graduation audit reporting system: gaining a …

GRADUATION AUDIT REPORTING SYSTEM: GAINING A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

Rohaya Abu Hassan, Saliyah Kahar, Haslinda Sutan Ahmad Nawi, Rasidah Sardi

Faculty of Communication, Visual Art and Computing, Universiti Selangor, Malaysia E-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract It is critical for a private higher learning institution to gain and retain its competitive advantage. This could be done by increasing its ability in term of value of the services that fits their stakeholders’ needs. Among major issues related to academic management are the time consuming factor that lead to the poor management in handling the academic audit process of graduating students. This paper reports the design of the Graduation Audit Reporting System as an alternative way in order to minimize and simplify the academic audit process. Three focus groups with different criteria have been interviewed in order to collect feedbacks regarding the current practice of the academic audit process of graduating students. Data gathered from a total of 22 respondents were analyzed and had facilitated the design process of the Graduation Audit Reporting System. As a result, the process of the current academic audit process eliminated several tedious tasks such as student need to key-in grades into MS Excel, ease the report compilations in preparing lists of graduate students to be approved in Faculty Academic Board and endorse in the Senate meeting. The web-based system that automates the academic audit process becomes a competitive value-added service to the University in the aspect of harnessing the potential of Information Technology.

Keywords: academic audit, graduation audit, private higher learning institution

1 INTRODUCTION

Among major problem at the higher learning institutions (IHL) face are mostly primarily inclined towards the time-consuming factor of the manual system of academic audit process involving trustworthiness issues, kludged paper trail, and physical strain on the parties involved. Verifying whether a student can graduate or not is a difficult task because the university, college, and each related department impose various requirements. Some of those requirements can be satisfied in different ways and often influence each other and prevent them from being satisfied independently (Brown, 2010).

Student academic audit process is one of the crucial activities in higher learning institutes. Due to this problem, Graduation Audit Reporting System (GARS) will be developed. GARS provides a way for the academic administrator to track students’ academic process in an easy to read format. All taken courses including credit exemption will appear on GARS. GARS will automate the sequence of events involve in the students’ academic audit process in a way that it will imitate the process involved in the current traditional method yet eliminates the physical aspect of the process. It provides a final confirmation of degree requirements. It also functions as an audit trail of the university approval process. It also

generates a report reflecting the student’s academic progress toward the completion of their study.

Furthermore, GARS could also be used as a tool for graduating students and their Academic Advisor during their advisory process and it is an automated record of a student’s progress toward their academic program completion. GARS will verify a few processes in order to qualify the student for their graduation award. Amongst the important modules are entry requirements verification by record unit and comparison with the student’s academic program components. The students’ Academic Advisors and Academic Administrators are the primary GARS users. This audit may be run at any time, and a new academic audit showing progress toward program completion will be generated each time a request is made. This paper describes the design artifacts of GARS and report the results obtained: an automated GARS process flow; interface design; and complete system architecture of GARS. This design shows the elimination of the previous tedious academic audit process which consumes lots of time and hassle. 2 ACADEMIC AUDIT PROCESS

Proceedings of UNISEL Bestari Research Projects 2016, Ed(s): Setyawan Widyarto, et.al., Shah Alam: FIIT-UNISEL Publisher, ISBN: 978-983-3757-29-9

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mailto:[email protected]




Graduation Audit Reporting System (GARS) or

rather Degree Audit Report System as referred to by most internationally known renowned universities. According to Subramaniam and Widyarto (2010), manual process in handling academic auditing leads to the poor data integrity and time consuming. With emphasis placed on online automation of academic audit process, through harnessing the potential of Information Technology, the academic audits of graduating student process become easier. However, further research showed that the definitive ways of carrying out academic audit process are varies based on different IHLs. Student advising is an important and time-consuming effort in academic life (Feghali et al., 2011). Hence, most of academic audit reporting system is used as a planning tool to view progress towards graduation during the student advisory session. Although this system is needed and vital to the process of academic management, literature reveals that it is difficult to build a global or a standard advising system that works for all universities and institutions because of differences in regulations and rules among different institutions (Al Ahmar, 2011; Feghali et al., 2011; Nambiar and Dutta, 2010). Figure 1, Figure 2 and Figure 3 show the current academic audit processes at one of the renowned private higher learning institution in Malaysia. Firstly, Head of Program (HOP) needs to identify final year students who are expected to graduate based on total credit earn for that particular semester. Student is then required to request for academic audit process by filling in the academic audit form and submitting the form to their Academic Advisor via email. If the academic audit form is completed, the students are required to submit their identity card copy, entry requirement certifications copies, Malaysian University English Test (MUET) result’s copy and all the examination results copy to their HOP. Later the Academic Advisor are required to verify all the courses taken based on programme components, check the passing grade of each components and CGPA in academic audit equivalents with CGPA stated in the Student Information System. If the students are from the bachelor degree program, the Academic Advisors are required to check either their students have taken MUET exam. Apart from this, the students also are expected to earn credential in Bahasa Melayu subject at the secondary school examination level. The Academic Advisor needs to report any issues arise directly to HOP during the academic audit process. Later, the HOP will list and report the academic audit issues to the Assistant Registrar (AR). AR will check and find a solution of the reported issues with the assistance from the Examination Unit. HOP will generate list of graduating students based on requested academic audit application and will be further approved by Faculty Academic Board (FAB) meeting. Verified list of the graduating students will be endorsed in

Senate Meeting. Upon the approval, the faculty needs to submit all the audit application documents to Student’s Record Unit. The status of graduating student in the Student Information System will be updated to “graduated” in order for student to attend the convocation ceremony.

Figure 1: Current Academic Audit Processes 1


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3 METHOD Focus group interviewing is widely used by academic and applied researchers for a range of purposes. According to Kruger and Casey (2009), it is a study that carefully plan series of discussions designed to obtain perceptions on a defined area of interest in a permissive, nonthreatening environment. The pervasive use of focus group is partly based on the time and cost savings compared to individual interviews. Two different groups were considered during the session are the homogeneous group and heterogeneous group. This study conducted three focus group sessions in order to get the best results from each session. First group was a homogeneous group includes four final year students with similar characteristics and backgrounds where they have an experience with the current system. The second group was the students’ academic advisor that also represents the homogeneous group. Seven student’s advisors of the same faculty were selected and interviewed. While last group was a heterogeneous group that consists of 11 academic administrators who had different background and was from various faculties and department. The participant details are listed as in Table 1.

Table 1: Participants of Focus Group Session

Session Number of Participant

/ Session Participant Criteria

Group 1: Students

4 (1 session)

Final year students who interact with the current system.

Group 2: Student’s Advisor

7 (1 session)

Student’s advisor of the same faculty who had between 6 to 10 years of experience in students advisory.

Group 3: Academic Administrator

11 (2 sessions)

Academic administrator from various faculties, Student Record Unit, Examination Unit, Department of Academic Affairs and Centre of ICT.

The moderator was one of the researchers of this research group who acts as a chairperson. She facilitated the interview session and discussion of each sub-topic that is presented one after another. In addition to that, during the session another two researchers acted as observers and taking notes by keying the requirements direct to the notebook, and produced the artifacts that can be viewed through LCD projector. A discussion guide was provided during the session to ensure that all of the content was covered in a structured and consistent way, and to keep the session on track. All feedback and comments were capture including nonverbal cues. After each session, the researchers spent some time reviewing the data gathered and


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developed appropriate process flow for the automated GARS and its design. 4 DESIGN ARTIFACTS OF GARS

System design is one of the crucial activities and has its own value in any system development process. System design are done in order to meet the needs of the users. In addition, the design processes are not only intended to solve the existing problems, but it also come up with acceptable solutions to the problems that may arise in the future. As the requirement is gathered, analyzed and materialized in the design artifact, the coding begins. 4.1 Current vs. Proposed Academic Audit Process Flow

Currently, student needs to approach their Academic

Advisor that is also known as their mentor in order for them to request the academic audit process. A few documents need to be filled up, including completing academic audit form in Ms Excel format. This tedious task will be eliminated if GARS has been successfully implemented. Meanwhile GARS is a web based application which will automatically generate list of eligible students to proceed with student academic audit based on total credit earned for that particular semester. GARS will extract student information especially on student’s academic result, student’s entry requirements, and information on credit exemption either vertical or horizontal directly from existing Student Information System. This integration process will remove the needs of student to manually key-in their academic result using academic audit template in Ms Excel file. The academic audit will be initiated directly from either the Academic Advisor or their HOP. Thus, no student involvement at this early stage of requesting academic audit application when using GARS.

Hence, the problem with the kludge paper trail with

the current system faced especially to verify entry requirements of programme is also been improved by GARS. GARS provides an online mechanism for Student’s Record Unit staff to verify list of eligible students submitted by Academic Advisor or HOPs. The paperless environment concepts are also applied by GARS that will definitely improve stakeholder’s satisfaction in order to minimize and simplify the student academic audit process.

Table 2 shows the comparison between current

academic audit process flow against the proposed new academic audit process flow of GARS. It shows that out of 16 standard tasks requested using current approach, GARS eliminates the six (6) tedious tasks that consume a lot of time and energy.

Table 2: Current vs Proposed Academic Audit Process Flow

No. Task Current Process

Flow

Proposed New

Process Flow

1 Student download academic audit template form from faculty portal. Key-in all grades for each the courses into MS Excel

√

2 Student email an Academic Audit Form to Mentor √

3 Student submit Transcript Form and supporting document to Mentor

√

4 First stage academic audit 4a Check grade and CGPA √ √ 4b Check all courses taken for

each program component √ √

4c Check grade based on passing grade for each of the components

√ √

4d Check result of Bahasa Melayu at SPM level √ √

4e Check result of Bahasa Kebangsaan (optional) √ √

4f Check MUET result √ √ 5 Report issue(s) to HOP

(If first stage audit fail) √ √

6 Student submit Academic Audit Form, Transcript Form and supporting documents to Faculty

√

7 HOP perform second stage of academic audit √

8 HOP Prepare list of graduating students for Senate approval

√

9 List of graduating students verified by Faculty Academic Board

√ √

10 List of graduating students endorsed by Senate √ √

11 Update student status to “Graduated” in Student Information System

√ √

Other factor that is best handled by GARS is the

report generating process. Currently, HOP is responsible to compile manually all the submitted academic audit application. This will give horrible physical strain and very time consuming if involving many students and applications as this compilation need to be done at least once per semester. The potential of producing inaccurate report is also high due to manual process of compilation. However, with GARS the academic audit report will be automatically generated upon the request by Academic Management staff, especially the HOP. Student status will be updated automatically upon academic audit approval in Senate meeting.

4.2 Detail Design of GARS

Figure 4 demonstrates the automated GARS process flow that will minimize and simplify the academic audit process. As mentioned, it eliminates several tedious tasks and manual compilation of academic audit report.


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START

HEAD OF PROGRAMME/MENTOR

List final semester student records which total credit earned is equal or more than total number of credits for graduation

(extract data from Bestari System)

RECORD UNIT

Verify student entry requirements (eg: SPM,

STPM, Foundation, MUET) (duration : 1 weeks)


Submit list of students to be audited (via GARS) to Record Unit

Verified?

Verified?


GARS generates audit report. Mentor will verify the audit status to “AUDITED” .

GARS

Issues Log compilation

HOP

Rectify and take corrective action

based on the issues Log

FACULTY ACADEMIC BOARD

HOP will present list of graduate students to be verified by FAB. Faculty AR will update the student status to “AUDIT-APPROVED”

SENATE MEETINGFaculty list of graduate students will be endorsed.

Both student academic status and student status will be updated

END


Courses Verification 1. Student already took all courses for all programme components (Example of components are compulsory module, core module, specialization, elective module and industrial training) 2. Pass all courses taken


CGPA Verification1. CGPA from bestari equals with CGPA generate by GARS2. Student CGPA must greater or equals to 2.00

RECORD UNIT

Take necessary action to overcome student problems

Settle?

YES NO

Verified?YES NO

YES

YES

NO

NO

Figure 4: Automated GARS Process flow

Figure 5: GARS Use Case Diagram

This research also produced a prototype of GARS that allows Academic Advisors or HOPs to process their students’ academic audit through a web based system. It will remove the needs of student to meet their Academic Advisor in order to make request of the academic audit process. Figure 4 shows the use case diagram for GARS. GARS will also produce academic audit report that will help Academic Administrator to closely monitor and view their students for the purpose of graduation award after completing their study. It is very helpful especially to students who want to plan to further their studies upon completion of their study. The automated system will assist the faculty in managing and monitoring the academic audit process. Academic Administrator can easily monitor the academic audit status and identify any related issues immediately. Other than that, GARS also organizes student audit record digitally and implement the paperless based system. This automated system will also reduce human error on the document and application by providing a proper record management during academic audit process. Figure 5 and Figure 6 shows several automated interface designs of GARS.

Dashboard for Searching

Verification by Record Unit

Figure 5: Example GARS Interface Design


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Academic Audit Verification by Faculty Academic Board

Academic Audit Approval by Senate Meeting

Figure 6: Example of GARS Interface Design

4.3 GARS System Architecture There are several improvements made on the automated GARS. Firstly, GARS is developed in a web based application that allow academic administrator to access and process the student academic audit via online. Secondly, GARS integrates with existing Student Information System to extract all information in order to complete with academic audit request application. Figure 7 shows the system architecture of GARS.

MENTOR/HOP

Get list of eligible students to be audited

based on their total credits earned

FACULTY ACADEMIC BOARD

Generate list of graduate students to be

verified by FAB

Verify List of Graduate Students

SENATE BOARD

Generate list of graduate students to be

endorsed by Senate Board

Endorse List of Graduate Students

BESTARI SYSTEM

GRADUATION AUDIT REPORTING SYSTEM

Figure 7: GARS System Architecture.

5 CONCLUSION As a conclusion, GARS simplified several processes in providing valuable assistant to the students, academic advisor and academic administrator in order for them to

manage student academic audit process more systematically. Hence, GARS also generates systematic reporting for easy viewing and monitoring. With utmost sincerity, one could say a solution has been well conceived, although it may not address all issues but it has been developed to tackle the most prominent of them all. Generally, GARS can eliminate student involvement in completing student academic audit process thus saving energy and time and increase the productivity of the current student academic audit process. The development of GARS is expected to support the decision making at the operational level of the IHL, provide effective interface between the students and their Academic Advisors and provide information for the Academic Administrator on the day-to-day operations of the academic management. Apart from this, GARS also provide means to access, process and distribute needed information to the concerned of academic management personnel within an appropriate time. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors would like to express sincere thanks to the editors and reviewers for their suggestions on this paper. This study was supported by the Bestari Research Grant from Business, Research, Industrial Linkages & Consultancy (BRIC), Universiti Selangor. REFERENCES Al Ahmar, M. A. (2011). A Prototype Student

Advising Expert System Supported with an Object-Oriented Database. International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications. 100-105.

Brown, R. V. (2010). NADA: NMSU Advising & DEgree Audit System, 1, 162–173.

Feghali, T., Zbib, I. and Hallal, S. (2011). A Web-based Decision Support Tool for Academic Advising. Educational Technology and Society. 14, 82-94.

Kruger, R. A. and Casey, M. A. (2009). Focus Groups: A Practical Guide for Applied Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Nambiar, A. N. and Dutta, A. K. (2010). Expert System for Student Advising Using JESS International Conference on Educational and Information Technology (ICEIT). China.

Subramaniam, H. and Widyarto, S. (2010). Use Case Scenario Representation: A Case Study of Graduation Audit System IAB / IAS International Symposium 2010. IAB/IAS.


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graduation audit reporting system: gaining a …

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