Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION Project Context With the World Wide Web evolving above and beyond anyones expectation,

it seems that all businesses have moved online, including recruitment or job placement. These days, it is no longer unusual to see job seekers searching for available jobs online nor companies posting their job vacancies, advertising their business, products and services, and hiring people to fill in their needs for human resources online. Businesses, in the process of

hiring new employees, are maximizing all the resources which the World Wide Web can offer including the use of job portals. As presented in the homepage of VRMInfoTech (2009), a job portal is the most popular and widely used tool by institutions and recruitment staff to facilitate the smooth flow of the recruitment process in the competitive world. Job portal provides a platform for the employers to meet the prospective employees. It allows job seekers to submit and edit their resumes and apply for specific jobs at companies of their choice. The companies have the choice to search for their ideal candidate from the resume database

using various options and parameters available in the job portal. Further, Tambot (2010) claimed that job portal gives support to job seekers allowing them to post personal information and work experience relevant to their application and be noticed by different employers. She further said that job portals also work as a venue for

employers to post their job vacancies online for job seekers to see. With the use of job portals, job seekers may search for job vacancies in the comfort of their home with the aid of the Internet. Based on an article entitled Active Versus Traditional Job Search Methods (2009), only less than 30% of job seekers find jobs when applying for a job in a traditional manner, while more than 70% of job seekers who utilized the World Wide Web find jobs. In addition, according to a study conducted by Nielsen (2005), there were over 202 million Internet users as of December, 2005 who regularly visit job related websites. Recruitment with the use of the World Wide Web, specifically using job portals, is referred to as online recruitment or better known as e-recruitment. E-recruitment as defined by Silver (2009) is the act of advertising and promoting vacancies via the web, where

potential candidates can sign up, post their resumes, and apply for these vacancies all in one web portal. Rao (2010) further defined e-recruitment as an online recruitment where the recruitment is done through electronic resources and utilizing the web-based tools, techniques and technologies in the process of hiring new employees for an organization. Some of the advantages of e-recruitment as listed in NetSite (2009) are as follows: (a) reduced size of adverts in conventional print media because the print advert only needs limited information, directing applicant to the erecruitment system to view a much richer range of information and the opportunity to apply online immediately; (b)gaining occasional candidates for free by ensuring the e-recruitment website is easily found from the front page of the corporate website, interested applicants have the opportunity to apply for specific vacancies which are available now or registering a speculative application for the future; (c)building a talent pool of candidates retaining speculative and star candidates for the future, and then contacting them when an appropriate vacancy is advertised effectively generating applicants for free;(d) reduced administration as all applicants are held on a single e-recruitment system they can be contact

individually or collectively with ease at the click of a mouse, reducing the time, effort and cost of the administration staff;(e) pre-filtering candidates the use of job specific questions and selection techniques allows the employer to focus quickly on the most appropriate applicants and efficiently communicate with them very important in a candidate short market where good candidates have many options and expect instant response to their applications; (f)using e-recruitment rather than conventional print media or agencies - offering considerable cost savings (90% or more) and extensive candidate reach for most roles;(g) applicants receives a much higher quality of service, ranging from prompt and timely communications through to the ability to select their own interview time through an online interview zone all of which enhances the employer's brand making it easier in the long term to attract staff;(h)reduced time to hire all major employers using e-recruitment systems report reduced time to hire which can have a major economic impact for the employers, getting productive employees for a role quicker; and (i)management reporting giving the employer the knowledge to evolve the e-recruitment process. Apart from the various benefits, e-recruitment has its own share of shortcomings and disadvantages. Some of the

disadvantages of e-recruitment as presented in RecruitmentNaukrihub (2007) are (a) screening and checking the skill mapping and authenticity of millions of resumes is a problem and time consuming exercise for organizations; (b) organizations cannot be dependant solely and totally on the online recruitment methods; and (c) the employers and the employees still prefer a face-to-face interaction rather than sending e-mails. With the realization of the advantages and regardless of the disadvantages of e-recruitment, companies also utilize the job portals to recruit student interns for local and international internship opportunities. In todays fast paced world, education needs to be more than just book study. Hands on learning in a particular field offers the best training for people new to a career. As such, educational institutions incorporate an internship program as a major requirement for the completion of their degrees. In the said program, internship students are sent for on-the-job training to companies whose work environment is related to the degree being pursued. Internship as defined by Doyle (2009) is a preprofessional work experience that provides students, recent graduates, and those seeking to change careers with the

opportunity to gain experience in a particular career field. Erdogan (2009) further defined internship as a workrelated learning experience for individuals who wish to develop hands on work experience in a certain occupational field. Universities and colleges in the Philippines, specifically those offering computer-related degrees such as Information Technology (IT), Information System (IS) and Computer Science (CS)require students to render internship with a specific number of hours as defined by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) Memorandum Order No. 53 s. 2006 Section 11. The memorandum states that: Internship is a requirement for the BSIT and BSIS program but optional for the BSCS program. Students are eligible to enrol the internship program after completing the 80% of the total number of units in the curriculum. The minimum number of internship hours for the BSIT and BSIS programs are 486 and 162 for the BSCS program. (page 15) The possibilities are endless for student interns to learn valuable new skills and discover their competencies. Internship carries the possibility of a full time position with the company once the internship is complete.

As discussed by Erdogan (2009), internship helps student interns develop professional work habits; provide an understanding of corporate cultures, gives an opportunity to analyze business settings and offers platforms to compare differences in work styles. Student interns are motivated and are eager to put their skills, abilities and performance in front of equally motivated employers looking for just the right employee to compliment their staffing requirements as mentioned in an article posted in Internship.com (2009). The article further stressed that student interns often seek positions that are related to their chosen fields of interest and obtaining the opportunity to work within a specific field. Internships can provide solid footing for a student intern while often producing a solid employee for the business. The studies presented by Vizcarra (2010) entitled Web-based Placement System for Colegio de Dagupan and Tambots (2010) Job Portal for Don Mariano Memorial State University discussed how the World Wide Web may influence the overall process of applying for job vacancies and hiring of individuals to fill in these vacancies. The authors also developed job portals for their chosen institutions which saved their end-users from the hassle of

going through the entire internship and job search process themselves. Vizcarra (2010), in his study, concluded that the existing manual internship placement system utilized by the College of Information Technology and Computing Studies (CICS) of the Colegio De Dagupan is costly and time consuming. He further mentioned that the department encounters difficulties in finding industry partners which causes delay in the internship of student trainees, file management, soliciting of feedbacks, monitoring of student trainees and generation of reports. In order to address the stated problems, Vizcarra developed the Web-based Placement System for Colegio de Dagupan, which adopts a skill matching system in searching industry partners for more reliable and easy access to available intern positions. In terms of file management, the system provides an organized individual file system for each registered student trainee per assigned block. Also, the system implements message boards to capture feedback from the industry partners and student trainees. Student trainees are organized per block and assigned to a specific internship facilitator for ease of monitoring. The system also implemented a quick access to all reports and information of student trainees and industry partners.

On the other hand, Tambot (2010) developed the Job Portal for Don Mariano Memorial State University whose main features focused on the job hunting of job seekers and job advertising of employers. Security of the job portal is also implemented by means of a login account. Other features such as posting of announcements and articles related to job hunting are also helpful to both job seekers and employers since they may access essential facts in the job portal. With all the abovementioned discussions and advantages of e-recruitment with the utilization of a job portal, the researcher decided to propose an Online Student Internship Portal for the University of the Cordilleras, particularly, the College of Information Technology and Computer Science. The study shall help the student interns in choosing an ITbased company to render internship and increase the likelihood of their employment after graduation. It shall also aid the College Dean and the internship advisers in facilitating the internship program and the industry partners in choosing the student interns to work in their company.

Company Profile Baguio Colleges, as the University of the Cordilleras was earlier known, pioneered in tertiary education in the mountain highlands of the Cordillera region amidst devastation in and around Baguio City after the Second World War. Despite a pessimistic outlook and the bleak prospects pervading the climate of any undertaking at that time, Atty. Benjamin R. Salvosa envisioned Baguio City as a university town. With such vision, he undauntedly pursued a noble mission by founding a college. It was on June 19, 1946, coinciding with the birth anniversary of Dr. Jose P. Rizal, that a historic event unfolded. Baguio Colleges was established initially offering courses in teacher training and liberal arts, with the first batch of enrolees consisting of 156 students. Classes were first held in rented spaces at the Antipolo building, and later, at the Lopez and Lamping buildings along Session Road, the citys main thoroughfare. 1966 became a turning point for Baguio Colleges as it was converted into an educational foundation. Since then, it has blazed new trails and has become more responsive to the needs of the time.

The founder, Atty. Benjamin R. Salvosa sat as the Chairman of the Board of Trustees and held the reins of the presidency up to the early part of 1994. Through the years, the University of the Cordilleras has grown bigger through the offering of additional courses and increasing student enrolment. It continues to grow even better with time, as evidenced by exemplary performance in various fields of discipline, with its graduates shining in national licensure examinations, and its alumni doing well in private employment, in the practice of their trade and profession, and in public service. Today, the University of the Cordilleras caters to more than 15,000 students coming from the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR), Regions I and II, as well as from neighboring provinces in Luzon. Course offerings range from graduate studies, law, arts and sciences, nursing, engineering and architecture, commerce and secretarial, teacher education, computer science, technical courses, elementary and high school. The various colleges in the University offer several bachelor degrees, each of which incorporates an internship program as one of the major requirement for graduation. It is in this course program that students are given the opportunity to have an industry immersion to experience the

real world application of the concepts and ideas learned in the class as well as to further their knowledge in their chosen field. The College of Information Technology and Computer Science (CITCS), which is the primary focus of this study, is one of the several colleges in the University which offers its students an internship program. Students are sent to the different IT-based companies in the city and neighboring places for internship. Through the different industry linkages, the College is able to help the student interns in choosing an IT-based company to render internship in both local and international setting. To date, the College has an average of 75 industry partners. The number of industry partners and linkages continues to increase through the efforts of the College led by Dean Nancy M. Flores. The College has several notable accomplishments, among which is being selected as the only Center of Excellence in Information Technology Education in the Cordillera Region by the Commission on Higher Education. The college mission is to provide competent instruction geared towards the development of responsible Information Technology (IT) professionals equipped with skills and strong moral values, thus becoming the preferred source of services and manpower.

The mission of the College is realized and reflected through the continuing efforts of the College Dean and the faculty to increase the quality of instruction and to immerse their students to IT-based companies to help them hone their skills and competencies. As per interview with the College Dean, all graduating students taking up BS Information Technology (BSIT), BS Information System (BSIS) and BS Computer Science (BSCS) are required to undergo internship as a requirement for graduation. The College offers a three unit and a nine unit internship programs. The BSIT and BSIS students under the old curriculum (school year 2006 and earlier), as well as the BSCS students are required to enroll in the three unit internship program and must finish 250 hours of internship. The BSIT and BSIS students under the new curriculum (school year 2007 to present) are required to enroll in a nine unit internship program and must render 500 hours of internship. The nine unit internship program was created in compliance to section 11 of the CHED Memorandum no. 53 series of 2006. As of the third trimester of school year 2009-2010, the College had a total of 93 student interns monitored by six internship advisers headed by the College Dean. From the 93 students, 56 are under the 9 units internship

program, while the remaining 37 students are enrolled in the 3 units internship program. The internship program requires the student interns to submit documents needed for the completion of the course. The student interns shall submit reports on seminars, trainings or company visits attended as well as an internship report containing the tasks and responsibilities assigned to him/her during his/her internship. An evaluation form accomplished by the student interns internship supervisor must be submitted prior to the conduct of the oral presentation for the internship. Purpose of the Study The proposed Online Student Internship Portal for the University of the Cordilleras intends to provide an innovative tool to efficiently facilitate the conduct of the internship program. This shall be favorable and beneficial to the following entities: To the Student Interns. The proposed portal shall provide the student interns with a more convenient and easier means of choosing a company to render internship. The portal also serves as a tool in the submission of the needed course requirements regardless of time and location. To the Industry Partners. The portal shall offer a more efficient way to identify and classify a virtually

unlimited number of student internship applicants and to broaden the scope of their search, thus, significantly increasing the likelihood of hiring the best student interns to fill-in their internship vacancies. The proposed system shall aid the industry partners in giving immediate feedbacks to the College Dean and internship advisers on the performance of the student interns. To the Internship Advisers. The study shall provide an easier access to company and student intern information. The proposed system will further help the internship advisers in monitoring the progress of each student intern and their performance with ease. To the University of the Cordilleras. The study shall help the university, specifically, the colleges, to broaden their industry linkages and make further revisions of the course curriculum to align the courses offered with the trends and needs of the industry. Thus, the graduates of the university are given a higher chance of being employed after graduation. To the Researcher. The study shall serve as an avenue for the researcher to apply her skills and competencies in system development. To the Other Researchers. The study shall serve as a reference for future researchers who intend to study a

similar system. This shall also help them understand the processes, concepts and ideas undertaken by an Online Student Internship Portal. Objectives of the Study The general objective of the study is to design and develop an Online Student Internship Portal for the University of the Cordilleras. Specifically, the researcher aims to achieve the following: 1. To identify and discuss the processes involved in the existing student internship placement of the University of the Cordilleras along the areas on: a. accrediting companies for student internship; b. placement of student interns; and c. submission of course requirements; 2. To identify the problems encountered in the existing student internship placement of the University of the Cordilleras; and 3. To identify and incorporate the features for the proposed Online Student Internship Portal for the University of the Cordilleras along the areas on: a. accrediting companies for student internship; b. placement of student interns; and c. submission of course requirements.