A SURVEY ON STUDENT PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND EVALUATION IN UNDERGRADUATE UNIVERSITIES

e-ISSN: 2582-5208 International Research Journal of Modernization in Engineering Technology and Science Volume:02/Issue:12/December -2020

Impact Factor- 5.354

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A SURVEY ON STUDENT PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND EVALUATION IN UNDERGRADUATE UNIVERSITIES Vishwa Raghavendra KS*1, Vinay S Hiremath*2, Vikas Ainapur*3, Sarala DV*4 *1,2,3,4,Student,

Dept Of Computer Science and Engineering, Dayananda Sagar College of Engineering, Bangalore, Karnataka, India.

ABSTRACT As more and more undergraduate universities are adopting “Project Based” Learning, Project management and evaluation is becoming an important aspect over the course of the curriculum as Students mainly learn all the various aspects via a project. Project Management and Evaluation is all about how the students plan, assign and distribute workload to complete the desired work and how supervision is maintained by the lecturers (onsite and remotely) in order for them to evaluate and grade the project fairly. As there are many moving parts there are relatively low good quality websites or applications which can be used both by lectures and students to manage and evaluate the project. A suite of applications has to be used to achieve both management and evaluation aspects. This survey paper aims to compile the various applications that are available for project management and evaluation for undergraduate university projects. Details about the various features provided by the applications and the other set of features required for project management and evaluation are also discussed.

Keywords: Project Evaluation, Project Management, Project Supervision.

I.

INTRODUCTION

Project management plays an important role in coordinating the planning, design and development processes of a software project. Detailed planning and monitoring from the early stage throughout the end would ensure that a project could be completed within the allocated time, while at the same time achieving its objectives.

Existing scheduling and management tools include using a suite of applications and thus making it increasingly difficult for the lecturer to handle and track multiple groups.

In the recent years many of the undergraduate universities have adopted a new way of learning called “ProjectBased” learning. Project Based Learning is a teaching method in which students gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to a question, problem, or challenge. As a result, the students are expected to complete many projects in their undergraduate program to understand and improve their skills over a particular course or topic.

Over the course of their undergraduate program students encounter different types of project which can be broadly classified into two types  

Mini-Project – A project that can be completed within a semester Final Year Project – Comprehensive Projects that expand over a year (2 semesters)

Mini-Projects are based on a course that is being taken hence students simultaneously work on multiple mini projects over a semester where as there is only one final year project that is expected of the students usually completed in their last academic year.

As a result, with students working on multiple projects it is very important for the university to have a proper system to evaluate the projects and to capture the marks systematically and effectively. Most of the undergraduate universities still relay on non-automated or traditional way of communication and assessment submission, Due to which students and lecturers encounter several problems namely 

Lack of Formal Management System – Due to the absence of a formal management system many lectures tend to use different applications to achieve certain aspects. For example, some of the teachers might use Microsoft Excel to record students grading while others can use different log book applications to maintain the same. Resulting in confusion when combined all the grading has to be combined and submitted in a unified format.

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Slow Approvals and Lack of Communication – Having no formal system for communication it becomes difficult for students and lecturers to communicate and pass information around. Some lectures might prefer email communication while others might prefer traditional text messages or use of popular applications like “Whatsapp”. Due to these inconsistencies’ students might try to communicate lectures using the incorrect mode of communication hence projects or doubts might have slow approval or clarification time.

II. 

Impact Factor- 5.354

LITERATURE SURVEY

Marini Abu Bakar, Norleyza Jailani, Zarina Shukur, Noor Faezah Mohd Yatim(2010), “Final Year Supervision Management System as a Tool for Monitoring computer Science Projects Paper” [1] In this paper it divides the entire audience to three different type of groups names students, supervisors and head of department where the head of department can assign supervisor to students. The application also provides five different modules namely 1. Appointment module -> To request and schedule one on one meetings 2. Students and lecturers profile module -> Store Name, email and phone number of teachers and students 3. Schedule monitoring module-> used to monitor the progress and submission of reports on the project and also send emails for deadlines 4. Log book module -> Logs of reviews, can be used to upload reference documents 5. Administrator module -> used to assign supervisors to students The paper mainly covers on the supervision(management) of the project and appointment scheduling with supervisors. It fails to mention how the project selection process and how the conflicts are solved during this phase. Also failing to mention the evaluation/grading phase of the project

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1.

2.

3.

Saleem Issa Al Zoubi, Zeyad Alfawaer, Mohammad Issa al zoubi (2008), “Web-based Projects Evaluation Management System” [2] In this paper a web-based project evaluation system was developed in order to enhance the projects evaluation process performance and increase the staff productivity. The paper mainly focuses on Evaluation/grading side of Project Management describing 3 use case scenarios A1: The lecturer chooses to evaluate Proposal -> the system will display the proposal evaluation form A2: The lecturer chooses to evaluate Findings -> the system will display the Findings evaluation form A3: The lecturer chooses to evaluate Report -> the system will display the proposal evaluation form It also uses a 3-Tier architecture which is a common architecture among web-based applications. Focusing only on the grading side of project management has its problems such as 1. No timely notifications -> Students have to regularly login to the website to determine the status of their project 2. No Project Selection Process

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Kseniya V. Gulyaeva, Polina I. Mozgaleva, Oxana M. Zamyatina (2014), “Development of Information System for Students’ Project Activity Management” [3] This paper aims to make a platform for students to carry out all necessary activities that is required to build a project. It is divided into several sections. Moreover, this project is divided into several individual projects when put together as project management system. the different sections are as follows:

1.

Reference Sub-System - Helps to find theoretical aspect of a research or a project by providing services like plagiarism checks, search indexing for scientific publication, theses.

Companion Sub-System – Mainly focus on communication between team members and also “companion” services like translation of publications, resume creation, online storage recommendation Team-Work Sub-System – Helps set up deadlines and goals and helps in monitoring them Visualization Sub-System – Provides video services for showing results

2.

3.

4.

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e-ISSN: 2582-5208 International Research Journal of Modernization in Engineering Technology and Science Volume:02/Issue:12/December -2020

Impact Factor- 5.354

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5.

Competence assessment Sub-System – provides list of projects for competencies development.

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Vishwakarma R Ganesh (2016), “Android College Management System” [4]

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2.

3.

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6.

7.

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The goal of the paper is to build a system that does all the tasks which works as one stop app for college students and the teachers. This app simplifies the work of students and teachers which rather would take a lot of time for example attendance, marks allocation, result declaration, feedback, information about students, teachers, college etc. The app is divided into several modules: User Module: In this module we are authenticating the users by providing username and password.

Database Module: This module stores every single information about students, faculty and model their data on specified operations Staff Module: This module is designed for staff, which use mobile phone to take attendance, upload result and upload college notifications.

Attendance Module: The purpose of Attendance Entry Module is to enter the attendance using cell phone.

Marks Entry Module: The marks scored by the students are stored in the database through this module.

Feedback Module: This module performs automated calculation of student’s feedback of their professors, and then this will be represented graphically.

Notification Module: This module allows the department HOD to update students about any college related information through notifications.

This paper mainly focuses on college management but several of the modules can be ported back to project management and evaluation applications, for example marks entry module can become grading module, notification module even staff and user modules can be ported to provide information on the students lectures present.

Siti Aishah Che Kar, Nazuha Fadzal, Syila Izawana, Hasiah Mohamad@Omar (2017), “Integrated Supervision and Evaluation System for Final Year Project”[5] This system is mainly designed to assign project coordinators or supervisors to students. They have used Rapid Application development (RAD) which has 4 phases they are requirements planning, user design, construction and implementation main features provided by this system are:

1.

2.

3.

Access to evaluation forms Automated Marks calculation service Report submission portal

This system has 5 modules namely, 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Administrator module - assigning coordinators for final year project to students and addition or deletion of students Coordination module: can view summary of the report submission and can upload or update any file or information regarding the project assigned to him Lecturer module: can view student’s progress and has to fill project approval forms and evaluation form Students module: can change project title, change topic, submit abstract or reports. Can update group members Panels module: can assess and fill the marks after evaluation of the projects.

This system lacks communication between student and coordinator and also notification module is absent in this system.

III.

EXISTING SYSTEM ANALYSIS

Several Applications that are present in the market are used to assist both students and lecturers in project management and evaluation process for an undergraduate university project.

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e-ISSN: 2582-5208 International Research Journal of Modernization in Engineering Technology and Science Volume:02/Issue:12/December -2020

Impact Factor- 5.354

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Table 1: Applications Vs Features Provided Applications

Features Communication

Assignment of tasks

Report generation

Single point grading

Continuous grading

Deadline management

Whatsapp

YES

NO

NO

NO

NO

NO

Trello

NO

YES

NO

NO

NO

YES

Google classroom

NO

NO

NO

YES

NO

YES

Google forms

NO

NO

YES

YES

NO

NO

Jira

NO

YES

YES

YES

NO

YES

Microsoft Excel

NO

NO

YES

YES

Yes

NO

The above table compares the most popular applications available in the market against crucial features that are needed in undergraduate project management and evaluation process from both the lecturer and student’s perspective.

From the table it is determined that no single application is capable of providing all the features necessary and hence the students and the lecturers have to juggle between 2 to 4 apps in the entire process. For example, the lecturer might utilize Whatsapp for communication and use google classroom for grading and submission and use Jira or Trello for deadline management with the students, resulting in a lot of confusion and annoyance when lecturers are handling multiple projects or student groups.

IV.

CONCLUSION

The survey undertaken aims to study the various applications or systems present for undergraduate university project management and evaluation process. The projects present can be broadly classified into mini project (single semester) and final year project (dual semester) projects. A brief overview of various applications and the features provided by them for assisting in this process is also compared and discussed. Among the various applications present neither of them were able to satisfy the various components present like communication, deadline management, continuous grading etc. Resulting in lectures and students juggling between two to four applications to satisfy all needs.

V. [1]

[2] [3] [4] [5]

[6]

REFERENCES

Final Year Supervision Management Systems as a Tool for Monitoring Computer Science Projects. By Marini Abu Bakar Norleyza Jailani, Zarina Shukur, Noor Faezah Mohd Yatim. (Faculty of Information Science and Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia) Web-based Projects Evaluation Management System. By - Saleem Al-Zoubi, Zeyad M. Alfawaer and 2 Mohamma Al-Zoubi (Applied Science University Amman, Jordan) Development of Information System for Students’ Project Activity Management. By Kseniya V. Gulyaeva, Polina I. Mozgaleva, Oxana M. Zamyatina. (Tomsk Polytechnic University Tomsk, Russia) Android College Management System by Vishwakarma R Ganesh (IJARCET) 2016 Integrated Supervision and Evaluation System for Final Year Project. By Siti Aishah Che Kar 1 , Nazuha Fadzal, Syila Izawana, Hasiah Mohamad@Omar. (Dungun, Terengganu, Malaysia)( 2017 IEEE 15th Student Conference on Research and Development (SCOReD) The Development of a Final Year Project Management System for Information Technology Programmes. By (Chun-Hang Leung , Chung-Lun Lai , Tsun-Kit Yuan , Wai-Man Pang , Jeff K.T. Tang , Wai-Shing Ho , and Tak-Lam Wong) (Department of Computer Science, Caritas Institute of Higher Education, Hong Kong SAR, China & Department of Mathematics and Information Technology, The Hong Kong Institute of Education)

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