Student’s electronic card: A secure internet database system for university management support

Abstract

In the paper, design concept, architecture and functionality of the “Students’ Electronic Card” computer system are presented. The system was developed in 1998-2007 and deployed at the Faculty of Electrical, Electronic, Computer and Control Engineering, Technical University of Lodz, Poland. It aids to efficiently organize activities of the community, including 4500 students along with 450 faculty and staff members. The core elements of the system are internet database (Oracle, Postgress) and a network of different functionality terminals (class assignment, cost analysis, marking, student portal, etc.). These terminals are used to enter, edit or retrieve data related to the management of teaching, research and other activities at the faculty, including funds allocation and cost analysis. A number of users of different roles and privileges are defined in the system. Smart cards are issued to users to store their personal secret keys for data encryption and electronic signature generation while communicating with the database. The system has been continuously updated and expanded for more than 10 years. One of the recent projects in this area is ”Electronic Education Connectivity Solution”, aimed at providing support to Bologna processed-governed student mobility between European universities, funded from 7FP UE program.