Towards a bespoke document tracking system for philippine higher educational institutions

Abstract

This study on the development and validation of a document tracking model for utilization of Philippine Higher Education Institutions was undertaken to produce a system that would facilitate the management of documents in state universities or colleges by providing a way to monitor, record and track the location of in-process documents to support an academic organization. The Software Development Process was used as basis for the development of the software involving phases such as user requirements specification, design and implementation, validation and evolution (i.e. the process of changing or modifying the system once it has gone validation and yielded feedbacks for further modification). The acceptability of the software as evaluated by forty (40) office personnel representing every units of the Tarlac Agricultural University – the sample locale of the study, was confirmed in terms of user interface and functionality. These evaluators judged the software based on their skills and ability to use the software while carrying out their job functions. Five (5) IT experts also judged the software in terms of user interface, functionality, database design and security. Based on the results of the study, findings indicate that the document tracking system is excellent for the evaluators as process owners with a grand mean of 4.54 with its ease of use because of the simplicity of operations and the design itself with the reliability and usability or fitness for purpose as to tracking in-process documents and generating reports. The experts also evaluated the system as excellent with a grand mean of 4.58 – hence, the system’s visual, functional and navigational elements and the manner it requests information helps the user operate the document tracker. Security was also judged as excellent because the system can control users and produce integral records.