ABSTRACT

The aim of this research work was to study the existing examination timetable approach of
the department of Computer Science, Federal Polytechnic, Ado-Ekiti with a view to
improving it. The findings of the study showed that the paper-based manual approach was
adopted by the department in which the department publishes and disseminates its
examination timetable on the departmental notice board which serves as the only means of
correspondence between the students and the department; the students are then bound with
the responsibility of accessing the content of the timetable. The Structured System Analysis
and Design approach was adopted for the study. Fact finding techniques adopted include
observation, record inspection and interview. The findings from preliminary investigation
showed that the current approach used for publishing and disseminating the timetable is a
paper-based approach and it was concluded that the approach is not efficient in managing the
proximity between the students and the content of the timetable. Therefore, an Android
Mobile Based Examination Timetable Application was recommended, developed and
implemented to primarily provide a platform for managing academic activities such as
lectures, tests and exams for the students of the department. Further recommendations include
redesigning the to include an administrator interface for easy uploads of timetable in a
centralised database which is accessible to registered users; to build application version that
can run on other popular mobile operating systems like Android and Microsoft Windows,
etc., and to incorporate Google Map so as to allow lecture venues to be easily located for
students who are not familiar with the school environment, especially newly matriculated
students.

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 INTRODUCTION

Timetabling concerns all activities with regard to producing a schedule that must be

subjective to different constraints. Timetable can be defined as the optimization of given

activities, actions or events to a set of objects in space-time matrix to satisfy a set of desirable

constraints.

A key factor in running an educational center or basically an academic environment is the

need for a well-planned, well-throughout and clash-free timetable. Back in the days when

technology was not in wide use, (lecture) timetables were manually created by the academic

institution (Abdullahi, 2019).

Every school year, tertiary institutions are faced with the tedious task of drawing up academic

timetables that satisfies the various courses and the respective examination being offered by

the different departments (Abdullahi, 2019).

Timetable development process starts when each Head of Department provide the following

information to be used for timetable scheduling. The information provides the modules with

dates, time and venues suitable in a particular semester:

• Examinable courses in a particular semester.

• Dates for lectures to be held (Lectures can be scheduled between Monday and
Friday).

• Specified time for lectures ( i.e. Between 8am and 4pm)

• The venue of the scheduled lectures.

A timetabling problem consists of four (4) parameters and they are: T (set of time), R (set of

available resources), M (set of scheduled contacts) and C (set of constraints). This problem

assigns time and resources to the contacts on such a way that the constraints will be satisfied.

In various timetabling problems, educational timetabling has been generally examined from

practical standpoint (Bernd, 2019). Academic timetable is very crucial but it consumes time

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due to its frequent occurrences and usage among higher institution of learning. Another

reason for the difficulty is because of the great complexity of the construction of size of

lectures and examinations, due to the scheduling size of the lectures and examinations

periods and high number of constraints and criteria of allocation which is usually

circumvented with the use of little strict heuristics, based on solutions from previous year

(Bernd, 2019).

1.1 Background of the Study

Smart phones have become a part of the everyday culture among students and teachers alike.

Smartphones are now more ubiquitous, user-friendly, powerful in computation, and readily

available prompting innovators to delve into the development of complex mobile applications

in order to enjoy the full potentials smart mobile phones can offer (Cooper, 2020).

A timetable is the plan of lecture time and duration, lecture venue and lecture date between

teachers and students in a prefixed time period (typically a week), satisfying a set of varying

constraints. Timetables are crucial for examination scheduling and proper allocation of

resources such as time and venues for examinations. A perfectly planned timetable serves as a

tool for aiding time management among individuals and organizations. This in turn leads to

efficiency and positive outcomes in performances (Cooper, 2020).

The current study adopts a paper-based style of publishing and disseminating its examination

timetable. This paper-based approach exhibits some bottlenecks that limits and at some point,

hinders the necessary detailed information that the timetable stands to pass to the students.

It has become necessary however, to study the existing timetable approach of the department

to enhance the participation of students and/or lecturers in the academic activities of the

department (Dickerson &McIntosh, 2019).

The potentials of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can be harnessed to

enhance the current paper-based approach of publishing timetables for Federal Polytechnic,

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Ado-Ekiti by developing an Android Mobile Based Examination Timetable System that is

easy to access and use (Hoffer, George & J.S., 2020).

However, there are times when the student and the invigilator are not able to access the

website due to the lack of time, and some are not even aware of the examination schedule’s

modification time and venue. These problems will then lead to absenteeism of student during

examination period (Eddy, 2018).

By analyzing all the facts above, the project will combine both Internet and Mobile

technologies to fully take advantage and benefits from both worlds to maximize the potential

ways of users reaching the system. A new method using mobile technologies will be

developed as a new approach for the student to view their examination timetable and for the

invigilator to view the invigilator schedule (Hanson, 2018).

The desired outcome for this project is the users are able to retrieve their examination

timetable and other information by accessing the website and the mobile devices. Students

and invigilators can view their examination timetables, invigilator schedule and other

information in a much easier way with no hassle (Forti et al., 2020). In order to achieve this

outcome, studies are conducted to construct proper system architecture. The prototype of

Examination Timetabling System (ETS) Website will be developed. Next, the development of

ETS via SMS will take place to make up the whole system so the examination information

can be received through mobile devices.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

There have been obvious lapses in the paper-based approach adopted by Federal Polytechnic,

Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State in preparing and publishing students’ examination timetables. The

paper-based approach has been observed to be inefficient in communicating the content of the

timetable to its end users, the students (Kurt & Spence, 2021). Most times, the students have

to physically visit the notice boards in order to access their examination timetables and

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scribble the contents on pieces of papers or take a photo of the timetable with their

smartphones and save it to their gallery. Students usually end up misplacing the paper or

losing track of the image on their phones thereby making it difficult for them to remember

their lecture schedules. Therefore, there is a need for the development of an Android Mobile

Based Examination Timetable System that can fix the glitches of the current manual system.

1.3 Aim and Objectives of the Study

The aim of the study is to develop an Android mobile Based Examination timetable

application for Department of Computer Science, Federal Polytechnic, Ado-Ekiti. The

specific objectives are to:

i. Examine the processes involved in paper-based timetable preparation and verify

the factors considered when preparing a paper-based timetable;

ii. Identify the problems encountered with the existing paper-based approach and

consider the proximity between the existing manual timetable approach and its

users;

iii. Develop a mobile based examination timetable application for the students in the

department using Java Programming language and firebase

1.4 Research Methodology

a. The existing system will be reviewed to know the method of implementation to use

and also to know the weakness and the fall of the system.

b. Appropriate tools for investigation shall be considered such as interviewing method.

c. Design tools such as Microsoft Visio for UML, pseudocode shall be adopted for the

proposed system.

d. Software development tools such as Java, and Firebase Realtime database, Telerik

application testing tools shall be considered for implementation.

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1.5 Scope of the Study

This study will only cover the management and allocation of spaces and time for examination

within the School of Science and Computer Studies, Federal Polytechnic Ado-Ekiti using a

generic algorithm.

1.6 Expected Contribution to Knowledge

The completion and success of this research work will bring about substantial changes and

enhancement to the current paper-based examination timetable approach in use at the

department. This study will also provide implementable solution to the existing challenges

experienced by the students of Computer Science department of the Federal Polytechnic,

Ado-Ekiti.

The outcome of this study will be an enhanced, efficient, portable, user-friendly and

interactive mobile application that can assist students, academically by publishing and

disseminating the content of the current paper-based timetable on their smart phones for easy

access.

CONCLUSION

The primary objective of conducting this research is to examine the current paper-based

examination timetable approach adopted by the department, by identifying its precise nature,

the tasks involved in producing and publishing it, the setbacks encountered which were

obtained from the data gathered as well as providing a solution for solving the problems and

designing an android timetable application for the students (Kumara, 2022). After exploring

existing timetable applications from Google Playstore and deliberating on the design output

interface and functionality, Java programming language and XML were used as a

development tool in developing the software that can be used for managing examination

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schedules for the students of Computer Science department of the Federal Polytechnic of

Ado-Ekiti.

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