Online Student’s Course Clearance System

Abstract

This project aimed at creating and implementing a web based portal that allows students of the University of Zambia to be able to commence and complete the annual process of course clearance online instead of physically navigating lecturers’ offices. Also to identify the challenges that affect both students and lecturers in the existing method of course clearance, and to identify factors that can lead to an effective online system to replace the current existing method of course clearance. Though this process is mandatory for all students of the University of Zambia it has not been revised to attempt or make the process more efficient for all parties involved. To a large extent the process is outdated and tedious and is in need of revamping. Though students and administrators understand the importance of course clearance they and the lecturers encounter several challenges that hinder the process considerably. The completion of this project benefits the administrative system of University of Zambia, in that when the process is shifted to an online platform it will organise information and decrease the inconveniences experienced by all parties during the course clearance process.The research was a combination of qualitative and quantitative. Quantitative in the form of information collected using questionnaires that were collected from students of the University of Zambia using Google forms concerning the challenges they face in completing the course clearance process, and qualitative in the form of individual interviews that were conducted with lecturers of the University of Zambia to ascertain the challenges and recommendations that they would like to suggest in the design of the project. According to the results, the chief challenge experienced by lecturers was the inconvenience of being interrupted repeatedly throughout the day to sign clearance forms for all their respective courses. Whereas students encountered challenges in the physical movements from office to office to collect signatures to complete the course clearance process. In conclusion, the project therefore aimed at navigating the challenges faced by students and lecturers by migrating the physical process of course clearance onto an online web based portal.