CLIENT BACKGROUND

St Anns is an institution of higher learning that provides services academic to prospective students. It was established as a small private sponsored institution offering basic computer application. It is situated at New Sansora building along Kisii level 5 highway. Due to the rapid population growth of people in the town and high number of people who would not meet the university entrance criteria, the institution started to offer other programmes in diploma and certificate level and undergraduate degree. Since then the institution has grown tremendously with branch campuses opening up in different counties. With this high number of students from different places, it has led to number of hostel within the campus.

PROBLEM STATEMENT
Currently, the halls department officer is using the manual system to keep records of student s for example, their names; gender, registration numbers, year of study, courses taken and their room numbers. All these records are filed and the files kept on shelves that are easily accessible to unauthorized staff, interfered with, and easily lost. Retrieving of the students records is also a nightmare since the halls officer has to go through the files on the shelves to locate a particular student record. The system does not have validation credentials, thus already registered students end up registering again in each new semester. Ideally, only new students admitted to the campus hostel should register. The effect of double registration is data redundancy leading to resource wastage and data anomalies due to lack of a computerized system. Due to the increment in the number of students admission into the campus each academic year, a large amount of data has to be handled thus the college is forced to add the number of staff that will handle these large volumes of data resulting to additional costs being incurred by the University. This can be avoided by the university by acquiring and embracing a computerized system.

PROPOSED SOLUTION
The proposed solution is to develop a computerized system that will help in the monitoring, allocation and the issuing of rooms to students in the campus hostels.

JUSTIFICATION
The system created will help to overcome my client problem by: Elimination of data redundancy: The developed system will reduce data redundancy since validations measures will be put to ensure already registered student do not register again. Improve security: The system will guarantee security to students details in that for any person to gain access or make changes to the student records or stored data, he or she has to login in with a username and password. Fast data retrieval: The system will enable fast access and data retrieval by authorized persons by enabling a person to search for any information about the student. Reliability: The proposed system will be much faster to enter data, process, store and retrieve as compared to the current manual system used. Cost saving: With the proposed system in place, the human resource required to enter and maintain the student data is reduced thus a cost saving to the institution.

PROJECT GOAL.
To develop an efficient and reliable computerized hostel management system for Kisii University.

PROJECT OBJECTIVES.
In order for me to develop an efficient and reliable computerized hostel management system, the following activities should take place.

Conduct a system analysis; analyze and gauge the current system the client is using. Identify inherent problems in the current system the client is using. Design a system that will help reduce the problems. Develop a computerized hostel management system. System documentation

DEVELOPMENT METHODOLOGY.
I suggest to use an object oriented system analysis and design development methodology in the development of the system because it gives room for code reusability, improved reliability, flexibility and real-World Modeling describing the model I will use to come up with my complete functioning system. It is also characterized by three aspects: object oriented analysis design where general design requirement and architecture are determined, Object oriented design here the system architecture is converted into programming constructs .Object oriented programming where the developer implement the programming constructs. Under the object oriented system analysis and design development methodology, I will use rational unified process model (RUP). The rational unified model provides guidelines, templates, and examples for all aspects and stages of program development phases that have to be followed in developing the system.

Figure 1:Rational Unified Process

Source: http://www.google.co.ke/imgres?q=rarional+unified+process+model+samples&um=1&hl=sw&sa=N&bi w=1366&bih=575&tbm=isch&tbnid=AAOvg5m1YQ1WOM:&imgrefurl (21/02/2012)

PHASES INVOLVED.
Inception phase: This is where the idea for the project is stated. This is the stage at which the business case is established and the scope of the project delimited. To accomplish this allexternal entities with which the system will interact (actors) with will be identified and nature of the interaction defined. Elaboration phase: The project's architecture and required resources are further evaluated in this phases. The purpose of the elaboration phase is to analyze the problem domain, establish a sound architectural foundation, develop the project plan, and eliminate the highest risk elements of the project. Construction phase: This is where project is developed and completed. The software is designed, written and tested. Transition phase: The developed software is given to the client and final adjustments or updates are made based on feedback from end users. In this phase, beta- testing is done to validate the new system against user expectations. The system might run parallel with the system that it is replacing. According to Alan W. Brown (Component-Based Software Engineering), this is a complete methodology in itself with an emphasis on accurate documentation. The Rational Unified Process describes how to elicit, organize, and document required functionality and constraints; track and document tradeoffs and decisions; and easily capture and communicate business requirements through continuous documentation as the project advances. Less time is required for integration as the process of integration goes on throughout the software development life cycle. It describes how to design a resilient architecture that is flexible, accommodates change, is intuitively understandable, and promotes more effective software reuse. Thus, this promotes easier process integration. The development time required is less due to reuse of components. The Rational Unified Process supports component-based software development. Components are non-trivial modules, subsystems that fulfill a clear function. The Rational Unified Process provides a systematic approach to defining an architecture using new and existing components. These are assembled in a well-defined architecture, for which an industry of reusable components is emerging.

RESOURCES REQUIRED
Hardware Resources
i. ii. iii. iv. v. vi. Personal computer Flash disk (storage and transfer of data). Printer (printing the documents). Printing papers (print the documents). Modem (internet access). Compact disks (provide additional back up).

Software Resources.
i. ii. iii. iv. MS Windows 7 operating system Microsoft word 2007- typing documentation. Programming language (visual basic.net) - coding purposes. Antivirus - Protection against virus attack.

v. vi.

Database management system (MySQL) creating and maintaining a database. Microsoft PowerPoint 2007-for preparing presentation slides.

Other resources.
i. i. Reference books. Internet

PROJECT SCHEDULE.

Table 1:Project Schedule.

GANNT CHART.

Table 2:Gannt Chart.

PROGECT BUDGET. ID ITEM PRICE (KSHS.) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 personal computer printer modem printing papers Compact discs Flash disk miscellaneous TOTALS 42,000 7,500 1,999 500 200 800 1,000 KSHs. 53,999

Table 3: Budget.

CONCLUSION.
After this system has successfully been installed and put into practice, it will reduce the costs of all the services carried out in halls department and will ensure that the services offered are of standards. In addition, the system will ensure that data and students records are secure and cannot get lost since it is a secure system.

REFERENCES
Rogers S.Pressman, 2001, A Practitioners approach, 6th Edition.MC Graw-Hill, New York. Donald Y., Tony W. 2004, System analysis and design, 2nd Edition. Pearson Education, London.

Alan W. Brown, 1996, Component-Based Software Engineering, IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos, CA, pg.140.