International J. Technology. July – December, 2021; Vol.

11: Issue 2

ISSN 2231-3907 (Print) www.enggresearch.net

ISSN 2231-3915 (Online) www.ijtonline.com

RESEARCH ARTICLE

A Web-Based Student’s Complaints Management System

Abdul-Rahaman Mohammed*, Zuyelle Solomon, Dassah M. Nurideen
Department of Computer Science Sunyani Technical University (Students), Sunyani Ghana.
*Corresponding Author E-mail: [email protected]

ABSTRACT:
Students’ complaints have increased recently in tertiary education; hence the manual complaints system has
become ineffective to handle the vast number of complaints, making it difficult for school authorities to respond
adequately to each complaint made. Nevertheless, the advancement of internet and web technologies has paved
the way to addressing this growing challenge electronically. This work sought to design a web-based student
complaint system for Sunyani Technical University to help manage students’ complaints efficiency, security,
accuracy, and reliability on campus. Based on the waterfall model design approach, we implemented the
proposed complaints system with HTML, CSS formatting language and PHP for the frontend, MySQL database
management for data keeping and PHP programming language for server-side scripting. The proposed approach
was tested based on user-friendliness, robustness, security with both students and staff. The obtained feedback
proves that our proposed system is adequate for handling students’ complaints accurately and fast than the
conventional method.

KEYWORDS: Web-based complaint system, Waterfall model, MySQL, HTML, PHP.

INTRODUCTION:
The progress of every educational institute is partially hinged on the diplomatic approach to address student
complaints1–4. Several students in tertiary institutes put forward many complaints to school authorities daily. These
complaints must be documented and filed for easy access and future references using the appropriate complaint
system5,6. A complaint system is a sequence of actions used by many institutions to register students and clients’
complaints and provide adequate solutions later. Dealing with complaints usually involves listening actively,
empathizing, taking responsibility, executing the responsibility, and following up.

However, conventionally most academic institutions in the developing economy handle students’ complaints
manually. For example, Sunyani Technical University (STU) has over eleven thousand students with more than fifty
(50) complaints from students in different levels and programmes each day. That is, the authorities receive these
complaints manually, classified and file them manually. This approach becomes challenging as the number of
complaints increases, making it difficult for students to lay a complaint and get their complaints resolved to their
satisfaction. Also, the cost of printing these complaints by students and the time complexity make the process
cumbersome. Additionally, school authorities face processing abilities as complaints increases. Moreover, the
process is tedious, i.e., (i) students must visit the faculty office and complain against any issues during office hours.
(ii) The complaint must be made by filling some form that includes regardless of the complaint’s type and category.
(ii) After the complaint has been resolved, the student has to revisit the office to get the confirmation, making it
time-consuming just for the student to get the result of their complaints.

However, the rapid development in technologies such as artificial intelligence, the internet, cloud computing and
web engineering 7–22 has paved the way for using technological approaches to reduces the stress on both students and
school authorities in dealing with complaints from students.
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For example, a web-based complaints management system is anticipated to make the process easier to coordinate,
monitor, track and resolve, and provide institutions with an effective tool to identify and target problem areas,
monitor complaints handling performance and make business improvements. In addition, a web-based student
complaint management system provides an efficient, timely, and equitable complaint handling that is easily
accessible to students and staff in and outside the campus.

Hence, this paper seeks to design, develop and implement a web-based student complaints management system that
will replace the manual complaint system in STU. We aim to create a user-friendly, robust, adequate, fast and
secured complaint system for students and management using modern internet and web technologies (i.e., HTML,
CSS, MySQL, and PHP).

The remaining sections of this paper are systematized as follows: Section 2 put forward a review of associated
studies. Then, in section 3, we put forward the process and tools implemented in this project. Finally, we put
forward the experimental outcomes and discussions in section 4 and the study conclusion in segment 5.

LITERATURE REVIEW:
This section reviews an overview of a web-based system, some programming languages useful for programming
web applications and a summary of related works.

A Web-Based Student Complaints Management System:

A web-based student complaint management system is a stretch and site where students complain are laid and
resolved. The student creates an account, log-in and lay a complaint. A desk officer from the management will
attend and resolve the complaint and reply to the individual complaints posed. Several programming languages can
be used to design a web-based student complaint management system, but we will discuss a few in this study in the
following sections.
Programming Language (PL):
A programming language (PL) is a set of terminology and grammatical rules for commanding a computer or
computing equipment to do specific tasks23,24. Figure 1 depicts the various types and examples of programming
languages. There are three types: assembly, machine, and high-level languages, which can be further subdivided into
interpreted and compiled languages24–26. Ruby, PHP, Python, Perl, and many other interpreted languages are
examples27,28. On the other hand, C#, C++, VB.Net, and Java are examples of compiled languages.

Programming Language

Assembly Language Machine Language High Level Language

Interpreted Language Compiled Language

PHP Perl Ruby Pyth C# C++ VB.Net Java

on
Figure 1: Classification of Programming Languages

Software Development Models:

There are various software development models24,29. However, this study discusses two basic application
development models, namely (i) the Waterfall model (conventional model) and (ii) Rapid Application Development
(RAD) model, sometimes known as the prototyping approach.

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Water Fall Model (WFM):

The work breakdown structure (WFM) was the first method for building information systems and is being used for
medium to large complex system projects today. It is a somewhat formal approach to system development, dividing
it into standard stages that must be completed in a specified order. The activities of each level must be met before
the next phase can begin. In addition, the systems life cycle methodology maintains a fairly formal division of
labour between end-users and information systems specialists30.

Rapid Application Development (Prototyping) Model (RAD):

Prototyping is the process of swiftly and cheaply constructing an experimental system for end-user evaluation. Users
may gain a better understanding of their information requirements by interacting with the prototype. To develop the
final system, a template is created from the user’s preferred prototype. A prototype is a working model of an
information system, though it is intended to be a basic model. Once operational, the prototype is fine-tuned until it
adequately meets the needs of the users. Following the design, the prototype can be transformed into a polished
production system30.

MATERIALS AND METHODS:

A web-based student complaints management system can be implemented using a variety of computer languages
and technologies. Based on their excellence in this type of software design, PHP, HTML/CSS, and JavaScript were
chosen for design and implementation in this study. For the backend, Xampp is used as a database management
studio.
Requirement Engineering and Elicitation Techniques:
The process of obtaining and specifying what the system should provide is known as requirement engineering. It
focuses on determining whether or not the system is helpful to the business (feasibility study), identifying
requirements (elicitation and analysis), converting these requirements into any standard format (specifications), and
ensuring that the requirements defined the system that the customer desired (validation). This study used models to
understand the proposed system through interactions with business owners via interviews, personal observation, and
various scenarios.

Software Development Methodology:

This study adopted the waterfall model based on its client’s centred approach and easy implementation. The
development process constituted five (5) distinct phases; we outline the activities in brief.

System analysis:
We observed and inquired about the manual process via system requirements and data collection to determine which
functions to include in the proposed system. Also, we considered the system design for the solution’s hardware and
software technologies, technical specialists’ model and the correct design specifications in this step. Finally, the
outcome is presented for approval by school management and users.

Production and maintenance:

Technical specialists examine the system’s technical performance and undertake maintenance. Figure 2 shows the
flowchart of the proposed web-based complaint management system. Firstly, a user (student or staff) must register,
and the system admin activates registration and assigns an appropriate access level. Activated users can then log in
with their information. If successful, access is allowed to the user dashboard, where the student can select a
preferred desk officer to pose a complaint. Secondly, the desk officer resolves the complaint and send it back to the
student. Figure 3 shows the data flow of the proposed. It illustrates data transfer steps from the input to the file
storage and reports production in a system.

Figure 4 shows the database schema diagram of the proposed web-based student complaint management system.
During the first interaction, the system records the user’s personal information and access and the complainant’s
information on the system’s database.

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Start

Login As Student/Admin/
Desk Officer

Enter User ID
and Password

No

Is User ID and
Password
Correct?

Yes

Student Homepage Desk Officer

Available Consultants Admin My profile

Submit Query Activate Unread Queries

Unread Query De-Activate Send Assistance

Delete
Stop
Stop

View messages

Stop

Figure 2: Proposed system data flow

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Student/Admin/Desk
Officer

User

Complaint Solved User Login Complaint Laid

Web-based
Compliant
Management
System
Figure 3: Dataflow diagram of proposed system

Figure 4 shows the database schema diagram of the proposed web-based student complaint management system.
During the first interaction, the system records the user’s personal information and access and the complainant’s
information on the system’s database.

Chating Message

ID Message ID
User Reecipient
Message date Date Status

Cases User

ID User ID
Connsultant Passward

Figure 3: The database schema

EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS:

Four computers were used to test the final design. As a server, an Intel Core i5 with 8GB RAM and the Windows 10
server operating system was employed, and three desktop computers served as clients. We used a TP-Link 8 Port
Gigabit Ethernet Network Switch to connect the four machines using our custom created Local area networks
(LAN). We present the outcome in the subsequent section.

User log-in module:

Figure 5 shows the log-in interface of the proposed system. It is the step module that pops up when the application is
launched. First, the users are authenticated by providing their log-in details, i.e. username and password. Then, the
user’s information is confirmed against the system after entering the user’s details, and if accurate, the user is
directed to the main dashboard (see Fig. 6).

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Figure 4: Proposed system login module

Figure 6: Proposed System Dashboard

Figure 7: Consultant module interface of the proposed system

Figure 8: Send complaints or message interface of the proposed

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Figure 9: Proposed system unread complaints or message on desktop officer/consultant’s interface

Figure 10: Proposed system send complaints or message on desktop officer/consultant’s interface

120%

100%

80%

60%

40%

20%

0%
Recommendation Satisfaction Description Requirement Quality Responsiveness Coments

Positive Negative

Figure 11: Participant view on the developed system

Figure 6 shows the dashboard of the proposed system. The dashboard displays the user’s available consultants,
submitted queries, unread messages, and the student’s ID number on a side panel labelled student.

Figure 7 shows the available consultant panel whom the students can lay all the complaints with the available
consultants. To send a complaint, the user must first select the left panel’s available consultants. Firstly, a student
clicks on the available consultant panel and then connect to the available consultants. When the preferred available
consultants are selected and connected correctly, the student can enter the complaints and send them (See Figure 8).

Figure 9 shows the dashboard of the consultants or desktop-officer displaying unread messages of student
complaints. The officer clicks on the read tab to see the complaint and reply through the reply module (See Figure
10).

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System User-Friendliness Test:

We examined how easy it is to use the proposed system with four (4) students and two (2) staff. A purposeful
sampling technique was adopted to sample these participants from the computer science department to validate the
proposed system’s user-friendliness. Two students and one staff were coached on using the system, while the other
three were not. This method enables the researchers to determine how user-friendly and straightforward the
developed system is. After one hour of utilizing the system, each participant was given a Likert scale questionnaire
to answer. The respondent was asked to evaluate the proposed system regarding quality, description, satisfaction,
recommendation, requirement, and comment (see Figure 11). We observed that, on average, 80% of participants
recommended that the proposed system be adopted and piloted within the University. However, they believe that
orientation should be given to both students and staff before its implementation.

CONCLUSION:
Due to the numerous challenges, manual student complaint systems should be discouraged in this day and age of
technological tools and platform advancement. However, many universities in developing countries like Ghana are
still filing complaints the old-fashioned way. Besides, the progress in web technologies can offer a platform for
implementing a student complaint management system that could significantly improve the day-to-day management
of tertiary institutions.

In this study, a web-based students complaints system is proposed, designed and implemented using Sunyani
Technical University as a case study. We aimed to create a low-cost and user-friendly web-based student complaint
management system. The waterfall design model was adopted in the design. The proposed method was implemented
using the WAMP server for the MySQL database, PHP server-side programming and HTML, CSS for the front
end. Our trial setup with seven participants demonstrates that the proposed solution is simple to use and reliable. As
a result, it offers a user-friendly design that allows even inexperienced users to master it quickly. We hope that the
University will adopt the system to promote ease and flexibility in their complaints mechanism.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:
We want to convey our heartfelt gratitude and appreciation to God Almighty, the Omnipotent, and the Omniscient
for his mercy, direction, and protection over our initiative. Furthermore, we are grateful to Sunyani Technical
University in Ghana’s Bono area for providing us with information to design and develop the proposed system. We
would also like to thank everyone who helped make our study a success, especially our tireless supervisor, for his
unwavering support and sacrifices. Finally, we are incredibly grateful to all of our loved ones for their prayers,
motivation, and support throughout the building of our student complaint management system.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST:
The authors have reported no conflicts of interest.

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Received on 08.10.2021 Accepted on 10.12.2021

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Int. J. Tech. 2021; 11(2):35-43.
DOI: 10.52711/2231-3915.2021.00005

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