Abstract

Developing effective mechanisms for feedback collection in learning

environments is particularly important at the frontiers of new knowledge .Valuing and asking for
feedback has recognised benefits for both staff and students. For Staff to provide information for
course design to further develop teaching skills as well as to provide better service to the
students. For Students to feel valued and 'listened' to have ownership in their own learning to
develop reflective thinking to be better informed in selecting a course/module .
The online feedback collection systems, described in this project are two
such applications for collecting feedback through a web interface. Intended to support feedback
collection in educational environments .ITC feedback system collects feedback from users
about the services offered by for Information Technology and Communication wing (ITC) of
NITC. Faculty-feedback system is intended to collect feedback about faculty, from students.

Contents
.5

1.

Introduction

2.

Problem Definition..6
2.1 Existing System...6
2.2 Proposed System.....6
2.3 Features of proposed system...6
System Requirenments.............7

3
4.

Design...8
4.1 Design of module 1........8
4.1.1 Use case diagram for module 1......8
4.1.2 Class diagram for module 1...........10
4.1.3 Sequence diagram for module 1........11
4.2 Design of module 2........12
4.2.1 Use case diagram for module 2......12
4.2.2 Class diagram for module 2...........13
4.2.3 Sequence diagram for module 2........14
4.3 Database design.14

5.

Implementation..15
5.1 Prerequisites.......15
5.2 Implementation Issues...15
5.2.1 Prospective Users...16
5.2.2 Platform Independence...17
5.2.3 Storage Issue...17

6.

Testing and Results...17

7.

Conclusion ......21

8.

References ...21

1. INTRODUCTION
Getting the right feedback at right time is of at most importance ,for any
organization or faculties of an institution .Getting the feedback from the users will help an
organization or faculty to provide better services to the users or students. Ongoing interaction
with users can help improve the efficiency of an organization, and enable them to provide better
service to the users.

Collecting feedback from the users is very important thing for any organization. Until now ,
feedback collection process is conducted manually, using printed forms. All that has changed with
the computer network as well as World Wide Web, making communication far easy .It is very
easy to collect feedback about an organization , or about the staff of an institution through a web
based system.
Valuing and asking for feedback has recognized benefits for both
staff and students in an institution. For Staff to provide information for course design to further
develop teaching skills to match learning to learners needs to support bids for funding teaching
projects For Students to feel valued and 'listened' to to have ownership in their own learning
to develop reflective thinking to be better informed in selecting a course/module For All to
enhance relationships and define roles to provide a 'positive' teacher/student partnership, which
in turn has more chance of ensuring high quality teaching, thereby meeting learners' needs to
establish learning objectives, and measure the extent to which they are met to inform executive
action, policy developments and resource allocation as part of quality assurance procedure
Feedback should be encouraged to be positive as well as giving suggestions concerning areas
that could be enhanced.
This project aims to develop two online feedback collection systems systems,
One system is intended to collect the feedback from users of Information Technology and
Communication(ITC) wing of National Institute of Technology, Calicut. Second part of the
project is to develop an online feedback collection system for collecting feedback about the
faculty , from the students.

2. PROBLEM DEFENITION
1. This project aims to develop an online web-based feedback collection system for Information
Technology and Communication wing (ITC) of NITC. This system has two user levels.
Administrator and User. The user means the student/faculty who has the access to the services
provided by ITC. The user can post his/her opinions, request and queries through a web-based
interface. The administrator can analyze the feedback, query the feedback and reply to the user.
2. Second part of this project aims to develop a feedback system which can be used by the
students to give the feedback to the faculty. This system will provide a web-based interface to the
students, where they can write their feedback, comments and queries, about the course offered by
a particular faculty and send this feedback to the corresponding faculty. This system enables the
faculty to easily get feedback from their students

2.1 Existing System

The existing method for collecting feedback about the faculty from the students
makes use of printed forms on paper. Students write their feedback and submit it to the faculty.
This is very time consuming and costly procedure. Preparing the printed form and collecting the
forms back from the students is a time consuming procedure. Collecting the feedback from the
students about the service offered by ITC is also such a time consuming and difficult procedure.

2.2 Proposed System

The proposed system is a web based system. The user can log in to the system
with a valid ID and password, fill in an online feedback form and submit the feedback to the
system. The administrator can later analyze the feedback

2.3 Features of the proposed system

The proposed online feedback collection system is a web based system. So valid
users can access it from anywhere .This is a platform independent system. So there is no need
for installing any additional software on the client systems. The new system issues the users ,
asset of questionnaires. The user answers the question and submits this feedback. This is very
effective, fast and cost effective method for collecting the feedback. .The users, who give the
feedback, are authenticated with a Login ID and password.

3.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

The following are the system requirements for online feedback collection systems
Hardware Requirements
Pentium III processor or above
At least 128 MB RAM
10 GB Hard disk

Software Requirements
Apache Tomcat Web Server
JSP
MySQL
JDK Platform
Java Script enabled web browser

4. DESIGN
This section deals with the activities performed and diagrams created
during the design phase of the system. Use case diagram, class diagram and sequence diagrams
are created for each of the two modules of this project.

4.1 Module 1: Feedback collection system for ITC

4.1.1 Use case Diagram
Actors
User

: student or staff , who is having access to the service of ITC

Administrator

: Administrator of ITC, who analyse the feedback, given by the

user
: Feedback controller, which is a software module which take
care of Issuing feedback form and storing the feed back.

FBC

Request
feedback form

Feedback Controller
(FBC)

Verify the user

User

Issue the
feedback form
Submit the
form
Analyse the
feedback and
reply

Administrator

<<include>>
Request
feedback form

Enter
authentication
data

User
<<include>>

<<include>>

Submitting
request to FBC

Fill up the form

Submit the
form
User
<<include>>

<<include>>

Submit the
form to FBC

Querying the
feedback

Analyse the
feedback
Administrator

4.1.2 Class Diagram

Online Feedback
Collection System

User
name:string
id:string

Administrator

Login( )
Logout( )
Request form( )
Submitform( )

query_feedback( )

Feedback_
controller

Storage_
manager

Login
Validator

Form_issue

store_feed
back( )

validate( )

issue_form( )

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4.1.3 Sequence Diagram

User

FBC

Login_va
lidator

Form_isu
e

Storage_
manager

Administ
rator

request_form( )
Issue_loginform()
Enter_login data

verify_login()

login_OK

issue the feedback form

submit the feedback
store the feedback
Acknowledge the feedback

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4.2

Module 2:

Feedback collection system which collect feedback about faculty

4.2.1 Use case Diagram

Actors
student
FS

: student of the institute, who input his feedback about the

faculty to the system
: Feedback System, which take feedback from student as the
input, store the feedback in a file associated with the
corresponding faculty.

Request
evaluation form
Validate the
student
Issue the
evaluation form
student

Feedback system(FS)
Submit the
form
Store and Forward
the feedback

Request
feedback form
student
\

<<include>>

Enter
authentication
data

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<<include>>

Fill up the form

Submit the
evaluation form
student
<<include>>

Submit the
form to FS

4.2.2 Class Diagram

Online Faculty
feedback
collection system

student
name:string
id:string

Feedback
forwarding
System

Login( )
Logout( )
Request form( )
Submitform( )

Storage_
manager

Authenticat
ion mgr

Evaluation
form issue

Savefeedba
ck( )
retrieve( )

authenticat
e( )

issue_form( )

13

4.2.3 Sequence Diagram

student

Authentic
ation mgr

FS

Form_isu
e

Storage_
manager

request_form( )
Issue_loginform()
Enter_login data

verify_login()

login_OK

issue the evaluation form

submit the form
store and forward the feedback

4.3 Database Design

Tables Used
1. Name of the Table : student
(This table is used to store the details about the students)

Attribute

Type

Comment

Sname
Rollno
Course
Login
Branch
Password
Batch

Character
Character
Character
Character
Character
Character
Character

Name of the student

RollNo of student
Name of the course
Login ID
Branch of the course
Login password
Year of admission

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2.Name of the table : admin

(This table is used to store the authentication data of Administrator)

Attribute

Type

Comment

Admin
Passwd

Character
Character

ID of Administrator
Password of Administrator

3.Name of the table : staff

(This table is used to store the login details of the faculties)

Attribute

Type

Comment

Stname
Filename
Password
Dept

Character
Character
Character
Character

Name of the staff

Filename associated with staff
Login password
Name of the department

5 IMPLEMENTATION
This section deals with the implementation details of the system designed in the previous
section. Implementation is the process of converting design to code. The entities identified from
design are to be implemented considering the association between them and how they
communicate with each other.

5.1 Prerequisite
The interface for this system has been designed using Macromedia Dream Weaver,
JavaScript, and JSP. And MySQL has been used as data storage.

5.2 Implementation Issue

This section deals with the discussion of the implementation issues that are found in the
system. All aspects of the system are not discussed in this section. Only important aspects of the
system are discussed.

The implementation issue has to be discussed mainly on the following aspects:

1.
Prospective users
2.
Platform independency
3.
Storage issues
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5.2.1. Prospective users:

In Module 1, feedback collection system for ITC, there are two levels of
prospective users. User, who is a student or user of services provided by ITC, and
Administrator, who is in charge of ITC
Following are the actions associated with the User
User log in to the system with a valid ID and password.
User can request for one of the following feedback form
Feedback form for Main Computer center
Feedback form for LAN center
User can answer the questionnaires, write comments in the form and submit the form to
the feedback system
Feedback system stores the feedback given by the user in to a file
Following are the actions associated with Administrator
Administrator log in to the system with a valid ID and password.
Administrator can perform the following operations
Add ,delete or edit Users
View the feedback about Main Computer Center
View the feedback about LAN center

In Module 2 , feedback system to collect feedback about faculty, there are three types of
prospective users. Administrator , staff and students.
Administrator is the person, who is having the responsibility of the
Administrator can perform the following actions
Add new students,Delete or Edit existing students
Add new faculty
Delete existing faculty

system.

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Staff indicates the faculty of the institution

Faculty log in to the system with a valid ID
Faculty can read the feedback given by the students
Students of the institution can perform the following actions
o Each student log in to the system with a valid ID
o Student can request the feedback form for a particular faculty.
o Student can answer the questionnaires and write comments in the feedback
form.
o The system stores the feedback along with the students details in to a file
associated with the particular faculty

5.2.2. Platform Independence:

Since this feedback systems are developed using Java tools like JSP,
JavaScript, this application is platform independent. Since these feedback collection systems are
web-based application, they can be accessed from any system in the institute , as well as in the
entire world, provided the user is having a valid Login ID.

5.2.3 Storage Issue:

The feedbacks submitted by the students are stored directly in to files, which makes
editing and deletion of the feedback easy. The authentication information is stored in MySQL
database.

6.

TESTING AND RESULTS

The system developed has to be tested to check whether it conforms to the

specification. The testing is done to guarantee that the system is functioning as defined in the
requirements specification and is free of known errors and bugs. Using test data and examining
the outputs of the system helps to track errors that may present in the system. This is done at
various stages of development to ensure that each stage is free of errors

17

The different testing strategies used are:

1. Unit testing
Different units of the systems are tested separately. Certain set of inputs are given
to the different modules of the system, and output from each module is verified
2. System testing
Entire system is tested as a whole unit. Selected set of inputs are given to the
system .Some feedback forms are filled by entering in to the system in user login, then
the feedbacks are verified, by analyzing them, by login in to system as administrator
3. Black box testing
Various inputs are given and the outputs are verified. Here the functionality of the
system is verified, by giving certain feedback as input, and verifying the retrieved
feedback, which is the output. The functionality of the system is tested with out referring
to the source code of the system
4. White box testing
Different sections of the code is analyzed and tested, that it will work correctly,
without any errors and bugs
Results:
The results are verified by observing the input and output.
Following are the screen shots of the Online Feedback Collection System

Log in Form
18

Feedback Form

19

Retrieved Feedback

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CONCLUSION

A web based interface for getting feedback from users of ITC is developed, which makes
feedback collection easy. A web based interface for analyzing the feedback is developed.
A web-based interface for giving feedback to a faculty is developed. Each user of the system
is authenticated using ID and password
Future Works
Enhance the existing system, by storing the feedback in to a database , instead of a file so
that the statistics about the feedback obtained can be easily analysed

8. REFERENCES

1. Software Engineering , 6th edition by Ian Somerville Published by Pearson Education

2. Core JAVA Volume 2 by CAY S HORSTMANN and GARRY CORNELL published
by Pearson Education
3. www.jsptut.com

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