Web-based library students’ research and learning aid information system for the School of Statistics and Planning

Abstract

An academic research aid and learning information system is more of a social-navigation-incorporated academic website which creates a comprehensive room for academic social interactions. Such interactions not only create a virtual environment for academic research and idea-building but also boost motivation among students to develop, incubate and undertake research ventures, not necessarily from curriculum requirement, but from their own desire to be original academic content creators. Today, teens and youth are increasingly becoming online bloggers, file sharers and original content creators on social networking sites and web portals (Lenhart & Madden, 2005) which has prompted incorporation of social navigation in the academic web portals as well. (N.S & N, 2010) . The introduction of social innovations in academic web portals or web-based information systems also influences and attracts more users. (Morville & Louis, 2002). This project aims at addressing the research gap at School of statistics and planning, Makerere University Kampala by presenting a social-navigation-web-based academic research and learning aid information system which will allow students to create their profiles, interactively share research ideas by engaging in online public discussions, connect with their friends, manage their personal user space, upload content, download documents and access professional academic publications and commentaries from a custom search engine designed to return content from the top global academic websites. It is a dynamic social website developed using Laravel™ PHP framework and backed up by MySQL database designed using the Visual Studio integrated design environment powered with several PHP, JavaScript, HTML and CSS support plugins to foster flexible creation.