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DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF STUDENT INFORMATION SYSTEM

CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

1.1   Background of the Study

Swift transitions in the way institutions of higher learning handle and manage students’ information are brought about by technological changes. The concept of Student Management System (SMS) is within a larger field of Information Systems (IS) and it dates back as far early as 1960s (Evangelista, 2011; Marrero, 2009 & Swartz, 2007). Broadly defined, an SMS is “a general information system for maintaining and providing student information and it almost exists in all the schools, colleges, universities and any other education institutions” (Pan, 2004, p.3). Nowadays, SMSs have been described variously as: Student Information Systems (SIS), Student Management Information Systems (SMIS), Student Data Systems (SDS), Student Data Warehouse (SDW), Student Academic Information Systems (SAIS), or Student Information Management Systems (SIMS), Online Student Information System (OSIS) and Student Academic Register Information System (SARIS), (Kaloki, n.d; Maere, 2011 & Paulsen, 2002). Kasozi (2006) noted that despite having various nomenclatures, these information systems serve a similar function and they are all connected to the management of students’ information or records in universities or other educational institutes. In the pre-digital age, managing student’s information was done manually, using paper-based systems. However, with increasing number of students in educational institutes, the system could no longer handle student’s records effectively. Suffice to say, the dawn of ICT applications and databases presented unparalleled opportunities in managing students’ records in academic institutions which gradually lead to the disappearance of paper-based systems.

The major concern with manual systems has been the speed with which business operations and decision-making processes are carried out in education institutions. Consequently, to cope up with the rise in student’s enrolment whilst at the same time ensuring efficiency in their operations, universities had to experience a paradigm shift from using manual student’s management systems to online student management systems. Pan (2004) explains that Students Management Systems (SMS) whether manual or online are there to maintain and provide student information in universities and colleges. While specifically, online student information systems depict a centralized virtual database where all 657 information pertaining students are properly stored in an educational institution (Pacio, 2013). Principally, it is used for management of the most pivotal information about entities such as students, faculty, courses, applications, admissions, payment, exams, and grades (Paulsen, 2002). Bharamagoudar, Geeta and Totad (2013) opines that an effective SMS provides a simple interface for maintenance of student information. It can be used by educational institutes or colleges to maintain the records of students easily. Thus, the creation and management of the most accurate, up-to-date information regarding a students’ academic career is of ultimate value to universities as well as colleges. The understanding is that managing student’s records manually comes with a lot of challenges. For instance, most of the times information is littered everywhere, can be redundant, inconsistent and collecting relevant information may be very time consuming (Pacio, 2013) as cited in Richard (2004). This development accelerated an automatic switch to online-based student management systems in most universities across the world with the purpose of maximizing the benefits from its effectivity to acquire, process, store and retrieve information from the Internet.

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