FACULTY STUDENT MENTORSHIP PROGRAM. A Thesis. Presented to the. Faculty of. San Diego State University. In Partial Fulfillment

Transcription

1 FACULTY STUDENT MENTORSHIP PROGRAM A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of San Diego State University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Science in Computer Science by Pooja Umesh Nihalani Summer 2011

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3 iii Copyright 2011 by Pooja Umesh Nihalani All Rights Reserved

4 iv DEDICATION I would like to dedicate this thesis to my dearest parents who have been an everlasting source of inspiration in my life. I would not have been able to achieve what I have without their support.

5 v ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS Faculty Student Mentorship Program by Pooja Umesh Nihalani Master of Science in Computer Science San Diego State University, 2011 The focus of the thesis project is to develop a recruitment tool which would be used by a professor or any industry to conduct online tests of candidates and evaluate them against a set of job requirements. It also has an integrated discussion forum which would be used as a collaboration platform for test takers and administrators. The motivation behind this thesis project was to create a tool that would help the professors of the business school to streamline the process of intern selection. With the discussion forum tool, students are encouraged to share their ideas, views and knowledge. Thus, this is not only a recruitment test application but also a collaboration platform for test takers and administrators. This project also has a lot of scope for enhancements and customization to support a variety of question types, user types and industry types. The test questions are designed to help evaluation of character traits, rather that prerequisite knowledge, at least at this stage.

6 vi TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE ABSTRACT...v LIST OF TABLES... viii LIST OF FIGURES... ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...x CHAPTER 1 BACKGROUND LITERATURE REVIEW Introduction Limitation of Paper Based Assessment User Friendly and Functional Reporting Collaboration Persistence Storage Traditional Recruitment Test vs. Online Recruitment Test Disadvantages of Web-Based Recruitment Test Conclusion ARCHITECTURE DESIGN Architecture of the System The Client Tier Business Tier Data Tier DATA MODEL User Data Model Test Data Model Subjective Test Model Protégé PROCESS MODEL...15

7 vii 5.1 Role Based Access ADD User/ Registration Manage User Add Test Attributes Edit Test Access Test Access Discussion Forum GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE (PRESENTATION TIER) CONCLUSION AND ENHANCEMENTS Future Enhancements Conclusion...33

8 viii LIST OF TABLES PAGE Table 2.1. Comparison between Traditional and Online Recruitment Test...4 Table 4.1. Database Tables...10

9 ix LIST OF FIGURES PAGE Figure 3.1. Architecture of the system...8 Figure 4.1. ER diagram...11 Figure 4.2. User data model...12 Figure 4.3. Test data model...13 Figure 4.4. Subjective test model...13 Figure 4.5. Protégé data model Figure 5.1. Protégé data model Figure 5.2. Seq diagram login...17 Figure 5.3. Registration...18 Figure 5.4. Manage user...19 Figure 5.5. Add test attributes...21 Figure 5.6. Edit test...22 Figure 5.7. Access test Figure 5.8. Access discussion forum Figure 6.1. Home page...25 Figure 6.2. Login...26 Figure 6.3. User registration page...26 Figure 6.5. Subjective test...27 Figure 6.6. Test response Figure 6.7. Discussion forum...28 Figure 6.8. Protégé page Figure 6.9. Create a new question for test Figure Edit, delete question Figure Create new user Figure Change the role of the user...31 Figure Create new protégé...31 Figure /Delete protégé/...32

10 x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I thank my advisor Dr. Carl Eckberg for serving as my thesis supervisor and guiding me at various points in time. I also owe my deepest gratitude to Dr. Gangaram Singh for giving me this opportunity to develop a solution for Faculty Student Mentorship Program. I also want to thank Dr. Tao Xie for being a part of the thesis committee and for his help and cooperation. Finally I want to thank my parents for sacrifices they made to help me to attend graduate school, my spouse and in-laws for their support and cooperation throughout the project. I am very grateful for all the sacrifices, support and motivation that they have provided me.

11 1 CHAPTER 1 BACKGROUND Faculties are continually integrating technology into their work in an attempt to deliver automated evaluation and enhance student-teacher relationships. Online, distant exams that provide automated evaluation result in considerable time and cost savings. This tool is beneficial to test-takers and also the one who has to evaluate the test. The use of this Recruitment Test application can benefit students as they do not have to be physically present in the college or an exam hall. They can appear for the test from anywhere where they could have internet access. They appear for the test at any time of the day. Moreover, and perhaps most importantly, because this generation of students has clearly embraced technology to a greater extent than their older peers, the ability to complete their test online may motivate these students to write their test more accurately than they would have if they could only use traditional methods. For example, final submission of the exam answers can be prevented until all questions are answered. Conducting online tests also provides benefits to faculty, particularly regarding efficiency. Whereas grading test by hand requires a large time commitment, online tests can be assigned and graded with a minimal time commitment. In general, online test software can provide students with immediate assistance and feedback, faculty can spend less time clarifying small details related to test, allowing them to spend more time on more significant issues. When deciding whether to use an online recruitment test and software, recruiters should consider and evaluate its potential to increase, or at least maintain the same level of, student interest. Accordingly, the purpose of this research is to create an online Recruitment Test. The expected benefits from the online test include instructional timesaving, more positive student attitudes, and efficient output.

12 2 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 INTRODUCTION The SDSU Recruitment Test and Collaboration application involves developing a web based application which can be used by professors or any industries to conduct online tests of candidates and evaluate them against a set of job requirements. With this application test administrators get meaningful tabular reports (via ) with based on which candidate evaluations along various dimensions can be performed. 2.2 LIMITATION OF PAPER BASED ASSESSMENT Using printed page tests has some constraints. Possible limitation to printed page based assessments may be overcome by a web-based system: One advantage of using computer technology is that it helps faculty overcome several of the constraints of traditional forms of assessment. When incorporated into an appropriate user interface, an online based test has these virtues Faculty can overcome traditional constraints regarding grading or providing feedback on tests, particularly when multiple areas are simultaneously assessed. Computer technology, specifically database technology, increases the efficiency of storing and evaluating test results. Moreover, computer technology allows for realtime evaluation and summaries of scores, providing faculty and students with immediate feedback on performance. Coupled with the appropriate computation functions, database technology can perform rapid calculations and provide immediate results of assessment to provide users with immediate feedback. Web-based technology can provide students with more opportunities for peer interaction by overcoming the constraints traditionally imposed in terms of time and location. The online test has a greater advantage in terms of its accessibility at any time. Because the assessment of answers, in this project, are not intended to be shared with students, some of the points raised above, are not strongly relevant.

13 3 2.3 USER FRIENDLY AND FUNCTIONAL Test administrators can test various job applicants online. With this application candidates can register themselves directly with the web based interface and may take the test online at any time. Once the test is complete, administrators can evaluate these candidates by the qualities they are looking for, which in FSMP s case are Aptitude Sincerity Altruism Loyalty Dedication Willingness to learn and etc. 2.4 REPORTING To further help test administrators this application will do the analysis and generate reports showing if the candidate is the right fit for the job. These evaluation reports with their scores in each of the attributes/ qualities are ed to the evaluators address with its subject describing the identity of the candidate who has appeared for the exam. Evaluation reports are thus stored in an account. Subjective questions are ed to the evaluator for further verification. This prevents the application to maintain a separate database for storing the evaluation reports 2.5 COLLABORATION This application will have discussion forums to encourage students to share their ideas, views and knowledge. Thus this would not only be a recruitment test application but also a collaboration platform for test takers and administrators. 2.6 PERSISTENCE STORAGE Registration data related to each candidate would never be deleted and would be maintained in a relational database. Each candidate will have to register himself by creating a profile on the application to appear for the test or to participate in the discussion forum.

14 4 2.7 TRADITIONAL RECRUITMENT TEST VS. ONLINE RECRUITMENT TEST Table 2.1, which compares traditional and online recruitment processes, shows that server-side processing replaces the evaluator s involvement when candidates complete an online test. While the traditional process is well understood, online test methods require additional explanation in terms of taking the test. Table 2.1. Comparison between Traditional and Online Recruitment Test Traditional Recruitment Test Online Recruitment Test 1. Student comes to exam hall Student logs on to Recruitment test website 2. Instructor distributes test question paper Student retrieves test question from website 3. Student composes and records answers Student records answers in input fields 4. Instructor collects answers Student submits answers 5. Instructor grades assignment System extracts responses and compares them to correct answers 6. Instructor records scores System records scores Each online test is presented to the student as an HTML form (a section of HTML code that contains input fields or submit buttons). Students record their responses in the input fields and, when they have completed a test to their satisfaction, submit it to the server by clicking the save/submit button. After submission, a program run on the web server (i.e., a server-side program) extracts the student s responses, records them, computes a score based on student responses and records the student s score in an automated to the grader. The results are communicated back to the grader in tabular form showing the student s responses, number of correct responses, and the score obtained. This quick turn around is not feasible under the traditional approach, while costless grading makes it feasible under the online approach. As with the submission of a traditional test, the submission of an online test requires proof of the submitter s identity. Rather than relying on a student-supplied identity with each submission, the user identification (ID)/password method is often used because of its

15 5 increased accuracy, its provision of access to all identity-dependent pages after identity has been established. Identity checking occurs when a student clicks a link to any identity dependent document or submits an assignment to thwart anonymous access through the Recruitment test s Internet address. After students log into the system, the test is generated by a server-side script that performs several tasks. After his/her student user ID and password are validated, the student is presented with the test to be completed. The student responds to the test s input mechanism. Save/Submit Answers button sends the responses to a server side script, which computes the student score and sends the response in an DISADVANTAGES OF WEB-BASED RECRUITMENT TEST Web-based evaluation can be effectively used to provide evaluation and feedback that is unbiased, immediate, platform independent, and automated. However, new technology brings new concerns. The negative aspects of web-based Recruitment Test assessment systems are discussed in the following sections. Inability to observe candidate reasoning: When grading student tests and assignments, it is useful for instructors to view all of their work that they may observe the reasoning behind their answers. Unfortunately, web-based evaluation does not allow instructors to do so. Thus, as evaluation becomes increasingly automated, the evaluator/recruiter may lose the ability to gain knowledge of student perception into the problem-solving processes, which may be the greatest disadvantage of web-based evaluation. Availability of fewer question types: Automating the evaluation process eliminates certain types of questioning and grading. However, there are new types of questions that can be delivered online that cannot be delivered using traditional methods. For example, objective questions with no options, or questions with two options(true or false) are not yet available in this test. Security Issues: Authentication is an enormous problem. In addition there is the issue of other people being present to help with the online answers. Whenever the Internet is used to complete any task, including a home test, security issues inevitably arise. How can the testtakers be assured that a student is doing his or her own work? It is possible the student is getting a friend of his to complete his test. It is important to use personal face to face

16 6 evaluation after an online test before deciding on a candidate. Online tests give a good first level filtering mechanism. Technical Difficulties: Experiencing technical difficulties, whether due to a server that is down or software that needs to be updated, is an inevitable component of using web-based evaluation.test-takers must develop a plan for handling these difficulties and clarify the actions that their students must take in the event of technical problems. 2.9 CONCLUSION The main objective of this study was to evaluate the use of recruitment application and discussion forum as a recruitment tool. It is useful of course to compare various strategies. One possible means of evaluation is comparing online recruitment test systems with traditional recruitment test systems. If both types of systems have identical features, then such a comparison would simply evaluate the online environment as a presentation medium. However, because online recruitment test systems can perform tasks that are either too costly or impossible to perform with traditional systems, a comparison of online and traditional homework systems also requires consideration of the additional capabilities of online recruitment test systems. As the comparison presented indicates, addition of an online recruitment test to the Faculty Student Mentorship Program, as compared to its absence from the FSMP, should lead to better student-mentor relationship, easy evaluation, and availability of test to students at anytime of the day thereby leaning towards online recruitment system approach.

17 7 CHAPTER 3 ARCHITECTURE DESIGN This chapter describes the implementation of FSMP Recruitment test system. J2EE Platform is used with MySQL as the underlying database. The advantages of using J2EE as the server side scripting language are fast and easy development and greater ability to handle huge amounts of web traffic. JavaScript and AJAX calls are made to execute the client side scripts without changing the state of the page as and when required. JForum is used to provide discussion forum capabilities. 3.1 ARCHITECTURE OF THE SYSTEM The architecture of the system is based on three- tier architecture. There are three logical tiers: the Client(presentation) Tier, the Business Tier, and the Data Tier. The client tier is responsible for displaying the contents to the user while business tier communicates between presentation tier and data tier. For instance, getting a request of displaying a test, it is the business tier that retrieves data from the database and displays it on the screen. It is main component of the website since it is responsible for handling the overall logic. The data tier is responsible for storing the test questions and student profile. Figure 3.1 shows the three tier architecture of FSMP online recruitment test application and discussion forum. 3.2 THE CLIENT TIER Web-based client: In a standard Web browser such as Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) and Mozilla Firefox. A Web-based client is comprised of two main parts that include: (1) dynamic Web pages containing various types of markup languages (e.g., HTML, XML, etc.) which are generated by Web components (JSPs and servlets) on the Web tier and (2) a Web browser which renders the pages received from the server. Web-based clients typically do not execute complex business rules, query databases and/or connect to legacy systems. Normally, heavyweight operations are offloaded to server side components running inside a J2EE server. J2EE components are either pages using JSP technology (JSP pages) or servlets.

18 8 Figure 3.1. Architecture of the system. Servlets allow users to run Java code on the server and send HTML pages to a browser. Java servlet technology enables developers to define HTTP-specific servlet classes. As a result, a servlet class extends the capabilities of servers, which host applications that are accessed by way of a request-response programming model. JSP are text-based documents that execute as servlets. A JSP page contains two types of text that include: Static Template Data, that may be expressed in any text-based format like HTML and JSP Elements that determine how a page constructs dynamic content.

19 9 3.3 BUSINESS TIER Business code, which is logic that solves the requirements or needs of a business entity is handled by Java classes running on the business tier. They can be used to create a business object and related content may be sent to Java server pages (JSPs) for display. Furthermore, a business object can receive data from a client program, process it (if required) and send it to the data tier for storage or retrieve data from storage, process it (if required), and send it back to the client program. 3.4 DATA TIER Database systems provide the information that is vital to the business processes of an enterprise. The data tier handles software and includes enterprise infrastructure systems such as transactions processing and database systems. J2EE application components use database connectivity API s to retrieve data stored in the database. The database plays a critical role in the storing and retrieving of information. A database is a collection of data that is organized so its contents may be accessed, managed and updated.

20 10 CHAPTER 4 DATA MODEL The Recruitment test application system database has the following structure shown in Table 4.1. Table 4.1. Database Tables Table Name Purpose user_details Represents the user information Role Represents the role of the user user_role Contains the link of user id and role id questiongroup Represents the question group associated with the quality quality Represents the quality check for the students in each of the question group question Represents question information question_group_option Represents options associated with question group subjective_question Represents the Subjective Question protege Represents the protégé information The complete conceptual physical database schema also known as an ER diagram for FSMP Recruitment Test Application, is illustrated in the database diagram below. In software engineering, an entity-relationship model (ERM) is an abstract and conceptual representation of data. Entity-relationship modeling is a database modeling method, used to produce a type of conceptual schema or semantic data model of a system, often a relational database, and its requirements in a top-down fashion. Diagrams created by this process are called entity-relationship diagrams, ER diagrams, or ERDs as shown in Figure USER DATA MODEL As shown in Figure 4.2, user details are stored in the table user_details which stores information like Redid, username, password, first name, last name, address, contact number, address1, address2, city, state, birth details. There is another table role: which stores all possible roles. Table user_role associates user_details with available roles.

21 11 Figure 4.1. ER diagram. 4.2 TEST DATA MODEL FSMP Recruitment test is very complex set of questions, options and quality on which the student is being evaluated, which could be explained as follows. As per requirement, a group of questions was used to evaluate students on a particular quality.. Type of question and options were decided by quality and is represented by a question group and options in the database table. The questions under an associated question group and quality are represented by question table. The Test data model is shown in Figure 4.3.

22 12 Figure 4.2. User data model. Figure 4.3 shows that the questiongroup table comprises a question group heading and their option heading and uniform options for all the questions under this heading. This table is associated with the quality table. A given quality is examined by a particular question group Table question_group_option comprises option values for all the questions under that questiongroup. Table question that is associated with a questiongroup contains question number, question, order of weight (Ascending/Descending) of the options, quality associated with this question. Table quality comprises a quality name and description. 4.3 SUBJECTIVE TEST MODEL Subjective test consist of subjective question text and is shown in the Figure PROTÉGÉ Protégé table stores the protégé information. The table contains protégé name, description and image path as shown in Figure 4.5.

23 13 Figure 4.3. Test data model. Figure 4.4. Subjective test model.

24 Figure 4.5. Protégé data model. 14

25 15 CHAPTER 5 PROCESS MODEL The thesis aims to satisfy the following requirement and the implementation of these requirements is discussed in this chapter. 1. Role based access functionality for admin users and students. 2. Ability to add new users to the system, assign roles to users and delete users from the system. 3. Add new test which consists of: questions, answers, points associated with each question, quality, and evaluation type for each question 4. Edit test that has been added to the database and also add new questions to the existing ones. Delete individual questions from the test. 5. Evaluate and the evaluation result for non-subjective type test to the address of the test taker, should the administrator choose to do this. 6. Enable Students to participate in the discussion forum, by adding their post. Figure 5.1 shows the process model for this system. 5.1 ROLE BASED ACCESS In order to access the application the user should login into the system. The Login page will accept a user name and password from the user. Users have been classified based on their roles. Currently the system has two roles in place, namely Administrator role and User role. The administrator role has the privilege to create new users in the system, edit the current role of the user and delete the user from the system. The Administrator also has permission to edit the test and delete questions in the same. The User role has the privilege to access a test, participate in a discussion forum by submitting posts or reading the posts. Based on the role returned from the database, the users are shown the list of functionalities they have access to in the left navigation bar. Figure 5.2 describes the login functionality where users enter their user name and password. Proper validation has been handled in the event the user forgets to enter his username or password. Once the system validates the username and password it returns a success page where the users are redirected to their home page.

26 16 Figure 5.1. Protégé data model. 5.2 ADD USER/ REGISTRATION Administrators have the privilege of adding new users to the system. The technique used for adding users is explained as follows. The system has the facility to add user and password and other details required in the registration form. Figure 5.3 shows an overview of creating new users to the system. The system throws an exception if a user already exists in the database. Each of these details in the registration form are validated before actually submitting the form to the server requesting it to update into the database. 5.3 MANAGE USER User Management is key to the operation of this system and has been addressed. Figure 5.4 shows an overview of how the users can be managed in the system. Administrators have the facility to change the current role of an existing user where the new role is passed and the system updates the role for the user. There is also a provision to delete the user from the system where the corresponding user id is passed facilitating in removing from the system.

27 17 User Login Screen <UI> Login Login username password username missing password missing Login Success Login Failed Figure 5.2. Seq diagram login.

28 Figure 5.3. Registration. 18

29 19 Administrato r Manage User <UI> EditUser DeleteUser ManageUser role User role edit success UserId User Deleted Successfully Figure 5.4. Manage user.

30 ADD TEST ATTRIBUTES Figure 5.5 gives an overview of how adding new questions, question group, quality associated with the question group and the associated options to the system works. Administrator can add a question, weight the order of the points associated with each option label (weight increases in ascending order that 1 point for option 1, points for option 2 and so on and weight decreases if it is set to be in descending order for instance if answered option 1 then candidate scores 5 points and for option 5 candidate scores 1 point ), the type of question (which can be classified on the quality it is associated to). It also helps to store or update subjective questions for the test. 5.5 EDIT TEST Once the administrator has added a test in the system, there should be a facility to modify the test. Figure 5.6 gives an overview of how this task is accomplished. Administrator can choose an existing question or any other attributes of the test and modify it. There is a provision to add new questions to the existing test and also delete a particular question from the test. 5.6 ACCESS TEST The student can access the test by logging into the system. Once the student finishes taking all the questions he can submit the test. The system in turn evaluates the answers and sends the evaluation to the administrator. The subjective question test is just ed to the administrator. Figure 5.7 describes about the Access Test functionality. 5.7 ACCESS DISCUSSION FORUM Any user can view the discussion forum without actually getting logged into the system. However to participate in the discussion forum i.e. to submit a posts in the topics or to create a topic one has to be a valid user. Thus, the user has to be a registered user to access the discussion forum to create and save posts into it. Figure 5.8 describes how a user can access a discussion forum.

31 21 Administrator AddTestQuestio n <UI> AddTestQuestio ns addtestquestion Test Questiontype QualityToBeChecked Questions Options and points Test Attributes Added Successfully Figure 5.5. Add test attributes.

32 Figure 5.6. Edit test. 22

33 Figure 5.7. Access test. 23

34 Figure 5.8. Access discussion forum. 24

35 25 CHAPTER 6 GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE (PRESENTATION TIER) The GUI for this application is not very complicated. It is very user friendly and well organized and maintains a different interface for student and administrator. The remainder of this section shows some screenshots of user interfaces in Figures 6.1 through Figure 6.1. Home page. This is a page with static text content and protégé images that are displayed from the database. The side menu will help the user to navigate to recruitment application, discussion forum, protégé, faculty page and login page. To access the recruitment test and to participate in a discussion forum the user has to be logged in with authenticated login username and password. Hence, following are the screen shots of log-in page, registration page, recruitment test.

36 26 Figure 6.2. Login. Figure 6.3. User registration page.

37 27 Figure 6.5. Subjective test. The test response would be sent to the address with subject describing the candidate s identification. The application would be used by students to appear for a test and to participate in a discussion forum, to interact with their mentors. The administrator side application enables administrator to add, edit or delete the content of the test, user, protégé and faculty. It also enables a user to control the discussion forum as shown below.

38 28 Figure 6.6. Test response. Figure 6.7. Discussion forum.

39 29 Figure 6.8. Protégé page. Figure 6.9. Create a new question for test.

40 30 Figure Edit, delete question. Figure Create new user.

41 31 Figure Change the role of the user. Figure Create new protégé.

42 32 Figure /Delete protégé/

43 33 CHAPTER 7 CONCLUSION AND ENHANCEMENTS 7.1 FUTURE ENHANCEMENTS A number of future enhancements that extend this application s functionality are possible. This application is currently not fully supported through mobile browsers, requiring the student s to login into a terminal in order to access the application. In the future the system can be extended to support mobile browsers also. It can support various other question types, for example one word objective questions. This application can also be used by other departments in the college. A Content Management system can be used to manage various static contents on the site. If scores are databased and correlated with program completion success or failure, this might guide the weights given to the questions. 7.2 CONCLUSION The Faculty Student Mentorship program application is built with an approach to help mentors of the business school at SDSU conduct tests other than by a manual process. It also has a collaborated forum for students and mentors to participate in a discussion.