ARBA MINCH UNIVERSITY

INSTITUE OF TECHNOLOGY

COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT

Research Proposal

Mobile enabled Student Information Support system

Any time anywhere System of Student Information Dissemination using Mobile Devices

EyasuDereje
MSc scholar, department of computer
science,Institute of Technology, Arba Minch
University, ArbaMinch, Ethiopia,
ethioeyas75@gmail.com
Redaie G/Wahid
Msc scholar, department of computer science,
BiniyamTekalign institute of technology,Arba Minch University,
MSc scholar, department of computer science, ArbaMinch,Ethiopia,redino2005@gmail.com
Institute of Technology, Arba Minch University,
Arba Minch, Ethiopia, biniyam.tekalign@gmail.com Kibru G/Michael
MSc scholar, department of computer science,
GragnsKedir Institute of Technology, Arba Minch University,
MSc scholar, department of computer science, ArbaMinch,Ethiopia,kibrutry@gmail.com
Institute of Technology, Arba Minch University,
ArbaMinch, Ethiopia, gragnek@yahoo.com

Submitted to:-Professor DP. Sharma

Date: - December 23, 2012
Executive summary

Mobile Phone is the most widely used communication media in the present era. It has become an
essential part of our modern life and is playing a vital role to increase communication among
people. Mobile phone has affectedalmost every field of life, but its role in student’s academic life
specifically at Arba Minch University is not yet exploited. The Short Message Service (SMS)
allows text-based messages to be sent to and frommobile telephones. SMS applications are
currently used fordisseminating national level holiday greeting, telecommunication service
notifications and also inbanks to facilitate money transfer transaction. The main concern of this
applied research papers is, what will be the impact of mobile phonesto improve educational
outcomes? Many applications need the ability to do real-time notification when events occur;
where the people who need to be kept aware of these events can in a remote location. These
simple systems have already had a major impact and shown great potential. Using mobile phones
for disseminating the student’s progress reports to their parent on time may improve educational
outcomes at university level.Even though mobile phone-based SMS system to disseminate
accurate and timely information has more beneficiariesat university level, most of Ethiopian
Universities didn’t adopt it yet. This applied research and case analysis is proposed to be
conducted at Arba Minch University, Ethiopia. In this research study, the feasibility of using
mobile phones for disseminating student’s information would be analyzed. To completely
accomplish this research paper it needs 90210 birr and time limit of six month. The proposed
research paper is targeted to harness accessibility of information from anywhere and anytime by
implementing an effective design and development mechanism with desired goals.Finally, after
the complete implementation of this system both students and their parent will have up-to-dated
student’s information in an easy, cost effective and efficient manner.
1. Introduction
Changes in Information Technology (IT) allow educational institutions to utilize databases and
applications such as online student’s information dissemination system thus making the
accessing of records centralized. One of the changes that came about is the online-based
applications. These applications improved the traditional manual-transaction processing systems.
Thus, most universities switch to the online-based system because of its affectivity to acquire
process, store and retrieve information via the Internet. Moreover, this system is accessible to all
students’ information.
1.2 Background
Arba Minch University is located in South-West Ethiopia. The University was initially founded
as the Arba Minch Water Technology Institute (AWTI) in 1986, and retains its reputation as a
center of excellence for Water Technology in Eastern Africa. The University was officially
began in June 2004 and offers both undergraduate and graduate programs. The university
currently runs the following seven colleges, Arba Minch Institute of Technology, College of
Agriculture, College of Business and Economics, College of Natural Sciences, College of
Medicine and Health Sciences and College of Social Sciences and Humanities.The University is
currently undertaking an ambitious program of expansion and is targeted to develop from 8,000
registered students in 2008 to 24,000 students in 2014. Office of the Registrar is dedicated to
provide services such as Admission,Registration,Identification Card preparation,
Add and Drop,disseminating student’s grade report, Readmission and so forth. However the
Office of Registrar performs numerous activities, the concern of this paper is all about
automating student’s information dissemination system. [1]
1.3 Statement of the Problem
The existing student’s information dissemination system is done manually using paper-based
transaction processing system. Due to its manual work, the following problems are encountered
in the existing system.
 Inefficient, error-prone system
 Costly maintenance of student’s information.
 Unsecured
 Unauthorized access of student’s profile
 Loss of student’s information
  Lack of reliable information access privileges to the parents about student’s status from
home remotely
 No real time or online information dissemination or notifications to students/guardians
about important events/student’s progress
1.4. Objective
1.4.1 General Objective
The aim of this research based project is to develop a cost effective, automated information
dissemination system that may enable both student and parents to get important announcements
and progress reports such as grades in anytime anywhere manner.
1.4.2 Specific Objectives
In order to achieve the general objective, the following specific objectives of the study are
drawn:
 Determining the benefits of the proposed system as perceived by all the stakeholders. i.e.
 Administration staffs (concerned body)
 Academic staffs
 Parents and
 Students
 Governmental Agencies
 Private Company
 Determining the availability of mobile devices over the students and their parents, to
make sure that the proposed system can be applicable with all-round feasibility
 Identifying the requirements of the proposed system.
 Registering all Students and parent’s telephone to the system
 Design and develop way of disseminating student’s information
 Design and develop a way of getting delivery report system that determines if parents and
students have received the grade.
1.5 Justification of the Problem and thrust area
As stated above in the statement of the problem both the student and their parents are unable to
know the status of student and related information and notifications being in their home, i.e. the
student as well their parents have to appear physically in order to get reliable information. This
problem exposes stakeholders for extra expenses, not only this it may also initiate student to get
involved in harmful activities such as, students lying their parents as if they are attending their
study whereas the reality is they have been academically dismissed, especially female students.
The proposed system is designed to maintain student’s information in a secured manner,
disseminate student’s information on time to the concerned body only, provide backup of
student’s information, let parents to know their child’s status on time, be error free or accurate
and cost effective which may completely solve problems of the existing student’s information
dissemination system of AMU registrar office.
1.6 Scope of the Study
Even though a wide range of activities are performed under the office of the registrar, due to the
time limitation this paper is going to automate the activities mentioned bellow
 Disseminating student’s grade status for both the student and their parent
 Disseminating up-to-date information for students
 Providing automatic student’s information backup
 Online verification of student’s information
2. Literature Review
SMS applications are currently used in different area for different users to easily maintain
business and social communication. Many scholars have investigated Mobile SMS based
systems and their use in real time. They have found that there are different usage of these SMS
systems according to the needs of the users in different environments and necessities. [2]There
has been an increasing interest in academic institutions using mobile devices to support teaching
and learning process. The most stable mobile technologies namely SMS texting on cellular
phones has great potential in education. [3] Some of the applications get implemented so far
are:Communication and Administrative Support which has been implemented for communication
purpose among administrative bodies of higher education.Text messaging can be effectively
integrated into both the student and staff experience. Administrative staff members were able to
integrate the service into their current means of communicating with students while students
were able to effectively receive and act on text messages. Message types include notices of
changes and cancellations (e.g., class cancellations), reminders to submit and collect
assignments, notices of relevant lectures/activities, individual administration (e.g., warning
messages to absentees), instructional Messages (e.g., instructions for submitting assignments)
and greeting messages. The education information such as the enrollment information, grade
release, university announcement, and internship opportunity can be retrieved and/or sent to the
students via SMS through a login system. This research points out that administrative support to
students via short message services is ideal. [4]The second SMS application is Library
Applicationswhich was designed to facilitate the communication among librarian and students
via SMS-based administrative support. Libraries can reach out and serve students universally by
sending and receiving SMS-based library information. This paper was aimed to perform notices
of book reservations, renewals, overdue reminders and further library services were provided via
SMS based systems.[5]The other SMS application is Teaching and Learning Support
(Classroom interaction and discussion) also calledTXT-2-LRN system allows students to send
questions or comments to the instructor’s via SMS. The instructor can read the messages on the
screen and decide to respond immediately or wait for later action. The instructor can also provide
a quiz to the students and collect results. Students can look at the projector’s screen in real-time
graphics showing the results. Short message services encourage interactivity in the classroom.
[6]The last SMS-based application that gets reviewed is Mobile Ticketing implemented on
smart machine in United Kingdom which enables the user to buy ticket for major events like
rock concerts and football matches from his mobile phones. [7]
From the above different reviews and ideas on how the SMS service can beimplemented and the
kind of technology to be used from different service providersand experts, this research paper
would have theadvantages in that: Users get their results attheir own convenience,Users can
access their results from any location (as long as they are within a network service reception
area),users can Saves time,SMS is on the fly and provides a faster means of sending and
receiving such information, Less human resources required Results are processed automatically
and it is obvious that most mobile phone users have their phones with them everywhere they go,
they will always have their phone on them.Therefore it indicates that the output of the proposed
research would be able to contribute a lot for Arba Minch University to resolve the existing
problemsto achieve the targeted goal.

3. Methodology
Methodology of the proposed system concentrates on the different methods, tools and
instruments, which helps for the fulfillment of the research study. The method which was
followed to carry out the research study is interview, questionnaires, practical observation and
document analysis according to the study topic in order to determine the data and information
which is used in the existing system and it makes easier to develop the newly proposed
automated system.
Data source and data collection methods
Questioner:The questioners are prepared by the researchers in order to determine the acceptance
of the proposed system by the respondents. The respondents need to answer the questions mainly
based on whether they like the new system or not.

Interview:here the researchers going to interview the technical people, officials, student and their
parent oral questions related to the topic. The interview method was selected because it helped
the researcher to observe and verify the data.
Practical observation:This technique enables the proponents to obtain additional knowledge
somewhat more objectively than by conducting personal interviews. And also used to list out the
existing system problems, since it is what we see or observe in reality.
Document analysis:In order to have a detailedknowledge and understanding of existing system
some analysis are done on different documents. Thus for this research based project we will use
documents such as books, different literatures, and some related works done previously that can
play a vital role for the development of the new automated SMS-based grade dissemination
system. During the analysis of documents, the proposed system gives a special consideration to
those documents which can bring more features to our system.
3.1 Research Approach
The research study follows a qualitative approach. The aim was to find best options of
technology which the university is using for disseminating the grade of the students through
SMS that can enable students and their parents to see and access the grade without any additional
expenses. This minimizes the cost that is going to spend by the previous manual system of the
university. The data obtained helped to write a report to know if SMS-based student grade
dissemination system for student and their parent is best option or not.
3.2 Population, Sample Size and Sampling Techniques
Population: The population included Ethiopian telecommunication corporation (ETC), all
students in Arba Minch University, student parents and Arba Minch University registrar office.
This choice has been made as it affects the objective of the research study and this group of
people was interviewed for data collection.
 Sample Size: The research comprises of student and parent who are the users of the technology
and help to make decision which option is best and easy for them to access and the sample size
of 2 from mobile service provider,1,000 from student, 500 from student parent and 3 from
registrar office. The selection was influenced by the technical people from mobile service
provider, parents with SMS service knowledge, student and officials from University and the
accessibility of those areas by a researcher.
Sampling Techniques: The study areas are very vast, it was difficult to collect information from
each person, and thus it was important to be sampled in such a way that all characteristics shall
be presented. Thus in this research paper a simple random technique is used. Each member of
the population has an equal and known chance of being selected.
Methods of data analysis: Actually in this research study, data analyzed through the text format.
Qualitative analysis used to interpret the qualitative result and responses from the interviewed
persons. The general objective of this study was to find out all best options for the sustainable
SMS-based grade dissemination system for student and their parent. The data for this research
study was gathered and analyzed through qualitative perspective.
3.3 System analysis and design methods
For this research based project the object oriented system analysis and design (OOSAD) approach
is preferred, using unified modeling language (UML). Why OOSAD? Object-oriented approach
is preferred for the following advantages: -
 To simplify the design and implementation of complex programs.
 To increase reusability
 To increased extensibility
 To decrease the burden of maintenance
3.4 System implementation methods
The last phase will be implementing the new system. The proposed system is going to be
implemented in the following way:
 Deploy the source code in to executable file and the executable file will be installed on
the machine.
 We are going to use parallel change over mechanism for about six month, for the sake of
checking up reliability of this proposed system.
 4. Budget

This research based project requires a total of 90210 birr to completely automate the existing
Information Dissemination System of AMU’s Registrar Office. And the specific budget needed
for each particular activity is mentioned in the table below.

Budget Items Quantity, Cost Per N0. Total justification

No. of Unit, day day (birr)
employee (birr)
Salaries
Information gather & 2 240 26 12480 60birr/hr
Analyzer
designer 2 320 30 19200 80birr/hr
programmer 3 280 45 32400 70birr/her
Debugger/tester 2 240 15 7200 60birr/per
Training and Support 2 240 10 4800 60birr/hr
Total Salaries and Wages 76080
Other Costs
Computer 1 12000 12000
Telephone 1000 We are going to call
& ask a question to
parents.

Pen 1 pack 30 30
Paper 2 pack 50 100
Total Other Costs 14130
TOTAL COSTS 90210

5. Schedule

The total time proposed to complete the project is six months. Detailed activity chart with time
associated is given below.

Feb 2013 Mar 2013 Apr 2013 May 2013 Jun 2013 Jul 2013 Aug 2013
ID Task Name Start Finish Duration
3/2 10/2 17/2 24/2 3/3 10/3 17/3 24/3 31/3 7/4 14/4 21/4 28/4 5/5 12/5 19/5 26/5 2/6 9/6 16/6 23/6 30/6 7/7 14/7 21/7 28/7 4/8 11/8 18/8 25/8

1 Information Gathering 2/4/2013 2/15/2013 10d

2 Planing 2/18/2013 3/11/2013 16d

3 Analyzing 3/12/2013 4/8/2013 20d

4 Design 4/9/2013 5/20/2013 30d

5 Coding/Implementation 5/21/2013 7/22/2013 45d

6 Testing 7/23/2013 8/12/2013 15d

7 Deployment (or Installation) 8/13/2013 8/14/2013 2d

8 Giving training and support 8/19/2013 8/30/2013 10d

References
Bibliography

[2] AMA (1985). “AMA Board approves New Marketing Definition”, Marketing News,
19(1): mobile marketing definition.
[3] L. Smith & H. Roth (2003).“Parking Systems Technologies”. Retrieved on 11August
2005.
[4] L. Naismith, (2007). Using text messaging to support administrative communication
in higher education. Active Learning in Higher Education,Vol 8, 155-171.
[5] S. Pramsane, & R. Sanjaya, (2006). Mobile education services based on SMS and
their architecture comparison. Proceedings of the Third International Conference on
E-Learning for Knowledge-based Society.

Webliography
[1] http://www.amu.edu.et/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=26&Itemid=3

[6]http://www.sicet.org/journals/jetde/jetde09/simon.pdf
[7] http://www.maxartists.com/images/media/Mobileticketing
Appendix
Glossary

 SMS: Short Message Service

 AMU: Arba Minch University
 AWTI : Arba Minch Water Technology Institute
 IT: Information Technology
 Databases: is a set of data that has a regular structure and that is organized in such a way
that a computer can easily find the desired information.
 Dissemination: is the transfer of knowledge within and across settings, with the
expectation that the knowledge will be "used" conceptually
 Online: Computer or device connected to a network (such as Internet) and ready to use
other computers or devices.
 Authorized: is the function of specifying access rights to resources, which is related
to information security and computer security in general and to access in particular.
  Acknowledgement: An answer or response in return for something done
 Stakeholders: An independent party with whom each of those who make a wager
deposits the money or counters wagered.
 Back up: is the activity of copying files or databases so that they will be preserved in
case of equipment failure or other catastrophe.
Curriculum Vitae (CV)

All the five group members are Computer Science Post Graduate scholars in AMU and they have
two years teaching experience in Universities.