DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A SMART STUDENT ASSISTANT APPLICATION

ABSTRACT

The modern-day student often finds themselves struggling to keep track of their student life. This includes grades, upcoming tests, exams, presentations, etc. The purpose of this app is to provide an avenue for the aforementioned in order to maximize student and overall, individual productivity. Ultimately, this project is designed to simplify the way students plan their day and execute their day-to-day tasks whilst still maintaining a level of efficiency and quality necessary to be successful in any academic institution they find themselves in. A step-by-step approach was taken from problem definition to viable solutions and feasible features added to improve functionality and usability of the application. These features such as the flask server which returns a value of the expected grade from the linear model it runs, is an essential part of the application. These values returned demonstrate the efficiency and the possibilities created by the development of this application. Upon completion, this project is indicative of the fact that student grade prediction is possible and not just possible, but can be efficiently and beautifully executed.

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

                1.1     Overview

The modern-day student often finds him/herself struggling to keep track of their student life. This includes grades, upcoming tests, exams, presentations, etc. The purpose of this app is to provide an avenue for the aforementioned in order to maximize student and overall, individual productivity. As a student myself, I see the efficiency in having an assistant, soto-speak keeping track of all the activities that occur in a student’s life. This is where the Smart Student Assistant comes in. The aim of this project is to simplify the way students plan their day and execute their day-to-day tasks whilst still maintaining a level of efficiency and quality necessary to be successful in any academic institution they find themselves in.

Contained in this chapter is a brief introduction to the reader into what exactly this project entails, the reasoning behind it and what the project aims at achieving upon its conclusion.

 

                1.2     Background and Motivation

Over the course of a semester, a student usually finds it difficult to actually ascertain where exactly they stand in terms of grades and what that means for them. At the point in which they find out where they actually stand, it’s usually already too late; in the sense that the opportunity to significantly affect these grades (exams, tests, presentations, etc.) are either already too close or have already passed. This epistemic ambivalence, partnered with the difficulty of organizing a hectic, rather disorganized semester spanning the length of several months is pure hell for most students. So much time and effort are spent just trying to catch up on schoolwork and organize oneself for the upcoming days/weeks that there’s barely any energy/motivation left to actually take action on this hectic schedule or even develop one’s own personal life.

This isn’t some new problem experienced in the 21^st century. This issue has been around for as long as the educational system and schools have existed and yet the problem remains. The cataclysmic combination of situational unawareness and disorganization has been a net that mangles students from all over the world since the dawn of the educational procession.

Whilst there have been numerous studies aimed at estimating the probability of a student passing/failing, the vast majority of them produce end results at the climax of a semester;

i.e., the point at which they give results to the student is at the end of the semester. At that point, it is already too late for the student to make required changes to their educational processes such as their study time in the required courses.

However, this view isn’t to slight prior studies on the matter. For without these studies, we wouldn’t have known the right adjustments to make in the first place. The question needs first be asked: “What needs to be done and done differently?”. To answer this, lets take a look at some prior studies on the matter.

 

In 2017, Akhilesh Patil, Karthik Ganesan and Anita Kanavalli collaborated to write a paper based on their explorations in a similar problem domain. The paper revolved around the development and implementation of multiple neural networks, i.e., feed forward and recurrent neural networks to analyze massive amounts of data or ‘Big Data’ gotten from an educational institution such as a university in order to identify trends and/or patterns to predict a student’s GPA.

 

Another study in 2017, conducted by Zafar Iqbal, Junaid Quadir, Adnan Noor Mian and

Faisal Kamiran revolved around techniques such as Collaborative Filtering, Matrix Factorization and Restricted Boltzmann Machines (RBMs) being implemented to analyze real-world data from a university with the Restricted Boltzmann Machine or RBM having the best accuracy of them all.

 

This goes to show that this problem domain is, by no means, an untraveled road. It has been rather extensively researched.

 

                1.3     Statement of the Problem

Even with all the aforementioned referenced papers and other existing similar papers supporting the urgency of this study, there is one recurrent deficiency. Whilst the purpose of the paper was completed; being the fact that they were able to ascertain a sufficient

method for calculating the student’s GPA at the end of the semester, there was practically no feedback between the product of this research to the student. This feedback would be vital to the students as it highlights a comparative difference/similarity against a backdrop of the AI’s database. This is to say that this information would be priceless to the student as they would essentially be able to statistically see into the future and make necessary changes/modifications to their educational process to maximize output.

 

                1.4     Aim and Objectives

The intended system to solve the aforementioned problem is a mobile application (developed with the Flutter toolkit) which employs an already developed artificial intelligence (written in Python) to actively compare the student’s entered grades against a database of similar criteria to give the student an accurate estimate of their likely grade at the end of the semester.

The application will also have a reminder feature which will accept and document student’s timetable & upcoming events so as to help keep the student on top of their daily lives, maximize productivity and optimize time management.

Objectives:

The objectives of the project are:

1. To understand the GPA calculation
2. To develop an android based application which will calculate GPA and ease the student’s educational burden.

 

                1.5     Significance of the Project

The successful development and implementation of this application will be of immense benefit to the educational sector not just nationally, but potentially worldwide. The research carried out on this problem domain will significantly help in bridging the proverbial gap between students and the educational process as a whole. The sheer nature of the project is largely unprecedented in its approach and would be a one-of-a-kind due to its unparalleled and unique nature.

 

The application dares to take an emboldened step further and to do what was once considered as impossible or preposterous – predict the future. But an old saying stipulates:

“By looking into the past, we can see the future”. This concept is represented in no small part by this application.

 

By banking on statistical data, the system is able to, with great accuracy, give the student a clear representation of the future that lies ahead of them. Thereupon, the student can adjust their lifestyle accordingly and take necessary measures to manipulate and effectively control their future.

 

 

 

 

 

                1.6     Project Risks Assessment

RISKS

Inability to carry out research due to loss of hardware/software resources	Be aware of and observe school IT security procedures   Secure Android mobile phone when not in use.
Loss of work due to equipment failure /loss	Daily Backup of data to multiple sources of storage such as flash drives, hard drives, google drive, etc. for multiplicity
Software                   availability (Unavailability of API’s)	Alternative API’s will be checked for.  Software requirements will be identified in good time for possible contentious software.
A user being dishonest about their grades or other input information thereby leading to a false prediction.	Implore users to be forthcoming so as not to give themselves a false sense of hope.
Comparative   dataset unavailable.	Alternative datasets will be identified and acquired in good time.

Table 1: Project Risk Assessment 

                1.7     Scope/Project Organization

The remaining parts of this project documentation report describe the Literature Review in the immediately preceding Chapter 2, Requirements, Analysis and Design in Chapter 3, Implementation and Testing in Chapter 4, then finally Discussion, Conclusion and Recommendations in Chapter 5. Other areas covered in the last chapters include, but not limited to: limitations, potential setbacks, possible features and suggested improvements for the system.

DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A SMART STUDENT ASSISTANT APPLICATION

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