DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A UNIVERSITY ELECTRONIC EXAMINATION TIME TABLE

1.2       STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

  For many years in the Faculty, time-table has always been generated using common type of time-table generation technique, which is the manual technique.  However, there have been errors on the generated manual examination time table, these errors include the following: inability to spread courses evenly, clashes in the examination time-table (i.e. two courses offered by a student are assigned to the same period).  Invigilators are also affected due to the fact that an invigilator may be assigned more than one courses at the same period.

Also, the officer in charge has his own challenges in the process of generating the examination time-table.  The challenges are: stress involved during the process, time spent in the process which otherwise can be used for another productive work.

1.3       AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The main aim of this project is to Design and Implement a University Time-table System that will provide an effective and efficient way of generating Examination time-table.

The objectives of the project are:

i.                    To study the existing method of examination time-table generation

ii.                  To design a system that will schedule courses, venues, invigilators and supervisors

iii.                To implement the designed system

1.4       SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Considering the importance and vital role Examination time table plays in the University system, this project will definitely be of tremendous benefit to the university.  This project is very significant in the sense that it will assist the University timetabling team and the users of the Examination Time-table officer, the lecturers and the students who are the benefactors of the generated Examination time-table.

Some benefit of the generated Examination time-table is in providing best possible solutions that can foster/enhance:  Productivity, Quality of services and Quality of Education.

This is achieved by providing the following listed features:  User friendly program, better scheduled Exam Time-table, Error free time-table, easily generated time-table and Clash free time-table.

1.5       SCOPE OF STUDY

This project titled "DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF AUNIVERSITY ELECTRONIC EXAMINATION TIME-TABLE SYSTEM (A CASE STUDY OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY)" intended to cover the School of Information and Communication Technology Examination Time-table, the main users are the officers in charge, the lecturers and the students. It will be limited to: Registration of Courses, Venues, Invigilators and Supervisors, and Generation of the Time-table as the system will handle inputted information and allocate them across the Time-table appropriately.

1.6       LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

This project research is limited only to the Examination timetabling process of the faculty, School of Information and Communication Technology, although the same procedure can as well be used for scheduling Lectures time-table.  Reasons are due to the time factor and because it covers many fields.

In the course of this research work, the following limitations are encountered:

a.        Time-table for all courses offered by the Student of Federal University of Technology Minna, were not put into consideration

b.      Spill over courses were not put into consideration

1.7       OPERATIONAL DEFINITION OF TERMS

Examination: A formal test involving answering or writing in a particular place at set out time.

Optimization: the design and operation of a system or process to make it as good as possible

In some defined sense

Slot: A space where some information will display such as Time, Courses, Invigilators, Venues etc

Simulated: Made to imitate manual outlook

Automation: The act of converting the controlling of a system or approach into an electronic controls by using computer