I.J. Modern Education and Computer Science, 2015, 6, 30-36
Published Online June 2015 in MECS (http://www.mecs-press.org/)
DOI: 10.5815/ijmecs.2015.06.05
Development of Quality Assurance System for
Academic Programs and Courses Reports
Sahar A. El_Rahman1,2
1
Faculty of Engineering-Shoubra / Electronics, Computers Systems & communication - Electrical Department, Cairo,
Egypt
2
Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University/Department of Computer Science, Riyadh, 11487, Saudi Arabia
Sahr_ar@yahoo.com
Bashayer A. Al-Twaim
Imam Mohammad Bin Saud Islamic University/Department of Information Systems, Riyadh, 11487, Saudi Arabia
Baaltwaim@imamu.edu.sa
Abstract—This paper aims to review a proposed Quality
Assurance system (QA) which suggests developing the
internal quality assurance system of academic programs
at the College of Computer and Information Sciences
(CCIS), Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University
(PNU), Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), by
replacing the existing paper-based QA System into a
web-based system. In general, the QA system will work
as: providing users the required NCAAA (National
Commission for Academic Accreditation and Assessment)
reports' forms to be filled. Then, the proposed QA system
will gather forms and generates completed reports. At the
same time, it provides them to the decision makers. The
proposed QA system will allow decision makers to
approve reports and view gathered information in many
views in which will facilitate the making decision
processes in continuing improvement of the educational
processes and outcomes. Also, QA system can be
extended and applied to other PNU colleges. After that, it
can be applied to all KSA universities.
Index Terms—Academic Accreditation, Electronic
Systems, NCAAA, Program Report, Quality Assurance
I. INTRODUCTION
We live in a world have everyday changes in
information and communication technologies (ICT).
These changes are largely related to education, and so the
introduction of ICT in institutions of higher education,
clearly changing the way it is implemented [1]. Today,
with the improvement of technology and globalization,
there is intense competition between institutions to be
outstanding [2]. ICT is currently used effectively in
libraries, research and development, as a communication
medium, and for teaching and learning. A unique
contribution to these processes and providing services to
people at diverse locations is being made by internet [3].
Education is an essential tool for nation‟s building.
However, the quality assurance has become an
increasingly important factor in higher education recently.
Specifically, the quality unit at College of Computer and
Copyright © 2015 MECS
Information Science (CCIS), Princess Nourah Bint
Abdulrahman University (PNU), is seeking for improving
the learning outcomes at the three academic programs
that offered by college. Furthermore, quality unit is
facing difficulties with the existing Quality Assurance
(QA) system at the QA Unit in the college. This paper
will review the proposed quality assurance system which
suggests developing the internal quality assurance system
of academic programs at the College by replacing the
existing paper-based QA system into a web-based system.
"Quality is the totality of features and characteristics of
a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy
stated or implied need" [4]. "Dictionary of Education"
explanation: "The quality of education is the assessment
level and effectiveness of education,". The main body of
higher education service quality evaluation is the learners
and their families, mainly. The object of higher education
service quality evaluation is the effect and process of
educational services. Evaluation methods different
according to different evaluation purposes; the learners‟
satisfaction is the main indicator to service quality
evaluation of higher education [5].
Also, Quality Assurance (QA) is defined as system
documents procedures with the aim of ensuring that the
overall process meets specified objectives and to
demonstrate that quality is a managed outcome [6]. It
guarantees Quality Assurance in Higher Education which
means the processes of maintaining standards and
ensuring students have the best possible experience at
university or college, learning outcomes which are the
collection of knowledge, skills, and values that student
will gain upon completion of a course, a span of several
courses, or a degree program. So, the institute can be
accredited where Accreditation: The formal certification
by a recognized authority that an institution or program
meets required standards [7].
A. Problem Statement
In particular, the old system that used at the college
was a paper-based system, which is a time and effort
consuming for QA unit and faculty members. QA unit at
the college send and receive reports manually to/from
I.J. Modern Education and Computer Science, 2015, 6, 30-36
Development of Quality Assurance System for Academic Programs and Courses Reports
faculty members. Afterwards, the faculty members fill
these reports according to courses they taught during
semester, and then submit the whole educational package
including reports to QA unit at the end of each semester.
Therefore, system processes were not effective. Recently,
QA unit developed the process of sending and receiving
reports in electronic format, as MS Word files, saved
them in CDs by faculty members and handed them to QA
unit. By these new changes, faculty member's time and
effort is saved, but there are still problems with QA unit.
On compilation of receiving reports, there is a still
tedious process which is formulated in finding statistics,
gathering results and providing them to the college
decision makers.
B. Proposed Solution
One of suggestions to solve the previously reviewed
problem is to build an internal system prototype of QA
for CCIS to facilitate the communication between QA
unit and the faculty staff to ensure the quality of
academic programs. Moreover, the proposed system will
replace the existing paper-based QA system at CCIS,
PNU to a web-based system which will facilitate the QA
unit processes from the moment of dissemination reports
to academic faculty members until gathering information
and generating reports' results. Also, it will help to
decrease faculty member's time and effort that spent in
completing reports.
II. BACKGROUND INFORMATION AND RELATED WORK
A. Background Information
Quality assurance is a comprehensive term used in
different fields like industrial, agricultural, and
commercial also it can be directed towards education as
an entity. In contrast, Quality as a concept was a 20th
century phenomenon that had its origin in the industry
and management. Moreover, any talk related to quality
assurance should starts by clarifying the terms „quality‟
and „quality assurance‟. The word quality comes from the
Latin word 'qualis' which means „what kind of‟. It ranges
from meaning standard to excellence and both are deeply
rooted in their respective values operational in individual
and institutional. Quality assurance concept entails the
supplier and consumer and the various activities put in
place to produce quality products and services [8].
As more and more people over the world participate in
higher education; issues of quality and quality assurance
have begun to get more central position. Having quality
and standards means everyone can have confidence in
their degree and education. Standards should not vary
from one higher education provider to another.
Quality assurance aims to prevent quality problems and
ensure that only approved products reach the customer. In
general, the most important job of quality assurance is to
safeguard quality and standards in universities and
colleges, so that students have the best possible learning
experience. Moreover, achieving high standards has been
always important, but there are a number of recent
Copyright © 2015 MECS
31
developments that make it even more necessary. The
international reputation of graduates from any country
will depend on standards at all institutions within country,
not just a small number of major universities.
Everyone should be involved in the improvement
process; quality can only be improved by those doing the
job. However, help and support is needed, and
arrangements have to be made for reporting,
accountability, and verification that quality is achieved.
Within institutions quality assurance units (QAU) are
established, reporting to senior management, and assisted
by a quality committee drawn from all sections of the
institution [7]. Quality Assurance units (QAU) in higher
education institutions are playing an important role in
most of the countries that have established commissions
of accreditation and quality assurance. The role of (QAU)
is to ensure that high standards within teaching and
learning processes for undergraduate programs are
recognized and rewarded, and problems can be identified
and addressed [9].
Until 2004, higher education institutes in Saudi Arabia
required no accreditation. Rapid growth in the number of
post-secondary institutions necessitated the creation of a
government agency for quality assurance of higher
education [10].
According to Ministry of higher education at Kingdom
of Saudi Arabia official website, NCAAA was
established in 2003, NCAAA is governmental body
acting under the auspices of the Higher Council of
Education. It has the responsibility for academic
accreditation in higher education institutions. NCAAA is
aiming to upgrade the quality of private and
governmental higher education to ensure clarity and
transparency [10]. On the other hand, getting ready for
academic accreditation can be a quite challenging task,
with many obstacles and challenges ranging from
understanding the processes and developing objectives to
establishing appropriate assessment mechanisms. In order
for program accreditation to be successful, it is essential
that the processes are fully supported by the whole
institute from first year through to the senior year.
B. Related Work Survey
There were two of similar systems compared with QA
system as shown in Table 1 They were compared
according to the problem that they solved, targeted users
and system domain, their features and output and finally
their limitations.
III. SYSTEM ANALYSIS
There are two methods used during the process of
gathering system's requirements and data which are
interview and questionnaire besides studying the formal
documents that provided by NCAAA [7]. Sample of
people who will be using the proposed QA system were
interviewed during the information gathering stage to find
their needs in order to determine the system requirements.
On the other hand, the questionnaire was prepared in
order to gather some information about QA system which
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Development of Quality Assurance System for Academic Programs and Courses Reports
Moreover, the QA web-based system should be provides
an easy way for users to fill QA reports in a user friendly
interface within a period of time usually at the end of
each semester. Also, the proposed QA system shall
facilitate the processes of gathering and providing
information to faculty members. After analyzing the
requirements which have been gathered from the
questionnaire, interview and formal documents
information are extracted to find what necessary data to
be modeled and stored. Moreover, the approach that used
on analyzing and designing the proposed QA system is
Object-Oriented approach. For simplicity and to
understand the proposed QA system well, Fig. 1 shows
how QA reports and users are interacting with each other.
IV. SYSTEM DESIGN
Based on the functionality of the proposed QA system,
the architecture that will be used is Client/Server
architecture. As Fig. 2 shows, using the “Client/Server
Model”, there are three layers that composed together
which are : client layer, server layer, and data layer. The
client layer contains the interface which will be
implemented in the proposed QA system by HTML and
java scripts languages and for the user to request a process
from the server layer we will use an ASP.net language. On
the other hand, the server layer will handle the request by
performing an SQL query and retrieve the data from data
layer which contains the QA database such as equipment,
staff and building data that will be stored in relational
database. Also, the QA database interacts with the
relevant data files, and responds to the requests. Moreover,
Client/Server model selected because the proposed QA
system is web-based system and this architecture excels
in flexibility, easy to add new servers or upgrade existing
servers and user independence.
Fig. 1. QA system reports and user's interactions.
Fig. 2. Client/Server architecture
will be developed. The questionnaire was distributed over
10 of faculty members and QA unit members at the three
departments of CCIS in PNU who have a good
knowledge and experience about the QA system. From
these analysis is found that there is a need for converting
the existing manual QA system into an electronic system.
As the object oriented approach is used on building the
proposed QA system, the object model had been chosen
where the system is decomposed into interacting object as
the Fig. 3 shows there are four objects that are interacts
with each others.
Copyright © 2015 MECS
I.J. Modern Education and Computer Science, 2015, 6, 30-36
Development of Quality Assurance System for Academic Programs and Courses Reports
33
Table 1. Proposed and Similar System Comparison
Domain
and users
Problem solved
QA system
Facilitate filling
QA
reports
forms, gathering
information and
generates results
and
statistics
process
by
Replacing
the
paper-based QA
system into webbased system.
Faculty members
of CCIS, PNU.
Quality Assurance
Checklist [11]
Quality
Assurance Unit
System [12]
Quality assurance
checklist form for
evaluating courses
used as assistance
with
the
development
of
online courses and
course materials.
Monitoring the
annual
performance
of
education
processes
including
students'
performance using
web platform.
Faculty members of
Central of Michigan
University Global
Campus.
QA unit of Anglia
Ruskin
University.
Limitation
Features
Outputs
Fig. 3. Object Decomposition for QA System
Provides reports
forms
and
generates reports
and
statistics
based on users'
entry.
Email
notification when
the time for
submitting
reports is come.
- Using popular
social networks
(Face
book,
Twitter)
for
publishing their
news.
- Compatibility
with
different
internet
browsers.
provides
statistics
in
different formats.
- Initially, system
will be for the
quality assurance
of
academic
programs
and
courses in CCIS,
PNU only.
Provides
an
evaluation forms for
online courses and
generates
reports
based on users'
entry.
Works
as
a
subsystem
of
overall
QA
system in which
gather information
from other QA
subsystems and
extracts statistics.
- Using popular
social
networks
(Face
book,
Twitter)
for
publishing
their
news.
- They provide
FAQ
(Frequently
Asked Questions).
- Compatibility with
different
internet
browsers.
- Integration with
other
quality
assurance
subsystems such
as
Student
Experience
Survey (SES).
Export the
required data to
separate
Excel
file.
- Help function is
provided through
documents
and
system
screenshots that
explain step by
step how to use
system.
- Ability to query
data from many
dimensions such
as by course, level
and
selected
sections.
Built
for
university
online
courses only.
V. SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION AND TESTING
A. Implementation
The only hardware requirement needed to operate QA
system is the PC machine and optionally printer to print
system reports and scanner to attach documents if it‟s
necessary. Besides the hosting site, the system
programmed using HTML, ASP.net, C#, CSS, SQL, and
JAVA SCRIPT using Microsoft web Developer and MS
SQL Server. On the other hand, the user interface of the
proposed QA system was designed to accomplish two
main design principles; simplicity, and usability Fig. 4
reveals the home page of QA system when user log in to
the system, after user logged into the system a dashboard
will be appeared which contains a menu help in
navigating system and reaches all of its features such as
filling report forms, view, manages courses and users,
view generated results of reports and statistics.
- Statistics are
provided only in
forms of tables.
(a) QA Home Page
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I.J. Modern Education and Computer Science, 2015, 6, 30-36
34
Development of Quality Assurance System for Academic Programs and Courses Reports
(e) Home Page of College QA Coordinator (Administrator).
(b) College QA Coordinator Main Page
(f) Reports Form.
(c) Course Report Form
(g) Statistics screen.
Fig. 4. Main QA System Screens
B. Testing
(d) QA Main Page Displaying Log In Form.
Copyright © 2015 MECS
The testing strategy that had been used in QA system is
seeking for meeting its desired specifications and other
requirements. Furthermore, the testing scope will cover
I.J. Modern Education and Computer Science, 2015, 6, 30-36
Development of Quality Assurance System for Academic Programs and Courses Reports
35
Table 2. Features to be Tested
the main features provided by the QA system to the user.
In brief, testing strategy starts by conducting unit testing
on every single function. After testing each function as it
is scheduled and shown in Table 2, testing moved forward
linking the pages together one by one and put system
function all together performing integration testing.
Finally, performance and acceptance testing are performed
to determine whether or not a QA system satisfies its
acceptance criteria.
Test results that preformed to the QA system achieves
all the requirements mentioned in advance and all the
desired goals. The QA system satisfies users by saving
users time and effort. In addition, it allows the user to
view the programs and It's levels, and views each course
for that level with the possibility of filling and sending
reports with simple interfaces.
QA System is able to perform the main functions
provided by fully. Moreover, reports workflow runs in an
integrated manner from the moment of fill to receive the
other party and the Display the results of statistics.QA
system will generate results and statistics from these
reports completed for those responsible for decisionmaking in college. A system will be capable of being
changed throughout its life. Also, the system can be
modified to adapt to different devices and platforms
because of its compatibility and flexibility.
Feature
Log
In/logout.
Password
Recovery.
Add User.
Add Course.
Assign
course
Instructor.
Notify User.
Update
Personal
Information.
View
Programs and
Courses.
Fill and
Submit
Course
Report.
Approve And
Disapprove
Report.
View
Report‟s
Statistics.
Description
Test functionality of log in and logout features
which are allowed for authenticated system
users.
Test functionality of recover password feature
which is enable user to get new password
when he/she forget.
Test functionality of add user feature which is
enable admin to add new users to QA System.
Test functionality of add course feature which
is enable admin to add new course to QA
System.
Test functionality of assign course to
Instructor feature which is enable admin to
assign course to specific Instructor.
Test functionality of notify user feature which
is enable admin to notify user by email.
Test functionality of update Personal
Information feature which is enable user to
edit her/his own information.
Test functionality of view programs and
courses feature which is enable user view
course information.
Test functionality fill course report feature
which is enable introducer to send report to
program coordinator.
Test functionality of approve or reject feature
which is enable dean to select status of
incoming reports.
Test functionality view report's statistics
which is enable admin to view results of
incoming reports.
VI. CONCLUSION
The quality assurance has become an increasingly
important factor in higher education. In addition, it is
important to the institutions to meet the quality assurance
standards to be recognized by government and reaches
the global accreditation. In conclusion, this project has
achieved some features and functionalities that the QA
system provides. The QA system is established to deliver
better services of quality program to College of Computer
and Information Sciences (CCIS), in terms of developing
and replacing the existing QA system into web-based
system. QA system provides processes that will save
users' time and efforts. Furthermore, QA system requires
from users to enter and fill their own reports, and then it
will generate the results and statistics from these
completed reports for those responsible for making
decisions in the college. QA system will help to measure
the quality of educational programs and make an
educational environment effective and an efficient based
on quality assurance standards adopted.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank all the participants
involved into QA system development at CCIS, PNU
especially to Arwa Al-Sa'ad, Amal AlRoshood, Randah
AlQahtani and Sabreen AlDossari.
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Authors’ profiles
Sahar Abd El_Rahman was born in Cairo, Egypt, B.Sc.
Electronics, Computer Systems & communication, Electrical
Engineering Department. Benha University, Shoubra Faculty of
Engineering, Cairo-Egypt. M.Sc. in an AI Technique Applied to
Machine Aided Translation, Electronic Engineering, Electrical
Engineering Department, Benha University, Shoubra Faculty of
Engineering, Cairo-Egypt, May2003. PHD. in Reconstruction of
High-Resolution Image from a Set of Low-Resolution Images,
Electronic Engineering, Electrical Engineering Department,
Benha University, Shoubra Faculty of Engineering, Cairo-Egypt
in Jan2008.
She is ASSISTANT PROFESSOR from 2011 till now at
Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University/Department of
Computer Science, College of Computer and Information
System. Also, She is ASSISTANT PROFESSOR from 2008 till
now at Electronics & communication, and Computer Systems,
Electrical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering,
Shoubra,, Benha University, Cairo, Egypt. She was a
LECTURE in the same location from 2003 and INSTRUCTOR
in the same location in 1998. Her research interests include
computer vision, digital image processing, Signal processing,
information security and cloud computing.
Dr. Sahar A. El_Rahman is a member of IACSIT
(International Association of Computer Science and Information
Technology) since 2013.A member of IAENG (International
Association of Engineers) since 2011.A member of the
Egyptian Engineers‟ Syndicate since 1997.
Bashayer A. Al-Twaim Teaching Assistant at college of
computer and information sciences, Imam Mohammed Bin
Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. She received her
bachelor's degree in information systems from Princess Noruah
Bint Abdulrahman University in 2013. Her fields of interest are:
cloud computing, Natural language processing, and Data
analysis and mining.
How to cite this paper: Sahar A. El_Rahman, Bashayer A. Al-Twaim,"Development of Quality Assurance System for
Academic Programs and Courses Reports", IJMECS, vol.7, no.6, pp.30-36, 2015.DOI: 10.5815/ijmecs.2015.06.05
Copyright © 2015 MECS
I.J. Modern Education and Computer Science, 2015, 6, 30-36