Abstract:
In an academic setting, it is important for students to be well informed about their academic status and progress regularly. All first year students are provided with school catalogs which hold information about their majors and the courses required by them to pass for them to obtain their particular degrees. Students are given these catalogs only once and many of them tend to misplace them after a few semesters. Hence, they lose information on the requirements they need to obtain a degree in the university within the promised four year period. This causes many students to lose track of the time they are supposed to complete all their requirements. When students do not obtain their degrees within the promised 4 year period, questions start being asked by students and their parents as well. With a relatively expensive tuition fee, it could be a major problem for parents to pay for tuition for extra semesters which they had not budgeted for. The department responsible for keeping track of the academic progress of students is the Academic Advising Office. This office is not doing particularly badly at their duties but a lot more can be done. Firstly, the location of the office is constantly being changed almost every semester. Secondly, students who do not have good academic standings feel discouraged or embarrassed to visit the Academic Advising and reveal information about their grades and cumulative grade point average (C|GPA). Thirdly, many students might not remember all the grades they have gotten from the courses they have taken especially when they are in the latter stages of their degree. The school provides check sheets for students but many do not feel the need to obtain them, the distance from the dorms to the registrar’s office might be a discouraging factor. In addition, even when students obtain these check sheets, these sheets get misplaced for
one reason or the other. This would mean all the information about their grades and C|GPA become lost.
The Catalog Handling system (CHS) would make all school year catalogs available to students, the registrar, deans’ offices and the academic advising office at all times given that internet connection is made available. Every student will be required to insert their courses grades at the end of every semester. Students will be able to insert their course grades and calculate their C|GPA every semester and the academic advising office will have access to every student records. These student records will include statistical report of every student’s academic progress over each semester. This is the main motive of the Catalog Handling System (CHS). The deployment of this system will help students become more familiar with their academic requirements and also aid the academic advising office in keeping them on track in order to obtain their degree timely and successfully.
