DEVELOPING STUDENTS' INFORMATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR HIGHER LEARNING: A CASE STUDY IN EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS IN GHANA

This study aims at developing a simple, yet powerful integrated platform for incorporating the various activities of institutions, creating an environment that encourages accountability, relevance and retention of students' information gathered for universal purposes. Basically, the use of application software or automated systems to manage a school is synonymous to securing the routine activities of the school, the need to automate most of its operations by considering an Online Students' Information Management System. This research therefore uses educational institutions as a case study. The proposed system addresses the problem of manual processes of information storage, retrieval and dissemination. This would enable academic administrators to load student's information and subsequently help academic registry to effectively manage students' data and efficiently create various reports. The system can also enable students to interact with the system online at the comfort of their homes and offices, whilst eliminating the aspect of human errors from lecturers manually recording students' grades on sheets of papers (shrink paper works). The methodology adopted for the study was the Rational Unified Process design methodology (RUP), the reason being that it has a hybrid process model which brings together various design elements from the generic process models that encompasses both user communication and planning activities. The developed students' IMS has two separate applications, i.e. desktop and web based (online), centralized in one database. The former can be used by the school administrators (academic registry) for managing and securing student information, the latter can be utilized by applicants and continuing students, to apply, register and view their results online without any stress. In conclusion, the designed custom-made OSIMS software can aid faculty to submit students' results to the registry online and in real time, and can enable academic institutions to efficiently organize and manage students' information effectively.