Chapter 1: Introduction

1.0     Background of Study

Paper has been the most common medium of documenting information. In our university system, the use of paper-based communication has created some challenges that contribute to make university administration expensive. These challenges include time and paper consumed during processing of personnel files, poor storage and insecurity of the paper files. Paperless office is a work environment in which the use of paper is eliminated or greatly reduced. This is done by converting documents and other papers into digital form.

This project work presents a virtual system that enables all activities involved in a university personnel administration to be carried out without paper.

 1.1  Statement of the Problem

The manual method in administering personnel services in a university is characterized by the following:

• It takes days and sometimes weeks to complete the process of staff recruitment and retirement, resignation and termination of appointment, health management and pension funds administration schemes
• Paper files and personnel records easily get missing due to human negligence and poor manual storage facilities undermine data integrity and security as well as ease of reference.
• The amount of stationery required for typing, printing, photocopying and circulation within personnel services units attracts some overhead cost coupled with the issue of duplication of duties among units through overlapping functions.

1.2   Objectives

The objectives of this project are:

1. To develop a functional software that would enable user to create and validate account, apply for job, view and update profile, apply for leave, recruit employee, issue appointment letter, record mail and manage staff records.
2. To design and implement a software that is capable of storing and processing personnel data in any standard database management system such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, etc.
3. To develop a software that will reduce the amount of time required for searching, processing and data retrieval to produce a timely report to management.
4. To develop a university personnel management software that will enable the records and statistics unit to produce a schedule summary on monthly or annual basis through the web portal.

1.3     Significance of the Project

Paper-based university administration is very expensive and time consuming. With the help of internal networking and database management software, personnel officers do not have to waste time searching through tons of data in paper files anymore. There is much better control over processes, the workflow is faster, less of paper, less tonner for printer are being used and lesser printers are needed, fewer employee are needed, leading to a lesser overhead and budgetary cost in the overall system.

1.4Scope of Study

This research work is on Virtual University Administration. The study covers the existing structure of a paper-based university administration and personnel management system. The study also covered the design and implementation of the new system and the technologies used in the development of the Virtual system. Finally the web development technologies used for the application.

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