Student Information System Essay Sample

The creative activity and direction of accurate. up-to-date information sing a student’s academic calling is critically of import in the direction of a university. Previously. the USF Honors College relied to a great extent on paper records for this enterprise. This research focuses on the design and execution of a comprehensive pupil information system and user interface to replace the current paper records. Awards College Staff are able to straight entree all facets of a student’s academic advancement through a secure. on-line interface embedded in the college’s web site. The system utilizes user hallmark. exposing lone information necessary for an individual’s responsibilities. Additionally. each sub-system has hallmark leting authorised users to make or update information in that sub-system. All informations is thoroughly reviewed and validated on the waiter before existent record change occurs. In add-on to a staff user interface. this system features a pupil user interface. leting users to entree information and submit petitions electronically. salvaging both completion and processing clip.

All informations is stored firmly on SQL waiters managed by the USF IT section. Standard best patterns are employed throughout the system to guarantee the highest possible degree of security and standardisation. The system features a complex logging system to track all users’ entree and guarantee conformance to data entree guidelines. This system is expected to increase the efficiency of the college’s record direction thereby diminishing the work hours needed to entree and present pupil records to users throughout the twenty-four hours. and once more subsequently to register these records. It is anticipated that this system will increase the efficiency of the section. and allow staff to better service pupils.

Problem Statement
The creative activity and direction of accurate. up-to-date information sing a student’s academic calling is critically of import in the direction of a university. Previously. the USF Honors College relied to a great extent on paper records for this enterprise. While paper records are a traditional manner of pull offing pupil informations there are several drawbacks to this method. First. paper records may be hard to pull off and track. The physical effort required to recover. alter. and re-file paper records are all non-value added activities. Additionally. it is merely possible for one user to change physical records at a clip. Finally. informations unity and logging is hard. 2|Page

Introduction
This research will concentrate on the design. execution. proving. and analysis of a comprehensive. integrated. semi-autonomous pupil information system ( SIS ) and user interface ( UI ) to replace the paper records. Awards College staff will be able to straight entree all facets of a student’s academic advancement with the Awards College through a secure. on-line interface embedded in the college’s web site. The system will use a system of user hallmark. exposing merely the information necessary for an single staff member’s responsibilities. In add-on. each sub-system will hold hallmark which will let authorised users to make. update. or take specific information in that system. All informations will be exhaustively reviewed and validated on the waiter before existent record change occurs. This system is expected to increase the efficiency of the college’s record direction and staff. Significantly fewer adult male hours will be necessary to entree and present pupil records to users throughout the twenty-four hours. and subsequently to register these records once more. It is anticipated that this system will increase the efficiency of the section. and allow staff to better service pupils.

Aims
The aims of this undertaking include making an easy to utilize and grok system. guarantee informations unity and proof. keep ocular conformance throughout the system. increase efficiency and convenience for staff and pupil users and incorporate a strong error-handling system.

Design Constraints
USF Web & A ; Data Guidelines
The USF Honors College web site follows all relevant USF web and information guidelines as outlined by USF IT. These guidelines are required for all official USF web sites. Highlights include: section contact information at the underside of all pages. Webmaster contact information readily available. revelation of all external links and inclusion of the USF logo. with nexus to www. usf. edu on all pages in the upper lefthand corner.

Users with Limited Computer Knowledge
The layout and styling of the site was specifically chosen to help users with limited computing machine cognition. While most college pupils are technologically savvy. and easy able to voyage online and complete complex undertakings. many Awards staff are still less comfy incorporating with on-line resources. This fact was carefully considered during the development of the SIS and every measure was taken to make a user friendly environment. Consistent layouts. styling and data format were used to increase user efficiency and credence. Additionally. graphical formats are used whenever possible. including graphs. charts. icons. font styling. colourss. and lists. For public-service corporations specifically designed for a designated staff member. that staff member was consulted during each stage of development and all user input was 3|Page

carefully considered and integrated into the design of the public-service corporation. supplying it did non conflict with the planetary conformance of the overall system.

Background and Site Statisticss
Prior to the SIS undertaking the Honors College relied entirely on paper records and a little aggregation of electronic tabular arraies for all informations direction. The Honors College web site was a simple inactive site with limited content on general admittances demands and related information. The SIS utilizes parts of codification and public-service corporations found freely on-line. but is otherwise wholly original and wholly designed in house by the Honors College IT Design Team.

12/1/2009 – 12/01/2010
Entire Unique Visits: 126. 808 Entire Alone Visitors: 59. 393 Pageviews: 416. 954 Avg. Time on Site: 3:27 Most Searched Keywords ( Google ) : 1. USF Honors College 2. USF Awards 3. Awards College 4. Awards College USF 5. Awards 6. Awards USF 7. USF AP Credit 8. 7 Year Medical Programs 9. USF Honors Program 10. USF Dual Enrollment Most Popular Content: 1. Home page 2. Staff Home Page ( Restricted Access ) 3. Calendar of Events 4. 7 yr. Medical Program Estimated % New Visitors: 43. 07 % Traffic Direct: 30. 28 % Search Engines: 37. 26 % Mentioning Sites: 32. 47 % ( USF. edu 12. 1 5. Admissions Requirements 6. Student Information Home Page ( Restricted Access ) 7. Online Forms 8. Awards Scholarships 9. AP. IB. DE Credit Equivalencies 10. About the Honors College 11. Advising Home 12. Thesis 13. Awards Curriculum 14. Awards Staff 15. General Education Requirements 16. FAQs 17. Honors Community 18. FreshPeople Tips 19. Event RSVP 20. Orientation Home

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Fig 1. Google Analytics for hypertext transfer protocol: //honors. usf. edu Visited by: All 50 States. Canada. Mexico. Belize. Honduras. El Salvador. Costa Rica. Panama. Venezuela. Columbia. Guyana. Brazil. Ecuador. Peru. Bolivia. Argentina. Chile. Russia. Poland. Romania. Ukraine. Bulgaria. Hungary. Czech Republic. China. Mongolia. South Korea. Japan. Taiwan. India. Pakistan. Iran. Iraq. Nepal. Bangladesh. Sri Lanka. Maldives. Turkey. Azerbaijan. Saudi Arabia. Jordan Israel. Lebanon. Cyprus. UAE. Qatar. Burma. Thailand. Vietnam. Cambodia. Philippines. Malaysia. Indonesia. Australia. New Zealand. Melanesia. Morocco. Algeria. Tunisia. Libya. Egypt. Kenya. Rwanda. Tanzania.
Mozambique. Zambia. Zimbabwe. Senegal. Ivory Coast. Ghana. Togo. Nigeria. Botswana. South Africa. Norway. Finland. Sweden. Estonia. Lithuania. Denmark. United Kingdom. Ireland. Germany. Netherlands. Belgium. France. Switzerland. Austria. Portugal. Spain. Italy. Slovenia. Bosnia. Albania. Greece. Http: //honors. usf. edu • • • • • • 492 alone web pages ( 318 of those are synergistic and dynamic ) 13. 865 files 9. 6GB of entire infinite 70mb of Database information over 10. 000 database questions 13. 457 pupil records • • • • • • 846 newssheet entries 3. 593 FreshPeople 5 event attendants 5. 866 RSVPs 360 Calendar events 162 ‘Congratulations’ 40 Particular Announcements

* Statistical information as reported by Google Analytics 5|Page

Self-education
As a Mechanical Engineering pupil I had small chance to be exposed to computing machine programming. database design. or web development. As a Student Assistant for the Honors College during my first-year twelvemonth I observed the current province of informations direction at the college and desired to assist better it. Through on-line resources such as W3schools. org I self-instructed myself on web and informations design and direction patterns.

Waiters. Software. and Equipment
It is presently the belief of the USF IT section. and the Honors College engineering development squad that it is in the best involvements of all involved to hold USF IT pull off all hardware related to the storage of pupil records. All information is stored firmly on SQL waiters managed by the USF IT section leting direction of the system by a really little squad. Standard best patterns are Fig 2. SIS System Log employed throughout the system to guarantee the highest possible degree of security and standardisation. The system besides features a complex logging system to track all users’ entree to the system and guarantee conformance to data entree guidelines.

Design
Design Languages
HTML. hypertext markup linguistic communication. was used for all basic layout and arrangement of objects. CSS. cascading manner sheets. is utilised for titling and design flourishes to guarantee planetary conformance and easiness of design changes on a planetary graduated table. ASP. active waiter pages. is utilised for all existent clip content development and informations organisation. Finally. SQL. structured query linguistic communication. is employed for all informations direction. retrieval. and storage.

Layout
It was desired to maintain the pilotage and layout of the Honors College web site every bit simplistic as possible. while still retaining the ability to name all relevant pages. Future scalability was besides considered during the choice of a pilotage system. To conform to standard USF web patterns. the USF Honors College designed a tiered bill of fare system and utilised many of the top grade dictions employed on usf. edu. including: Prospective Students. Current Students. Community and Scholarships. Additional top grade classs include: FreshPeople Tips. Honors College Events. Communications and Honors College Forms. Subordinate bill of fare points are placed under appropriate classs. Every attempt was made to guarantee each point occurred merely one time in the bill of fare.

This is implemented throughout the pilotage 6|Page system salvage one specific case. the Accelerated Programs. It was determined that since the Accelerated Programs were a mission critical facet of the College. and every bit of import to both incoming and current pupils they be repeated under both subdivisions. Appendix A includes a graphical word picture of the pilotage scheme. The SIS was developed as a faculty digest of applications and public-service corporations. This allows the system to be to the full scalable. Each application relies on basic pupil information contained in a cardinal file. but is otherwise independent of other system. This theoretical account besides allows for modular entree. dependant on a staff members required entree to the system.

Handiness
“Best Practices” All web and information “best practices” were utilised during the development of the informations and web parts of this undertaking. The World Wide Web Consortium ( W3C ) Markup Validation Fig 3. Text-Only version of place page Service was utilized to guarantee conformance with all markup criterions. The HTML 4. 01 Transitional format was selected as the linguistic communication of development. Cross Browser Compatibility The SIS is on a regular basis tested. and designed to expose and work right in a broad assortment of runing systems and browsers. The SIS designed to run at full capacity on the undermentioned systems: •