An approach in Applying Software Quality Assurance in Academic

application: Case study of Student Information System - International

Student Module (ISM)
Nur Razia Mohd Suradi*a, Nur Syufiza Ahmad Shukora, Nik Nordiana NARa, Zuraidy Adnana, Wan
Azlan Wan Hassana, Khairul Annuar Abdullaha, Mohd Azril Amilb
a
Selangor University, Computing Department; Faculty Communication, Visual Art and Computing,
b
Selangor University, Faculty of Engineering and Life Sciences

ABSTRACT

Software Quality Assurance (SQA) is a way to verify quality in the software. It is the set of activities which make certain
processes, procedures as well as standards fit for the project and implemented appropriately. SQA is a process which
works parallel to the development of software. It concentrates on improving the software development process so
problems can be avoided. SQA is an activity that is applied throughout the software process, which will bring value to
the project by saving money and time, implementing stable, competitive, and safe product, building constant process,
helping to meet client expectations, and will create good developer’s reputation among the users. SQA can give
significant impact to the software project in an academic environment with high defect removal efficiency which
decreases the cost of software development and satisfy the users and target customers with respective to their
expectations. Based on the implementation of SQA in International Student Module (ISM), the result showed that the
error could be minimized beside reduced time effort in developing the software.
Keywords: Software Quality Assurance (SQA), User Requirement Specification (URS), Software Requirement
Specification (SRS), User Acceptance Test (UAT), Software Project

1. INTRODUCTION
Due to the pandemic, most organization are fronting revolution in the way they handle their
organization processes. Lately, digital platform or online system has received a lot of attentions. In
the case of higher learning institution, people are looking for a technology and tools that could assist
them to survive and keep going with their academic or educational processes.

Most higher learning institutions have changed the way of how they conduct their academic
processes. Physical academic processes have migrated from the manual system into IT application
known as academic application. It has become the major way of getting the work done effectively
and efficiently. Information Technology (IT) capabilities are considered as an imperative tool to the
improvement of organizational processes [1]. In this case, IT implementation should be aligned with
organization processes to achieve business needs and objectives.

*razia@[Link]; phone 60 3280-5121; [Link]

International Conference on Mathematical and Statistical Physics, Computational Science,

Education and Communication (ICMSCE 2023), edited by Anton Purnama, Burhanuddin Arafah,
Proc. of SPIE Vol. 12936, 1293613 · © 2023 SPIE · 0277-786X · doi: 10.1117/12.3011683

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In order to optimize the business process in higher learning institutions, academic processes need to
be managed through the adoption of the technology. To share the information, they allow several
departments and units to communicate with one another using the same database. This academic
application or academic Information System provides information services which is suitable for the
management of academic activities on campus where the scope of all sorts of academic issues can be
retrieved twenty-four seven via the Internet [2].

Through this academic application, the organization has reorganized the way of handling and
integrating the operational processes such as student intake, student registration, program structure,
course registration, examination, and graduation processes. Since this system involves international
students around the world, the end user for this academic application system is unique. It is due to
the applicant with different education system and level from different background and countries.
Besides having to integrate with different department, unit and system in the same organization, the
major issue regarding international applicant is to interact and communicate with external system
such as Educational Malaysia Global Services (EMGS). EMGS is considered as a hub for
international student who would like to pursue their higher education in Malaysia either in public or
private higher education institutions. It is purview by the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia.
EMGS portal served as platform where the international student can be monitored specially their
visa expiry [3]. The international student can apply any local institution to further their study in
Malaysia using online platform or system provided by the universities.
One of the biggest challenges that higher learning institutions face today is to ensure the quality of
university applications. The university application which used widely by the public must be easily
accessed, user-friendly and stable besides easy to use.

In developing a software, quality assurance is an essential element to be considered and

implemented in a software or any application. In software engineering context, quality assurance is a
vital element in any software. According to [4], the software crisis happened because the software
projects are always over budget, behind schedule and also not reliable. The possibility of not reliable
occurred is because the software has fault or bugs. This is one of the reasons the implementation of
SQA in software project. Due to this reason, SQA is implemented in each phase of software
development.

The paper is structured as below. Section 1 described about Introduction, Section 2 Methodology,
Section 3 Result and Section 4 Discussion.

2. METHODOLOGY
2.1 Software Development Technique
The system is developed using rapid application development (RAD) method. The method is
deemed to be the best option as it supports fast developing as well as produces high quality software
[5] . With RAD, users are involved throughout the development and implementation phase. The use

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of RAD also helps as the prototyping process involved striving to incorporate input from users into
the design process. It is also known as system development strategy that allows faster development
and better quality in the results compared to the results achieved through traditional way [6]. This is
made possible by reducing focus on the time for project planning [7].

RAD comprises of four main processes [8],[9] requirements planning; user design; construction; and
cutover as depicted in Figure 1. The first phase requires the systems requirements to be carefully
crafted. According to [9], it is the utmost important to be able to listen to users in order to analyse
their needs apart from the things to be considered and lastly, the problems faced by users. These
three aspects of requirements – needs, things and problems – would later be processed and the
deliverable is the users’ requirements specification (URS). As this sub module involved many units
and their process flows are inter-related, the sessions were normally held in a focus group discussion
(FGD) set-up. The related stakeholders were identified and invited to the sessions. There were at
least 2 rounds of FGD that took place before the report could be finalized. The URS was later
presented and verified by the users.

Figure 1. RAD Process

Next phase is the user design and construction that were paired and carried out in cycles. In this
phase, users’ involement is highly anticipated as the RAD processes such as prototyping strive to
incorporate the user’s input into the design process. Users were highly involved in making sure the
low-fidelity prototype developed will meet all requirements. The team was implying the incremental
prototyping RAD as coined by [10] . At least three cycles of inspection-discussion were carried out
between the developer and users to ensure all parties are clear of what is required. As suggested by
many [6]–[8], [11]–[14], what happened was the developers and the users discussed the prototype,
agreeing on enhancements and amendments. Once the users are satisfied with the system, the team
could move to the next phase which is the cutover.

In the cutover phase, the final product would be ready and implemented. As the sub module
developed is an enhancement for the older version of the student management system, the
implementation of the finished and quality assurance tested system would be implemented with
carefully

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 3. RESULT
The result presented below uses the International Student application module. In software
engineering, the term baseline has been used widely especially in software development. According
to [15], a baseline is established once the process is endorsed by major stakeholders. The
stakeholders will review the document or artifact produced in that phase.

All inputs gathered from the user is documented using a document book known as URS - User
Requirement Specification. URS basically described the requirement that the user thinks should
have in the new application. At this level, the intention is to only to know ‘what is needed’. Based
on several series of discussion and meeting, a draft of URS has been produced and then presented to
the user. Finally, a baseline of URS version is generated. In summary, from URS to SRS to
Development. Once the URS have baseline, the next step is to produced Software Requirement
Specification (SRS).

In the early stage, the diagram is sketched using free open-source software known as [Link] [16].
This software can be downloaded at user machine or the document can be saved using cloud
environment. This software allowed user to edit anytime by accessing the application remotely or
locally if the software already installed at user desktop. The requirement is collected during user
requirement session with the targeted user.

Figure 2. Applicant info tab

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 Figure 3. Applicant detail tab

Figure 2 and figure 3 depicts the interface for international applicants to apply for undergraduate
programme eg bachelor programme. There are two (2) screens involved which is applicant
information (Fig.3) and application detail (Fig. 2) screen. To produce the screen interface, a series
with the user is arranged to get the details of the process. At first, a draft of screen is proposed and
later presented to the user.

During the session, the user will comment and suggested the appropriate flow. Additional screen
will be added or removed based on the user input. After modification is made and presented to the
user, the final screen will be produced. Finally, the interface will be baseline based on user approval.
To ensure the interface is the same before and after development, a sign-off form is needed where
the customer needs to sign to show their approval. Refer figure 5 for a sample of sign-off form.
Once the interface has been freezing, the next process is to perform construction or development of
the interface as depicts in fig 4. In Figure 4 below, the interface has been developed using Laravel
architecture. Laravel utilized Model View Controller (MVC) pattern where it separates between
presentation, business logic and database [17]. Others application utilised MVC are Complaint
Management system, Facilities system and Research Management system [18]–[20]. Besides that,
Laravel is best known as programming tools with PHP in web-based development environment
[21].

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 Figure 4. Interface Student Application

The module is later tested by a programmer using white box testing approach where all the
possible inputs are passed to the module based on the test script which has been written testing
the whole application thoroughly. In white box testing, approach could be implemented such as
control flow, path flow and data flow testing. Basically, the aim of testing is to ensure the quality
of software, and the vital thing is the reliability of the software itself.

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 Figure 5. Sign off form

According to [22], the purpose of the testing is to validate the software and to ensure the software
work as it is supposed to. Besides that, any deficiencies, errors are found in the application are
documented. Again, it is the role of Quality Assurance (QA) to perform the testing as independent
team to validate and verify (V&V) the software. Any errors found during this phase is recorded as
evidence of error occurred. This later will be corrected by the developer team and then QA will
execute another cycle to check the corrected version of the software.

The last steps are accomplished of user acceptance test (UAT) with the user. This can be executed
after the QA team is satisfied with the software produced. In software development environment,
many software companies will setup their QA team to ensure the software is satisfied with the user
expectation.

4. DISCUSSION
Software Quality Assurance (SQA) is considered as a process-based action in measuring the quality
of a software product related to process, standard and procedure. It is also important to make sure
that the project can be completed according to user requirement which has been set earlier and
approved by both parties between the developer and the user. SQA works side by side to software
development. Through SQA, highest quality product that is well-suited with what the user required
and expected can be realized.

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To have a quality software, user requirement involving data gathering will be performed. The
collected user requirement will be analysed, and the design of the requirement will be illustrated in
the form of user interface (UI). To get the approval from the user regarding the process, the flow
will be presented in software requirement specification (SRS) document. Later, the technical team
consisting of system analyst and programmer will sit together before each module of the system is
produced. During the process of developing the coding, the developer will get the support from
quality assurance team (QA) to test the modules or system. The functional aspects of the modules or
system will be checked and tested from many angles and discussed for improvement. It involves a
series of QA session that focusses on the interest of the stakeholders. The main intention is to avoid
any defect and prevent failures before it turns into major problem.

5. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We would like to thank Universiti Selangor for the funding (Geran Projek TCMS 2.0: TCM2.0-
SMP/UNISEL21/ST/01 and like to thank the reviewers and associate editor for their insightful
comments and suggestions made to this paper.

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