CHAPTER ONE OF MY ONGOING RESEARCH

1. REPOSITORY SYSTEM FOR
TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS IN MALAYSIA
Chapter 1: Introduction
This research project presents a solution involved in repository systemsprojects that aim to
improve humans, education and environment. It considers the option of using repository
systems to improve the educational quality in Malaysia. The aim is to develop a
repository data centre to assist the tertiary institutions in monitoring the performance of
students in many geographical areas in this country Malaysia. This research will pave a
way for accurate budgeting, forecasting on educational sector and highlight ways to
improve educational quality and performance in the country. This forms the basis of
building a Repository System for Tertiary Institutions in educational environment with
specific reference to Malaysia.
1.1 Education
Education is not only the process of impacting or acquiring general or specific knowledge
but is also the tendency of building capacity or powers for reasoning and judgement and
act of preparing oneself or others intellectually to mature life (Longman, 2010). Many
people always view schools in a traditional and formal sense. There is no definitive
definition of education, many think that education occurs in different forms and
environment while some think that education only take place in the class or lecture room.
Definition of education may differ from one person or the other, but education can be
intuitively defined as a basic human right. It is believed that when this right is permitted,

2. growth and development is rapidly seen in the society to constitute to good living
standard.
There are many issues surrounding education such as inadequate of resources, poor
founding, etc. It is the obligation of the people, group andgovernment to critically think
about these issues confronting education and eventually come up with a better solution to
improve education in the world. In 1990, UNESCO launched Education for All (EFA)
(Ann, 2009);the movement to provide quality education for all children, youths and adults
by the year 2015. It is unfortunate that in most of the countries, there are many issues that
are preventing the improvement of the quality of education which therefore questions if
the objectives of UNESCO towards EFA can be realized or not.
One of the commonest ways to deal with the above mention problem lies in the access
towards technology. It is an indisputable fact that access to technology can serve as a great
tool for education. When one fails to access this tool, he or she suffers behind. So
education as we have seen does not only promote individual development, rather it offers
the general growth of the entire community, therefore providing a place for people to
interact, socialize and unify the society.
1.2 Education in Malaysia
Malaysia a multi-ethnic society country located in the tropics of Southeast Asia. With the
great ambition to become a developed Nation by 2020, many developments are putting
Malaysia on the world’s map as she focuses on becoming a knowledge base economy
country. In order to ensure educational quality and standard, Malaysian government in
1995 to 1997 initiated major educational reforms by establishing a legislative body to
oversee all the levels of education, from the pre-school to tertiary education,
<http://www.mpm.edu.my>. At the same time, Pre School to secondary education is

3. under the supervision of the Ministry of Education (MOE), while the post-secondary
education is put under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE).
Malaysia has become a centre of educational excellence especially in the South East Asia,
which is motivated by the effort of the government in seeing educational excellence as its
responsibility to better citizenry and the country as a whole, <http://www.mpm.edu.my>.
According to the Minister of Higher Education, Datuk Mustapha Mohamed in 2007, he
said “Our vision is to make Malaysia the centre of educational excellence”. Malaysia is
not relenting in realizing this vision as targeted by 2015.
1.3 Tertiary Education in Malaysia
In Malaysia there are 647 High Education Institution (HEI). This consists of 20 public
universities and 627 higher education institutions (Ken, 2010).
1.4 Definition of Repository System
A repository systemmay be defined as a centralized system where data is collected, stored,
retrieved, disseminated and maintained which can be access by multiple users locally or
remotely (Mikeal, 2009). A repository system can be a place where
multiple databases or files are located for distribution over a network or a location that is
directly accessible to the users without having to travel across a network (Mikeal,
2009).Furthermore, a full-fledged repository system is on principle a database
management system (DBMS) with some special functionality to administer meta-data
(Herbst, 1995). This includes the capability to specify meta-models, to customize the user
interface, and to implement appropriate verification mechanisms and generators.
1.5 Problem Statement
In Malaysia, higher education is generally seen as a major foundation in implementing the
complex process of globalization. It is certainly known that the advent of globalization,

4. advanced information technology and higher education services have already been
expanding beyond territorial especially in educational environment (Arokiasamy, 2010).
Open access or in other words, information sharing has been widely encouraged in
Malaysia especially in tertiary institutions. One of the greatest champions in the open
access here in Malaysia is the libraries and Librarian. They initiated the promotion of
access to information by implementing an institutional repository (Azmi, 2009).The
Malaysian National Library is aimed to implement a repository of information resources
based on bibliographic and non-bibliographic records of libraries (Azmi, 2009).
According to Azmi (2009), there have been initiative to promote the access of information
by implementing an institutional repository; but there have not been a repository system
implemented to focus on the intellectual performance of student in tertiary institutions in
Malaysia. It is clear fact that developing such system will ensure the following benefits:
Repository system for tertiary institution does not only boost the quality of educational
system, it goes far to contribute as a logical extension of a university’s or college’s core
mission and as a channel through which to increase institutional visibility.
The responsibility of communication between the MOHE and all the tertiary institutions
will be strengthen and positioning the tertiary institutions with broader context of its
markets or communities.
It is important to note that every higher institution is committed to academic excellence
and scientific progress. One may ask if there is any system to measure or prove this
assertion. The repository systems will not only answer this question but it will also provide
university administrators with demonstrable evidence of the institution’s quality, thus
helping every institution reinforce on institution’s brand position and prestige.

5. Repository technology system, by capturing, preserving, and disseminating institutional
collective intellectual information or records, serves as meaningful indicator of academic
quality and merit. Repository system is not only a desired technology for tertiary
institutions in Malaysia but it also present itself as a potential prediction tool for future
analysis of institutional goal or initiatives.
1.6 Research Objectives
The research objectives of the current study are:
To assess the status of repository system in Malaysia, specifically in the relation to
tertiary institutions.
To design and develop a repository system for tertiary institutions in Malaysia.
1.7 Project Scope
This project aims to implement the repository system for tertiary institutions in Malaysia
that will be capable of carrying out different analysis and prediction services. An easy to
use user interface will be employed to ensure user friendly system to all users. The scope
also integrate business intelligent tool to produce different forms reports based on the
following:
Attendance of the students per semester or yearly basis for the benefit of visa
extension,etc. for international students. This report is mostly asked by the Immigration
Department during visa or passport renewal.
Performance of the student for educational quality purposes, rating and Key Performance
Indicator (KPI). The report from this session will directly go to MOHE.

6. Population of students based on different state in Malaysia or population of foreign
students from different countries studying in Malaysia. With the application of cubes
structure as one of the important tools used in multidimensional data warehousing,
information on any or group of students can be produced in given time range.
1.8 Organization of Thesis
Chapter 1: Introduction
This chapter provides overview of educational system in Malaysia specifically on the
tertiary institutions. The objectives and scope are also discussed in this chapter.
Chapter 2: Literature Review
The literature review for this research project gives the overview of repository system,
types of repository data, intelligent information and existence of repository systems around
the world. It also gives the methodology and implementation details used in some existing
repository systems.
Chapter 3: Methodology
This chapter discusses the research methodology used for this study, the data collection
and the method of data collection.
Chapter 4: Data Analysis
In this chapter, discussion is about data analysis. The data collected from tertiary
institutions were tabulated, analysed and discussed in details. It also analysed about
system review on repository system.

7. Chapter 5: System Analysis and Design
The system design is conferred in this chapter. Here Web Development Method (WSDM)
was used to carry out the design modeling. The Data Centre framework was discussed
with respect to the proposed framework and prototype of Repository System.The Data
Flow Diagram (DFD), activity diagram, database design, classes and function modules
were also discussed in this chapter.
Chapter 6: Implementation and Testing
In this chapter, the database, classes and function implementations were analysed. The
implementation of the repository system is narrated here; system testing which was done
by the same contributors who participated in survey questionnaire.
Chapter 7: Conclusion
The project result base on the objectives of this study wasdeliberated in this chapter. The
limitation and future work having considered the importance were also discussed here.