Title: Final Year Project Supervisor Management System

MEENAKSHI A/P KANNAN

Bachelor of Computer Science with Honours

(Network Computing)

2019
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 ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I would like to express my appreciation to my supervisor, Madam Yanti Rosmunie Binti

Bujang for her valuable ideas and constructive suggestions during the planning and development of

this Final Year Project Supervisor Management System. Her willingness to give her time so

generously has been very much appreciated. Next, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my

examiner, Dr Wang Yin Chai for his advice and assistance in improving my Final Year Project

Supervisor Management system user interface and report. Moreover, I would like to offer my special

thanks to my family and all my friends for their support and encouragement throughout the

development of this proposed system.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENT........................................................................................................... iii
ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................................. ix
LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................................. vi
LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................... vii
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................1
1.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................1
1.2 Problem Statement .......................................................................................................3
1.3 Objectives .....................................................................................................................3
1.4 Brief Methodology ........................................................................................................4
1.5 Scope ............................................................................................................................6
1.6 Significance of Project .................................................................................................7
1.7 Project Schedule ...........................................................................................................7
1.8 Expected Outcome .......................................................................................................8
CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW .....................................................................................9
2.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................9
2.2 Reviewed System .......................................................................................................10
2.2.1 Final Year Supervision Management System .................................................... 10
2.2.2 FYP Management System v2.0.......................................................................... 14
2.2.3 Online Final Year Project Selection System (OFYPSMS) ................................ 18
2.3 Comparison of Reviewed System ..............................................................................23
CHAPTER 3 REQUIREMENT ANALYSIS AND DESIGN..................................................25
3.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................25
3.2 Waterfall Methodology ..............................................................................................26
3.3 User Requirements .....................................................................................................28
3.4 Software Requirements ..............................................................................................35
3.5 Hardware Requirements .............................................................................................36
3.6 Functional Requirements............................................................................................36
3.7 Non-functional Requirements ....................................................................................37
3.8 System Design ............................................................................................................37
3.8.1 Module Functions ........................................................................................... 38
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 3.8.2 Use Case.......................................................................................................... 42
3.8.3 Sequence Diagram .......................................................................................... 58
3.8.4 Activity Diagram ............................................................................................ 59
3.8.5 Class Diagram ................................................................................................. 62
3.9 Interface Design .........................................................................................................63
3.10 Summary ....................................................................................................................75
CHAPTER 4 IMPLEMENTATION.........................................................................................76
4.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................76
4.2 Tools ...........................................................................................................................76
4.3 System Module and Prototype ...................................................................................81
4.3.1 Overview of the System .................................................................................. 82
4.3.2 Module ............................................................................................................ 83
4.4 Discussion .................................................................................................................92
4.5 Summary ....................................................................................................................92
CHAPTER 5 SOFTWARE TESTING .....................................................................................93
5.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................93
5.2 Testing Objective .......................................................................................................94
5.3 Testing Setup ..............................................................................................................94
5.4 Summary ....................................................................................................................99
CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK .........................................................100
6.1 Introduction ..............................................................................................................100
6.2 Achievements ...........................................................................................................100
6.3 Limitations ...............................................................................................................101
6.4 Future Works ............................................................................................................102
6.5 Conclusion ................................................................................................................103
REFERENCES .......................................................................................................................104
APPENDIX A: GANTT CHART ...........................................................................................106
APPENDIX B: AUTO EMAIL SENT ...................................................................................107

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 LIST OF FIGURE

Figure 1.1 Waterfall Methodology .............................................................................................4

Figure 2.1 Project Management Interface for lecturer/supervisor ............................................11
Figure 2.2 Project Status Interface ............................................................................................12
Figure 2.3 Interface for Student-Lecturer to communicate ......................................................13
Figure 2.4 Login page ...............................................................................................................14
Figure 2.5 Student Detail Page .................................................................................................15
Figure 2.6 Edit Project Detail section .......................................................................................16
Figure 2.7 View Comment Section ...........................................................................................17
Figure 2.8 Student Menu...........................................................................................................19
Figure 2.9 Search Menu ............................................................................................................20
Figure 2.10 Project Title Listing ...............................................................................................21
Figure 2.11 Search Result .........................................................................................................22
Figure 3.1 Waterfall Model Phase ............................................................................................27
Figure 3.2 Student Program ......................................................................................................29
Figure 3.3 FYP1 Student Verification ......................................................................................30
Figure 3.4 Communication and Search Method Identification .................................................30
Figure 3.5 Method of Checking Available Quota .....................................................................32
Figure 3.6 Potential Supervisor Background Details ................................................................33
Figure 3.7 System Development Identification ........................................................................33
Figure 3.8 Interest of Features in System .................................................................................34
Figure 3.9 Use Case Diagram ...................................................................................................43
Figure 3.10 Sequence Diagram for Student ..............................................................................58
Figure 3.11 Sequence Diagram for Supervisor .........................................................................59
Figure 3.12 Activity Diagram ...................................................................................................61
Figure 3.13 Class Diagram .......................................................................................................62
Figure 3.14 Sketch for Student Login .......................................................................................63
Figure 3.15 Sketch for Student Register First Time .................................................................64
Figure 3.16 Sketch for Student Profile .....................................................................................65
Figure 3.17 Sketch for Search Supervisor ................................................................................66
Figure 3.18 Sketch for Interest of Project List ..........................................................................67
Figure 3.19 Sketch for Research List ........................................................................................68
Figure 3.20 Sketch for Request Supervisor ..............................................................................69
Figure 3.21 Sketch for Supervisor Login ..................................................................................70
Figure 3.22 Sketch for Supervisor Registration Form ..............................................................71
Figure 3.23 Sketch for Supervisor User Profile ........................................................................72
Figure 3.24 Sketch for Supervisor Interest of List ....................................................................73
Figure 3.25 Sketch for Research Page ......................................................................................74
Figure 4.1 WampServer Default Browser…………………………………………………….77
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Figure 4.2 WampServer Homepage……………………………………………………………..78
Figure 4.3 PhpMyAdmin Database……………………………………………………………...79
Figure 4.4 Notepad++……………………………………………………………………………80
Figure 4.5 Notepad++ view……………………………………………………………………...80
Figure 4.6 System Overview…………………………………………………………………….82
Figure 4.7 Student Login Form………………………………………………………………….83
Figure 4.8 Supervisor Login Form………………………………………………………………84
Figure 4.9 Student Registration Form…………………………………………………………...85
Figure 4.10 Supervisor Registration Form………………………………………………………86
Figure 4.11 Student Profile………………………………………………………………………87
Figure 4.12 Supervisor Info……...………………………………………………………………87
Figure 4.13 Student Request Form……………………………………………………………....88
Figure 4.14 Supervisor Search Form….…………………………………………………………88
Figure 4.15 Supervisor Profile…………………………………………………………………...89
Figure 4.16 Supervisor Supervisee List…….…………………………………………………....90
Figure 4.17 Supervisor Publication Info…………………………………………………………90
Figure 4.18 Supervisor Research………………………………………………………………...91

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 LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 Comparison of Reviewed System and Proposed System .........................................23

Table 3.1 Software Requirements .............................................................................................35
Table 3.2 Hardware requirements .............................................................................................36
Table 3.3 Use Case Description for Student .............................................................................44
Table 3.4 Use Case Description for Supervisor ........................................................................45
Table 3.5 Register Use Case Specifications .............................................................................45
Table 3.6 Login Use Case Specifications .................................................................................47
Table 3.7 Manage User’s Profile Use Case Specifications.......................................................48
Table 3.8 Search for Potential Supervisor Use Case Specifications .........................................49
Table 3.9 Request Potential Supervisor Use Case Specifications ............................................50
Table 3.10 View Interest of Project List Use Case Specifications ...........................................51
Table 3.11 View Research List Use Case Specifications .........................................................52
Table 3.12 Logout Use Case Specifications .............................................................................53
Table 3.13 Profile Update Use Case Specifications .................................................................54
Table 3.14 Interest of Project Update Use Case Specifications................................................55
Table 3.15 Research Update Use Case Specifications..............................................................56
Table 3.16 Manage Student Quota Use Case Specifications ....................................................57
Table 5.1 Login Functionality…………………………………………………………………94
Table 5.2 Registration Form Functionality…………………………………………………….95
Table 5.3 Supervisor Details Funtionality……………………………………………………..96
Table 5.4 Request Functionality……………………………………………………………….97
Table 5.5 Search Functionality………………………………………………………………...97
Table 5.6 Login Usability…………...…………………………………………………………98
Table 5.7 Registration Form Usability…………………………………………………………98
Table 6.1 Achievements………………………………………………………………………101

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 ABSTRACT

The Final Year Project (FYP) is the culmination of degree for undergraduate student because

through this project, the undergraduate student will be able to propose any project or research based

on their skills and knowledge gained throughout their study. Furthermore, the FYP will test

undergraduate student ability in many aspects such as to propose, design, develop, and evaluate

quality system, make research based on their selected field, make good decisions, and overcome

limitation and constraints in developing project. In University Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS), the

completion of FYP is one of the listed requirements for undergraduate final year student to graduate.

Therefore, each student need a lecturer as their supervisor to guide them during the FYP. The

potential supervisor can be any available lecturer that have not exceed their quota for supervision.

Moreover, both student need to have a good collaboration with their supervisor to develop a well-

developed project. Therefore, it is not an easy task to search for a potential supervisor because many

student face obstacles in finding themselves the potential supervisor. In conjunction, the Final Year

Project Supervisor Management system is proposed to recommend the potential supervisor for the

student through the system by displaying the potential supervisor information. This information

purpose is to help the student to gain some basic information about the potential supervisor before

they proceed with their request for supervision.

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 CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Introduction

The development of Final Year Project Supervisor Management System based from the

idea to sustain undergraduate student of Faculty of Computer Science and Information

Technology (FCSIT) that enroll Final Year Project (FYP) 1 course. The FYP is a project that

is required to be taken by all undergraduate students at University Malaysia Sarawak

(UNIMAS) during their final year as one of the prerequisite for them to graduate. The

objective of FYP is for every student to come up with an idea of developing which can be a

system or research based on individual interest.

The purpose of this course is to improve student’s capabilities in the technique of making

use of knowledge, solving problems and deliver findings through supervision. Thus, each

undergraduate student from FCSIT needs to enroll themselves for course TMF4913 Final

Year Project 1 in order to graduate. Therefore, every undergraduate that undertake this

course for the first time are encouraged to search a lecturer based on their interest of field to

supervise student throughout the end of the course.

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 The term supervisor according to the Cambridge University Press definition is a person

whose purpose is to supervise someone or something. Therefore, any available lecturer in the

faculty can be the potential supervisor. A potential supervisor is generally responsible for

provide guidance to their supervisee throughout their project development and research.

Thus, the potential student needed reliable technique to gain approval from potential

supervisor to supervise them.

There are few traditional informal technique that are usually chosen by a student to be

supervised. Students can obtain official email of their potential supervisor via faculty guide

book or UNIMAS Now App. Then, the second technique is that student walk in to the

potential supervisor office and meet them face-to-face regarding their request for supervision.

Other than that, student may call the potential supervisor by their personal contact number or

office number. This choice is based on the resources available to student about the specifics

of the potential supervisor.

There is still no particular way that all students have been standardized to contact their

potential supervisor up to this day. Therefore, all students are free to choose any technique

that suits them if they have met a supervisor who agreed to supervise them and approve their

title so that they can proceed to develop their project.

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1.2 Problem Statement

The major problem of final year student face when it comes to find supervisor for final

year project course is difficulties in searching for supervisor that are still available to

supervise student. Where student will email or Whatsapp every lecturer multiple time to

search a supervisor by not knowing whether the lecturer quota are still available or not. Due

to this, the process of searching for supervisor takes longer than expected.

Therefore, students are not clear with the field of interest of each supervisor in doing

projects. As some students comes up with their own idea but not knowing which supervisor

to approach the project because there is no specific platform or system that store information

of supervisor’s project background that have been done or handled by.

1.3 Objectives

This project aimed:

1. To develop a management system where student will be able to find supervisor with
available quota.

2. To provide students with information of every supervisor’s interest of project and

background of project that has been handled by supervisor.

3. To validate the efficiency of Final Year Project Supervisor Management System project.

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1.4 Brief Methodology

Final Year Project Supervisor Management System will be developed based on the Waterfall

model originally from the software process model that is inherited from the System

Development Life Cycle (SDLC). SDLC is a way by using which best software can be

evolved within the given time and according to the client expectations. SDLC is step by step

Figure 1.1 Waterfall Methodology (Munassar & Govardhan, 2010)

technique for developing quality software for users (Alshamrani and Bahattab, 2015). It

involves different phases which might be followed one after one, that are important for

developers to observe (Mohit Kumar Sharma, April 2017). Furthermore, another benefit of

the Waterfall Model is easy to implement and organized, as it is linear and system design will

continue to the next phase once the previous step is complete (Saxena & Upadhyay, 2016).

Figure 1 shows the Waterfall model, which consisted of five sequential phases that began with

the requirements definition, system and software design, implementation and unit testing,

integration and system testing, and the final phase operation and maintenance. That phase

process will be briefly described in the sequence of phases.

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Phase 1: Requirement Definition

This is the start phase of Waterfall methodology. This stage performs the collecting and

documenting of specifications for the FYP Supervisor Management system requirements. This

system specification is mainly obtained from the user for the system. Both lecturers and students

will be interview to gather the specifications from both perspectives. Therefore, the scope of the

requirements will be based on the user’s need to execute the system. The requirements obtained

will then be carefully evaluated and documented for further use in development.

Phase 2: System and Software Design

The second phase of the Waterfall methodology is system and software design. The

system design determines the FYP Supervisor Management System architectures, modules,

interfaces and data types to satisfy the previous requirements. Therefore, system design is the

applying the concept of FYP Supervisor Management System to the design of the system.

Meanwhile, the development of the system is about developing the artifact of the system to

achieve the goals of the FYP Supervisor Management System process.

Phase 3: Implementation and Unit Testing

This implementation and unit testing for the Waterfall model in the third phase. In this

phase is converting the model into a computer system and databases in the previous phase. The

system testing will then be conducted using multiple user test cases.

Phase 4: Integration and System Testing

This is the fourth phase in which units will be implementing as a device and the system

as a whole will be thoroughly check to identify any system errors. System testing will include

developers to evaluate the system functionality, usability, and performance testing whether user
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requirements are met. Any error occurs or disruption caused by the evaluation will be resolved

immediately. When system testing has passed, system is ready to deploy.

Phase 5: Operation and Maintenance

This is the fifth and final phase of Waterfall methodology. The system that is deployed to

the user still requires being the functionality aspect. This process will include bug fixes and any

error that occurs to ensure that the system run smoothly and the functions are well performed.

Eventually, FCSIT’s lecturers and students will be able to use Final Year Project Supervisor

Management System.

1.5 Scope

The scope of this project focuses on to improve students in the searching process for

supervisors. The user of this proposed system will interact with the Final Year Project

Supervisor Management system and those are decide whether the system objectives are

fulfill. Thus, Final Year Project Supervisor Management system is categorized into two

group which are:

 Student

This is the main user of the system and its specifications will be the main reason for this

system is proposed. Each FCSIT undergraduate student that first time enroll to FYP1

course and have not been selected to be supervised by any supervisor. In this system

students will be able to search for supervisor with available quota and approach the

potential supervisor based on their field of interest also experienced lecturer by the

project handled by supervisor.

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  Supervisor

Any FCSIT lecturer that are available to supervise final year student during the FYP

period. Supervisors enter their information into the system to help students determine

which supervisor available to be selected.

1.6 Significance of Project

The proposed system presents and automated system for students to find supervisor to supervise

them during the final year project as the previous method were inefficient.

1.7 Project Schedule

The FYP Supervisor Management System project schedule are described graphically using a

Gantt chart that presented in Appendix A. The Gantt chart also includes the schedule information

provided during the planning of this system, organize of tasks and monitor other tasks in the

system development process.

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1.8 Expected Outcome

The expected outcome for this system includes of FYP Supervisor Management System

functionality.

 Students can search for supervisor by filter with option available quota and interest.

 Students can request for right supervisor based on their field of interest to approach their

project through the system.

 Student can view supervisor’s background information, list of project that have been

handled and their interest of field.

 Students can upload their own idea of project brief in the system and supervisor will be

able to view and notify student to discuss further.

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 CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Introduction

This chapter covers of five sections, which are Introduction, Reviewed system, Proposed

system, Comparison of reviewed system, and Summary. In introduction will expand on the

introduction of literature review. The section on the reviewed system will then elaborate on four

existing systems consists of Final Year Supervision Management System, FYP Management

System v2.0, and Online Final Year Project Selection System (OFYPSMS). At the end of this

reviewed systems, a comparison table will be included of all reviewed system.

Literature review can be considered as a research report because it includes information and

data analysis. The literature review will be carried out by reviewing the sources posted on the

Internet in the form of publications and analyzing the existing system. For each of the referred

resources, the selected information will be evaluated during literature review to provide

description, classification, comparative and evaluation. The selected system to be analyzed in this

chapter are the types of system that perform similar functions to the proposed system, Final Year

Project Supervisor Management System. The analysis will include the system specification,

advantages, weakness and extra feature.

The objective of literature review analysis and comparison of existing systems is to improve a

quality system. To support that statement, literature review help to determine methods used to

develop the system, existing system context, and the tools chosen to establish a functional system.

Thus, literature review will help identify the existing system’s strength and weakness that can be
9
used to enhance the proposed system.

2.2 Reviewed System

2.2.1 Final Year Supervision Management System

This system is built by the Department of Computer Science at the Universiti

Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) from Faculty of Information Science and Technology.

This system’s objective is to function and a solution to the problem faced by UKM’s

final year students. The issue stated is expanding number of undergraduate students are

unable to complete their project within time given according to FYP scheduled (Marini

Abu Bakar, Norleya Jailani, Zarina Shukur, & Noor Faezah Mohd Yatim, 2010).

Furthermore, the reliability factor of each design is also falling, as both students and

supervisors are unaware the value of the project.

Before, the current system consists of three modules where each supervisor has been

allocated by department head office to their students. During the final year project,

about ten students will be supervised by each supervisor. This explained the

supervisor’s difficulties in keeping track of all their students’ progress in a short

duration of time. Even though, the current system used the three modules which are

appointment module, student’s and lecturer’s profile module, and schedule monitoring

module) before, such module alone are not sufficient to solve the increasing problems.

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 The new system introduced by UKM will therefore have five rather than three

modules. The two new modules will be merged with the three existing modules to be

upgraded. In consequence, the module list consists of Appointment module, Student and

lecturer profile module, Schedule monitoring module, Log Book module, and

Administrator module.

One of the UKM students is designing this prototype as a final year project using

scripting language Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP), Macromedia Dreamweaver CS3

software to design system’s user interface, MySQL for storing database and

phpMyAdmin as tool for administration.

Figure 2.1 Project Management Interface for lecturer/supervisor

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 Figure 2.1 shows the interface of supervisor/lecturer for Final Year Supervision Management

System that are used in UKM. In this page, all information are shown in table format that

consist of Tajuk Projek Akhir, Status Projek, Nama Penyelia, Tarikh Mula, Nama Pelajar,

No.Matrik Pelajar, Hubungan Projek, and Penghapusan Projek.

Figure 2.2 Project Status Interface

Figure 2.2 shows the interface for the progress of a student’s project. The supervisor can give an

overview of a student based on the tasks specified, which can be divided into software

development and thesis project writing activities. The status of each task is shown based on its

performance in colour coding.

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 Figure 2.3 Interface for Student-Lecturer to communicate

Figure 2.3 shows an interface for students to view the lecturer’s comments or observations.

The comments can also be replied by the students. The comments are related to each task and

are included in the schedule of the project.

Advantages and weakness:

This system has the advantages of providing schedule monitoring as well as the

comments thread as an interaction interface. Monitoring the schedule is effective for monitoring

the improvement of the student project during the FYP.

In the meantime, the weakness of this system is that the find for the lecturer based on

interest or project background information does not provide a platform for new students.

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2.2.2 FYP Management System v2.0

This FYP Management System v2.0 is developed by the Faculty of Computer Science

and Information Technology (FCSIT), of University Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) to

facilitate their students in submitting their FYP-related tasks and reports (chapters) and a

medium for sharing essential FYP information such as useful tips on how to write

content in each chapter and submission date. This system is divided into two FYP1 and

FYP2 sections. The system user is an students, supervisor, and examiner.

Figure 2.4 Login page

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Figure 2.4 shows the login interface for FYP Management System v2.0 by FCSIT. New

user required to register first on the Student Registration page in this interface,

depending on their status either FYP1 or FYP2, before they could fill in their

information on this page to log in to the system. The login process requires the

username and password based on the interface.

Figure 2.5 Student Detail page

Figure 2.5 shows the student detail in this page for FYP Management System. After

student has logged into the system successfully, they will be directed to Student Details

page. This page display all the registered information by students in previous

registration process. Five links exist on the left of the page which are (Profile, Edit

Project Detail, Log Book, Attachments, and View Comment) enables students to view

important information provided by this system.

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