CHAPTER ONE GENERAL INTRODUCTION
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Online assignment submission management system is a web based application that is used in colleges and university to carry out assignment activities (i.e. support the submission of assignment, system collection of assignments and recording of student’s assignment score). These processes can be done via the use of internet and computer. Assignment are usually given to students to evaluate their level of understanding and degree of comprehension, with the use of this assignment system, student will be able to make submission easily from any place at any time. This system completely eliminates the difficulties face by student and lecturers (staff) in the previous system. With this submission system students can make registration of their academic details, register their courses, view assignment available for submission, make assignment submission, request for a submission extension and finally view the assignment score for particular assignment. The lecturer can generate report, view the uploaded assignment submitted by student and view submitted extension request.
The case study of this research work is the department of Mathematics, which is a department in Usmanu Danfodiyo University Sokoto. The department was established in 1975, it has three different units namely; Mathematics unit, Computer unit and Statistics unit. But the assignment processes in this department is still done manually; where students take their assignment from the class room, make assignment on paper and submit to the class representative or to the lecturer directly. Sometimes an electronic submission is used, where student submit their assignment electronically using USB flash drive or compact disk. Other times an email based system is used, where the lecturer gives his email to the class and all assignment is submitted to that email address. Online assignment submission management system to be used in the department of mathematics will help to enhance faster assignment processing and improve the quality and quantity of learning. The online assignment submission management system will also provide feedback to students and lecturers (staff). The system will also help student in other units to participate in assignment given to a particular unit which they have registered for.
1.1 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEMS
In the assignment submission system that is still in used today, there are so many problems associated with it.
The problems associated with the current system are as follow:
1. The system does not support an online interaction manner for both the student and the staff.
2. The system does not take into consideration students that were unable to submit their assignment before due date, due to sickness or emergency situation.
3. The system does not support marking of student assignment online.
4. The system does not return the marked assignment backed to the student.
5. It do not put emphasis on due date of submission i.e. time is not put into consideration as student can submit assignment anytime.

1.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
The main aim of this research work is to design and implement an online assignment submission management system that will help student submit assignment in the best possible way, which is time saving and convenient.
The research has the following objectives:
1. To enable students check their assignments questions online and submit their assignment with the use of computer.
2. To reduce the work on lecturers during collection of assignment from students.
3. To reduces stress and save time of both students and lecturers.
4. To design a secured system, so that students will have the assurance that their assignment are delivered to the right source.
5. Reduced the amount of paper handled by students and lecturers.
6. The system will provide equal preference to all students, as they will have the same deadlines of submission.
7. The system will have a simple to use interface for the assignment submission process.
8. The system will also provide extension request for students who were unable to submit their assignment before due date.
1.3 SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY
In many tertiary institutions of higher learning both lecturers and students are finding it very difficult when it comes to giving, submitting and marking the assignments. To solve these problems and difficulties that both lecturers and students faced, is what motivated me to apply my little knowledge to design and implement an online assignment submission management system that will be efficient, reliable, time saving and provide faster means of submitting assignment.
1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
This project work is aimed at developing an online assignment submission management system that will make assignment submission process easier and faster. The online system will be developed to accomplish the task of assignment submission whereby the administrator can add staff, add students, add courses and add new administrator. Students can view assignments, upload their assignments, make request for submission extension and lecturers can also view submitted assignment, respond to all request by student online and finally input the recorded score of student assignments online for students to see their score.
1.5 LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
This project will neither support marking of student’s assignment online nor provide feedback in the form of returning assignment back to the students. The system do not allows update of personal and academic information. The system does not allow students to view his/her submitted assignment after submission and do not allow re-submission of assignment before the due date. (i.e. when an assignment is submitted once by students, they cannot re-submit). The system does not allow students and staff to make registration directly with their admission number or staffID (i.e. The Administrator must add students admission number and staffID before they can use the system).
1.6 METHODOLOGY
The methods used in the system design are; closed architecture design method was used in the architecture design, functional decomposition method was used in the system decomposition, open-loop control system and Event–driven control were used during the system control design.
1.6.1 THE CHOICE OF MODEL
Incremental development is the model used for this system development. Incremental development is a combination of linear and iterative system development methodologies. It is an approach that interleaves the activities of specification, development and validation and finally terminates as waterfall. With incremental development, the system is developed in series of versions (increments), with each version adding functionalities to the previous version.
1.6.2 REASON FOR THE CHOICE OF MODEL
The incremental development was chosen because of the following advantages:
1. Functionalities are available earlier.
2. Early increment helps elicit requirement for later increment
3. Increments can help to manage risks
4. Lower risk of the overall project failure.
5. The highest priority system services tend to receive the most testing.
6. The cost of accommodating changing user requirement is reduced.
7. It is easier to get user feedback on the development work that has been done.
8. More rapid delivery and deployment of useful system to the user is possible, even if all of the functionality has not been included.

1.6.3 LANGUAGES USED
The languages used for this system are:
1. HTML: - Hypertext Markup Language is the standard markup language used to create web pages. It defines the structure and layout of a web document by using variety of tags and attributes.
2. CSS: - Cascading Style Sheet is a style sheet language used for describing the look and formatting of a document written in a markup language. It is mostly used to style web pages and user interfaces written in HTML and XHTML, the language can be applied to any king of XML document, including plain XML etc.
3. Java Script: - is a dynamic computer programming language. It is most commonly used as part of the web browsers, whose implementation allow client-side script to interact with the user, control the browser, communicate asynchronously, and allow the document content that is displayed.
4. PHP: - Hypertext Preprocessor is a server-side scripting language designed for web development but also used as a general-purpose programming language.
5. MySQL: - is an open source relational database management. Information in a MySQL database is stored in the form of related tables. MySQL databases are typically used for web application development, often accessed using PHP.

CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW
2.0 INTRODUCTION This chapter reviews online assignment submission management system (OASMS) and the previous effort made by scholars who had taken their time to contribute great ideas and develop web application on online assignment submission management system for student in institution of higher learning or tertiary institution with the aim of making assignment submission process faster, easier and secured.
2.1 ONLINE ASSIGNMENT SUBMISSION Online assignment submission is the use of information and communication technology (ICT’s) to support the submission of assignment and recording of student’s assignment score. These processes can be done via the use of World Wide Web (WWW), the internet and computers. Online assignment submission management system evolved from manual email based providing a range of features integrated into the system. It has become the most widely used application of ICT to support teaching and also learning within most universities. The online assignment submission management system is a new concept that aims to completely replace the traditional assignment submission system, which researchers believe have a lot of problems, associated with distance, time, security or the format of assignment.
With the coming of electronic submission in the early 90s, submission was done easily and it has help in the submission of manuscript or document (text or otherwise) typed out or prepared on typewriters and computer by electronic means or submitted online; that is via email or a web form on the internet or on an electronic medium such as a compact disk, a hard disk or a USB flash drive.
However research based universities in several countries have been encouraging the collection of course assignments and projects in the form of electronic submission for almost a decade now. Several Governments and organizations are also switching submissions for collecting of research paper, grant applications and government application etc. to electronic.
Since modern computers can store and process information and data in virtually any format and with the internet allowing easy transfer of this data, the number of scenarios in which submission can be collected electronically has increased in the last few years.
The management system is a system that describes the set of procedures the system need to follow in order to meet it objectives. These processes involve a systematic way of how the system operates. Unlike the previous system where students only make assignment submission and the submission process is simple and trivial. But this management system will consist of various subsystems working together for a common goal. The system will consist of; admin module, the student module and staff module.
The administrative module will be used by the admin of the system to ensure system security by carrying out processes of adding new admin, staff id, student admission number, courses and session. This will help prevent unauthorized users from accessing the system. The staff module is where the staff carries out all his/her duties. The staffs plays a key row, by uploading assignments for students, view submitted assignment, view extension request made by students and finally enter recorded score of student assignment. While the student module help students to make registration, view uploaded assignments by the lecturers (staff), submit assignment, make extension request and also view result.
Anderson (2005) identified that building an effective management system in institutions will undergoes five phases such as; discovery, planning, development, implementation and rediscovery. This will enable each component to work together to obtained a set goal, it will improve efficient use of resources, it will save time, it will help improved risk management, increase users satisfaction as they are assured that their assignment are delivered successfully with the help of feedback, it will help to control and improve efficiency in assignment submission processes, it will help in records keeping and will ensure that the system is sustainable.
2.2 EXTENSION REQUEST
Extension request is the process of providing an extension for people due to a particular situation in order for them to make extension and have overall fairness. It is one of modern day’s system functionality. Most organizations nowadays adopt extension request functionality for smooth and perfect running of their organization. Such situation occurs in companies for job interviews, academics situations, businesses and many other cases.
But for the purpose of this research, extension request is used for academic purpose. In situation where students who are unable to submit their assignment by the final submission date and have good reason for this, may request in advance for a submission extension (extension request). For every extension request there is a key reason called mitigating circumstance.
Mitigation circumstance are circumstances or events beyond your control, may adversely affect your ability to complete an assignment by the set deadline. In such cases mitigation may be applied, i.e. treating marks or results in a way that recognizes the adverse impact that may have resulted from those circumstances or events or waiving penalties that would arise from late submission.
Circumstance or events that merit consideration for an extension request may include; suffering a serious illness or injury, the death or critical or significant illness of a close family member or dependant, a significant family crisis leading to acute stress, and unplanned absence arises from such things as jury service or maternity or paternity or adoption leave.
2.3 RELATED WORKS
Sam (1998) developed a web based automated homework submission system with three modules namely; User Interface Module, Submission Acceptance Module and Grade Interface Module. The system allow tutors to upload files, export marks to an excel sheet, student to download files, participate in online submission of home work.
Joy and Luck (1999) developed an online assignment system to support teaching and learning in a computer science department at the university of Warwick, the system support a process by which students upload their assignment files to the system (whether it is part of the university server or separate server) via an online web connection. The system will then log the submission and provide an electronic receipt to recognize that the file has been successfully uploaded and submitted. The electronic submission system assist in confronting to provide students with accurate and quality feedback and also assignment submission is assured. Though the submission is simple and trivial, but the system do not support an online interactive manner for both the student and the staff, and it also do not take care of due date.
Jones and Behrens (2003) developed their online assignment submission system with lots of features, qualities and also an improvement of previous system by designing a system that takes care of due date for assignment submission and provide a close interaction between staff and student. The system provides fast and efficient assignment submission, it is secured in taking record and storage of the student assignment. The online submission system was developed by using PHP as server scripting language, MySQL as database, Apache as web server and NuSphere PhpED as developing tools. The system provide other benefits such as; administrative clarity and accuracy. Staff can track the progress of their assignment marked or unmarked, staff can access assignment irrespective of geographical location. This enables flexibility in marking from home, office, in transit. But it do not take into consideration an option that will allow students that are sick or had emergency or those who could not submit their assignment due to one reason or the other before due date.
Vogelgesand and Sheidler (2012) developed a web based online submission system which facilitated submission of assignments by students. The system was implemented with XAMPPLITE. System consisted of modules where students could download assignment, participate in automated assessment created by lecturers and upload their assignment on due dates. But still this system has the same problem as the aforementioned system.
All these problem encountered in these previous system have led the writer to develop a new online assignment submission management system with more desirable features which are very flexible and will enhance better performance or usage of the system. The following are functions the new system to be developed to provide ideas in an attempt to solve the problem of existing assignment submission system:- With the new system being developed, efficiency and effectiveness will be improved to give desirable outcome, save time and aid in keeping record of student’s assignment score.
The online assignment submission management system will keep track of the due date for the submission of assignment. The system will provide benefits to students and lecturers because it will allows students to submit their assignment anytime and from anywhere before due date.
The new system will also support extension request, which will help students who cannot submit their assignment within the stipulated time to make request earlier to enable them submit their assignment later in the nearest future.
The new system will be so flexible that it will provide students with several options in submission, by allowing student who failed to submit their assignment and could not make an extension request due to one reason or another, to submit their assignment after due dates but with a penalty for late submission.

REFERENCE
Anderson, C. (2005). How to build Effective Management System, Retrieved from: http://www.bizmanualz.com/blog/building-effective-management-systems-discovery.html. on 20th July 2014 11:14pm.

Jones, D., & Behrens, S. (2003). Online Assignment Management: An Evolutionary Tale. Paper presented at the 36th Hawaii International Conference on Systems Sciences, Vol.5 no 5, pp 156c.

Joy,M., & Luck,M. (1999). A Secure On-line Submission System. In Software Practice and Experience 29(8), pp.721-740.

Sam, H. (1998). HWSAM: A Web Automated Homework Submission System. ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE ’98), Nov 4-7, 1998, Tempe, Arizona, pp. 580-582.

Volgelesang, K., & Seilder, K.O. (2012). XAMPP for Windows. Retrieved from: http://apachefriends.org/en/xampp-windows.html. On 26th June 2014. 10:00am.