1.

0 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background Concept

Student’s transcript is a summary of the two year performance either in the universities,

polytechnics, national diploma (ND) or higher national diploma (HND). A transcript is also

demanded by a students who have finish Bs.c, Masters, HND, ND and whishes to transfer to

another institution, it is not giving directly to students hand in hand rather it is sent to the

school that the student wishes to transfer through the school courier. A student transcript is

prepared by the scores entered on the designed score sheet submitted by the individual

subject lecturers on each semesters examinations to facilitate processing of students

transcript.

A transcript is an official document showing the educational work of a student in a school or

college. It is used when there’s need for official academic actions to be taken such as inter-

departmental, inter-school or inter-polytechnic transfers proficiency awards and higher

academic pursuit. It must include the student full name, academic program and the

polytechnics name alongside with transcript legends/keys/grading scales printed on the

reverser side that explain the course numbering system, credit unit types, grading system,

institutional scholastic indexes, abbreviations and symbols, special credit notations, and

transfer credit as well as other relevant information. Transcript generation is done by the

students department and forwarded to exams and records department for final processing and

authentication. The departments in quick generation of student’s transcript on demand due to

the rapid increase in the number of students making the Manuel transcript generation process

an uphill for the record officer.

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1.2 Statement of the Problem

The problem encountered in using the already existing manual system in the processing of

transcript includes:

i. It contributes to the delay processing of transcript as well as success on the part of

applicant and huge amount of money spent by applicants, as long distance

transportation has to be made in order to apply for the transcript.

ii. Retrieving of relevant information used in processing the transcript poses a lot of

difficulty as the applicant makes some grammatical error or gives some irrelevant

information instead of the need information.

iii. The manual system lacks adequate security measures since applicant are easily

misplaced from carrying files from one office to another.

iv. Filling and keeping (storing) of student in physical files takes up much of the

limited space in the office.

1.3 Significance of the Study

i. Here the research work is designed specifically to reduce office redundancy.

ii. To facilitate accurate and best compilation of transcript

iii. To make operation faster

iv. The records will be more clear and accurate

v. Retrieval of records will be faster and easier

vi. The files and records maintained in exams and records will be more secured and data

integrity will be improved.

1.4 Aim and Objectives of the study

The aim of this research work is to design the web-based transcript system that will eliminate

the stress the applicants undergoes in applying for transcript manually.

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The objectives of this research work are:

i. To reduce delay and money spent on transportation by applicant on the cause of

submitting the application for the processing of the transcript.

ii. To reduce physical space occupied by this application letter

iii. To increase speed and accurate security of application through back up storage of

data in the database, beneficiaries of this research work are the staff of exams and

records and graduates of Abia State Polytechnic, Aba.

1.5 Scope of the Study

These research works are limited to providing digital transcript in Abia State Polytechnic,

Aba that will handle electronically student’s records, to enable easy delivery and accessibility

in the institution. It covers the registration of courses and computation of student’s

examination scores in other to process their results and generate their transcripts.

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 2.0 REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

2.1 Understanding The Transcript System

Transcript (Cumulative record file CRF) is a permanent record or the copy of student

permanent academic record which means all courses taken and their grades all credit hour

and the degree conferred to the student (Ekezie, 2015).

According to Robert (2011), a transcript is an official record of courses done and grade per

semester, for each school attended with the universities and polytechnics. It also displays

degree awarded, honor earned, academic note and CGPA (If applicable). He further said that

current student using a master card.

Edmond (2014) defined transcript as an official document that state the student cumulative

course and grade points of each courses offered and the awarded degree of such student in the

institution.

Charton (2017) posited that transcript is an official copy of student academic’s record. It

records all courses successfully completed and all courses that are withdrawn after the

registration deadline.

He further stated that you will use an official transcript if you need to provide evidence of

your institutional academic records to another educational institution for employment or to

apply for scholarship or bursaries.

Transcript is an academic record a diploma statement, a statement of learning, a record of

achievement or something else similar. It should list all the module or subject you studied in

school in each module and the credit value and level of each module.

Dele (2016) posited that online transcript system is an avenue to produce accurate and

presentable information on transcript to link different geographical area towards making the

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world a global village (i.e) global area network, GAN it makes information on transcript

available and affordable at the most economical cost.

According to lash (2018), online processing of transcript is a method of creating online

documents that contains active links to occur part of the same document “The added

hypertext links have been traditionally cited to present a document as it was written on page

at the time” also that the world wide web protocols offers a way for hypertext implementation

simply to locate the relevant information online.

2.2 Benefit of the Transcript System

According to Wikipedia the online encyclopia, academic transcript can also be incredibly

useful for the professional research community instead of travelling to and fro to your

institution but can apply online for your transcript.

Transcript offer numerous benefits:

i. It can save time and risk taking

ii. It can boost content accuracy

iii. Cash every detail

iv. Make content instantly actionable

2.3 The Challenges of the Transcript System

Schhpulsipher (2017) posited that challenges with this, is that evaluating the

credentials earned at each of these tags of hearing is difficult. A non-profit-online

university/polytechnic uses a competent-based learning model. And nowadays, student often

in roll in multiple institution, each with its own standard (http://www.educationdivc.com).

Gosling (2017) observed that sending transcript online using information technology facilities

can be quite a challenging task in the academic environment. Since the design and

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implementation of web-based transcript system will be changed with handling the

applications of student for processing of transcript to avoid miscalculation.

According to website, in recent time, request for official transcript of academic records of

student and alumni on the other hand, final statement of result or certificate issued to student

and alumni, educational bodies and institutions are more interested to the detailed academic

records of an applicant showing attend graded and performance on each course/subject taken.

This majorly broader the problem of physical present at school premises. In this case,

frequent journey to the school become a necessary as applicant will be required to the

following:

i. Write an application letter: this may take several weeks for approval from

registrar.

ii. Payment must be made in the bank resident within the school

iii. Application will be forwarded to exams and records and your record will have to

be searched and retrieve from a filing room.

iv. Huge cost to incur on transportations, accommodation tips to facilitate the

polytechnic staff efforts, typing, and photocopying letters and requirement etc.

v. Risk of life and health concern since some have lost their lives and injuries

sustained in accident encountered on journey made to the school from different

locations in a bid to have access to the academic records and documents.

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 3.0 METHODOLOGIES OF THE STUDY

The author carried out an indebt investigation and a thorough study on the manual method of

processing academic transcript, stages/processes involved with the view of designing a

computerized equivalent that will be quite easy to use. In the process of investigation, the

author was able to identify the essential and non essential part of the manual system.

3.1 Fact Finding Methodology

The researcher was able to gather facts about the manual system of processing academic

transcript, stages/processes involved to figure out the strengths and weaknesses of the present

system. The following investigation methods were used and there are:

i. Interview

ii. Observation

iii. Examination of Document

i. Oral Interview: This was done between the author and the staff of Abia State

Polytechnic, Aba at various units, reliable fact was gotten based on the question

posed on the staff of record unit by the author from the system under investigation

is labor intensive. It consumes a lot of time and has means of security on files.

ii. Observation: This involved observing staff while they do their normal duties.

The researcher observed that the way staff go about their activities is disorganized

and offensive.

iii. Examination of Document: The author examined some documents and reports

based on the organizational chart of the existing system. The researcher also

observed that this requires a lot of paper work and consumes time.

3.2 Strength:

i. Easy to access and use

ii. Easy access to exams and records

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 iii. Facial interaction between the students and staff of exams and records

iv. Encourages the staffs of exams and records to work hard on paper

work/documentations.

3.3 Weakness:

i. High cost: This is a situation whereby the institutions spent high amount of money

buying all this record books and the typewriter machine on the other hand, the

students involve spend high in transporting themselves from their respective areas

down to school.

ii. Time spent: The time student involve would have been utilized in doing some

other things will be spent on transportation process.

iii. Delay in the processing of transcript: The time spent for transportation and time

spent after applying for transcript causes delay in the actual time of getting the

transcript by the student.

iv. Communication barriers: The noise emanating from the typewriter machine

during typing causes noise and such is a barrier to the effective communication in

an organization.

v. Lost in Transit: There might be lots of documents to lose during transcript by the

mail number address or courier officer that will deliver to the applied school.

vi. Barriers in approval: There’s always delay in giving approval in the manual

system since files has to be located manually.

3.4 Justification

1. Easier record management: the manual method is been recorded with papers i.e. paper

record, but sequel to that, if this computerized method is adopted, it will aid easier

record management that is, with the help of a good database and application platform,

student can apply for transcript online.

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2. Efficiency: in the sense that the system will be able to satisfy the intending function

within expected time frame.

3. Increase in student’s satisfaction and confidence in their transcript will be processed

and generated online at ease.

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 4.0 DISUSSION

Transcript is an academic record that details all the academic performance of a particular

student throughout the years spent in the higher institution of learning. It can simply be

seen as a copy of student's academic record in higher institution of learning. Hence, any

system used for managing students' academic records is referred to as transcript system.

A transcript system is a student information management system for processing and

managing students' academic data. Till date, many tertiary institutions in Nigeria still use

the manual system to process and file students' transcripts. This system is time

consuming, prone to errors, encourages wrong manipulations of students' academic

records and it very tedious to use. Due to the nature/challenges of this manual system,

significant number of students has been discouraged to study in Nigeria. In addition, due

to unnecessary delay, some students' academic records have been wrongly manipulated

and computed, some students have lost their lives to accident while travelling to their

tertiary institutions they graduated from. This motivated the need to employ information

communication technology (ICT) in processing students' academic transcripts. A well-

deployed application will eliminate most of these challenges in the current system.

Therefore, this paper presents a web-based architectural framework suitable for

implementing a centralized transcript processing system in Nigerian tertiary institutions.

The system allows students to process their transcripts at the comfort of their homes

without considering the location, and the transcript will be generated and submitted to the

designated address either electronically or by post.

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 5.0 CONCLUSION

The research work briefly discusses a conceptualized model for developing a centralized

transcript processing system for tertiary institutions in Nigeria. The work reviews the

experiences (or stress) students face while requesting for their transcripts in tertiary

institutions in Nigeria. Based on this background, the system was developed to help both

the students and the academic institutions to process and post (or e-transcripts) to address

supplied by students. The system helps to improve the efficiency of requesting and

processing transcript in tertiary institutions. It removes the stress and bottleneck face

when processing transcript manually. The system allows students to request and track the

progress of their transcripts process at the comfort of their homes. The system encourages

paperless administration in our university system. It is very cost-effective to the students

and easy to operate and administer by designated officers of academic institutions.

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 REFERENCES

Charton (2017), Transfer and Accumulation of transcript, bousely publication, New York 4th

edition pp 33-35.

Dele (2016), Online Transcript system, John Jacob publication, Enugu.

Edmondson E.D (2014), transcript as an official copy of students Academy record, Greg's

publication Washington DC, 6th edition pp. 250.

Ekezie D.C. (2015), Cumulative Record File (CRF), European publication, ZuGreen 2nd

edition, pp110-120

Gosling (2017), Online transcript system, John Jacob classic publishers LTD.

Lash B. (2018), Online processing of transcript, Lumumba Ezu books LTD.

Robert C (2011), Planning and internet model for success, pal Frame publications California,

2nd edition pp 22- 27.

Schhpulsipher (2017), Challenges of transcript, Que publication, New York.

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