Students complaint and support system

109 STUDENTS COMPLAINT AND SUPPORT SYSTEM P.M.Varuna Puranegedara1, Dr. K.M.S.D. Kulathunga2 1University of Sri Jayewardenepura, pgmva[email protected] 2University of Sri Jayewardenepura, [email protected]c.lk Background of the Project Business Domain University of Sri Jayewardenepura is the organization that was selected as the domain for this project. It is one of the government universities in Sri Lanka. Over 12000 undergraduates and over 1000 post graduate students are following degree programs there (Wikipedia, 2020). It is considered the largest University in terms of Student Population in Sri Lanka. Since there are more students, there are more problems that they need to find solutions for. Overview of the Existing System At present there is no system for the students to complain or present their problems and get support from the mentors. If students have problems, they must go to the students’ welfare center, the faculty office, administration office or to any other place or person to tell their problems in person. For example, if a student has a problem in his/her hostel, he/she must go and meet the sub-warden to tell his/her problem. Further, if a student has any other problem, he/she has to go to meet a mentor to discuss about his/her problem. System Analysis Problem Analysis At present, there is no online system available in the University of Sri Jayewardenepura for students to present their problems and receive support from a mentor. Instead, students must visit different places in person and communicate the problem verbally to relevant personnel. There, they must 110 wait until they could meet the relevant person to discuss their problems or to make complaints. It costs a lot for students when they go to make complaints. The current manual complaining system involves a lot of paperwork, resulting in lot of paper cost to the university. If a student has personal problems, he/she will not usually go to meet a mentor to tell those problems because of the fear of exposing their identity. The current process is also time consuming and protecting the individual’s privacy is extremely difficult. Further, since the student complaints and relevant information are kept in manual files, there is a higher possibility of them being misplaced or lost. Requirement Analysis User requirements were collected by interviewing students and observing the process used by employees in the welfare center. Functional and Non-Functional Requirements of users can be summarized as follows. Functional Requirements Student Login/Logout, Choose the category of Problem, Enter and Submit complaint, View/Update/Delete complaint, Check the progress, select a mentor, Start, continue and end conversation. Admin Login/logout, View complaint, inform student about the actions taken to solve the problem and progress and Update complaint status. Mentor Login/Logout, Start, continue, and end conversation. 111 Non-Functional Requirements There were some non-functional requirements too. They are Performance Requirements, Safety Requirements, Security Requirements, Software Quality Attributes (User Friendliness, Maintainability, Reusability). Objectives The main objective of this system was to automate the current manual “Students Complaining System” and the related process of getting support from mentors. Consequently, a web-based system was developed facilitating the students to present their problems online and receive the solutions or feedback also online. The developed system consists of different capabilities and features. The students can make complaints or present their problems through the web-based system by selecting the relevant category. The administrators can view and take actions to solve those problems. The students can check the status of their complaints or problems and know whether they have been solved or pending. Further, the newly developed system contains a chat facility enabling a student to chat with a selected mentor. In this case student can reveal or hide his/her identity. The new system helps the students to receive solutions to their problems quickly. This system includes the following benefits. 1. Security of data 2. Protection of identity 3. Time saving 4. User friendliness 5. Reducing the cost of paper works System Development Technologies used: The main Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that was used for this system is “Adobe Dreamweaver”. This is one of the frequently used IDEs in web application developments. I also used “Visual Studio Code” 112 as my IDE in certain instances. These IDEs were used to develop HTML, CSS, and PHP codes for this system. I used phpMyAdmin as the administration tool for MYSQL database for storing relevant data that was gathered from the system and for determining a logical data structure and to view collected data. WAMP Server was used as web development environment (local server). Conclusion Achievements The purpose of this system was to automate the current manual system as a web-based system. The new system is more secure because a student can make complaints or present a problem without revealing his/her identity. The students can also discuss their problems with a selected mentor without revealing his/her identity. Benefits The new web-based system consists of the following benefits. • Security of data • Saving of time • Protection of identity • User friendliness • Increased efficiency and effectiveness • Reduction of paper works Limitations The new system is associated with the following limitations. • Need internet connection • Need basic IT knowledge for Students, Administrators and Mentors • Need to maintain the system 113 Future enhancements Nowadays mobile applications are very famous. So therefore, it will be very effective if this system is developed as a mobile application. Further, it would be useful to add video conferencing facility to this system to facilitate more effective conversations between a student and a mentor. The present system can be further enhanced to send status updates directly to a student’s mobile phone through SMS. References Wikipedia (2020) University of Sri Jayewardenepura. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Sri_Jayewardenepura (Accessed: 21 November 2020)