.
Fouts, J. T., 2011. Research on Computers and Education: Past, Present and
Future. Research on Computers and Education.
Jung, I., 2012. ICT-Pedagogy Integration in Teacher Training: Application Cases
Worldwide. Educational Technology &.
Lalit, M. J., 2015. A Research Paper on College Management System.
International Journal of Computer Applications, Volume 122.
Magno-Tan, M. J., Crisostomo, A. V., Villaflor, B. & Faller, J. C., 2014. CloudBased College Management Information System for Universities. International Journal
of Information and Education Technology, Volume 4.
12

Philip, O. & Uros, P., 2013. Making College Worth It: A Review of Research on
the Returns to Higher Education. National Bureau of Economic Research.
PUELJI, M., SKLEDAR, A. & POKUPEC, I., 2011. Decision Making As A
Management Funciton. Interdisciplinary Management Research XI.
S.R.Bharamagoudar1, R.B., G. & S.G.Totad, 2013. Web Based Student
Information Management System. International Journal of Advanced Research in
Computer and Communication Engineering, 2(6).
Sandy, B., Jennifer, M. & Kathleen, P., 2013. The Benefits of Higher Education
for Individuals and Society. Education Pays 2013.
Smith, R., 2011. The Environmental Sustainability of Paper. Graduate Studies
Journal of Organizational Dynamics, 1(1).
Snyder, T. D. & Dillow, S. A., 2012. Digest of Education Statistics. Digest of
Education Statistics.
The World Bank, 2016. Forest area (% of land area). [Online]
Available

at:

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.LND.FRST.ZS?

end=2015&start=1990&view=chart
[Accessed 23 9 2016].
Vladimirou, A. & Kokkinaki, A., 2013. Design and Development of School
Assets Management System. MIPRO.
Yevale, P. S., Malpure, M. R., Varma, R. S. & Wadje, K. P., 2016. Web Based
College Information Monitoring System using Java (DigiCampus). Imperial Journal of
Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR), 2(6).

13