Abstract
This project is aim at developing a program, which manages the activity of
“student project allocation and Authentication”. This system will manage
the database and maintain a list of all student or groups of student that
have registered as a finalist in this program, and for those students that
been shortlisted who have passed the eligibility criteria as a set by the
lecturer/supervisor. The programming language used is visual basic. This
language was chosen because of its object oriented features and class
libraries for developing system application program.
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
In many tertiary institutions in the country, students seek a project
in a given field of specialty as part of the upper level of their degree
programme. Usually, a project can be filled by at most one student, though
in some cases a project is suitable for more than one student to work on
simultaneously. To give students something of a choice, there should be as
wide a range of available projects as possible, and in any case the total
number of project places should not be less than the total number of
students. Typically a lecturer will also offer a range of projects, but does
not necessarily expect that all will be taken up.
Each student has preferences over the available projects that he/she finds
acceptable, whilst a lecturer will normally have preferences over the
students that he/she is willing to supervise. There may also be upper bounds
on the number of students that can be assigned to a particular project, and
the number of students that a given lecturer is willing to supervise. In this
paper we consider the ways of allocating student project in our various
institutions.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The traditional way of allocating project to students in our higher
institution need to be reconsidered since project writing is sensitive aspect
of student education in the higher institution.
Before now, lecturers ask students to go out and get project topics for
themselves for approval and when the student return, it will take the student
or project coordinator a longer time to search for the same topic or relevant
topic so as to avoid duplicating or doing the same topic in the same year
therefore there is a need to develop a program that will help us to search
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easily to avoid two or more group of students doing the same project Topic
at the end of their degree that same year.
1.3 AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The aim of the project is to design a software using visual basic 6.0 to
develop a student project allocation and authentication system for detecting
duplication of a project Topic.
The objectives are:
1. To create a database to save and retrieve file system,
2. To allocate project easily to each or group of students without the
problem of delayed project allocation from the supervisor/coordinator.
3. To avoid duplication of topic between two individual or group of student
in the same department in the same year
4. To update students data easily and accessed the database system.
1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
Projects provide a flexible framework for engaging students in exploring
curricular topics and developing important 21st century skills, such as
communication, teamwork, and technology skills. In addition, students are
motivated by the fun and creative format and the opportunity to make new
friends around the world. For teachers, a school portal enables quick and
easy management of student accounts and review of project work.
1.5 SCOPE OF STUDY
The project will center on the design and implementation of Student Project
Allocation and Authentication System for Detecting Duplication for the
department of Part-Time Studies in Kogi State Polytechnic, Lokoja. The
project would manage the database of students (Maximum of 1000
students) and group them in triplets as a group or group member, in which
students that their matriculation number do not fall in a given specified
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range could not be a member of any group within the range i.e. if the
specified range is 60 (sixty) students, matriculation number greater than 60
could not be a member of any group in the first range of 60 students and so
on.
1.6 LIMITATION OF STUDY
Usually, every work has some limitations and this study is not exempted.
The two major limitations of this study are the time limits within which the
study is expected to be completed as well as financial constraints. The time
constraint prevents the researchers to have an in depth study and analysis
on the subject matter. The study is also limited to Part-Time Studies
department of the institution.
1.7 DEFINITION OF TERMS
1. Algorithm: This is a detailed set of step by step instruction for solving
a given problem.
2. Authentication: something which validates or confirms the
authenticity of something.
3. Bug: bug is a defect, an error, or flaw in a machine or computer
program.
4. Common Dialog Boxes: A set of windows dialog boxes available to
Visual Basic programmers for open, fonts, colour, save and print.
5. Compilers: It translates a high level language to machine language.
6. Computer: Any electronic machine that can be programmed to carry
out a finite set of instructions. Such instructions could be arithmetic or
logical operations.
7. Computerization: It involves carrying out a set of task with the aim
of managing and controlling library operation using computer
resources e.g. to store information in a computer system.
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8. Control: Control involves monitoring and evaluating feedback to
determine whether a system is moving towards the achievement of
goals.
9. Conversion: This is the process of changing from an old or existing
system to a new system.
10. CPU: The Central Processing Unit (CPU) is the part of a computer
that performs operations and executes software commands.
11. Data: This is a raw fact that can be processed by any computing
machine.
12. Database: This is a systematically arranged collection of computer
data, structured so that it can be automatically retrieved or manipulated.
13. Debug: it means to find and remove error in a computer program.
14. Feasibility Study: A preliminary study undertaken to access
whether a planned project is practicable or not.
15. Feedback: Is defined as data about performance of a system.
16. Flowchart: This is a pictorial representation of an algorithm.
17. Form: A form is said to be a template that is used to give a
distinctive attribute/character considered apart from its content, colour,
texture or composition.
18. Hardware: Hardware is a physical component of a computer system
which includes; Keyboard, Mouse, Printers etc.
19. Information: This simply means data that has been processed into
a meaningful detail.
20. Input: This simply means data entered into a computer for
processing.
21. Object code: the binary version of a computer program that is used
by the computer to run a program.
22. Output: output is anything that is produced by the computer to the
user in form of text, sound, picture etc.
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23. Program: A set of Logical Instructions combined to perform a
specific task in order to accomplish a goal.
24. Project Allocation: To distribute project to a particular individual
or group of persons for special research purposes.
25. Project management: The discipline of carefully projecting or
planning, organizing, monitoring, and controlling resources to achieve
project goals under specific success criteria.
26. Project: This is a planned set of interrelated tasks to be executed
over a fixed period and within certain cost and other limitations to
accomplish an objective or goals.
27. Protocol: A set of technical rules about how information should be
transmitted and received by a computer.
28. Software: Software is a generic term used to describe a set of
instruction called program which is used to direct all the activities of
the computer.
29. Syntax: The set of rules, principles and processes that govern the
structure of sentences in a given language.
30. System: System can be defined as a collection of interconnected
components which work together to achieve a set of goals or objectives.
31. Translator: A computer program that converts other programmes
from one computer language to another computer language.