Effectiveness of Campus Management Solution: End User’s Perspective, A Case Study of a Major University of Pakistan

Abstract

Campus Management Solution (CMS) is a web based mapping of all tasks which are performed by students, employees and alumni of any educational institute/center. It is a well-integrated and automated computer application that provides a web based interface to its customers. Oracle provides this integrated system worldwide with the help of People Soft organization. CMS is adopted by many universities and institutes of well-established countries. In Pakistan, the concept of CMS has grown-up and many universities have adopted such kind of systems. This study is aimed at analyzing the effectiveness of CMS at National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST). In this case study, model based analytical approach with statistical analysis has been used to analyze end user’s perception to assess the holistic picture of adopted system i.e. CMS. Stratified Random Sampling using proportional allocation has been used for data collection from all schools/centers of NUST H-12 campus. Current study covers the state of various system’s non-functional requirements, including performance expectancy, facilitating conditions, system effectiveness and efficiency, and system complexity of CMS through a student’s perspective. Hence, a structured questionnaire consisting of 27 statements with four sections using 5-point Likert Scale has been used to collect data from students of various schools/centers/institutes of NUST, H-12 Campus. The statistical reliability of the designed questionnaire has been tested through Cronbach’s alpha for which the calculated value of the statistic is 0.768. Therefore, the reliability of questionnaire can be considered as good. Various descriptive statistics, of each statement and averages of each section along with the overall average of the data collected from the respondents have been calculated. Furthermore, one way ANOVA has also been applied to check the variations in perception among gender (male vs. female), degree programs (under graduate vs. post graduate) and various schools (engineering vs. medical vs. art and design, etc.). Analysis reveals that trends/ tendencies of respondents for first three sections i.e. performance expectancy, facilitating conditions and system effectiveness & efficiency) are neutral. However, they believe that CMS is a complex system. Moreover, there is a strong need for integrations of CMS with the bank. Fee submission process and leave management system should be incorporated into CMS. Built-in online help facility should also be readily available. Average tendencies of the respondents regarding section-IV (system complexity) are towards disagreement which shows that the system has a complex interface, is badly automated, apprehensive and not user friendly.