New horizons: dissolving boundaries for a quality region 175 Table 3. Joint Monitoring Report (excerpt) Conclusion In the future, international cooperative academic programs are admittedly likely to increase among universities around the world as well as in China, Japan, and Korea. Accordingly, cross- border cooperation among QA agencies will be increasingly necessary. We hope that the joint re- port and the joint guidelines will not only contribute to the development of the CAMPUS Asia pro- grams but also provide some insights as a reference point for universities considering the establish- ment of international collaborative academic programs and for QA agencies that would conduct quality assurance activities in cooperation with agencies in other countries. New horizons: dissolving boundaries for a quality region 176 DEVELOPING WEB BASED QUALITY INFORMATION SYSTEMS FOR QUALITY IMPROVEMENT AT THE HORIZON CAMPUS Sriyani E. Peiris, Samanthi Wickramasinghe and Colin N. Peiris Horizon Campus, National School of Business and Management , Sri Lanka Abstract Quality Information Systems (QIS) provide quality related information to stakeholders. In e- learning applications, QIS should provide e-learning materials to the lecturers and the learners who use them. In Student Management Systems (SMS), QIS provide all the facilities to run the ad- ministrative functions smoothly. Electronic Research Repository (such as DSpace) enhances the quality of the institute as it reflects the research competencies of the academic staff of the institute. Horizon Campus QIS include eLearning, SMS, DSpace, Library Management System, all based on a single platform. QIS provide better service to their stakeholders anywhere, anytime ef- fectively and efficiently. Students‘ pass rate has been increased after introducing the Learning Management System (LMS). eLearning platforms immensely facilitate the teaching and learning process as they offer an environment-friendly and efficient mechanism for ensuring learner cen- tered teaching and learning. As QIS implemented in a Cloud based System, it is easy to maintain and run with minimal cost. Keywords E-Learning, DSpace, Web based Student Management System, QIS 1.0 Introduction Horizon Campus allocates a considerable amount of funds for operational costs such as pho- tocopying of learning materials & student files, maintainance of lecture halls, payments to lecturers, etc. to facilitate traditional classroom teaching in each year. At present, these functions are handled by the Registrar‟s office. The documentation work, attendance tracking, time table & academic ca- lendar, recording marks, programme are maintained by coordinators on the faculty level. Student payments and inquiries are handled by the Finance and Marketing Divisions. Basically all these ac- tivities are handled manually within various divisions and MS Excel is used to store records due to no proper Student Management System (SMS). Horizon Campus also allocates significant amount of funds to improve teaching-learning re- sources. However, it has been noted that the student performance at Horizon College is very low as compated with the allocation of funds on the above quality parameters. Also, there is no proper me- chanism to maintain repository for research papers, scholarly articles and publications of academia on Campus. As a result we noted the increase in annual operational costs and high failure rates of students (Figures 1 and 2). Due to the growing number of students, their requirements are also rising. In order to provide quality service to students/undergraduates during their academic process, a considerable amount has to be invested annually for electricity, equipment, salaries, lecture materials, internet & Wi-Fi, etc. According to the finance division of the Horizon Campus, the annual operational cost for providing teaching and learning facilities are illustrated in Figure 3. Quality Assurance (QA) is an essential element that had gradually gained serious attention amongst the global Higher Educational Institutions (HEI). It must be a continuous and an on-going process. Stakeholder satisfaction is one of the most important aspects when we consider quality. The important stakeholders include students, academic staff, nonacademic staff, employers, training or- ganizations, graduates, government, professional organizations, parents, funding agencies, other interested parties, administration and society. New horizons: dissolving boundaries for a quality region 177 Figure 1 – Annual Operational Cost for providing Teaching and Learning Resources Figure 2 - Failure rate of students in the faculties of Management, Science, Education and IT Every institute is accountable to its stakeholder in terms of the funds (public/private) spent. The concern for quality will ensure accountability of funds spent and inform the stakeholders about making appropriate decisions. QA is a process of establishing stakeholder confidence that provi- sions (input, process and outcomes) fulfils expectations or meets the threshold minimum require- ments Figure 3 – Relationship between Stakeholders‘ Requirements and Satisfaction Students want quality service and facilities which can make them responsible and competitive graduates. Academic staff want better teaching and working environment with appreciation of work quality and benefits. Employers want quality graduates with knowledge, skills and qualifications capable to contribute to their organizational success. The government wants smooth functioning of the universities with the facilities provided by them. The quality assurance system could be imple- mented in a variety of institutional arrangements. It could be implemented at least in two different ways at the same time, i.e. internally driven and externally driven. Internally driven is the priority way. 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 2012 2013 2014 2015 Management Year Fa il u re R at e Science Education IT New horizons: dissolving boundaries for a quality region 178 Therefore, the study was conducted to observe the positive impact of developing the quality information system and its effectiveness in order to improve the overall quality at Horizon Campus and how feasible QIS attempts to satisfy stakeholders‟ requirements. 2.0 Literature review Many concepts of quality management are not only applicable in production and usage of physical products, but also in the context of immaterial ones, including e-learning applications (Sommer). Nevertheless, quality management concepts are hardly used as such today. As a basis for quality management the so-called quality information systems (QIS) can be used. It provides all the quality-relevant information during the whole life cycle of a product to all the stakeholders. In the context of e-learning it means that a QIS should provide all the quality-relevant information to the users of e-learning materials, instructors & tutors, and also to learners. In this work after a close look some fundamental terms and ideas of quality information sys- tems will be introduced, and it will be pointed out how they can be used in case of e-learning. Par- ticularly, we will described what kind of information could be quality-relevant and how it should be prepared for the different users. Then, the focus of the work will be made on the implementation of this quality information system. After a detailed analysis of requirements the system design will be presented. Moreover, it will be shown how an information system like this could be integrated into the existing information system infrastructure of e-learning providers. Here the importance of stan- dards for all the types of the data involved, for example, IEEE LOM for the learning objects, will be pointed out. The results presented in this work have been obtained in the context of the research project "ViKar - Virtual University Group Karlsruhe" (Vikar, 2002). This project is being financed by the state of Baden-Württemberg as a part of the research program "Virtual University of Baden- Württemberg" (Baden, 2002). 3.0 Research methodology Questionnaires and Interviews are mainly used to collect primary data and secondary data is collected through existing details and LMS log reports. 3.1 Collection of Primary Data a) Questionnaire A questionnaire has been distributed among students of the faculty of IT in order to check whether it was necessary to develop a new Student Management System (SMS), the use of LMS in order to encourage independent learning and the use of LMS in order to increase students‟ motiva- tion to learn. Questionnaire is attached in Annex 1, 3, 4 and the information collected is listed under section 4 and 5. b) Interviews A registrar, an accountant, a programme coordinator, a Dean, and a lecturer have been se- lected to conduct interviews as they are the people who are mainly involved in student registration at present. The combination of formal and informal ways of interview used to gather information for the SMS. The structured format used for conducting the interviews is in Annex 2 and the sum- mary of interview findings is described in section 4 and 5. Informal interviews have been conducted with the academic staff members to get their views on developing an electronic research repository for their publications. 3.2 Collection of Secondary Data LMS log/activity reports (details are attached in Annex 4) and students‟ pass rate after intro- ducing LMS, Operational Cost after introducing the LMS, Position of the Webometric ranking sys- tem after implementing DSpace have been taken as the secondary data for the research. 3.3 Conceptual Framework In conceptualizing the study, the research allowed building relationship between independent and dependent variables. Learning Management System (LMS), Student Management System (SMS) and DSpace (Electronic Research Repository) are the Independent Variables and Improving New horizons: dissolving boundaries for a quality region 179 Quality is the dependent variable. This would enable the researcher to interpret the findings in a more comprehensive manner. The conceptual framework used in the research is illustrated in figure 4. Independent Variable (IV) Dependent Variable (DV) Figure 4 – Conceptual Framework for the proposed research 4.0 Data presentation Interviewer used a specific set of questions to ask different interviewees and completed the form during the interview. Noted information transformed into Excel sheet for analyzing and was listed in Table 8. Table 1 – Gathered information at the Interview on developing SMS Question Accountant Coordinator Dean lecturer Registrar's Office What are the is- sues/problems facing in current system Sharing information among Financeoivi- sion, Coordinators and Registrar's Of- fice is less on pay- ments matters Difficult to track the Student Atten- dance Percentage individual Student tracking is less Difficult to monitor student attendance in course wise No proper commu- nication among Registrar's Office, Coordinators, Finance Division and Deans Office Delays occurs in verifying Visiting Lecturers Payment There 15no me- chamsmto send reminders to Stu- dents on Outstand- ing Payments There is no common template available among faculties There isno proper mechan- ism to view Time Tableand Academic Ca- lendar No proper mechan- ism to Send notifi- cationsto Students regarding outstand- ing payments. Re- sults and other events Incomplete informa- tion Difficult to locate past Students Marks/Grades to issue Transcript Difficult to locate past records Duplication of data in multiple locations Difficult to locate students past records No backup system Difficult to track eligibility require- ments of students to sit for the exam before issuing Ad- mission No records for stu- dents achievements, awards and extra curricular activities Data Inconsis- tency There isno me- chamsmto send re- minders to Students on Outstanding Payments There is no link among Finance Division, Library, Registrar's Office and Coordinators on common func- tions Duplication of data in multiple locations How long that you are working with this manual system 3 Years‟ 5 Years 3 Years 2 Years 5 Years Application of Quality Information Systems (QIS): - eLearning Platform - Web based Student Management System (SMS) - Electronic Research Repository (DSpace) Improving Quality of the Institution H 1 H 2 H 3 New horizons: dissolving boundaries for a quality region 180 Do you need a new system Yes. Yes. Yes Yes Yes What are the fea- tures/fu rationali- ties expecting through the new System Integration among Finance, Marketing. Registrar's Office. Coordinators and Faculties View Outstanding Payments Details To view and maintain Student Attendance To view Student Attendance Course Wise View Students Per- sonal Details Generate Custo- mised Report To track Atten- dance of Students in monthly, course, semester wise To view and maintain Student Results, Awards and Achieve- ments, Extra Curricu- larActivities To view Stu- dents Results and Special Achievements To view Students Results and Special Achievements Generate reports on comparison between income and expend- iture of each faculty integration among Finance Division. Registrar's Office, Library and Coor- dinators for com- mon operational activities To view pass rates and failure rates in batch wise, semester wise and course wise To view student pass rate of par- ticular course m batch wise To view Lecture Time Tables, Aca- demic Calendars and Exam Time Tables Automatic notifica- tion on outstanding payments Send notifications to Students regard- ing outstanding payments. Results, Assignment Re- minders and other events via email or SMS through a system To view Student De- tails To view Student Details To view Lecturers Workload To maintain Student Workload Details What are the per- formance do you think are neces- sary to equip in the system Level of access for confidential infor- mation Efficient and Effec- tively access in- formation User Friendliness User Friendli- ness User Friendliness Accuracy of Infor- mation Generate reports Accuracy Accuracy Accuracy Reliability Accuracy of Infor- mation Availability Availability Availability Easy access User Friendliness Access of information efficiently Accessibility Access of informa- tion efficiently * Using a less featured automated accounting system Table 2 – Gathered information from the Questionnaire Survey Faculty 1. Have you ever used a Student Management System be- fore? 2. Do you think It Is necessary to implement a Student Man- agement Sys- tem for Hori- zon Campus? 3. Select which functionality you are expecting through the Stu- dent Management System? 4. Write any of your suggestions Managa ment NO Yes View Student Personal Details, View Course Details, View Current Semester Time Table, View Academic Calendar, View Student Attendance, View Exam lime table. View Stu- dent Profile (Grades R GPA, Awards R Achievements, Ex- tra-Curricular Activities] Like to get Re- minders arid Noti- fications Yes Yes View Student Personal Details, View Current Semester lime I able. View Academic Calendar, View Student Attendance, View Exam Time Table, View Student Profile (Grades & GPA, Awards 8 Achievements, Lxtra-Curricular Activities) if you can send reminders on next installment day, to collect admission etc. No Yes View Student Personal Details, View Course Details, View Current Semester Time Table, View Academic Calendar. View Student Attendance, View Exam Time Table, View Need Reminders or Notifications option New horizons: dissolving boundaries for a quality region 181 Student Profile (Grades 8 GPA. Awards 8 Achievements, Extra Curricular Activities) No Yes View Student Personal Details, View Current Semester Time Table, View Academic Calendar. View Student Attendance, View Exam Time Table, View Student Profile (Grades & GPA. Awards 8 Achievements, Extra Curricular Activities) No Yes View Student Personal Details, View Course Details, View Current Semester Time Table, View Academic Calendar, View Student Attendance, View Exam Time Table. View Student Profile (Grades 8 GPA. Awards 8 Achievements. Fxtra-Curricular Activities) IT NO Yes View Student Personal Details. View Course Details. View Current SemesterTime Table, View Academic Calendar, View Student Attendance, View Exam Time Table, View Student Profile (Grades R GPA. Awards R Achievements, Extra-Curricular Activities) Need to get Notifi- cations res Yes VlewCurrent Semester Time Table, View Academic Calen- dar, VlewStudent Attendance. View Exam lime Iable, View Student Profile (Grades R GPA. AwardsR Achievements, f xtra-Currlcular Activities) if you can Inte- grate MIS and LMS would be great No Yes View Student Personal Details, View Current Semester lime table. View Academic Calendar, View Student Attendance, View Exam Time Table, View Student Profile (Grades 8 GPA. Awards 8 Achievements, Extra-Curricular Activities) Yes Yes View Course Details. VicwCurrcnt Semester Time Table, View Academic Calendar. View Student Attendance. View Exam Time Tabic. View Student Profile (Grades 8 GPA. Awards 8 Achievements, Extra Curricular Activities) Like to receive reminders on as- signment submis- sion and exam dates No No View Course Details. VicwCurrcnt Semester Time Table, View Academic Calendar. View Student Attendance, View Exam Time Table. View Student Profile (Grades R GPA. AwardsR Achievements. Extra Curricular Activities) Do not give access to our parents Science No Yes View Student Personal Details, View Course Details, View Current Semester Time Table. View Academic Calendar, View Student Attendance, View Exam Time Table, View Student Profile (Grades & GPA, Awards & Achievements, Extra-Curricular Activities) like to view spe- cial event details Yes Yes View Student Personal Details, View Current Semester Time Table. View Academic Calendar, View Student Attendance, View Exam Time Table, View Student Profile (Grades & GPA, Awards & Achievements, Extra-Curricular Activities) No Yes View Current Semester lime Table, View Academic Calen- dar, View Student Attendance, View Exam Time Table, View Student Profile (Grades & GPA, Awards & Achieve- ments, Extra-Curricular Activities) If you can add another feature to get reminders would be appre- ciated Yes View Current Semester Time Table, View Academic Calen- dar, View Student Attendance, View Exam Time Table, View Student Profile (Grades & GPA, Awards & Achieve- ments, Extra-Curricular Activities) Yes Yes View Student Personal Details, View Course Details, View Current Semester Time Table, View Academic Calendar, View Student Attendance, View Exam Time Table, View Student Profile (Grades & GPA. Awards & Achievements, Extra Curricular Activities) Need Remind- er/Notification feature No Yet View Student Personal Details, View Course Details. View Current Semester Time Table. View Academic Calendar. Viev/ Student Attendance. View Exam Time Table. View Student Profile (Grades 8 GPA. Awards 8 Achievements. Extra-CurrlcularActivities) Yet Yet View Student Personal Details. View Course Details. View Can you IlnklMS. New horizons: dissolving boundaries for a quality region 182 Current Semester Time Table. View Academic Calendar. View Student Attendance. View Exam Time Table. Viev/ Student Profile (Grades 8 GPA. Awards 8 Achievements. Extra-CurncularActivities) MIS and Library Management Sys- tem Education No Yet View Course Details. View Current Semester Time Table. View Academic Calender. View Student Attendance. View Exam Time Tab e. View Student Profile(Grades& GPA. Awards 8 Achievements. Extra-Curricular Activities) No Yet View Student Personal Details,View Course Details, view Current Semester Time Table. Viev/ Academic Calendar. Viev/ Student Attendance. Viev/ Exam Time Table. Viev/Student Profile (Grades & GPA. Awards & Achieve- ments. Extra-Curricular Activities) Reminders about payments and Ex- am Dates & As- signment Dates No Yes View Course Details. View Current Semester Time Table. View Academic Calendar. View Student Attendance. View Exam Time Tab e. View Student Profile (Grades 8 GPA. Awards £ Achievements, Extra-Curricular Activity) Can you connect IMS and Mi$ both and we like to get notifications on ass«nment dead- lines 5.0 Finding of the survey The objective of the findings analysis is to summarise and interpret the survey outcomes in a way that relates to the the research objectives. 5.1 Findings of the Questionnaire a) Students’ responses concerning SMS development The results of the survey are shown in Figures 5 - 7. Figure 5 - Responses to Question 1: Have you ever used a Student Management System Figure 6 - Responses to Question 2: Do you think it is necessary to implement a Student Manage- ment System? Figure 7 - Responses to Question 3: Select which functionality you are expecting through the Student Management System 5 % No Yes New horizons: dissolving boundaries for a quality region 183 Most of students expected the lowing features/functions (other than the ones mentioned in the questionnaire) from the new SMS:  to receive Reminders and Notifications via SMS or email about special notices and events related to their academic mat- ters (examination dates, assignment dead- lines, etc.)  to integrate Student Management Sys- tem (SMS), Learning Management System (LMS) and Library Management System. b) Students’ responses concerning the use of LMS The students of IT faculty were surveyed on whether the „use of Moodle encouraged inde- pendent learning‟ and the „use of LMS increased students‟ motivation to learn‟. The survey out- comes are illustrated in figures 8 -9 as follows. According to the survey out- comes, the average of 4.63 indicated that the use of LMS encouraged them to talk to other students about the work. The average of 4.07 and 3.97 respec- tively indicated that they had an oppor- tunity to learn using LMS at the time, place and pace to suit and encourage them to learn independently and in the way in which subjects/courses are set up to encourage students to learn inde- pendently. The average of 4.30 agreed LMS are mainly for information pur- pose and generally for their subject resources. Figure 9 depicts the survey outcome of the use of LMS in terms of the increase of students‟ motivation to learn. The opportunity to be in control of student‟s learning via Moodle and learn at the time, place and pace individually adjusted, increased students‟ motivation to learn and amounted to the average of 4.07. The most of the students‟ motivation to learn is the variety of course tools including resources, PowerPoints, quizzes, hyperlinks, news feeds, and forums, availa- ble on LMS as the average of 4.63. The average of 4.60 indicated the variety of formats available on LMS, for example, text, images, audio clips, podcasts used in the educational process increased students‟ learning motivation. Feedback obtained as a result of activities. For example, LMS-based assignments and quizzes increased students‟ motivation to learn and amounted to the average of 4.20. 5.2 Findings of the interviews a) Staff responses concerning SMS introduction According to the findings, the identified issues/problems of the current/manual system are listed as follows:  There is no or little information and communication sharing among the Finance Division, the Registrar‟s Office and the Academic Coordinators of the Faculty;  It is difficult to maintain students‟ Data (exam results, personal details, payment details)  It is difficult to monitor student attendance;  There is no proper mechanism to send notifications to students regarding the delayed pay- ments, academic results and other issues. Figure 8 - The use of LMS to encourage independent learning Figure 9 - The use of LMS increases stu- dents‟ motivation to learn New horizons: dissolving boundaries for a quality region 184 Most stakeholders of the current system expect the following features/functions from a new SMS.  to integrate finance and marketing divisions, a registrar's office, coordinators and faculties;  to send notifications to students regarding delayed payments, academic results, assignment re- minders and other issues sent using email or SMS within a system;  to monitor student attendance in a course, in a group, in a semester, on a daily, monthly or an- nual basis;  to monitor student academic results, awards and achievements and extra-curricular activities;  to view lecture timetables, academic calendars and exam timetables;  to compile a customized report b) Staff responses on DSpace (Electronic repository for Research Publications) The academic staff of the Horizon Campus are very much interested in doing research, and the college administration is always encouraging them to do research as it is helpful to gain new knowledge in the course they teach. Many research articles, research papers, conference proceed- ings are published by the academic staff. It was important to make these publications available from one location. Therefore, DSpace (an open source software of choice for academic, non-profit, and commer- cial organizations building open digital repositories) has been introduced. 6.0 Data analysis 6.1 Analysis of Secondary Data a) LMS log/activity reports Horizon Campus introduced LMS in September 2014. The teaching staff and students of IT faculty extensively use LMS in the teaching and learning process. The graph below illustrates the use of LMS at the faculty of IT from 2014 to 2016. Figure 10 - Log/Activity report summary of using LMS at the faculty of IT b) Student Performance Students‟ pass rate at the faculty of IT has significantly increased from 2014 to 2016 (Figure 11). Figure 11 – Students‟ pass rate at the faculty of IT c) Operational Cost for providing teaching and learning resources New horizons: dissolving boundaries for a quality region 185 Due to implementation of LMS, the operational cost of teaching and learning resources has been considerably decreased. The following figure illustrates a significant decline of annual opera- tional costs for providing teaching and learning resources. Figure 12 – Operational Cost for providing Teaching and Learning Resources after imple- menting LMS d) Repository of Research Publications The Webometrics Ranking of World Universities, also known as Ranking Web of Universi- ties, is a ranking system for the world's universities based on a composite indicator that takes into account both the volume of the Web contents (number of web pages and files) and the visibility and impact of these web publications. At present, DSpace of Horizon Campus contains a large number of research papers, confe- rence papers, research articles and etc. DSpace was introduced at the Horizon Campus at the end of 2015. As a result Horizon Campus was ranked in 41 st position of Sri Lankan Universities according to the latest result of Webometrics (http://www.webometrics.info/en/Asia/Sri%20Lanka). 7.0 Conclusion It is clear that there is a relationship between eLearning Platform (LMS) and Improving Qual- ity of the Institution. When comparing figures 10 and 11, it is evident that the pass rate of students increased after introducing LMS. Working efficiency and effectiveness is one of the key indicators of the measuring quality. eLearning platforms, considerable facilitate the educational process as it is an student-friendly and efficient mechanism for implementing learner centered teaching and learn- ing. By analyzing the information listed in section 5, we assumed that there is a positive impact of QIS in relation to eLeaning application (LMS), web based Student Management System (SMS) and Electronic repository for research publications (DSpace) and the quality of the institute. Cloud-based system provides uninterrupted e-learning facilities to students simultaneously hosting all other IT related services such as DSpace, SMS, library management, etc. Cloud based implementation installed and configured with an open source operating system and the application software, proves cost efficiency of approximately USD 170 per month. By comparing figures 1 and 2, it is clear that as a result of LMS implementation there is a significant reduction of operational costs related to educational resources. Horizon Campus has implemented LMS, DSpace and SMS (still to be implemented). Students and teachers use the website links. Hence, QIS provides effective and efficient services to the stakeholders via the common platform. References 1. Horizon Campus Virtual Learning. (n.d.). Retrieved from Horizon Campus: http://lms.horizoncampus.edu.lk/report/outline/index.php?id=31 2. Sommer, D., n.d. Implementation of Quality Information Systems for E-Learning Applications. s.l., s.n. 3. ViKar - Virtual University Group Karlsruhe, retrieved August 7, 2002, from http://www.vikar.de 4. Virtual University of Baden-Württemberg, retrieved August 7, 2002, from http://www.virtuelle- hochschule.de 2 014 2 015 2 016 http://lms.horizoncampus.edu.lk/report/outline/index.php?id=31