Design and Implementation of a Web-Based Management System for Cross-Departmental General Studies Programmes in Nigerian Universities

Abstract

Running General Studies (GEDs) courses at a Nigerian university like Babcock University is about running thousands of students from totally different departments in the same courses at the same time. The University Management Information System (UMIS) does reasonably well at managing registrations and computer-based testing, but it was designed around typical departmental programs and simply does not address the unique workflows necessary to administer the GED. This paper presents the design and implementation of a web-based General Studies Management System (GSMS) to address this gap. The backend was developed in Python using the Django framework, the database engine was SQLite, and the frontend was built with standard HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The system has three different access levels namely the administrator, lecturer and student, each with a dedicated dashboard and permission. All GEDs-related processes like course registration, uploading lecture material, automated grading, mock exams, academic result reporting, all exist in one place. We put it through the paces and verified that the platform withstands real-world operational loads, while ensuring that each user’s data is completely isolated from the others. System evaluation involved 20 participants comprising 15 undergraduate students, two GEDs lecturers, and three administrators. A total of 20 functional test cases were executed across seven system modules, all of which passed successfully, representing a 100% pass rate. The GSMS replaces the patchwork of workarounds students and staff use today like WhatsApp groups, shared drives, manual grade sheets because UMIS was never built for what GEDs actually needs.