MSc. IT Student Portal (MITSP) development using user-centered design approach / Muhamad Farid Abdul Rashid

The aim of this project is to develop MSc. IT Student Portal (MITSP) for Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Science (FCMS) by applying User-Centered Design (UCD) approach. There are four main objectives for this research which are to identify user requirements for MITSP, to analyze user requirements for MITSP, to design MITSP and lastly to develop MITSP. To achieve all the objectives, phase by phase processes have been conducted. The first phase is the problem identification and planning phase, to identify the problems that occurred from the current communication medium between the coordinator of MSc. IT with students and to plan how to get the requirements and what method to be used to develop the portal. First objective achieved during the second phase which is the requirement gathering phase, to obtain list of functional and nonfunctional requirements from the stakeholders. Second objective achieved during the third phase which is requirements analysis phase where all the functional and nonfunctional requirements are analyzed to get the finalize requirements and the deliverable is Software Requirements Specification (SRS). Third objective achieved during the fourth phase which is the design phase where interface and database are constructed based on the user requirement and the deliverable is Software Design Document (SDD). The fourth objective achieved during the last phase which is the development phase where the portal started to be developed based on the functional and non-functional requirements that have been gathered and analyzed. Evaluation on the portal is also conducted during development phase with the user to identify either the portal developed met the user requirements or not and if it met the user requirements, MITSP is delivered to the user. By developing this portal, it will help the coordinator to manage the programs and able to provide a better communication medium between coordinator and students. Among the new features added to MITSP are automatic e-mail and SMS notification alert to the students when there is new announcement posted and new document uploaded to the portal and also a forum feature as a discussion medium between coordinator and students for certain topic related to MSc. IT program.