WIA1001 Group Project

Information System in Organizations

Group members:

Ayman Jad

Kelued Abdella

Mohammed Syek Rizzuan

Ola Ahmed Ali Baobaid

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Information Systems plays a fundamental and ever-expanding role in

organizations. It gains its importance by processing the data from company

inputs to generate information that is useful for managing operations. It helps in

the improvement in every sector; communication system, operation

management, decision making and a lot more.

The organization we will be discussing about is an organization that we are part

of currently which is the International Student Centre (ISC) of University Malaya.

University Malaya’s existing Information systems for International student can

be divided into many system. This information systems handles two type of

students which is Exchange international student who came from other

university across the world and the undergraduate students.

The University of Malaya Student Exchange Program (UMSEP) is coordinated by

the University of Malaya International Student Centre (ISC). ISC processes all

applications and issues offer letters to successful students.

The undergraduate student are those who study permanently at University

Malaya until they finish their bachelor degree.

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The International Student Centre (ISC) was first established in 2007 which was

then operating under the banner of the International and Corporate Relations

Office (ICR). It is the one stop center for all international students in the

university that mainly cater to their welfare demands, programs, campus life,

visa matters and general activities on and off campus. As stated earlier it also

serves as the main center of the university in coordinating for student exchange

program for both UM students going abroad as well as receiving students from

overseas for short term and one semester exchange program as well as full time

undergraduate students. It organizes various other programs and activities for

the international students for their wholesome and holistic development in

complementing their academic pursuit and in molding their character

development.

All of the following information and a lot more about the International students

will be stored inside the Information system:

 Enrolled as a degree student in home university.

 Personal information like Name, ID number and family backgrounds.

 Contact Information such as phone number and E-mail address.

 Academic information like Course enrollment, exams and grades.

 Curriculum activities information that they participate.

 Financial information like Fee details and payment for accommodation.

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 ISC Functions

 To administer international students admission

 To promote students mobility program

 To facilitate students and staff immigration matters

 To facilitate International Students activities and non-academic programs

 To foster linkages/networking between UM and international partners

 To provide students' welfare and services

ISC Objectives

 To ensure 5% of total enrollment of undergraduate students are international

students.

 To annually conduct at least 10 collaborations in term of student exchange

program with partner universities.

Every single detail regarding the international students starting from the

admission to the graduation ceremony is handled by the ISC. It has lots of

different departments with different functions. With all this functionality the

system used by this organization must be up to the level and be able to handle all

information and work efficiently.

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Some of the existing management Information System is International Student

Information System (ISIS) and Student Accounting System (SAS).

The current Student Management System (ISIS), was developed in year 1996.

The University is looking into a modern Student Management System (SMS)

which should effectively support student and staff activity across the whole

student lifecycle. New SMS is needed for UM to continue to grow, evolve and

meet the needs of its stakeholders both now and into the future.

Later on Student Information Systems Section was established in 2011 to cater to

the need for a complete integrated application to support students' information

processing cycles. Generally academic application is developed to support all

activities in an integrated manner starting from the process of application for

admission candidates until graduation.

Functions

 To develop application systems to support the university's administration

in the management of student information.

 To study, plan and upgrade applications developed to meet the needs of

current technology.

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  To collaborate with Responsibility Centre in organizing briefings, training

and road shows for application systems being developed.

 To provide application and/or provide student related data to ministries,

government departments and external agencies.

 To review and give technical advice to Responsibility Centre in system

development planning and implementation of policies universities so that

they are in line.

Although most of the Information about International student is handle by

International Student Centre (ISC) but all the information is stored in

Information Technology Centre University Malaya. Because main server for all

the information system are there. University Malaya also using some outsourcing

with others to manage the Information System about students. This is due to the

cost of managing the Information system is really expensive. There are special

division for this which is Information Management System division is responsible

for the development and maintenance of Student Information System & Human

Resource application system.

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Problems with the existing IS system

ISC is a large organization that deals and manages all the information’s, problems

overall the entire database of the international students in University Malay and

in addition to that it accepts hundreds of new applicants every semester. All the

information about everything regarding the old or the new intake of the

international students is handled by ISC in their system the ISIS (International

Student Information System). With all these bulky amount of data and

information, which keeps on increasing with time it is very common for any

system to face problems and limitations.

One of the main and common problem in every system is that with the increment

of data and processing, it slows down the entire system and makes it hard to

work with. Moreover the system is not up to date and is not evolved with the new

technologies. This is a huge backwardness for the university which is ranked as

number 1 to be in such status. To keep up their reputation and be in the expected

level it is a requirement for the university to keep up with the expanding

technology. Another issue on the technical sector is difficulty to emend

problems. When one try’s to fix a problem it may interrupt other problems that

may not even be related to the major issue. This makes the system inflexible and

difficult to handle.

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Another major issue is regarding the security of the system. For such a large

system with all the information it has should be secured very well. But since we

have lots of different departments in one system it causes a gap or an opening

within it which in turn exposes the system for an unauthorized access. This is a

very threatening issue not only for this specific system but also for the entire

University’s system.

So far we have been talking about the problems or the limitations faced by the

management and the worker areas, but some of the flaws are also faced by the

applicants. The system may be very slow and not updated. The procedures they

go through regarding admission, seeking information or any matter may not be

as effortless as it’s wanted.

As we have mentioned earlier within this one system, there are lots of different

departments in it, this makes the work more hectic to handle since it’s not

standardized and nothing is interconnected.

ISC is still one of the major pillars of University Malaya even with all these

problems within it so to continue doing its major role yet with a better and more

evolved technology it is building in a new system which overcomes almost all the

encountered problems.

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‘Tribal’ is the name of the new system which will be implemented soon.

It will integrate all the functional areas like finance and marketing and human

resource as well as the different departments in the university like: International

student center (ISC), Marketing and recruitment center (MRC), International

Corporate Relations (ISR), etc. So all the information will be synchronized and

easily accessed.

Another problem faced with the old system is the difficulty in updating and

changing the information already existing in the system so in many cases they

just keep the information as it is to avoid any undesirable result; for example it

was very difficult to update a student record like his address or his visa status so

the new system have a consideration for this problem and try to make all the

field separate from each other so any change in the record will not affect other

records.

Security problems was also an issue, having a gap between the systems in many

cases can lead the information to be accessible for unauthorized people and this

is a serious issue for such big university with records of thousands of students

information and many academic work .The solution for this problem was to

apply a high security standards and technologies to detect and report any

suspicious access to the system which will be provided in the new system.

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One other major problem in the previous system was that it was slow and

difficult to use but the problems will be solved with the use of interface and

having more advanced servers which make it faster.

With all the improvements the new system will have, it also has other project

benefits:

 Enables a more rapid deployment with faster realization of project

benefits.

 Enables a high level change impact assessment to be completed earlier in

the project understanding where the most significant gaps and affected

stakeholder groups are.

 Enables an earlier cost/benefit assessment of gap resolution option and

management of stakeholder’s expectations in relation to decision and

compromises.

 Earlier oversight of potential issues

 Better ongoing understanding of the system

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All of the information mentioned above where taken from a reliable source in the

ISC office.

Special Thanks to Mr. Jamal for his help. He was more than happy to share

everything he knew about the old and the new system too.

We guarantee with the implementation of the new system in the future,

everything will be even more organized and easy to handle and UM will keep on

leading its way to the top.

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