Online home assignment management system for the Open University of Sri Lanka

Abstract

The Open University of Sri Lanka (OUSL) is a specifically created, academically autonomous national university in the country. The OUSL academic structure consists of four faculties which serve the nation with distant education programmes through Regional and Study Centers.

A major component of the distance learning programmes in the OUSL context is furnishing the students with the home assignments. The students have the facility to submit their home assignments to a centre convenient to them which are then sent to the relevant Course Coordinators who bear the responsibility to mark the assignments and send them back to the students. When this process is done manually all parties involved are faced with certain difficulties. As a result, students are unable to get their eligibility for the final examination and are penalized in numerous ways. With the intention of overcoming these obstacles and to streamline the process of handling submission of assignments as hard copies, I have implemented an Online Home Assignment Management System.

The most obvious and significant advantages offered by Online Home Assignment Management System are that it prevents misplacement of assignments, offers faster assignment marks entering mechanisms, and provides quick message delivering methods regarding assignment events. The main users of this system are Receiving Officer, Course Coordinator and students. But the main role is played by Course Coordinators and Receiving officers. In this system Receiving Officers have been provided with a facility to accept the assignments from the students till the due date of assignment and to generate a letter to be sent with the assignments to the relevant Course Coordinator with the details of the assignments. After posting these assignment parcels, Receiving Officer sends required details to the relevant Course Coordinator along with postal registration number through the system. When receiving the assignments, Course Coordinator can view and check all the details pertaining to the assignments in the system. Further this system makes the role of the Course Coordinator easier and effective in preparing mark sheets. Finally, it is believed that the system developed provide many options to all the users to get their work done accurately and effectively.