ANDROID MOBILE APPLICATION FOR BATSTATEU STUDENT AND FACULTY PORTAL
The continuous growth in the use of mobile services, smart mobile devices and web services creates opportunities for building applications that people can use. This research aimed to build a platform to carry out a more accessible, portable, and user interface friendlier real-time, systemized, and well-integrated version of the online student and faculty portal. The project “Android Mobile Application of the BatStateU Student and Faculty Portal” aims to design and develop a mobile application version of the online web portal. In creating this android-based mobile application, Java is the programming language to be used and Android Studio for the development of the application with includes sample projects with source code, development tools, and emulator, and any required libraries to build android application. Upon the development of this project, it will be tested and evaluated according to different criteria — functionality, usability, and reliability. Upon evaluation, the developed mobile application is functional, reliable, and usable by the desired end-users.
INTRODUCTION
In the province of Batangas, one of the largest providers of high-quality education is Batangas State University. BatStateU has been renowned for its emerging excellence in the past decades. It has been consistent in delivering quality service and learning to all of its students, especially in terms of adopting technological advancements. The university has been capable of competing with other schools when it comes to fast technology innovations. Most academes, including BatStateU, recently implemented the use of electronic transactions, thus, providing easier and faster transactions. Batangas State University is expected to have increasing demand with the increasing population of staff, faculty and students and thus, providing more quality service is critically of great significance.
The Information and Communications Technology office in Batangas State University makes sure that the staff, faculty, and students are technology aware and computer literate with the aid of the services provided for the university. For the past several years, the Batangas State University implemented the use of Online Student Information System in replacement of the Manual System of the institution for it to have an organized flow of transaction and an ease of access for needed information. The institution’s Online Student Portal enables students to access information like viewing his/her current enrolled subjects, grades, schedule, etc. without the need to inquire to the admin’s office and scan through numerous paper records which may take a long while. However, the existing Online Portal is web browser-based and is not really designed for mobile use. Knowing that most users have mobile devices like cellphones, tablet, and the like, the researchers have taken the recommendation of the ICT Department to develop a more accessible, portable, and user interface friendlier version of the online portal. Thus, an Android-based mobile application version of the student portal is one thing the researchers wanted to develop. The use of electronic transactions in schools, universities and other educational institutions is unquestionably becoming more relevant as years go by. So, there is a great must to enrich the quality of service provided by the university to the students, faculty and staff by utilizing technological innovation.
The project “Android Mobile Application of the BatStateU Student and Faculty Portal” aims to design and develop a mobile application version of the online web portal. This research will provide an evaluation of the existing online portal therefore identifying web browser-based online portal issues and concerns. The analysis to be made is mainly about knowing what is currently provided as compared to what is truly needed. In that, the proponents shall be able to point out the design criteria for the mobile application. These criteria will then be used to develop the project.
In creating this android-based mobile application for online portal, Java is one of the considered programming language to be used because it is the most reliable programming language for making an android application; Android SDK for the development of the application with includes sample projects with source code, development tools, and emulator, and any required libraries to build android application. Upon the development of this project, it will be tested and evaluated according to different criteria.
The recommendation plan being the output of the study will help the ICT personnel in acting upon the advancement of the current eb browser-based online portal. This shall likely pave way to students, faculty, and other users to experience an enhanced quality of technology that the university may possibly provide in the future. Through this study, future recommendations concerning the online student and faculty portal will be provided for the university.
CONCLUSION
Throughout the project, the researchers were able to accomplish the specific objectives of the study. Below are the conclusions drawn upon the completion of the development of the Android Application of BatStateU Student and Faculty Portal:
1. The Android mobile application was designed and developed through the design considerations implemented on the project. In the development of the mobile application, the data, software, and hardware considerations were applied.
2. The design and development process have been accomplished successfully. Database access was acquired by the researchers and granted by the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Services Office of the university but is only limited to fetch data. The mobile application was developed using Android Studio and its special libraries.
3. Testing and evaluation for the BatStateU Portal App was performed by the student and faculty end-users. For the technical evaluation, experts test the BatStateU Portal App to evaluate its appearance and test its functionality. All feedback and remarks were taken into consideration. The evaluation yields a promising result to the research project and gained an agreeable to strongly agreeable remark to the end users. After evaluating the results, further actions regarding to some concerns of was done by the researchers
RECOMMENDATIONS
Upon execution of the desired objectives and after analysing the results of all the test, including the comments and suggestions by the end-users, the following recommendations were listed for further improvement and development of the study:
a. It is recommended to have the implementation of the Online Registration in the BatStateU Portal App since the Online Registration feature in the current Application was just a web view that the end-user will be directed to.
b. It is also recommended to consider implementing better User Experience (UX).
c. For the future development, consider developing an IOS counterpart of the BatStateU Portal App.
d. Aside from the designed features of the application, develop some features in the android app that will enable to communicate or chat privately to any users of the app.
e. More features for the Faculty portal may be added.
f. It is also recommended to integrate other online services offered by the university and other apps developed by the students in relation to the university.