Proposal for

SUBJECT REGISTRATION SYSTEM (SRS)

Version 1.0

Name

Visnudevan A/L Magesuaran

Student ID

(SCSJ-0013221)

Supervisor

Mr. Foong

Date

18 September 2015

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Integrated System Project

August 2015

Table of Contents
1.

Overview..................................................................................................................................2

2.

Background Research............................................................................................................3

3.

Objectives................................................................................................................................5

4.

Goals of the Project................................................................................................................6

5.

Constraints..............................................................................................................................8
I.

Solution Constraints..........................................................................................................8

II.

Implementation Environment of the Current System.......................................................8

III.

Partner or Collaborative Applications...............................................................................8

IV.

Off-the-Shelf Software......................................................................................................9

V.

Reusable Components.......................................................................................................9

VI.

Schedule Constraints.........................................................................................................9

6.

Resources...............................................................................................................................10
I.

Hardware.........................................................................................................................10

II.

Software..........................................................................................................................10

III.

Programming Language..................................................................................................10

7.

Scope......................................................................................................................................11
I.

Functional Requirements.................................................................................................11
1.1

The Hands-On Users of the Product............................................................................11

1.2 Maintenance Users and Service Technicians....................................................................11

II.

8.

2.1

Performance.................................................................................................................12

2.2

Testing.........................................................................................................................12

2.3

Reliability....................................................................................................................12

2.4

Ease of Use..................................................................................................................12

Project Scheduling................................................................................................................13
I.

9.

Non-Functional Requirements........................................................................................12

Gantt chart.......................................................................................................................13
References.............................................................................................................................14

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1.Overview
This project was an idea from my supervisor. The main problem to be solved was that SEGi
College Subang Jaya does not provide an online system that allows the students to reserve the
classes for an incoming semester. The existing system only allows users to browse course
schedules once the semester is started. The current system only allows to add up the course
modules by the admin of the system for the incoming semester based on the subject registration
form submitted by the user. It also does not submit this form automatically to an advisor for
approval because this specific process is done manually too. The current system doesnt able to
make any kind of official online registration of the modules for the following semester and
moreover, the system is typically handled by only the faculties or the admins, which force the
users to end up at the faculty to review or clarify anything regarding their subject registration.
Even the possible options of classes offered in the chosen semester is displayed manually on the
notice board near the faculty which makes the users have to be there to find out the offered
modules. As a consequence, at the end and the beginning of every single semester the faculty and
the particular departments subject coordinator is invaded by students who need to obtain the
official approval for the classes.
The goal of the system proposed is to automate all the necessary information to register students
for the coming semester. It will be connected to the SEGi database server and it will
instantaneously refuse all the unfeasible requests, saving many ours of waiting and work to
students, faculty, and staff. Furthermore, the system might provide many useful services such as:

An efficient and detailed description of the classes under many aspects.

The notification of the most overloaded class to the registrar.
The possibility of creating a waiting list for the students who want to have access to some

classes with drop-add.

A more efficient classification of the hierarchy according to which the students can
register.

If the proposed system turns out to be successful, the faculty will gain in time, work and money
and the students will gain in time, work, energies and satisfaction regarding the classes that they
are going to attend. The users will be full time and part time students of SEGi College SJ as well
as faculty and administrators too. As a conclusions of the overview, the system will be one of
many tools used by the college to help students manage their college life.
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2.Background Research
This Subject Registration System is a web-based program aimed to make the subject registration
easier and a more convenient process, which is a hassle students has go through every semester.
Therefore, automating the process is necessary to alleviate these hassles by providing several
services to students through the internet such as search for classes without having to be
physically be in the faculty, a way to shop around and view various possible schedules, and
finally, officially register the chosen classes. All this can be done in the privacy of the students
own rooms and without the stress and time it takes to wait for turn in the faculty.
Although the university or college subject registration problem has received considerable
attention, and many potentially useful solution approaches have been proposed, there have been
relatively few successful applications to actual institutions problems of a large scale (Carter &
Laporte 1998; Petrovic & Burke 2004; McCollum 2006). This is proven fact because one such
system that has recently been successfully implemented is discussed here, along with proposed
approaches for sectioning individual students which is the problem of assigning students to
particular sections of courses they request while respecting constraints such as course structures,
section limits, and reserved spaces (Tom as Muller, 2005). The system described here was
developed to create and modify course timetables that better meet student course demand and
allow students to be assigned to the constituent course sections in a way that minimizes conicts
(Murray, Muller, & Rudova 2007). The initial implementation has been done at Purdue
University, which is a large public university (39,000 students) with a broad spectrum of
programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels. In a typical term there are 9,000 classes
offered using 570 teaching spaces. Approximately 259,000 individual student class requests must
be satised (Tom as Muller, 2005).

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The complete university timetabling problem is decomposed into a series of sub problems to be
solved at the academic department level whereby in this project, Ill be only concentrating on the
subject registration part where in the system mentioned above its called student sectioning. In a
complex term, the formula to execute the process of student sectioning in the above system is
described as following:
As students submit schedule requests, each course is ranked in priority order. During real-time
student sectioning, the search employs a backtracking process considering possible assignments
beginning with those classes associated with the students highest priority course. As it evaluates
each possible assignment, it compares available space with the space expected to be taken by the
future students for each class. The difference between available space and the expected need for
each class is used to direct students away from class assignments that would result in excess
demand, however, in no case is an eligible student blocked from scheduling a course offering as
a result of expected future demand. As students are assigned to specic classes during the
sectioning process, the expected demand for each class is adjusted to reect the assignment (Tom
as Muller, 2005).
Based on the successful implementation of the system described above, it is clear that the subject
registration or also known as student sectioning problems can be solved in practice by using the
proposed system which is similar and also tailor made specifically to suite the SEGi College SJ
business process or their existing system. This system provides a method for modeling the
structure of course offerings and other essential problem constraints. It uses these along with
student demand to build and modify course timetables and create individual student class
schedules that satisfy student needs and minimize conicts. The resulting application should be
usable by a wide range of institutions wishing to address similar problems in the future.

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3.Objectives
The reasons why the College needs such a program are several and varied. This system:

Would save a massive amount of work to the registrars office, with directly consequent

economical gain as well as conservation of time.

It would provide a more efficient and satisfactory schedule for the client (students).
It would provide clear and precise statistical information (such as the students interest
and the most requested classes) that would probably be useful for future reference.

Furthermore, the program would also provide a great service to the students:

It would provide a better chance to obtain the desired classes, which would directly

influence the scholastic career and, therefore, the working career.

It would make it possible to register for the coming semesters without physically being in

the college.
It would take less time to conclude the registration process.
It would spare the enormous amount of time wasted in the faculty waiting for their turn
during the drop-add period.

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4.Goals of the Project

The system envisions enhancing the registration process under several points of view. The most
important are:

An explanatory file that clarifies how the program works the very first time that a student

logs in.
A log-in process to guarantee security of the recognition of every single student.
The creation of a link between the registration program and a universitys database that

comprehend students accounts, offered courses, and all the related data.
The display of a detailed list of courses that the university proposed in the considered

semester.
The possibility of creating a virtual schedule before the registration is made official.
The possibility of guaranteeing the official registration of every student that goes through

the system.
The faculty must have the possibility to monitor all the affluence to the classes and be

notified anytime there is any sort of issue.

The fast movements of students into classes according to the drop-add indications given
by the students.

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The first advantage will be measured by the costumers. The registration is a process that takes a
long time and that cannot be undertaken elsewhere than SEGi SJ. With this system, the students
will be able to register from any place that has an Internet connection without needing any sort of
information and signature, thanks to the log-in identification. Furthermore, they will not have to
worry about not entering in a class, because the waiting list will spare them hours and hours of
queue in the faculty without any guarantee whatsoever that they will be able to obtain the desired
class. With this system, if there is the practical chance that a student can be registered in a class,
she/he will have 100% of guarantee to have it, thanks to the fast and practical changes in the
classes that the program can provide through the waiting list.
The practical advantages to the college will also be massive. One of the major concern of the
faculty is the drop add period, which is an infernal week already because it takes place at the
beginning of the semester where everybody starts posing problems and asking questions. The
Internet drop-add will propose an alternative and will massively lighten the faculty and
administration from the major trouble of having to do it manually. The whole faculty and
administration will instead be concerned elsewhere, working on the several different issues that
the beginning of the semester can present. Furthermore, the program will be able to answer many
of the questions that are asked daily to the faculty.

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5.Constraints
There are many constraints for the system that Im currently attempting to design. Most of these
constraints will probably be social and budgetary as opposed to technical constraints. Although I
assume that these constraints will occur, I currently have no direct knowledge of them. The
system will run on technology that has already been created, tested and is being widely used in
many systems and industries. There would be no need to invent new technology for this system.
Besides that, these are the constraints possibly to be encountered by the system:

I.

Solution Constraints

The only constraint Im currently aware of is the accordance between the system and the
university database.

II.

Implementation Environment of the Current System

The environment in which this system is going to take place is The SEGi College Subang
Jaya. This environment guarantees at the moment a fairly organized ambience composed
mostly by humans whose task is to follow personally the students, especially in the
registration process. However, the whole process of registration is almost completely
hand-made, with the exception of the possibility of screening the following semesters
schedule through the course browser. However there is already a database that the college
has which will be able to provide many of the information that the system needs.

III.

Partner or Collaborative Applications

Description: The system shall integrate with the university database.

Rationale: Input is required from the database and registration information will be stored
in the database.
Fit criterion: Input/output to DB works.

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IV.

Integrated System Project

August 2015

Off-the-Shelf Software

Here is the link to popular products and vendors:

http://www.oln.org/et/testbed/categories.php?id=18
See also Wesleyan University Drop-Add Manual at:
http://www.wesleyan.edu/registrar/DropAddManual.pdf

V.

Reusable Components

Im not aware of reusable components that could support the development of the product.
Currently the "LMS" is the component that most closely resemble parts of the system I
plan to design. These systems however, could not be reused "as it is" as component of the
system that the college is currently using which I dont have access to.

VI.

Schedule Constraints

I have a limited time given by the supervisor to complete the system which is by the 14 th
week of the semester and even though I might need additional work force in the
development process but yet because this ISP is destined to just one person only, so it
seems I have to work extra hours in order to complete the project on time.

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6.Resources
The following resources such as equipment, services, or software are identified which is needed
in order to accomplish the proposed project or system:

I.

Hardware

1. Computer running on Windows OS.

2. Internet access.

II.
1.
2.
3.
4.

III.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Software
Microsoft Visual Studio 2012
Microsoft Access 2013
Microsoft Word 2013
Microsoft Project 2012

Programming Language
ASP.Net
C#
MySQL
HTML5
CSS3
JQuery
PHP

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7.Scope
I.

Functional Requirements

The objective of the system is to fulfill the functional requirements of the user of the products
or else known as the stakeholders of the system which is as following:

1.1 The Hands-On Users of the Product.

The users of the product will be:

Students: the students may use the registration system to register for the incoming
semester. The program will compensate any lack of knowledge of the courses, the

schedule and even of the system itself (with a help file).

Faculty and administration: the faculty and administration will have to know how
to access the system and the database connected to it, in order to straighten possible
mistakes in the data or in the description of the classes, or just to update the database
according to possible changes.

1.2 Maintenance Users and Service Technicians.

Maintenance users are a special type of hands-on users who have requirements that
are specific to maintaining and changing the product. The maintenance users will be
the ITS staff, the faculty, and the subject coordinator. The ITS staff will have to deal
with any kind of operating discrepancy in the code. Most likely, even though it should
not happen, there will be a problem in the process. Therefore the ITS must have the

possibility to have access to the system.

The subject coordinator must have access to the database, mostly. However, she/he
might need to change the priority criteria of the waiting list or of the suggested
schedules for the incoming semester. In general the coordinator and possible other
"special" users will have the right to override any system decision.

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II.

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August 2015

Non-Functional Requirements

2.1 Performance

Course search should be fast, despite many students accessing the database at once.
2.2 Testing

Must test the database search.

Make sure the schedule visualizer can handle multiple classes for the same time slot.
Login/security.
2.3 Reliability

Make sure still reliable with large number of users.

2.4 Ease of Use

Make user interaction easy and obvious so that non-computer literate students can use
the system.

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8.Project Scheduling
I.

Gantt chart
TASK / WEEK

1
0

11

1
2

1. Feasibility study
2. Investigation of
requirements
3. Analysis
4. Design
5. Familiarization with
software tools
6. Development / Coding
7. Testing
8. Implementation
9. User and system
documentation
10. Report writing

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1
3

14

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9.References
1.
2. Carter, M. W., and Laporte, G. 1998. Recent developments in practical course
timetabling. In Burke, E., and Carter, M., eds., Practice and Theory of Automated
Timetabling II, 319. Springer-Verlag LNCS 1408.
3. McCollum, B. 2006. University timetabling: Bridging the gap. In Burke, E. K., and
Rudova, H., eds., PATAT 2006Proceedings of the 6th International Conference
on the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling, 15 35. Masaryk
University.
4. Muller, T. 2005. Constraint-based Timetabling. Ph.D. Dissertation, Charles
University in Prague, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics.
5. Murray, K.; Muller, T.; and Rudova, H. 2007. Modeling and solution of a complex
university course timetabling problem. In Burke, E., and Rudova, H., eds.,
Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling VI. Springer-Verlag. In print.
6. Petrovic, S., and Burke, E. K. 2004. University timetabling. In Leung, J. Y.-T., ed.,
The Handbook of Scheduling: Algorithms, Models, and Performance Analysis.
CRC Press. Chapter 45.
7. Tom as Muller, K. M. S. S., 2005. University Course Timetabling & Student
Sectioning System. Space Management and Academic Scheduling.

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