Application of Information Technology in Educational Institutions

I. General Subject Area
Application of Information Technology in Educational Institutions.

II. Specific Topic
AUTOMATED CLASS SCHEDULING SYSTEM for Laguna State Polytechnic University

III. Specifics of Research
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A. Introduction

Today, computer is a great help toward the development. They have a large data recovering capacity and also have data manipulating system. It includes storing and rapidly performing a series of sequential tasks.

Schedule is a written or printed list of the times set for certain events. Scheduling is the allotment of data resources over a time period in order to perform tasks. Class scheduling is an important and complicated task of school’s administrators. This task includes making schedules of classes, instructors, rooms. The subjects, instructors, rooms and the students, as data resources, must be efficiently and carefully matched without any time
conflicts for best utilization of schedules. (Patric Sisco 2002)

B. Background of Study

In college and university, teacher is a person, who plays the major role of building the career of the student. The teachers teach different lessons to their learners which they can use for their future career. Faculty instructors are being selected based on their qualification and the specialization they have in their respective fields.

For the past years, student’s population is continuously increasing but still processes are done manually. Class scheduling is done manually by the school’s administrators, i.e. dean of the college. Another is the process of distributing workloads among the faculty members which is a task that requires planning. Preparing of class schedules and distributing of workloads to teachers are done by every college manually which are subjected to human errors.

In connection with this, the researcher then came up with the idea to develop a system entitled “Automated Class Scheduling System” to help the dean in generating a schedule, to help the instructors and the students to have an accurate and non-conflicting time schedules, and to prepare and organize workload for instructors.

C. Research Description

Objectives (General and specific)
This study aims to provide an effective, accurate, and fast scheduling system for the colleges of LSPU-Siniloan Campus. Specifically, the study aims to

1. To gather the needed information (subjects, instructors, rooms and the students); 2. To identify and use appropriate methodology in solving the problem; 3. To identify and use the programming languages that will help in the problem solving or in the creation of the system; and 4. To create a system that has the capability of checking and printing the consolidated
workload of instructors.

Manageability (Scope and limitations)

The study focuses on the scheduling system of classes, instructors, and rooms for the departments of the LSPU-SC (CCS, CAS, CAST, CHMT, CBMA and CTE departments). It can generate schedules for regular classes, instructors, and rooms. It has the capability to auto-generate the time and the room of a schedule without conflicts. It can control the maximum load of a part-time instructor and regular instructor. It can trace the location of the students or instructors, based on their schedules. It can add, edit, and delete a room, instructor, subjects, and course. It can produce a printed copy of generated schedules class, instructor, and room.

Anyone can use the system provided that they are locally connected to the server where the system has been installed but only the dean and the dean’s personnel, as authorized users, can generate schedules of classes.

Laboratory High School and Pre-Elem are not included because the schedule is semester-based. Nagcarlan Campus Schedules are not included due to its geographical location which is impossible to connect through Local Area Network.

The system cannot provide student information and a separate schedule for irregular students since their schedule is in a per request basis.

Schedule of Activities

Table 1. Activities and timelines
1. Data Acquisition and Organization

2. Data Treatment

3. Designing the system

4. Coding

3. Testing and Evaluation

5. Documentation

Resource Requirement

Reading resources:
Books, Magazines, Journals, Internet articles

Software:
Operating system, a Windows XP or higher version
XAMMP 1.7.3
Adobe Photoshop CS4
Web Browser (e.g. Mozilla Firefox)
HTML
PHP

Hardware:
Complete desktop system

Expected Output

1. Automated class scheduling system

2. Complete project documentation

IV.LITERATURE CITED

Conde (2007). Stated in her study entitled “Network-based College of Arts and Sciences Siniloan, Laguna” that using LAN, all the records are centralized and manageable, the system can easily generate reports in a least possible time, because all the data and files are stored in computer from workstation to the server. Maloles et al (2002). Stated that the study of automation is important in the sense that it minimizes the time and effort normally exerted in the manual process. Nicandro (1997). Computerized database system is advantageous, traditionally paper based methods of records keeping, retrieval, change and adds faster than the human, it can perform less drudger and more accurate data. Many of data files traditionally kept in database.

Parsons (2007). Stated that Local Area Network (LAN) is a data communication Network that typically connects personal computer within a very limited geographical area-usually a single building. LANs use a variety of wired and wireless technologies, standards and protocols. (School’s computer laboratoy and home networks are example of LANs). Elaziquer (1996). Pointed that the computerization system provides efficiency, speed and accuracy processing and maintaining the data or files.