Chapter I
Introduction
1.1 Background of the Study A clearance system has been a significant part in any institution. It is a tool to control the access to any resources or services available for use to create a general security for that institution. In an educational institution, a clearance signifies that a student is cleared from all his requirements and liabilities so that he can proceed to the next step on any transaction or process that he or she is undertaking. Student clearance is often used during the end of a school year or semester to verify if the student has paid all his or her fines and submitted all requirements. This prevents problems that might occur due to the unsettled school requirements.
The AMA Computer College General Santos City is a small privately owned school that offers four courses in computer and information technology. It is a branch of the AMA Computer University and is located in J.P Laurel Avenue, General Santos City. Being a member of the AMA Education System, the school uses the same system as that of the main campuses. Although having a computerized system, it does not have an integrated student clearance system. The school currently uses a manual clearance system which involves a clearance form printed on paper that is then signed by authorized school personnel. Students are required to approach each personnel to check for any requirements not cleared. A big part of it comes from the Student Council and some departments of the school that have none of their records linked to the system of the School Registrar. This makes for a faulty system since the students can just forge the signatures and the school does not need further confirmation as long as the clearance form is filled up.
Data storage is also potentially unsafe since there is no fixed system that will handle all of the records of students and clearance requirements. The records could be lost or misplaced by the person keeping it. It could also provide inaccurate information about the clearance requirements.
Given this scenario, the researchers proposed to develop a more secure clearance system that is favourable to both the school and the students. This proposed system is a computer application that will integrate the clearance of the Student Council and other departments of the school to the School Registrar using a computer network for a greater security and integrity.This system will help minimize the work labor for students by providing a one stop station for checking both cleared and uncleared school requirements. It will also provide full and accurate information about each of the school requirements to make them appear more transparent to the students. The system will keep all the records of students and clearance requirements for easier and improved data storage and manipulation. The researchers also proposed to make a better clearance sheet containing all the necessary information which will be printed by the system. The researchers hope this system to be fully automated, secure, user-friendly, time-effective and efficient.
1.2 Statement of the Problem Clearance is one of the most essential parts in the life of a student especially during the last period of a semester. The process of clearances entails that the student is been cleared or not. Most of the schools and universities are using a manual procedure and it takes extreme effort to the part of the students. Based from the statement above, the researchers discovered the following problems: * Excessive effort of the Personnel in Charge in monitoring the clearance of the student. * Slow, tedious and inefficient transaction of clearance. * Unsafe and potentially insecure storage and manipulation of records. * Inaccurate and insufficient information about existing fines and balances.
1.3 Objectives of the Study
1.3.1 General Objectives:
This study was designed primarily to introduce an Automated Student Clearance System exclusively for the students of AMA Computer College - General Santos City Campus for an efficient, convenient and secure process of student clearances.
1.3.2 Specific Objectives:
In order to attain the general objective, the following objectives were performed by the researchers: * To be able to design a system that will minimize the excessive effort of the Personnel in Charge in monitoring the clearance of the student. * To provide fast and accurate transactions for every students of AMA Computer College – General Santos Campus. * To limit the access only to the qualified or authorized Personnel in Charge implementing password protections and data encryption. * To produce an accurate summation of all the balances and fines that a student acquired for the entire semester.
1.4 Hypothesis of the study
Through a proper implementation of the proposed system, the researchers have come up with the following hypothesis:

1.4.1 Alternate Hypothesis: * That the proposed system will minimize the effort of the Personnel in Charge in clearance monitoring * That the proposed system would speed up the existing manual transaction * That the proposed system will be secure for unauthorized users. * That the proposed system will produce an accurate total of fines and balances of students for the entire semester.
1.4.2 Null Hypothesis
The implementation of Automated Student Clearance System has no great effect and there was no significant difference between Automated Student Clearance System and existing manual monitoring of clearances.
1.5 Significance of the Study The Automated Student Clearance System for AMA Computer College – General Santos Campus is beneficial to the following persons stated below:
To the Students. This study will provide them a fast, accurate and convenient mode of completing their clearances.
To the Authorized Personnel in Charge. This system will protect the remote computer from any unnecessary access of files. Moreover, this system lessens the tasks of the personnel-in-charge in signing of clearances.
To the Researchers. This study will enhance programming skills, system analysis and develop logical reasoning that can be very helpful for future job opportunities.
To the Future Researchers. This study will serve as their basis and an additional guide for the conduct of their studies.
1.6 Scope and Limitation The study will only cover these specific parts of the proposed automated student clearance system; 1) the addition or deletion of clearance requirements, 2) the clearing of the students by the Personnel in Charge, and lastly 3) the query system for checking the clearance of a student with all of its relevant information. The “Automated Student Clearance System” will be made exclusively for AMA Computer College – General Santos Campus located at Laurel North General Santos City.
The proposed system will be a standalone program that will have a Graphical User Interface each for the students and for the Personnel in Charge. Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 and MySQL Workbench 2005 will be used to develop the system. This system will focus in monitoring fines, balances and penalties for all the students during the entire semester. All students will be able to check for his or her clearance status including all the relevant information about each clearance requirement.
Only the authorized personnel delegated by the departments and organizations will be able to access the more advanced features of the system such as adding or deleting of records and clearing the students from their requirements. Each of these personnel will be allowed to access only the functions specifically assign to them i.e. only the personnel-in-charge for the IT Department can clear students from the clearance requirements required by the IT Department.
The first three chapters of the study will be first conducted in July on the first semester, school year 2013-2014, and will be completed at the end of the semester in October. The actual development for the software application of the system and the remaining chapters of the study will be conducted during the second semester from November of 2013 until March of 2014.

1.7 Definition of Terms To fully understand the study, the researchers defined the following terms operationally:
Windows Visual Basic
This refers to the object-oriented computer programming language used to develop the proposed system.
MySQL Workbench
It is a visual database design tool that integrates SQL development, administration, database design, creation and maintenance for the MySQL database system; Serves as the database of the proposed system.
Automated
The proposed system will be made fully computerized. Students will no longer need to go through the clearance process manually.
Clearance
This refers to the official certification of a student that he or she is cleared from all school requirements and liabilities.
Clearance Requirement
This refers to the fines, penalties and balances that the student is required to settle. It also includes other forms of requirements such as submitting a form or project or performing a specified job. Clearance Sheet This refers to the printed form of the student clearance. Clearance System
This refers to both the manual and the automated system, with all its components and processes, which the students will undergo in order to fulfil their clearance requirements.
Personnel-in-charge
This is the person authorized to use the advanced features of the system such as adding and deleting records and clearing the students from their requirements.
USC (Unified Student Council)
This refers to the school organization headed by the chosen students through school election which will act as the information station for students in checking school requirements.

Chapter II
Review of Related Literature and Studies The researchers have found the following studies and literature as relevant to the system being proposed.
2.1 Review of Related Literature According to De la Salle University - Dasmariñas - Office of the Registrar website (2010), clearance is required for a student who is either graduating or dropping from the course anytime during the school year or the semester or transferring to another school. Students should be cleared from all financial obligations and administrative accountabilities from the different units of the university before documents such as diploma, transcript of records, certification, transfer credential and other similar record is issued. Automated student clearance system eliminates the needs for the students to physically approach each of the departments and organizations for their signatures indicating that they are cleared from their clearance requirements and liabilities. This system will serve as a more dependable and effective means of undertaking students clearance with the following benefits: Time efficient The automated clearance system automatically clears students from any requirement that they have already complied. It would be the job of the person in charge to record in the system that the students are cleared of their requirements and liabilities. The students no longer need to approach person in charge of each department and organization for their signatures, thus saving time in completing their student clearance. Accurate Transaction The automated clearance system provides all the necessary information concerning each of their clearance requirements. This includes the tally for all the payments made by students and the liquidation report of the officers of departments and organizations. This helps lessen the confusion of students by showing them what they are paying for. Better Security Only the authorized person can access the advanced features of the automated clearance system by employing password protection and data encryption. Validity issues of the manual clearance system like forging of signatures are avoided. The automated system also provides security for the person in charge in keeping his or her transaction records since it is already incorporated in the system. Minimal Effort Since the system is fully automated, the students no longer need to try to find and approach the person in charge for their signatures. Also, latter no longer needs to sit and wait for the former to approach them. The two parties can then exert less effort in going through the whole clearance process.
2.2 Review of Related Studies According to a research paper posted at 15Projects.com entitled Automated Clearance System. (2012), states that clearance is a research work that will help build an effective information management for schools. It is aimed at developing a system for making fee clearance after school work. Due to the problems of the manual system which encompasses movement of students ups and downs, loss of vital data by rodents and pest, absent of personnel in offices and late result computing. The new system will serve as a more reliable and effective means of undertaking students clearance, remove all forms of delay and stress as well as enabling the understanding of procedure involved on how to do a departmental clearance. It is also stated that clearance is a status granted to individuals, typically members of the military, university graduates and employees of governments and their contractors, allowing them access to classified information. The term “clearance” is also used in private organizations that have a formal method to vet employees for access to sensitive information. As people of this generation become more dependent on the internet for information, the need for automated fee clearance becomes more apparent. . For a graduating student to carry out his or her clearance from their respective department, it is time wasting and stressful. It also causes delay in clearing the student. Hence, it becomes necessary for an automated clearance system to eradicate the bottle neck of the manual system in place. Another article from 15Projects.com (2012), with the title Computerized Management Information System in Bursary Department said that school fees payment and clearance for examination protocol in a University is one exercise the students detest a lot. The reason for this is not far-fetched; the manual processing method in use. This manual process is time consuming and prone to errors. The delay is even more pronounced during the clearance period when all the students submit their receipts to the clearance officer for verification before examination. As expected in manual processes, this has led to endless queues during the clearance period. The queuing is as a result of the clearance officer personally going through the receipts of the students and in the process some have misplaced their receipt. Dogadoga, R., Manibog, H. et al., (2013), in their study named Automated Student Clearance System said that in order to have a faster and hassle free way of accomplishing student clearance, the automated system is design to improve the manual process of signing the clearance. Its main function is to cut the unnecessary procedures of the manual process and lessen the time required in processing the student clearance.

CHAPTER III
Research Design and Methodologies This chapter discusses about the research design process used to develop the proposed automated system. The methods used are carefully planned and followed to ensure that all data gathered can be effectively used to answer the questions stated initially.
3.1 Research Design This study entitled “Automated Student Clearance System for AMA Computer College General Santos Campus” is a descriptive research that aims to identify the issues existing in the current manual Student Clearance System in order to establish the desired implementation of the proposed Automated Student Clearance System. The researchers will consider their past experiences with the current system as a basis for designing the proposed system. The researchers will also use a survey method in the form of a questionnaire that will be distributed to the respondents with the purpose of gathering more data to further support the researchers’ analysis of the current system. 3.1.1 Respondents of the Study The researchers will select the correct respondents randomly from the available students of AMA Computer College General Santos Campus. A valid respondent must be a bona fide student of the AMA Computer College, second year or higher, and has previous experience with the current system. The researchers will collect a sample of forty students from the school to satisfy a statistically accurate result.

3.2 Research Instruments The researchers will use their previous experiences with the current manual student clearance system for the analysis and development of the proposed system. The researchers will use the library and the Internet as a source of related information. The researchers will also use a survey method in a form of a questionnaire with the purpose of gathering more information relating to the current system to further fortify the researchers’ analysis. This questionnaire will undergo intensive validity and reliability test that will maximize the usefulness and accuracy of the results. The respondents will be given all the necessary information about the subject matter and purpose of the survey to ensure that they provide the correct answers.
3.3 Research Procedure The researchers will follow the following step-by-step procedure in order to carry out the study in a systematic manner:

Figure 3.0 Research Procedure The figure above shows the step-by-step process designed by the researchers on how to conduct the study. The exact details of each process will be discussed below:
Step 1 Planning The researchers will identify and analyse the problems existing in the test site. The researchers will then define the subject matter for the study, specify the objectives in conducting the study and formulate solutions for the problem.
Step 2 Research Design After defining the problem, the researchers will then construct a research design that they will follow systematically to obtain good results for the study.
Step 3 Analysis of the Current System
Based on their personal experiences, the researchers will discuss and analyse the performance of the current manual student clearance system to obtain initial solutions for the problems defined previously.

Step 4 Questionnaire Design To obtain more data, the researchers will create a survey questionnaire and intensively test it so it produces the most relevant data possible.
Step 5 Conducting the Survey The researchers will then conduct the survey within the test site. Respondents will be randomly picked and sufficient measures will be taken in selecting valid respondents.
Step 6 Data Collection, Processing and Analysing The data gathered from the questionnaire will undergo a thorough evaluation and analysis and will then be used to answer preliminary questions of the study stated before.
Step 7 System Development Using all data the gathered and the solutions formulated, the researchers will then develop the system following the processes defined in the System Development Life Cycle.
Step 8 Preliminary Implementation The system produced will undergo its first implementation to check for unperceived errors overlooked from the development process. The results will then be used to improve the system.
Step 9 User Acceptance Test The researchers will conduct an acceptance test to see if the system can be readily adopted by the students and the school.
Step 10 Final Implementation The developed system will be fully implemented in the area as the new running system and will completely replace the previously existing system.
Survey Questionnaire
SURVEY ON THE AMA COMPUTER COLLEGE STUDENT CLEARANCE SYSTEM

QUESTION | YES | NO | 1. Did you encounter any difficulties in going through the manual system? | | | 2. Do you find the current manual system ineffective? | | | 3. Do you think that the current system would be better if it is automated? | | | 4. Do you want an automated system? | | | TOTAL | | |

_________________________
Respondent’s Signature The researchers used the following questionnaire illustrated below in conducting their survey:

Figure 3.1 Survey Questionnaire
3.4 Statistical Tool and Treatment The researchers will use simple descriptive statistics to analyse the data taken from the survey. Descriptive statistics is a simple statistical analysis that summarizes the results of a test. This will provide the researchers valuable information to be used for answering the questions stated previously. Every question of the survey is concerned about a specific characteristic of either the current manual system or the proposed automated system. The results of the questions will provide the idea on how the students agree or disagree with the two systems. Since the questions are only answerable by a “yes” or a “no”, the researchers will consider the choice of the majority as the final answer for each question.
3.5 Analytical Tools
Student Info
Clearance Data
Clearance Info
System Update
Student Data
STUDENT
CLEARANCE
SYSTEM
Student Registration
Clearance Requirement Registration
Student Clearance Query
Clearance Requirement Clearing
Admin Updates
Requirements Data The following diagrams are graphical representations of the proposed automated system that will provide the readers a detailed but less complicated summary of the sophisticated system:

Figure 3.2 Data Flow Diagram
Figure 3.2 shows the data flow of the system with all of the different modules incorporated within.
YES
NO
START
LOG IN
SELECT ADD OR
CHANGE STUDENT
DATA
INPUT STUDENT
INFORMATION
END
STUDENTS
DATABASE
VERIFIED
STUDENT REGISTRATION MODULE

Figure 3.3 Flow Chart for Adding or Changing Student Records
START
LOG IN
SELECT ADD NEW OR CHANGE EXISTING
REQUIREMENTS

E
DATA
INPUT REQUIREMENTS
INFORMATION
END
REQUIREMENTS
DATABASE
VERIFIED
YES
NO
CLEARANCE REQUIREMENTS REGISTRATION MODULE

Figure 3.4 Flow Chart for Adding or Editing Clearance Requirements
CLEARANCE QUERY MODULE

START
INPUT STUDENT ID
SELECT CHECK
CLEARANCE
SHOW FULL SUMMARY OF CLEARANCE REQUIREMENTS
END
STUDENTS & REQUIRTEMENTS DATABASE
VALID
PRINT?
PRINT CLEARANCE
YES
NO

Figure 3.5 Flow Chart for Checking Student Clearance
NO
START
LOGIN
VERIFIED
SELECT CLEAR REQUIREMENTS
SELECT STUDENT OR REQUIREMENTS
CHOOSE
INPUT STUDENT ID
VALID
DISPLAY CLEARANCE
SELECT REQUIREMENTS
CLICK CLEAR
DISPLAY LIST OF REQUIREMENTS
SELECT REQUIREMENTS
SELECT STUDENT/S
DISPLAY TABLE STUDENTS
CLICK CLEAR
END
END
STUDENTS
REQUIREMENTS DATABASE
STUDENTS
REQUIREMENTS DATABASE
REQUIREMENTS DATABASE
REQUIREMENTS DATABASE
YES
STUDENT
REQUIREMENTS
NO
YES
REQUIREMENTS DATABASE

Figure 3.6 Flow Chart for Clearing Requirements
3.6 Logical Data Dictionary Symbol | Name | Description | | Automated Student Clearance System | Automated Clearance System | | Process box | Describe the action taken as a process is ongoing | | Decision | Describes a required choice or decision | | Database | Database where the necessary information is stored | | Flow Control | Data Flow | Table 3.1 Data Dictionary for System Flow Chart