A RESEARCH PROJECT SUPERVISION SYSTEM

By Richard Muhangi Reg. no: 2005/HD18/0031U BSc.Surveying (Mak), CCNA rmuhangi@gmail.com, tel: (+256) 0752 447344

A Project Report Submitted to School of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment for the Award of Master of Information Technology Degree of Makerere University

Option: Information Security

May, 2008

DeclarationI, RICHARD MUHANGI do hereby declare that this project report is original and has not been published and/or submitted for any other degree award to any other University before.

Signed ..............................................

Date..........................................

Richard Muhangi BSc. SURVEYING, CCNA Department Of Information Technology Faculty of Computing and Information Technology

iii

Approval

This project report has been submitted for examination with the approval of the following supervisors.

Signed........................................ Dr. Joseph Ssewanyana

Date....................................

Department of Information Technology Faculty of Computing and Information Technology, Makerere University

Signed........................................ Mr. Joseph Semwogerere

Date....................................

Department of Information Technology Faculty of Computing and Information Technology, Makerere University

Signed........................................ Dr. Gilbert Maiga

Date....................................

Department of Information Technology Faculty of Computing and Information Technology, Makerere University

iv

Dedication

To my wife ANN, and children CHANTAL, RYAN and the yet to be born.

v

AcknowledgementI am greatly indebted to a number of people who have in many ways, contributed to the success of this study.

I thank my final team of supervisors; Dr. Ssewanyana, Mr. Semwogerere and Dr. Maiga, for enabling my successful completion of the project. Thanks to Dr. Tom Wanyama for the expert advice and guidance right from the conceptualization of the project, Mr. Drake Mirembe for helping me model my project proposal for final approval, and Dr. F F. Tusubira for your wise counsel, before I embarked on this project.

Mr. Joseph Nkangi encouraged me to take up this course and made me believe that I could make it and look, I did. I thank the staff of Rural Electrification Agency for tolerating me when I had to allocate time towards pursuit of this cause.

Special thanks go to my friends and classmates who have been supportive through out the course; Gensi Michael, Nassiwa Annette, and Mr. Owora Henry.

Ronnie Muwanguzi, your contribution is invaluable. Only God can reward you.

God bless you all.

vi

CONTENTSList of Figures..x ABSTRACTxi INTRODUCTION...2 1.1 BACKGROUND .................................................................................................................. 2 1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM.................................................................................... 4 1.3 GENERAL OBJECTIVE ..................................................................................................... 4 1.3.1 SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES.............................................................................................. 4 1.4 SCOPE .................................................................................................................................. 4 1.5 JUSTIFICATION ................................................................................................................. 5 LITERATURE REVIEW6 2.1 RESEARCH PROJECTS ..................................................................................................... 6 2.2 RESEARCH PROJECT SUPERVISION............................................................................. 7 2.3 RESEARCH PROJECT SUPERVISION SYSTEM............................................................ 7 2.4 EXISTING SUPERVISION SYSTEMS .............................................................................. 7 2.4.1 MANUAL SYSTEMS ................................................................................................... 8 2.4.2 AUTOMATED TRACKING......................................................................................... 8 2.4.3 JUST-IN-TIME RESPONSES....................................................................................... 8 2.4.4 RESOLUTION TRACKING SYSTEM ........................................................................ 9 2.4.5 STUDENT TRACKING SYSTEMS........................................................................... 10 2.5 PROBLEMS WITH EXISTING SUPERVISION SYSTEMS .......................................... 12 2.6 CONCLUSION................................................................................................................... 13

vii

METHODOLOGY.14 3.1 OVERVIEW ....................................................................................................................... 14 3.2 LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................................... 14 3.3 REQUIREMENTS DETERMINATION ........................................................................... 15 3.3.1 SYSTEM STUDY ....................................................................................................... 15 3.3.2 INTERVIEWS ............................................................................................................. 15 3.4 DESIGN.............................................................................................................................. 15 3.5 IMPLEMENTATION......................................................................................................... 15 3.6 TESTING............................................................................................................................ 15 SYSTEM STUDY AND ANALYSIS...16 4.1 SYSTEM STUDY .............................................................................................................. 16 4.1.1 THE SYSTEM IN PLACE .......................................................................................... 16 4.1.2 DATA FLOW IN EXISTING SYSTEM..................................................................... 17 4.2 SYSTEM ANALYSIS........................................................................................................ 18 4.2.1 USER REQUIREMENTS ........................................................................................... 18 4.2.2 FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS ............................................................................ 18 4.2.3 NON FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS .................................................................. 18 4.2.4 CONFLICTING REQUIREMENTS ........................................................................... 19 4.2.5 TRANSACTION REQUIREMENTS ......................................................................... 19 DESIGN.21 5.1 SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE ............................................................................................. 21 5.2 DATABASE DESIGN ....................................................................................................... 22 5.2.1 CONCEPTUAL DESIGN ........................................................................................... 22 5.4.2 LOGICAL DESIGN .................................................................................................... 28

viii

5.4.3 PHYSICAL DESIGN .................................................................................................. 36 SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION AND RESULTS...43 6.1 SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION........................................................................................ 43 6.1.1 GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACES .......................................................................... 43 6.2 TESTING AND RESULTS................................................................................................ 50 CONCLUSION, RECOMMENDATIONS AND FUTURE WORK51 7.1 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION ................................................................................... 51 7.2 RECOMMENDATION ...................................................................................................... 51 7.3 FUTURE WORK................................................................................................................ 51 REFERENCES..52 APPENDICES...56 APPENDIX 1 SAMPLE CODE ............................................................................................ 57 APPENDIX 2 INTERVIEW QUESTIONS .......................................................................... 65 APPENDIX 3 FEEDBACK ON SYSTEM TESTING ......................................................... 67

ix

List of Figures4.1 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 6.8 6.9 6.10 6.11 Data Flow at Faculty of Computing and Information Technology. ....17 Preliminary system model ...21 Combined ER Model ...27 Validated ER Model ....35 Design View of the Concept Paper Table in the DBMS .........36 Design View of the Supervisors Table ....37 Design View of the Project Report Progress Table .....37 Login dialog .....43 Student interface ..44 Upcoming and Missed meetings between Supervisor and Student .....45 The Student search sub-menu ..45 Comments stored and retrieved in the diary ........46 Progress bars showing days spent on each milestone...46 Supervisor credentials table .....47 Table for capturing topics for concept papers...47 Student credentials table in MS Access Database Management System .48 Table for setting up meetings ...49 Table for comments (Diary) by both Student and Supervisor ..49

x

ABSTRACTThere are several cases of graduate students failing to complete their studies due to incomplete final year