Semester

Fall

Date of Graduation

2009

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

MS

College

Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources

Department

Industrial and Managements Systems Engineering

Committee Chair

Rashpal Singh Ahluwalia.

Abstract

Academic advising plays an important role in student success in college, freshman students who join the universities with certain goals may face difficulties in course selection, whom to contact, and where to get course information. Considering this, each student in the university is assigned an advisor from his/her department who can address student's problems during their academic years in the college. The advisors spend considerable amount of time in analyzing student performance during the semester by viewing the student's grades and transcripts. The rise in student enrollment in engineering majors at West Virginia University is making it increasingly difficult for the advisors to spend more time with their advisees'. There is a need for an automated system which can provide information fast, accurate and available on the web so that the advisor can address students' problems more efficiently and spend more time discussing the issues and less time on clerical. The focus of this project is to develop a web based system for course instruction and student advising for Bachelors' Program in Industrial Engineering (BSIE) at West Virginia University (WVU). This could lay the ground work for expanding the system to college wide programs.;The student advising sub system would help advisors in suggesting courses for next semester by automatically checking advisees' completed courses and comparing them to the BSIE curriculum. The system would also help in verifying students' eligibility for graduation by checking his/her completed academics to the graduation requirements.;The course instruction sub system could help users in many ways. The instructors can post class material such as notes, home works, projects, and take home tests online. The instructor can post midterm grades online after every grade category in the semester. The user can provide access to the students registered for the class with a user id and password. The instructor can also keep track of past semesters' grades. It has four different interfaces for four different user types namely, Department Administrator, Instructor, Teaching Assistant and Student.;The department administrator user would have access to all methods available in the entire website. She/he would be able to access student and faculty information online. The department administrator can Add/Block/Delete any user in the database. The administrator can manage course catalog and assign courses to faculty. The department administrator will be able to update courses' schedule, room/building, department, and college information.;The faculty/instructor interface would allow the members to view student information and access course schedules information. It would provide specific information on advisee assigned to the faculty member. The faculty interface would also allow faculty members to update/upload course content to the web. They would also be able to manage class roster online.;The teaching assistant user would have access to some of the methods designed for the instructor. This user can upload/update course content to the website. She/he can provide user access for students to the website. The teaching assistant can also upload course grades after every homework/project/tests.;The student interface would provide the students with customized advice on which courses to take by referencing the most recent course information in the database. Students can view course material and grades online posted by the instructor. Students can get advice on courses to take next semester. It would provide information about the prerequisites to be taken for a specific course and also on selecting the approved number of General Education Curriculum (GEC) courses from each objective.

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