Information and Communication Technology Center (ICTC)

Software Engineering Department (SWENG)

Achievements

Software Engineering Department started its function with significant achievements in the areas of software development since 1998. These achievements include but not limited to the following:
1. Admission & Registration, Accounting, and Students affairs Systems:

Owner of these systems are

• Admission and Registration department/QOU
• Financial Department/QOU
• Student Affairs Department/QOU

• The systems process and maintain student personal and identification data, degrees, college/major changes, student registration history.
• The system contains more than one part, such as:
• Room Reservation (reserve the classroom), Final Grade, processing the student record each term, class Scheduling, course approval.
• Process all financial aid and Registration Fees integrating with Admission and Registration System.
• Process all students' scholarships.
• Produce all kind of admission and registration reports, such as student marks, student's transcripts, certifications, and act. In addition to financial reports, and other student information reports.

• Integration between three systems (REG and SAS and SAF).
• The systems have multi security level.
• Process all admission and registration track.
• View and mention Tutor information.
• Students can pay the fees at banks.
• Integrated with Web Portal.

• The system using Oracle 9i as database.
• The database can work under Windows Server 2003 or Linux operating system.
• Desktop application.
• Forms: Developer/2000 form for windows.
• Reporting: Developer/2000 report for windows

• Registrar at the Admission and Registration department and all its offices in the university.
• Accountant at the Financial Department and all its office's are the university.
• Student Affairs Department and all its offices in the university.
• Other secondary users (Data entry, etc).
• In the last evaluation for the Registration system in Sep, 2005. The number of users reached up to 222 users.

• Students admission, Student information, Student course registrations, Course information, Marks, Tutor information, Grads, Certifications.
• Student fees and financial, Payment vouchers, Receipt vouchers, statement of accounting reports.

[ Fig. 10: Admission & registration System , Fig. 11: Accounting System , Fig. 12: Students Affairs System ]

2. QOU Academic Portal:

Owner
ICTC/ Al-Quds Open University

Description
QOU Academic Portal is a system that has been lunched to serve the student, tutors, e-learning purposes, and other sectors in the university by offering the user required information via internet. This system is developed to meet the distance learning philosophy adopted by the university. In addition, it supports the educational process in against all the difficulties that faces students living in the west bank or Gaza strip, which prevent them from reaching their educational centers. The number of portal users is more than 60,000 users.

The system provides students with their all needed academic information (student grades, term summary, major sheet, courses schedule, exams schedules…etc.). For tutors, it provides them with many services like (tutor courses schedule, classes, students, and grades reviews…etc.).

This is in addition to the internal communication system and course management services presented for tutors and students and other services provided for student affairs, public relation and registration department at QOU.

Features
This system offers the following services:

• Student information system: contains student grades, term summary, major sheet, financial summary, courses schedule, exams schedules.
• Tutor information system: contains tutor courses schedule, classes, students, and grades insertion and reviews.
• Internal messaging system: used by tutors and students so that they can communicate with each others and send attachments too. This system does not use any SMTP or mail servers and no need for users to have an email; it depends on their portal accounts.
• Course management system: contains related course and e-learning materials like assignments, course materials, course supporting documents, discussions forums…etc.
• News and Bulletin Boards: for the university and each study center.
• Information system: for those in academic managerial positions to follow up, control, and monitor the educational process (Will be lunched soon).
• Administration system: contains all needed administration function needed by the system admin to manage portal users, permissions, actions… etc.
• Calendar Management and Reporting: Services for main registration department to control calendar of marks insertion, online registration and other academic processes and to generate reports according to their needs.
• Student Affairs: Provides students affairs department with ability to insert admission application online for special cases (students with special academic cases), search for admission application, and generate report for the university president

Future plan for the portal focuses on the following:

• Registration and admission system: offers the students the ability to register term courses through the web and apply admission form remotely.
• Provide LMS system.

This system is built on top of the following technologies:
• J2EE: Java 2 enterprise edition is the used programming language for the project.
• Struts: an open source MVC (Model View Controller) frame work built on java used in the presentation layer.
• Tiles: a framework used to build the templates and layout of the project to make it easy for changing the design and layout.
• JSP: Java server pages.
• W3C standard: all JSP and html pages designed using W3C standard to achieve the highest compatibility with most of web browsers.
• CSS: all fonts, table, and colors in the portal pages are using CSS (cascade style sheet).
• Hibernate: an ORM (Object Relation Mapping) open source framework used to build the tier between the business logic and database, this framework helps in switching the project between more than one DBMS without a lot of changes.
• JAAS: (Java Authentication and Authorization Service).
• JASPER: reporting framework.
• JUnit: A Unit Testing frame work used to test some parts of the business logic and ORM during development phase.
• Java script: used in JSP pages to perform some basic validation and control of work flow.
• AJAX: Web 2 technology for more efficiency and interactivity with less server requests.
• JBoss: an Open source Application Server used to deploy project on it.
• Tomcat: Web server and Servlet/JSP container used to server JSP and HTML pages.
• Oracle9i: The Database Management System.
• Linux Enterprise: The servers' operating system.
• Servers: 2 Dell Power Edge 6650 Servers.

• Presentation Layer: This layer is used to present and view data to users using Struts and JSP.
• Business logic layer: This layer contains the business logic and data processing packages with taking in consideration building the business logic layer as services so they can be accessed from many other applications when possible and needed.
• ORM and Database layer: This layer is used for data storage and retrieval.

• Student: for student academic and CMS.
• Tutor: for tutor academic and CMS services.
• Main Registration department: for reporting, calendar management and other services.
• Student affairs department: for reporting, special admission application insertion.
• Public relations department: For university news and announcement management.
• Portal coordinators in all academic centers / ICTC: manage their own users (students and tutors) accounts, add centers

• Assignments coordinator: upload assignments to the portal.
• University management, Academic centers managers, academic assistant: This is a new sub portal provide managerial services as tutors and students tracing, messaging, generating reports, charts… etc.
• Administrator: Manage all portal services, accounts, roles, permissions, polls, news and announcements …etc.

• Student: Messages, Term Summary, Grades, Courses, Forums.
• Tutor: Messages, Classes, students list, Grades Insertion, CMS.
• Administration: News and announcement, Manage users' accounts and permissions.
• Registration: Calendar settings, reports.

[ Fig. 13: Student portal , Fig. 14: Tutor portal]

3. Financial System:

Owner
Financial Department/ Al-Quds Open University.

Description

• The Financial System is responsible of creating general ledger transactions, which is posted automatically to the general ledger chart of accounts.
• Financial System manipulates items depreciation.
• Financial System allows you to centralize data for all regions.
• You may display or print a detailed report showing these transactions at any time you wish.

• Accounts payable: accounts payable are debts resulting from purchasing assets or receiving services.
• Accounts receivable: Money which is owed to QOU by a customer for products and services provided on credit.
• General Ledger: A book of final entry summarizing all of QOU financial transactions.
• Items depreciation: a process to calculate the life time of an item and its value at the end of each year.
• Multi currency.

• Oracle Developer 2000.
• Oracle Report Builder 3.0.5.8.0.
• Oracle9i database.
• Linux O.S.

Primary Users
Accountant Departments in all of the university sites (more than 20 sites)

Primary Interfaces
QOU chart of accounts, Entity Voucher, Payment Voucher, Receipts Voucher, Items depreciation, statement of account report, trial balance report, revenue and expenses report, deficits and surplus reports.

Fig. 15: Financial System

4. Human Resources System:

Owner
Human Resources Department / Al Quds Open University

Description

• Al-Quds Open University employs more than 2500 employees. As a result, a computerized system that can manage this huge amount of employees' data and their profile is needed.
• Employee affairs System consolidates and provides centralize access to human resources and enterprise information, tools, and resources in simple and easy way.
• Employee affairs system provides the Human Resources Dept. with many serious services besides improving the efficiency and the quality of work by standardizing information.

Features

Employee Affairs system provides the HR dept. with many services such as:

• The ability to manage (save, view, update) the employees profile.
• The ability to manage all types of employees' vacations, private leaves, vacation balance, attendance, overtime working...Etc.
• The ability to interact and manipulate employment applications.
• The system has the ability to give the employees their steps and grades automatically according to the grading scale.
• Employee affairs system contains a set of reports that satisfies administrative and statistical needs, with the flexibility to build any report in the future.

• Oracle 9i database
• Developer 6i interface for clients under windows environment
• Web enable(internet/intranet)
• Linux operating system for DB server

• Human Resources department employees in all of the university sites (more than 25 sites) in addition to Amman office.
• Administrator assistants and department managers
• All employees on web. (Future vision).

• HR dept. (employee profile, vacations, private leaves, allowances, attendance, transactions, employment, security, reports)
• Administration assistants (attendance)
• Department manager (attendance, employee profile)
• All employees (employee profile, vacation balance)

Fig. 16: Human Resources System

5. Payroll System

Owner
Human Resources Department / Al Quds Open University

Description

• Payroll System consolidates and provides centralize access to human resources and enterprise information, tools, and resources in a simple and easy way.
• Payroll system provides the Human Resources Dept. with many serious services that easily calculates the monthly salaries for its entire staff in reliability and high stage of accuracy.

• The ability to manage and calculate the employees' monthly salary.
• The ability to manage all types of employees' work contracts.
• The ability to interact and manipulating with employee insurance contract and income taxes according to (Income tax General Directorate).
• The ability to interact with employees' loans and sub salaries.
• The system has the ability to refresh the employees' salary automatically according to the grading scale.
• The ability to interact with several kinds of allowances and deposits.
• Payroll system is wholly integrated with HR system.
• Payroll system contains a set of reports that satisfies administrative and financial needs such as: salary sheet, salary details, insurance, etc., with the flexibility to build any report in the future.

• Oracle 9i database
• Developer 6i interface for clients under windows environment
• Web enabled (internet/intranet)
• Linux operating system for DB server

• HR dept. (allowances & deposits, insurance contracts, transactions, employment, security, reports)
• Financial department (salary details sheet, income tax sheet)

Fig. 17: Payroll System

6. Stock & Purchases Control System:

Owner
Al-Quds Open University / Equipments and Purchasing Department

Description

• SPCS is a system for serving equipments and fixed Assets data. The system manages the fixed assets and equipments transactions in the University.
• Also the system serving 2000 employees custodies and equipments at the university which is distributed in 25 educational regions.
• SPCS also includes SPCS Desktop Reports (SDR), which provides a variety of reports for helping the storekeepers and equipments employees to manage their work. Features
• Items and groups for requirements and fixed assets data and common code tables (for suppliers, educational regions, employees, etc.)
• Orders processing and tracking
• Tenders processing and tracking
• Employee custodies processing and tracking
• Item records: balance and detail data, Entering
• Transactions auditing and tracking
• Inter university transaction processing like In, Out
• Statistical and aggregation reports.

• Oracle 9i Database (Linux)
• PL/SQL programming language
• Developer 2000 Prog. tools (Form50 Builder and Report30 Builder)
• Client Server Architecture

• All 53 storekeepers and requirements employees use the system in educational regions and centers.
• Stock and purchasing department users.
• System coordinator in stock and purchasing department.

• Employees custodies or consume requirements management.
• Tender distribution from central store to regions stores.
• Purchasing management.
• Books management like selling and distributions.
• Personal computers maintenance management inside the university.
• Stock taking for stores in the university.

Fig. 18: Stock & Purchases Control System

7. Exam Evaluation Control System (EECS):

Owner
Al-Quds Open University/ Quality Control Department

Description

• EECS is a system for evaluating and controlling the university mid term and final exams. The evaluation is for the questions and typical answers papers of the exam and it is also for the corrected student answer paper. The evaluation base on the specific standards.
• EECS also includes EECS Desktop Reports (EDR), which provides a variety of reports, which helps the quality control department employees to manage their work.

• Standards types and items question, and answer technique items data and common code tables (for academic programs, educational regions, academic supervisors… etc.)
• Evaluation for question and typical answer for midterm and final exams and tracking
• Evaluation for student corrected book
• Statistical and aggregation reports.

• Oracle 9i Database (Linux)
• PL/SQL programming language
• Developer 2000 Programming tool(Windows)
• Form50 Builder
• Report30 Builder
• Client Server Architecture

• Quality Control Department.
• Academic supervisors.
• The precedence of the university.

• Evaluation for the supervisor through the evaluation of exams and typical answers.
• Evaluate the supervisor through the evaluation of corrected student answer book.

Fig. 19: Exam Evaluation Control System

8. Website of Al-Quds Open University:

Owner
Al-Quds Open University/ ICTC

Description
On the World Wide Web, Al-Quds Open University website is considered as "the world window to the university", which reflects a bright image of the university to the outside world. QOU website contains a lot of the university definitive and academic Information, in addition to the university news and activities.

Furthermore, QOU website provides academic information and services for around 55,000 students, as well a web mail service for approximately 1500 university staff members.

Features
The university website is characterized by its harmony in terms of programming with the websites development international standards (W3C). This leads to the speed in accessing the site and navigate it in a clearer and easier way.

All these features have approved the university website to be ranked as one of the most interesting sites on Palestine, according to the classification of the international "Alexa" website responsible in observing the number of websites visitors on the level of each country in the world.

Technology

• Code writing: JSP, HTML, Java Script.
• CSS: all fonts, colors, and table, in the web site pages are using cascade style sheet (CSS).
• Graphics: Adobe Photo Shop.
• Animations: Macromedia Flash MX, SwishMax.
• W3C Standard: all JSP and HTML pages designed using W3C standard to achieve the highest compatibility with most of web browsers.

• Internal Visitors: QOU staff of employees, tutors and students.
• External Visitors:
  • Audience interested in the university academic programs, news and activities.
  • Audience interested in distance and open learning academic programs.

• About QOU: definition of the university.
• QOU Structure: the University structure.
• QOU News and Announcements: Contain news, activities and announcements of the university.
• QOU Educational Regions and Study Centers: Distribution of the university educational regions and study centers.
• Academic Programs: Academic programs offered by QOU.
• Scientific Research and Postgraduate Program: Contains definition and the activities of the scientific research, and QOU magazine for research and studies.
• Admission and Registration: Contains requirements for admission and registration at the university, and all of the regulations and laws relating to the students.
• QOU Technical and Productivity Centers (ICTC, MPC, Avicenna Knowledge Center, and Continuing Education Center): Contains definition, activities, equipments and projects at these Centers.
• Departments of the University (Student Affairs, Quality Control, Planning, Curricula and Textbooks, Evaluation and Measurement, and Libraries): Containing definitions and activities for each department.
• Academics: Contains assignments, academic calendar, text books, and self guiding cards.
• QOU Branches: Containing information on office of the university in Amman and university branches in both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
• QOU Web Mail: a mail service for all QOU employees.

Fig. 20: QOU Website

9. Attendance & private leaves signing System:

Owner
Human Resources Department/Al Quds Open University

Description

• Attendance and private leaves signing System consolidates and provides centralize access to human resources and enterprise information, tools, and resources in simple and easy way.
• Attendance and private leaves signing System is a web based application that provides the Human Resources Dept. with the daily attendance for all of the university staff

• The ability to manage daily attendance and private leaves signing of the employees by recognizing their accounts upon this system.
• The ability to manage all types of employees' shifts by their time stamp.
• The system is completely integrated with HR system, especially the employees' vacation balances.
• The system has the ability to calculate the attendance late and private leaves by calculating the late in minutes and update on vacation balance.
• Attendance and private leaves signing System contains a set of reports that satisfies administrative and monitorial needs, with the flexibility to build any report in the future.

• Oracle 9i database
• Internet explorer
• Java initiator
• Linux operating system for DB server

• All university sites and offices (more than 30 sites and offices) in addition to Amman office.
• Administrator assistants.
• Department managers

• A default screen for recognizing the signature (users' accounts).

[ Fig. 21: Attendance Signing Screen , Fig. 22: Private Leaves Signing Screen]