Managing Students’ Electronic Disciplinary Records Via E-Merit Web Content Management System

Mohd Idzwan Mohd Salleh

Faculty of Information Management Universiti Teknologi MARA

Kelantan, Malaysia idzwan201@kelantan.uitm.edu.my

Mohamad Rahimi Mohamad Rosman Faculty of Information Management

Universiti Teknologi MARA Kelantan, Malaysia

rahimimr@kelantan.uitm.edu.my

Raja Abdullah Raja Yaacob Faculty of Information Management

Universiti Teknologi MARA Selangor, Malaysia

rary@salam.uitm.edu.my

Zulkarnain Yusoff Centre for Islamic Thought and Understanding

Universiti Teknologi MARA Kelantan, Malaysia

zul713@kelantan.uitm.edu.my

Abstract—E-Merit is a web content management system that is developed to help Malaysian secondary schools manage discipline problems among their students more effectively in order to increase the academic performance to a greater height. Students’ misconduct problems at the present level occurred due to lack of self-awareness and lack of parental control. The uniqueness of this application as compared with other E-Discipline systems are the teachers not only can record misconduct cases among their students but they will be given opportunity for improving themselves through counseling and community service programs. In addition, parents can check their children records of academic achievement, co-curricular, discipline and presence in the school for taking a preventive action before being suspended. Notification via e-mail and Short Messaging System will be automatically received when their children are involved in any activity of wrongdoings. Merit stated here not merely the measurement of student disciplinary cases but also their level of academic achievements and co-curricular activities either they are excellent, good, satisfactory or fail. This application is designed using Open Source Software that provides three categories of user access namely teacher, student and parent in which only the teacher is fully entitled to make any additions and changes to student’s records. The benefits of the system are included its ability to increase the efficiency of managing students’ electronic records, to reduce the burden of teachers’ works as well as to be a best tool in assisting the detection and prevention of discipline problems. Therefore, E-Merit is expected to be commercialized as the best platform not only among the schools but also the public and private institutions of higher learning to excel its corporate image through the development of students’ intellectual capital aligned with the national philosophy of education.

Keywords- E-Merit; discipline; electronic records; students; intellectual capital

I. INTRODUCTION Schools are important institutions where the children

received their early education formally. All students, regardless of religion, race and background learn new values, rules, respect, compassion, ethics and cooperation from the subject being taught by well-trained and experienced teachers. In this modern age, the schools provide a wide range of facilities, equipments, teaching materials as well as implement educational activities to create the excellence in terms of physical, emotional, spiritual and intellectual for every student. To date, the reality that exists is still a lot of failures, weaknesses and violations of discipline in the schools. As each of the school has different styles and ways of management, this situation is becoming worst when few of the teachers who do not understand the rules and circulars relating to discipline, coupled with the appointment of discipline teachers who are fierce and brutal claimed to hit the students as reported by the media. The responsibilities of dealing with the disciplinary cases are relying on the Committee of Discipline as a problem solver without full commitment from all teachers. In fact, these scenarios have contributed to the following problems currently facing by primary and secondary schools in Malaysia:

1. Students’ discipline problems are hastily increased at

a serious level and difficult to control. 2. Workloads of the disciplined teachers. 3. Declining students’ academic achievements. 4. Inefficiency management of the disciplinary records. As a new method with utilizing ICT as the main tool, a

web content management system [CMS] known as E-Merit is developed with the objectives to manage the students’

2011 IEEE Conference on Open Systems (ICOS2011), September 25 - 28, 2011, Langkawi, Malaysia

978-1-61284-931-7/11/$26.00 ©2011 IEEE 261

electronic disciplinary records more efficiently in addition to detect and control their behaviours. The novelty of this application as compared with other respective E-Discipline systems are the teachers not only can record misconduct cases for their students but they will be given opportunity for improving themselves through counseling and community service programs. Merit percentages will be deducted after they participated that particular activity. With E-Merit, parents can check directly their children records of discipline and class attendance via online to enable them to take the most preventive actions in overcoming the problems before further actions being taken by the school management like suspended or expulsion. If this happened, students may appeal to continue their studies and check results from the system.

II. LITERATURE REVIEW A. Concepts of Web Content Management System [CMS]

Content management [CM] can be defined as the process of collecting, managing and publishing content [1]-[2]. Kane and Hegarty [3] stated that a CMS is a collective term for the processes by which web-content providers can publish information to the web. At the earlier stage of web development as demonstrated in Fig. 1, the pages consisted of static text, links and a limited number of images written in HTML code. Few problems identified like poorly coded HTML, broken table, disconnected links, poor quality content and missing graphics. Any updates to the pages are relying on the webmaster rather than the exact author due to lacking of programming knowledge and skills. From time to time, the standards of web design and deployment becoming more advance in using a distinct server from the live site for development task. Updates and deployment can be easily performed by the content author as the new administrator and manager of the site without having complex technical skills [4].

Figure 1. Evolution of web CMS [5]

CMS software is so powerful that it is capable of substantially transforming the management of a web site. The key advantages of a good CMS is that properly managed, it allows one to easily standardise the look and feel of a web site as well as to make the site more readily accessible to all types of users be and more compliant with web standards. Other benefits highlighted by Han [6], the implementation of CMS will improve information accuracy, increase flexibility, enhance system management and reduce

maintenance and cost. Accordingly, web CMS is considered as a right choice for everyone in designing both static and dynamic contents as it also offers the following five main and various sub-features:

1. Content creation: Integrated authoring environment,

separation of content and presentation, multi-user authoring, content re-use, metadata and cataloging information creation, link management, non-technical authoring and ease-of-use.

2. Content management: Version control and archiving, workflow, security, integrated with external systems and reporting.

3. Publishing: Stylesheets, page templates, extensibility, support for multiple formats, personalization and usage statistics.

4. Presentation: Usability, accessibility, cross-browser support, limited client-side functionality, speed, valid html, effective navigation, metadata and search engine access.

5. Contract and business: Training, documentation, warranty, maintenance agreements, resources required, skills required, cost, scalability and reference sites [7].

In term of the software availability, Mooney and Baenziger [8] outlined a list of popular web CMS tools together with their homepages typically utilized for individual, government, education, business and industry needs that shown in Table I.

TABLE I. POPULAR CMS TOOLS [8]

B. Electronic Records Principles The emergence of electronic records has been

spearheaded by the emergence of Information and Communication Technology [ICT]. The widespread usage of information system has increase the dependency towards the need of a proper records management. An electronic record could be defined by identifying and defining its necessary and sufficient components in such a manner that they could be recognized and captured by a digital information system [9]. They are comprised of digitally coded electronic data, which have the characteristics of evidence like the printed records. Records in electronic environments require a ‘qualified electronic certificate’ or in

2011 IEEE Conference on Open Systems (ICOS2011), September 25 - 28, 2011, Langkawi, Malaysia

262

a more general sense of the term, a “digital signature” in order to have the characteristics of a record [to have legal validity]. Digital signature is identified as a “security mechanism included within a digital record that enables the identification of the creator of the digital object and that could also be used to detect and track any changes that have been made to the digital object [10].

International Records Management Trust [11] has further indicated that electronic record is a record that could be manipulated, transmitted or processed by a computer. It is written on magnetic or optical medium including magnetic tapes, cassettes, CD ROMs, hard disks and diskettes, recorded in binary code, accessed using computer software and hardware and easily manipulated i.e. updated, deleted and so on. Building a trusted electronic records management [ERM] platform is fundamental to today’s organizations [12]. As records migrate from a stable paper reality to an intangible electronic existence, their physical attributes, vital for establishing the authenticity and reliability of the evidence they contain are threatened [13].

Records management is referred as “the application of systematic and scientific control to all of the recorded information that an organization needs to do business” [14]. This definition is expanded by Ricks, Swafford and Gow [15] who stated that records management is “a function that provides for the systematic control of records from creation, or receipt, through their processing, distribution, organization, storage and retrieve to their ultimate disposition.” Another definition highlighted by the Australian Standard is “the discipline and organizational function of managing records to meet operational business needs, accountability requirements and community expectations” [16]. Traditional records management practices have been moved forward from paper based to electronic records to be managed using various forms of ICT systems like web CMS as the enabler.

C. System and Information System Theories A system is a collection of interrelated components that

function together to achieve some outcome. They also defined that an information system is a collection of interrelated components that collect, process, store and provide as output the information needed to complete a business task. A payroll system, e.g., collects information on employees and their works, processes and stores that information and then produces paychecks and payroll reports among other things for the organization [17]. Information system [IS] is an arrangement of people, data, processes, information presentation and information technology that interact to support and improve day-to-day operations in a business as well as support the problem-solving and decision-making needs of management and users [18].

D. System Development Life Cycle [SDLC] Concepts Most organizations find it beneficial to use a standard set

of steps called a systems development methodology to develop and support their information systems. Like many processes, the development of information systems often follows a life cycle. E.g., a commercial product follows a life cycle in that it is created, tested and introduced to the market. Its sales increase, peak and decline. Finally, the product is removed from the market and replaced by something else [19]. SDLC is a common methodology for systems development in many organizations that used to develop, maintain and replace the information systems. There are several interpretations concerning the taxonomy of stages in the whole life-cycle of building systems. E.g., John et al. [20] suggest that there are five stages: typically these are client requirements and briefing, design, installation, operations and maintenance and disposal/reusing/recycling phases. Evans et al. [21] divides the life cycle into three stages: design and construction, operational period and demolition/recycling. Shelly, Cashman and Rosenblatt [22] recommend five phases: planning, analysis, design, implementation and maintenance. The Shelly, Cashman and Rosenblatt version is more complete and comprehensive and therefore is adopted in developing E-Merit system as demonstrated in Fig. 2.

Figure 2. Traditional waterfall of SDLC

The SDLC model includes the following five phases:

1. System planning: The system planning phase usually begins with a formal request to the IT department called a systems request that describes problems or desired changes in an information system or a business process. The purpose of this phase is to perform a preliminary investigation to identify the nature and scope of the business opportunity or problem. A key part of the preliminary investigation is a feasibility study that reviews anticipated costs and benefits and recommends a course of action based on operational, technical, economic and time factors.

2. System Analysis: The purpose of the system analysis phase is to build a logical model of the new system. The first step is requirements modeling where the systems developers investigate business processes and document what the new system must do. The end product for the systems analysis phase is the system requirements document.

2011 IEEE Conference on Open Systems (ICOS2011), September 25 - 28, 2011, Langkawi, Malaysia

263

3. System Design: The purpose of the system design phase is to create a blueprint that will satisfy all documented requirements for the system. At this stage, the systems developers design the user interface and identify all necessary outputs, inputs and processes. The result of this phase is documented in the systems design specification and presented to management and users for review and approval.

4. System Implementation: During the system implementation phase, the new system is constructed. Whether the developers used structured analysis, the procedure is the same in which the system is written, tested, documented and installed. At the conclusion of this phase, the system is ready for use. Final preparations include converting data to the new system’s files, training users and performing the actual transition to the new system.

5. System Maintenance: During this phase, the IT staff maintains and enhances the system. Maintenance changes correct errors and adapt to changes in the environment. Enhancements provide new features and benefits.

III. SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT METHOLODOGY To acquire information about functional and

nonfunctional requirements of the system, a Joint Application Development [JAD] is conducted in two secondary schools at Kelantan state, Malaysia. During the sessions, participants who are one of the end users of the system [teachers], are asked to identify their preferences about the menu and interface designs, functionality, features, user friendliness, security aspects and reporting that they wish to see added to the new system for enhancing its capability and usability. Two system developers have been involved in developing the system. The pages of E-Merit system are generated dynamically. The contents of the site are stored in a MySQL database running on a Windows Operating System with Apache as the web server. The pages are created using the open source server side language PHP while static contents menu and graphical interface designs are designed using Joomla version 1.5.

A. System Architecture The architecture of E-Merit system is designed by

adopting Zhang [23] model and then modified based on its specified requirements. It consisted of registration module for end users [teacher, parent and student] who are actively operating the system, system management and maintenance modules for system administrator who are responsible in the system design, deployment and maintenance instead of establishing the access control permission for users and finally site management module for content managers who are typically creating a new or updating existing pages information. The flow of relationships between these information systems components are shown in Fig. 3.

Figure 3. Architecture of E-Merit system

B. Logical Database Design

Figure 4. Logical/relational Entity Relationship Diagram [ERD]

As drown in Fig. 4, teacher, record, parent and transcript are objects referred as “entities.” An entity is like a noun which describes a person, place, object, event or concept in the business transactions for which information must be recorded and retained. Many relationships between entities are one-to-one [1:1]. A teacher can update one or more electronic disciplinary records of students and one record will generate one academic transcript for each student. Next, parent can check and obtain a single academic transcript for their children. Teacher’s identification number is identified as attribute in the TEACHER entity similar as record identification number attribute for RECORD entity and so forth. Every time the teacher updates student’s record, his or her customer identification number is included to hold teacher information similar to record identification number used to hold record information for establishing the relationship between teacher and record.

2011 IEEE Conference on Open Systems (ICOS2011), September 25 - 28, 2011, Langkawi, Malaysia

264

C. System Flowchart Fig. 5 illustrated the process flow for teachers to use the

system until the final school transcript is generated. First, they need to enter their registered username and password upon login. Then, they can add or update the student’s previous discipline/academic/co-curricular records. Notifications via email and Short Messaging System [SMS] will be automatically send to the students’ parents once merit percentages have reached 50% or any cases that included in the police’s matters. A final transcript will be generated at the end of every year and the parents can check directly the complete school records of their children.

Figure 5. Flowchart of teacher module

Four vital capabilities of the system [see Fig. 6] are provided to show its uniqueness such as:

1. To record data about the students’ profiles, disciplines, academic results, co-curricular activities and class attendances.

2. To notify the parents automatically via email and SMS for any cases of misconducts committed by their children.

3. To improve the student morale through motivation and community service programs selection from the system.

4. To produce the statistical information on school achievements with regards to students’ performance.

Figure 6. Front page of E-Merit system

IV. INTEGRATING ELECTRONIC RECORDS MANAGEMENT [ERM] INTO E-MERIT SYSTEM

Good governance can be determined from effective records management in an organization. As they are used to document activities and transactions, records also must be reliable and trustworthy to support decision-making and accountability of the schools. As schools operations’ migrate to an electronic environment, records management is becoming dependent on the utilization of ICT systems. In order to ensure that E-Merit system can create and produce trusted information to ensure the accountability and transparency in their services and to gain the students and parents’ trust, therefore, records management is regarded as the best solution to be integrated during SDLC and system functionality complied with the established records management policies and practices. To achieve the efficiency, E-Merit system should be able to support the creation, organization, use, retention and final disposition of electronic records [see Table II].

TABLE II. ERM & E-MERIT INTEGRATIONS No. ERM E-Merit Functionality 1 Creation of electronic records New registration of end users

[teacher, student & parent] 2 Classification of electronic

records Disciplinary records update based on Student’s Misconduct Coding System [Ministry of Education Malaysia, 2009]

3 Storage of electronic records New records saved or update will be stored into MySQL database server

4 Search of electronic records Records search for student’s academic, co-curricular, discipline & statistical records

5 Retrieval of electronic records View complete student’s academic transcripts from system & delivered to parent’s email

6 Use of electronic records Take further action [suspended, expulsion, counseling, community service] by school management

7 Retention of electronic records Until students are graduated 8 Disposition of electronic

records When students are graduated or being expelled from school

2011 IEEE Conference on Open Systems (ICOS2011), September 25 - 28, 2011, Langkawi, Malaysia

265

V. CONCLUSIONS Looking at the discipline problems that occurred among

the students recently are very alarming, hence, E-Merit system is attempted to create a new scenario and approach concerned on both positive and negative behaviours of students. Negative behaviours will be given necessary merits followed by specific guidance and counseling sessions to restore them rather than punishments while the positive behaviors will be given the credit scores to measure their level of disciplines in forming the best attitude and personality. Furthermore, management of traditional disciplinary records will be ultimately replaced with the electronic records which can be accessed and shared widely by more end users [teacher/student/parent] at the same time in different places. Integration of ERM into E-Merit system may enhance its functionality in the creation, storage, use and management of electronic school records in remedying the discipline problems to demonstrate the responsiveness and capability of a school. Implementation of the system is expected to reduce the students’ misconduct and generate its excellence thus create a clean and healthy environment of a learning organization. Its performance has been recognized by local industries after won Silver Medal at one of UiTM R&D innovation competition [IID Second Edition 2010] organized at the national level. As the system can promote a good relationship between parent, school and local community, all these parties must work and cooperate together to address discipline issues as a whole in the responsibility of educating children to create a future generation that is highly knowledgeable, mature and competitive with top leadership quality as well.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Special gratitude is expressed to Ismail Petra Secondary

School and Maktab Rendah Sains MARA Pasir Tumbuh, Kota Bharu, Kelantan, Malaysia for their participation in JAD during the system analysis and design phases. The system has been protected by a copyright in Malaysia.

REFERENCES [1] B. Boiko, “Understanding content management,” Bulletin of the

American Society for Information Science and Technology, vol. 28, no. 1, pp. 8-13, 2001.

[2] G. Thamaraiselvi, “Concepts of content management,” SRELS Journal of Information Management, vol. 39, no. 4, pp. 363-70, 2002.

[3] D. Kane and N. Hegarty, “New web site, new opportunities: Enforcing standards compliance within a content management system,” Library Hi Tech, vol. 25, no. 2, pp. 276-287, 2007.

[4] R. Hoffman. (2000). Content management tools [Online]. Available: http://www.networkcomputing.com/1111/1111/buyers2.html

[5] S. McKeever, “Understanding web content management systems: Evolution, lifecycle and market,” Industrial Management & Data Systems, vol. 103/9, pp. 686-692, 2003.

[6] Y. Han, “Digital content management: The search for a content management system,” Library Hi Tech, vol. 22, no. 4, pp. 355-365, 2004.

[7] R. Wiggins, J. Remley and T. Klingler, “Building a local CMS at Kent State,” Library Hi Tech, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 69-101, 2006.

[8] S. D. Mooney and P. H. Baenziger, “Extensible open source content management systems and frameworks: A solution for many needs of a bioinformatics group,” Briefings in Bioinformatics, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 69-74, 2007.

[9] L. Duranti, “Concepts and principles for the management of electronic records, or records management theory is archival diplomatics,” Records Management Journal, vol. 9, pp. 149 – 171, 1999.

[10] National Archives of Australia. (2008). Glossary of records management terms [Online]. Available: http://www.archives.sa.gov. au/management/glossary.html#D

[11] International Records Management Trust, Managing public sector records: A study programme: Managing electronic records. London, UK: International Records Management Trust, 1999.

[12] Aliza Ismail and Adnan Jamaludin, “Towards establishing a framework for managing trusted records in the electronic environment,” Records Management Journal, vol. 19, pp. 135- 146, 2009.

[13] L. Duranti and H. MacNeil, “The protection of the integrity of electronic records: an overview of the UBC-MAS research project,” Archivaria, vol. 42, pp. 46–67, 1996.

[14] N. Mnjama and J. Wamukoya, “E-government and records management: an assessment tool for e-records readiness in government,” The Electronic Library, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 274-284, 2007.

[15] B. R. Ricks, A. J. Swafford and K. F. Gow, Information and Image Management: A Records Systems Approach, 3rd ed. Cincinnati: South-Western Publishing Co., 1992.

[16] M. F. Robek, G. F. Brown and O. W. Maedke, Information and Records Management, 3rd. ed. Encino, California: Glencoe Publishing Co., 1987.

[17] J. W. Satzinger, R. B., Jackson and S. D. Burd, Systems Analysis and Design in A Changing World, 4th ed. Boston, Massachusetts: Thomson Course Technology, 2007.

[18] J. L. Whitten, L. D. Bentley and K. C. Dittman, Systems Analysis and Design Methods, 5th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001.

[19] J. A. Hoffer, J. F. George and J. S. Valacich, Modern Systems Analysis and Design, 7th ed. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc., 2007.

[20] R. Evans, N. Haryott, N. Haste and A. Jones, The Long-Term Costs of Owning and Using Buildings, The Royal Academy of Engineering, London, 1998.

[21] G. John, H. Loy, D. Clements-Croome, V. Fairey and K. Neale, “Through life support for building services systems,” presented at Worldwide CIBSE/ASHRAE Gathering of the Building Services Industry, Florence, 24-26 September 2003.

[22] G. B. Shelly, T. J. Cashman and H. J. Rosenblatt, Systems Analysis and Design, 5th ed. Boston, Massachusetts: Course Technology, 2003.

[23] C. Zhang et al., “Network information resources management system based on knowledge mining,” Online Information Review, vol. 27. no. 2, pp. 129-135, 2003.

2011 IEEE Conference on Open Systems (ICOS2011), September 25 - 28, 2011, Langkawi, Malaysia

266