Makerere University Faculty of Computing and Informatics Technology Department of Computer Science CSC 2212: Individual Project II Assignment

1: The Freshman's Application Duration 5 Weeks (31st January 2011 - 6th March 2011)

The Problem
Makerere University is faced by an increasing pressure of applicants who would like to change course choices between the time of application and the time of selection. Sometimes, wrong choices are made because candidates lack information about the available courses and the subjects that are essential for the courses. The Makerere University Academic Registrar has, therefore, contacted you to develop for the university an application that will help in managing the application process of the university as well as offer assistance to the applicants. The system has three main stakeholders (a) The administrators of the system who, in practice, are the people from the Department of Academic Registrar/ Admissions office (b) The Administrators of the Faculty where the different programs applied for are taught and (c)the students who submit the applications. Operation of the System When operational, the system must address specific aspects for each stakeholder (a) The administrator of the system He/she should be able to set the date beyond when the system should stop receiving applications He/she should be able to set the date beyond which the applicants cannot change the program choices applied for He/she should be able to display all applicants per program in reducing order of the weighted scores. This MAY be as a down loadable pdf or word file He/she should be able to input programs as well as essential, relevant and desirable subjects for them He/she should be able to update essential, relevant and desirable courses for any program any time Upload results into the system using a single file. The results file should have A'level registration number and the grade got. The structure of the data can be to your convenience Prompt the system to compute the weighted score of the each applicant for each program he/she applied for (b) The administrators of the faculty The administrator of the faculty should be able to For every program in the faculty, generate a list of all applicants in descending order of the weighted scores. Respond to queries from applicants about any issue that may be raised from time to time

See all complaints submitted for each faculty. Complaints should be in two groups those responded to and those not responded to. Complaints not responded to for a period beyond two weeks should be in red color

(c) The applicants The applicant should be able to See all the programs in the university together with their essential, relevant and desirable Alevel courses See the number of candidates who, so far, have applied for the program Create an account (password protected) through which he/she accesses system facilities. Input basic data about them selves which should include (but not necessarily limited to) names, gender, former school, codes and subjects done at a-level, A-level Registration Number, date of birth, home district, telephone contact, email, parents names and contacts Edit some basic facts about him/herself Select up to 5 programs he/she would like to apply for in order of preference. This should be possible so long as the deadline set by the administrator of the system has not passed Change the choices of programs applied for so long as the deadline set by the administrator of the system has not passed Allow a applicants to ask for clarification from the university about any application related issue. The program concerned has to be indicated. The administrator of the system and the administrator of the faculty concerned should be able to see the complaint. (d) Other Issues The system should be able to tell which type of user has logged in without having to be prompted by the user who is loging in The first two bullets for the applicant should not need log in so as to be accessed Different stakeholders should be restricted to the services they are entitled to Take care of basic security. A logged out user should not be reinstated by browser memory

The Task
1. Develop the database schema for the system. You can use the top-bottom approach or the bottom-up approach. Submit on muele. Deadline Friday 4th February 2011. 2. Develop the application using PostgreSQL for the database and PHP for the Scripting Language. Deadline Friday 6th March 2011. For submission, you will upload a file with the link to the system and passwords. You are expected to use CIT server on submission NOT your laptops. 1

1 Note that you may be required to present your work during marking. As per the curriculum More emphasis will be put on creativity, robustness, data validation, security and completeness ,