B.S.T Scholarship Project

This report demonstrates the submitting and selection processes within the system for “B. S. T. Smart Scholarship” committee. In this report, data flow diagrams will show the high-level procedures for how this automatic system functions. In short, this system receives many applications from students. A student will submit their application through a form. This user interface will be described below. From this selection, the committee will awardee one student to reimburse the tuition the student paid for that semester. This is completed all through an automatic system. Source code for this program will be embedded in this report.

This section contains the diagrams to demonstrate the processes within this system. These diagrams are created with Diagrams.net.

The diagrams below show the high-level data flow of the system for B.S.T Smart Scholarship committee. Here we have three external entities. These are the student, the register office, and the accounting office. The three members of the committee are internal entities therefore they are shown explicitly on the diagram. Information containing the application form, application information, and eligibility status has been collapsed to enhance readability. A key table has been provided to list the information contained within the application form, application information, and eligibility status.

In this diagram, the processes have been described to further display how this system functions. We now contain the processes “Handle Student Information”, “Check Eligibility”, and “Select Student Awardee”. As mentioned before, to improve readability the information within application form, application information, and eligibility status has been simplified. Please look at the key table for extra information for this data

The process for “Handle Student Information” have been further described below.

The process for “Check Eligibility” has been further developed in this diagram.

Child Diagram 3 The child diagram for the process “Select Student Awardee” is shown below.

This system has two decision making processes. The first decision process is to narrow down potential candidates. The second decision process to select an awardee. Both of these decides processes are describe this section by using a decision table.

This decision table shows the process that checks applicant’s eligibility. To be eligible, an applicant must have at least a 3.2 GPA, have taken 12 credit hours that semester, and be at most 23 years of age during application process. The conditions are shown in the following table

The next decision table shows the process to select the awardee. The table below can be written as if there is only one student that has the highest GPA among the other students, he/she will get the scholarship. Yet if there are many students who have the same highest GPA, we will give the scholarship to the student the highest GPA of that current semester. Of course, if multiple students have the same highest GPA of that semester, we will give it to the student who have a Junior standing. If there are more than one Junior or no Juniors, we will give it to any female students, if any. If these are more than one female student or no female students, we will select the two youngest students. These two students will be interviewed and voted on by the committee. The student with the most votes will the scholarship.

This section demonstrates how the user interface will look. For each screen, the techniques to improve computer-to-human interaction will be discussed. All screens are designed within MS Visio.

For this screen design, to create a friendly human-computer interaction, I created a form-fill interfaces, used feedback, and gave validation. I created a minimal user action environment by creating a user form. For example, I used a radio button for gender so that the user can click one instead of typing. This reduced error since I supplied default values. Likewise, the GPAs and credit hours input use a spinner to reduce data entry errors. I also used a drop down for the status input. Furthermore, I validated every input. I checked if it was empty and checked the format by using regular expressions. If any value was incorrect or empty, I gave the user feedback by using a dialog to tell the user what the problem is. If this occurs, the form will not submit until all errors are corrected. Moreover, the drop down for status contains a blank value displayed as standing to make sure the student selects a valid value.

To make navigation easier, a home button allows the user to return to the front page.

The review user interface is displaying all of the student information. Here a user can look through data. If needed, the Register Office can edit the data. This is done with a simple edit button. This directs the user to the next page. This next page allows the user to change a data necessary. Of course, all data 7 input is validation by using regular expressions. Moreover, if there is a problem, the system will alert the user for a format or empty input mistake. The user must save the edits. Upon saving edits, a confirmation dialog pops up to ensure the action. This is the way feedback is given to the user.

The user can clearly return home. Moreover, a link has been provided “Review Eligibility” so that the person at the register office can use that link to go to the next page.

This program was implemented using Xampp, phpMyAdmin, and Visual Studio Code. The languages php, JavaScript, html, css, sql, xml and json was used in the creation of this code. A demonstration and explanation of this program please refer to the required Youtube video. The link to the video is below.

BST Scholarship System Demonstration