A Student and Faculty Web-portal Design - Research Proposal Example

?Introduction Data access is the most important aspect of any given There are a lot of issues that need to be considered to have reliable data access. For an institution of higher learning, there are a lot of activities that take place; visitors would like to know what is taking place in the institution, and the first place where they would look for this information is the website. Students would also like to access their records from the same website. It would therefore be overloading if all these processes are done from one website. There is therefore a need to separate these two different processes. The purpose of this project then, is to come up with a web portal that will handle student access to their data records. For this project a student and faculty web-portal design will be created to give both students and faculty members separate access towards their past performance records, quizzes, assignments and other data track record and access. Executive summary To resolve the problem we recommend implementing a web portal for students so that they can access their records off the normal process of using the university website. We reviewed other alternatives but the proposed solution is selected because it will save the institution extra cost and also will save the university the trouble of maintaining two different websites, for students and for visitors. The technology for the solution meets our long term goals of faster internet access and reliability in accessing records for students. The solution dovetails with our current operating environment where we have implemented strategic systems that help students in their studies. The project is expected to cost $306640 and require 2 months to complete. Specific benefits this project provides are faster access to student records, assured security of the data and reliability in accessing details for students. Recommendation To resolve the problem we recommend implementing a web portal that will enable both staff and students to access records. In order to solve the problem it is necessary to allocate specific time to the students so that they can access their portals in a timely manner and also make sure that the college server is not excessively burdened to serve all in an appropriate manner. This problem can also be solved by making proper networking in the college networking department. This networking will help to differentiate the portal of faculty and students so that their treatment and privacy can be individually managed without intervening in each other’s portal or access point. Alternatives We reviewed other alternatives like if we could create a different website that would be used by students and teachers alone. We thought this alternative would not make sense because the website would be congested after some time and implementing security and authentication in a normal website would also be tedious. By implementing a web portal, we would still use the same domain name that we already have. Stakeholders The stakeholders of the project include students and members of staff. They will benefit from the project directly. With regard to the above-mentioned networking and portal services solutions, the students and faculty will be directly affected. They will gain a number of benefits out of these services in different forms including fast service, rapid access to their accounts, and an increase in student and faculty productivity as well. This Project will also help new and potential students who visit the college website to retrieve information (i.e. admission and course schedules) in an efficient manner. Scope/SOW The project will entail developing a web portal that will address the data access issues for faculty members and students. This does not however mean that the project will come up with a separate website to be used by these groups. It is developing a different system that will be integrated with the website which will help students and faculty members to access various records. The web portal that is being developed in this project is to address the issue of record access for both students and faculty members. Technological Feasibility The technology for the solution meets our long term goals of reliability and user-friendliness. This is because the user interface and the database that will be used meet the requirements of simplicity and reliability. The database that will be used here is that of MySQL which will not be too difficult to manipulate and also it is familiar and not complicated. The scripting language that will be used in the data store is PHP. It goes hand in hand with MySQL. The network that will be used in this system is that of 3-tier architecture. This is safer as the data is accessed via business logic. The database is at the third level and this is also good as it will be possible to implement security matters in the project. The programming language that is used in this project is that of Java to develop most of the application interfaces. Since this is a web based system, it will employ the web development part of Servlets of JSP in the Java programming language. Operational Feasibility The new system will work on tandem with the website of the institution. The methodology that has been employed here is that of integrating the website with a portal. It will thus bear a similar name with eth website of the institution. The users will be trained on how to access the system and make use of its available features. The methodology that will be employed in the training is that of practicality where the users will be taken through the use of the new system. They will be divided into small groups where most of them will have access to a technician. Each of these users will have a chance to field questions in smaller groups. After this, a gradual deployment and adoption strategy will be followed where some part of the system will be implemented until the whole system is operational. Time and Cost This project will take around 120 hours to complete because it may be difficult to manage or execute any project along with our studies but we will try our best to take the professional expertise from our faculty to resolve this problem as soon as we can and we can contribute in our college growth as well. The project can exceed this time limit as well. This time extension will depend of the monetary requirements and other requirements that the college may take time to issue it. The team members who will make this project to successful completion are the project manager, finance manager, two programmers and one website designer and programmer. The database programmer task will be handled by programmers. The cost of the project is expected to be around $306640. It is not a complete development of the website but additional technology that is added. Benefits One of the benefits of their system is that it will reduce clutter from the college official website so that the new visitors will have a chance to visit the website and get their desired information about admission and online courses faculty. Also, students will have faster access towards their records without any barrier or problems. This can be translated to cost where the university will be saved a total of $1200 a month which has been given to faculty members to access records using their modems and not from the confines of the university network. They have been given Internet credit allowance to help them have internet access in their homes. This cost will be reduced. Gantt Chart Work Breakdown Structure Cost Resource charter Read More