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An Improved e-Clearance Management System for Graduating Students in a

University Environment

Conference Paper · November 2018

DOI: 10.1109/IEMCON.2018.8614875

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 An Improved e-Clearance Management System for
Graduating Students in a University Environment
Grace U. Nneji Jianhua Deng Sarder S. Shakher
School of Information and Software School of Information and Software School of Information and Software
Engineering Engineering Engineering
University of Electronic Science and University of Electronic Science and University of Electronic Science and
Technology of China Technology of China Technology of China
Chengdu, China Chengdu, China Chengdu, China
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Happy N. Monday David Agomuo Ifeanyi D. Dike

School of Computer Science and Department of Computer Science Department of Mathematical Science
Technology School of Physical Sciences School of Sciences
University of Electronic Science and Federal University of Technology, Federal University of Technology,
Technology of China Owerri Akure
Chengdu, China Imo State, Nigeria Ondo State, Nigeria
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Abstract— Clearance for graduating students is necessarily need for web-based methods of keeping data more so a
a continual process in every University. Clearance has always greater need for graduating students e-clearance system.
been manual processes over the past years. This paper aims at This would go a long way in alleviating the various
improving the existing system by exploring its weaknesses. problems involved in the automated process.
Front-End Languages used are HTML for building the web
pages, CSS for styling the web pages, JavaScript for A. Methods of Clearance
programming web pages, Sublime Text 3 for code editor, PHP
for the Back-End, MySQL for the database and the XAMPP
1) Manual Method
servers are used for the design and implementation of the This is the normal traditional method of clearance known
proposed system. The methodology used in this paper is from the etymology of mankind. It is wholly paper based
Structured System Analysis and Design (SSADM). The and involves physical presence. It involves the graduate
proposed system reduces process time, loss of documents, student filling the necessary information about him/her and
document forgery and physical presence by eliminating paper then going to various offices: Financial department, Library,
work which makes it more efficient, secure and reliable over laboratory, etc. This method obliges that students maintain
the existing method. It also incorporates payment options for physical presence in all the clearance units.
convenience. The results in this paper show that electronic
2) Automated Method
clearance processing time was reduced significantly that gave
rise to an efficient and reliable electronic clearance system for
This method allows the graduate student to register or do
graduating students. their clearance through an automated application. It involves
students logging into the web application with their unique
Keywords— electronic clearance, payment, graduating identifier which is usually the matriculation/registration
student, database, management system, university environment number. The major requirements are the front-end web
interface, back-end and internet connection.
I. INTRODUCTION TABLE I. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MANUAL AND AUTOMATED
A final year enhanced e-clearance system is an online METHOD OF CLEARANCE
based system that allows graduating students do their final Characteristics Manual Automated
year clearance electronically or online. The term “Clearance Internet Requirement Does not require Requires internet
is a status granted to individuals”, typically members of the internet connection connection
police, military, university graduates and employees of Deployment Time Does not take much It takes a bit longer
time to set up time to set up
Government and other large establishments allowing them Processing time Clearance takes much Clearance takes much
access to a certain document or information. Many higher longer time shorter time
institutions have chosen to pursue the dynamic educational Area of Coverage It is done within the It is done anywhere in
options online [1]-[3]. The advantages of online resource are institution the world
Web browser Does not require web Requires web browser
many, as people of almost all ages and background now Requirement browser
become increasingly reliant on the internet for information
[4]-[6]. Online learning has become more convenient and II. GENERAL ANALYSIS OF THE EXISTING SYSTEM
efficient thus, the need for a web-based student management
system [7], [8]. This system is an alternative to the usual A. Existing System
manual or traditional approach. It permits the graduating In this existing system, it is wholly paper based and
students to do his/her clearance with the saved information involves physical presence. It involves the graduate student
in the database against their individual’s account. There is filling out the clearance form and then going to various
clearance sections: Financial office, Library, laboratory and
department etc. This method obliges that students maintain

978-1-5386-7266-2/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE

74
physical presence in all the clearance sections. Other A
limitations of manual system are:
• It involves a lot of paper work
• Delay of processing clearance forms.
• There is high risk of information getting to
unauthorized or wrong hand who may manipulate the
information.
• Unavailability of the key staffs in some clearance
units may lead to students repeatedly visiting the
clearance unit before proceeding to other units.
• Due to this system, some students’ files are lost.
• Loss of vital documents due to rain or fire incident.
• Lot of time to retrieve a particular clearance form.
B. Existing System Flowchart
This is a workflow of the existing system showing the
step by step process of the clearance. Figure 1 shows the
existing system flowchart.
The student checks his or her graduation status. If the
student is shortlisted for extension, the student is not
allowed to proceed with the graduation clearance, else
clearance starts. The student picks the clearance forms from
the School Administration Office. Fig. 1. Existing System Flowchart
Firstly, the student goes to the Financial Department to
check and get cleared based on tuition and dormitory fee. If
indebted, the student pays the debt. III. PROPOSED SYSTEM
Secondly, the student goes to the Library to submit the Hard The proposed system is designed to solve the
Copy of his/her Thesis also the student is checked if in limitations associated with the existing system. The
possession of Library books. If still in possession, he pays improved system comes very handy in replacing human
for the overdue charge stipulated by the school library. operators in tasks that involve hard physical or monotonous
Thirdly, he goes to clear with the coordinator, likewise with work. The system does the creating, reading, updating and
the Supervisor. The supervisor of the student will check if deleting of redundant data automatically. Some features that
the student has submitted all laboratory materials in his or will be possessed by the proposed system include:
her possession. Furthermore, the student goes to the Campus
E-Card Centre to deactivate his E-card. • Incorporation of quality checks and verification to
Finally, the student returns to the School Administration reduce the number of mal-activities from the end of
office for student ID card for cancellation and also for the students.
certificate collection. • Economic improvement on both the students and the
Institution.
• Fast rate of operation and excellent response time.
• Flexibility in accessing the system.
• Efficient storage and faster retrieval of data.
• The system can be accessed world-wide.
IV. PROPOSED SYSTEM FLOWCHART
This is a workflow of the proposed system showing the
step by step process of the clearance.
Before a student graduates, the student must have taken all
the course examination for the degree of study. So, it’s
expected that the student must have completed all required
course registration for the duration of study, passed all the
examinations taken and also must have fulfill the student
project defense requirements leading to the award of degree
conferment which also applies to masters and PhD
graduating students as the case maybe. Firstly, the student
gets the clearance link from the graduate school and login
by entering the “student ID” and “password” details.
Information about the student will pop up on the left side of
the screen as well as the text view icons. The details of the
Proposed System flowchart are illustrated below and Figure
A 2 shows the Proposed System Flowchart.

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 1) Graduation Status: The graduation qualification page 4) University Library: If the student’s book borrowing
shows details about the student’s graduation status. If the record is cleared, the student proceeds to the submission of
student status is qualified, the student moves on to the next thesis else the student is directed through a link to finish up
stage, else the student is directed to see the coordinator. The all outstanding payments.
school coordinator disseminates the list of the graduating 5) Research Laboratory: If the student’s laboratory
students to the graduate school and all concerned units access record is cleared, the student proceeds to the next
(financial department, library, research laboratory, and E- stage else the student is directed by a pop up message to see
card operation unit) where the name list is uploaded to the the school coordinator. The school coordinator through the
portal. Students can check if they meet all requirements for student’s supervisor will have to check with the laboratory
graduation. to ensure that all laboratory materials (workstation, lab key
2) Tuition Fee: If the student has completed all payment etc.) assigned to the student are returned in good shape,
on the tuition fees with the respect to the number of years before the student can be cleared.
spent in the school, the student proceeds to the next stage 6) Campus E-card: This allows the student to deactivate
else the student is directed through a link to finish up all the E-card and get refunded in a case where the student still
outstanding payments. has money left on the e-card. The refund could be via bank
3) Dormitory Fee: If the student has completed all card, mobile money or cash collection at the E-card
payment on the dormitory fees with the respect to the operation unit. After a successful clearance completion, a
number of years spent in the school, the student proceed to notification message pops up instructing the student to
the next stage else the student is directed through a link to proceed to the Academic and Administration Units with the
finish up all outstanding payments. student ID card for certificate collection.

Fig. 2. Proposed Model Flowchart

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 VI. SYSTEM REQUIREMENT
V. METHODOLOGY
The methodology applied here is the structured system A. Software Requirement
analysis and design methodology (SSADM). This is a This lays out functional and non-functional
waterfall method (sequential design method) used for the requirements. It includes a set of use cases that the system
analysis and design of an information system. describes. The system is designed to be implemented with
the following software requirements.
A. Waterfall Methodology
• Android OS, Symbian OS, windows OS, iOS or any
This model is referred to as sequential life cycle model. other mobile devise OS (for mobile devices)
In waterfall model, each phase must be completed before the • A suitable browser.
next phase can begin and there is no overlapping in the
• Any major Os such as Windows, Mac and Linus
phases. This means that any phase in the development
• HTML
process begins only if the previous phase is completed. The
diagram below is a representation of the waterfall model. • CSS
• JavaScript
• MySQL
• Sublime Text 3
• XAMPP Server
• Photo editor
B. Hardware Requirement
For the effective operation of the newly designed system,
the following minimum hardware specifications are
recommended
• The computer system
• The Random Access Memory (RAM) in use should
be at least 512megabyte.
• The system should have a hard Disk of at least 50GB
and at least a diskette drive of high density of
1.44MB (3.5 inches).
• The system should be equipped with an E.G.A/V.G.A
color monitor with an uninterrupted power supply.
Fig. 3. Waterfall Model • A visual display unit.
• A standard keyboard and mouse
1) Requirement Analysis: At this stage of the waterfall
model, the possible requirements of the proposed system are
captured and documented. The requirements gathered VII. DESIGN TOOLS
includes; research of the existing system, fingerprint
In the development of this proposed system, various
technology, data collection (Students details), etc. tools were adopted. These tools range from PHP, XAMPP
2) System Design: In this system design stage, we server, MYSQL database and HTML, CSS, JavaScript.
studied the requirement specifications from the first stage • Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)
and the design was prepared. Here also this paper considers • Cascading Style Sheet (CSS)
the two levels of system design: Logical design and Physical • Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP)
design. Logical design produces a specification of the major • My Structured Query Language (MYSQL)
features of the new system. While the physical takes the
• JavaScript libraries like jQuery
blueprint of the logical design to produce the program
• Sublime Text 3
specifications, physical file or database definition, and user
interface.
3) Implementation: With inputs from the system design, VIII. SYSTEM DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION
the design was implemented in small programs called units, This paper introduces the result gotten when the system
which are integrated in the next phase. was tested, how the test was carried out and the language
4) Testing: All the units developed in the used to achieve the system. The web server used in this
implementation phase are at this stage integrated into a implementation is XAMPP server. This server is an open
system after testing each unit. After which the entire system source, powerful and works on major OS such as Windows,
was tested for any fault and failure. Mac, Linus and uses MYSQL database and PHP scripting
5) Deployment: After the system has undergone the engines. HTML is the backbone of the website. It is used in
functional and non-functional testing, the product was creating web pages. The paper uses it to format texts as titles
deployed to the user environment. and headings, to arrange graphics on the web page, to link to
6) Maintenance: To enhance the performance of this different pages within the website and to ink to other
new system, it may be debugged on a regular base. websites of need. Cascading style sheet is adopted to format
the layout of Web pages. The main aim of CSS is to

77
separate the content of a web document from its database structure and Figure 7 shows the current action of
presentation. It is used to define styles for documents, the system by highlighting the text view with an orange box
including the design, layout and variations in display for colour.
different designs and screen sizes. The paper uses it to
define the text styles and other aspects of Web pages that
previously can be defined in a page's HTML. CSS gives the
option of selecting various style schemes and rules
according to the requirements. Furthermore, it helps to avoid
duplication, makes maintenance easier and also allows
making site wide change in one place. JavaScript makes the
web pages dynamic and interactive by implementing custom
client – side scripts. PHP is compatible with various web
servers like Apache and the Microsoft’s IIS as well. All
PHP scripts are executed on the server and it supports
various databases like MySQL, Oracle, but it is mostly used
with MySQL. MySQL is a free available open source
relational Database Management System that uses Structure
Query Language. It is the most popular language for adding,
accessing and managing content in a database. A database is
a collection of data. The paper implemented MySQL as a
relational database management system help stores data in
separate tables rather than putting all the data in one big
storeroom. Fig. 5. Graduating Student’s Information Page

IX. RESULT AND DISCUSSION

Output design gives a feedback of the result processes
within the system. This description is made relative to the
user or operator of the proposed system. The outputs for the
proposed system are presented in form of web pages as
follow
1) Student’s Login Page: The prospective graduating
student is expected to input his basic information such as
username and password, for formal registration from which
a login access is permitted as shown in figure 4.

Fig. 6. Graduating Student’s Database Structure

Fig. 4. Graduating Student’s Login Page

2) Graduating Student’s Information Page: After a

successful login completion, the system retrieves the
graduating student’s information from the database of the
university and displays it on the left side of the web page as
shown in figure 5. Figure 6 shows the student’s information Fig. 7. Current Action of the System

78
 3) Graduation Status: This stage determines if the
student is eligible to proceed with the clearance process or
not as shown in figure 8. All minimum graduation
requirements must be satisfied including all fee payment.

Fig. 10. Graduating Student’s Dormitory Fee Status

Fig. 8. Graduating Student’s Status
6) School Library: All the books borrowed and return
4) Tuition Fee: The graduating student is expected to by the graduating students can view on this page as shown
finish up all payment regarding tuition fee before granting in figure 11. If the student has a pending book yet to be
access to proceed with clearance process. A student stil returned, it will reflect indicating the student to either return
indebted can view all outstanding payments and also make it or pay for overdue. The amount will be calculated
payment at the same time by clicking on the payment link as automatically based on overdue period charge. In this case,
shown in figure 9 below. the student is directed through a link to make payment in
order to proceed to the next stage.

Fig. 11. Graduating Student’s Library use Status

Fig. 9. Graduating Student’s Tuition Fee Status
7) Research laboratory: Every student is assigned a
5) Dormitory Fee: The graduating student is expected to work space in the laboratory with a work station. It is
finish up all payment regarding dormitory fee before expected that all laboratory materials assigned to every
granting access to proceed with clearance process. A student student are returned in good shape and duly signed with the
stil indebted can view all outstanding payments and also consent of the student’s supervisor. This information can be
make payment at the same time by clicking on the payment viewed on this page as shown in figure 12. In a case where
link as shown in figure 10 below the student’s status is pending, the student will be directed
to see the school coordinator before proceeding to the next
stage.

79
 processes by students on the backend. Data integrity is
ensured by the use of password and ID for authenticating
user and to avoid unauthorized access.
XI. CONCLUSION
In this paper, an improved electronic clearance
management system is presented. The system will offer
graduating students a hitch free clearance experience. The
implementation of the proposed system presented in this
paper by replacing the manual and semi manual methods
will reduce cost and save time consumed during the whole
process of clearance. It is observed that this improved
system, if implemented will increase efficiency and
reliability for both the students and the university.
XII. FUTURE WORK
The paper has a very vast scope. In the future, the
research can be extended across different sectors of
Fig. 12. Graduating Student’s Research Lab Status economy and industries with an existing database system to
improve clearance processes. I strongly endorse the future
8) Campus E-Card: Graduating students are expected to development of this work.
return the campus E-card and get a refund for available
balance on the card as shown in figure 13. The student can
view the available balance on the card and gets a refund by ACKNOWLEDGMENT
choosing a withdrawal method either via bank card or This paper is supported by the project of NSFC
mobile money. (ID:61602098) and the project of Sichuan Science and
Technology Department Talent Project (ID: 2018RZ0009).

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