Proceedings of the 9th WSEAS International Conference on APPLICATIONS of COMPUTER ENGINEERING
Development of Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS)-Based Examination Results System MOHD HILMI HASAN, NAZLEENI SAMIHA HARON, NUR SYAFIQAH SYAZWANI MD YAZID Computer and Information Sciences Department Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS Bandar Seri Iskandar, 31750 Tronoh, Perak MALAYSIA
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected] Abstract: - Mobile devices are becoming more important in daily lives for information gathering, personal management, appointment management and many others. They also have gained increasing relevance in education field, for example Short Messaging Service (SMS)-based examination results system. In this particular system, though we could gain many benefits out of it, limitations do still exist. Firstly, SMS has a limited number of characters and secondly, it produces informal receipt of examination results which could not be used in nowadays formal transactions. Therefore, this paper proposes an MMS-based examination result system that produces results slip in PDF document and sends it via MMS. Key-Words: - MMS, SMS, MMS-based system, SMS-based system, examination results retrieval. procedure. Moreover, this kind of system also does not require the Internet connection, and hence students may receive results anytime and anywhere. Furthermore, the easy-to-use SMS interface on mobile phones does also help in providing userfriendly system to students. Despite the fact that this system does provide benefits to its users, some limitations do also exist. The first is regarding the limited number of characters per SMS imposed by the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) technology. GSM standard allows mobile devices to exchange SMS with a maximum length of 160 7-bit characters per SMS only [4]. Due to this limitation, the examination results conveyed to students via SMS must be written condensed enough which may require some information such as student names, IDs or semester to be excluded from the text. With some of the information might be too long but too important to be excluded from the text such as the course names, the reply sent to students may need to be concatenated and hence comprise more than a single SMS message. As a result, this may hinder students from getting user-friendly examination results information. Moreover, another limitation is that the SMS-based examination results is written in a format which is not acceptable to be used for nowadays’ formal transactions such as results reporting to education scholarship sponsors. In other words, the examination results received in SMS are targeted for personal uses and not for formal transactions which normally require better-
1 Introduction Mobile phones are now part of human lives and have evolved from mere communication devices to becoming cameras, organizers, instant messaging devices and address books [1]. The emerging of mobile applications and services are the main forces behind the increasing needs of mobile systems. According to [2], global mobile phone subscriptions have reached 3.3 billion in 2007. Mobile phones have also gained growing importance as support devices in education field, for example m-learning, mobile hostel registration, m-voting and many others. In this paper, we focus on utilizing mobile phone technology in examination results delivery. It is learned that there were a number of works done in developing mobile system to allow students to receive their examination results through Short Messaging Service (SMS). One of the examples is a project done in India which combines the web and mobile technology to deliver examination results to students. While the results are published on web portal, students may also retrieve their results via SMS. They have to send SMS to the provided number with a ‘RESULT’ keyword, and then they will get immediate reply with their examination results via SMS [3]. The SMS-based examination results system as described above has contributed in reducing time taken for students to retrieve their results. This is achieved through instant SMS reply as compared to a time-consuming web browsing and manual
ISSN: 1790-5117
157
ISBN: 978-960-474-166-3
Proceedings of the 9th WSEAS International Conference on APPLICATIONS of COMPUTER ENGINEERING
Then the system performs the transaction and replies the users with the required information via SMS.
looked slips. Students are required to redo the request process of examination results, for example download or print from web portal in order to get formal-printed slips. Therefore, this paper proposes a Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS)-based examination results system to overcome the two problems of limited number of characters and informal slips as mentioned before. The proposed system requires students to send their requests via SMS, and then receive replies via MMS. This system aims to complement the SMS-based systems instead of replacing them, and consequently all of their benefits could be preserved as well as the two problems described above could be overcome. On the whole, this paper presents the development of an MMS-based examination results system. The proposed system has the following requirements; students request via SMS and the reply is via MMS, and the examination results are printed in PDF format. This paper is written as follows; next topic presents the related works, then topic three describes the system implementation and architecture. This is followed by the results and discussion section and conclusion.
3 System Implementation 3.1 Development Tools We used a Microsoft Windows-based Acer TravelMate 3210 PC to develop the proposed system as well as to set it up as a server. A Sony Ericsson W800i/W700i mobile phone on the other hand was used as a GSM modem to enable the sending and receiving SMS and MMS messages. For system development works, we used Macromedia Dreamweaver and PHP programming language, while MySQL Server 5.0 was chosen for database purposes. We also used NowSMS software as a middleware to manage the interfacing between GSM modem and system applications.
3.2 System Architecture The diagram in Fig. 1 shows the system architecture of the proposed system. Student initiates the examination results retrieval process by sending SMS to the specific number provided by the system. The required information to be written in request SMS are Examination ID, Matric number or student ID and identification card (IC) number (or personal security number). We set these information as requirements for request SMS in order to suit with our institution’s regulations. They may differ according to each institution. This information together with the sender’s mobile phone number are then sent to the GSM modem via GSM network. The GSM modem forwards the information to the server to be used by NowSMS software. This software firstly converts the messages from PDU into text mode and then saves it in its database. Next, the system application named as Examination Result System initiates an interaction with NowSMS. In this interaction, NowSMS sends the sender’s information to the system application for validation. This validation process is done by comparing the received information with students’ data in another database on server, namely ExaminationResult database. All examination results are stored in this database. If the validation succeeds, the system application retrieves the matching result from the database, and performs the conversion upon the text data into PDF format document. The system application then forwards this PDF document to NowSMS software to produce an MMS message. NowSMS embeds this PDF document into an MMS message and forwards it to
2 Related Works The work done in [5] describes the institutional information portal to provide the information on the university library, registrar, enrollment, grading and accounting. The system has a server which acts as a database and web server. Users send inquiries through the portal, which then forwards the requests to the server. Next, the module on server retrieves information from the database and sends them to users’ mobile phones via SMS. The research in [6] developed a web service system that applies MMS to mobile devices such as Personal Digital Assistant (PDA). They came out with a model of MMS system environment and architecture. In this system a mobile device can receive or send multimedia messages to other mobile phones in the environment or web server. The Web Services Description Language (WSDL) involves in the running of the system to define the operations and interface the MMS system to represent the web services. In Malaysia, two bank institutions offer their mobile banking services namely Maybank2U and AmMobile which provide selected transactions such as balance enquiry and mobile phone pre-paid credit purchase. These transactions require users to send mobile pin and keyword via SMS to the system.
ISSN: 1790-5117
158
ISBN: 978-960-474-166-3
Proceedings of the 9th WSEAS International Conference on APPLICATIONS of COMPUTER ENGINEERING
the GSM modem. Finally, the GSM modem sends the MMS message to the student.
Fig. 1 System Architecture
Fig. 2 Application System Program Flow
ISSN: 1790-5117
159
ISBN: 978-960-474-166-3
Proceedings of the 9th WSEAS International Conference on APPLICATIONS of COMPUTER ENGINEERING
In general, the system does not require any specific system user interface other than the mobile phone itself. Moreover, a few PHP programs construct the whole system application to perform a complete process of the system; from message retrieval to message reply. Fig. 2 shows the system application program flow, which consists of four sections i.e. receive message, request validation and extraction, retrieval of examination results slip and message reply. Each SMS message received is inserted into the inbox table in the NowSMS database. The system application program must be keep updated of any new requests received by NowSMS. In order to perform this, the system application program uses a PHP notification script. When there is a new request, the system application program fetches the particular message and passes it over to the next program for validation process. In this stage, the message captured from NowSMS database is trimmed into pieces of data; matric number, examination ID, IC number and sender’s mobile number. The program validates these data as mentioned previously by comparing them with data from ExaminationResult database. All request SMS messages sent by students must follow the predetermined format as follow:
Fig. 3 Use Case Diagram
SENDMATRIC NUMBEREXAM IDIC NUMBER If wrong information was inserted by student, the program executes the script to send failure SMS notification to him/her. Otherwise, the program continues to the next process. In this stage, the validated data are used to retrieve specific examination results data from the ExaminationResult database. The retrieved text data are organized into a formatted examination result slip and converted into a PDF format document. This PDF document is stored temporarily in a ‘temp’ folder in the application system destination file. This PDF file will be overwritten once there is a new PDF document created. Then an MMS is constructed by inserting the PDF document created before from the ‘temp’ folder. The program then executes a script to perform the sending of the MMS to the student through NowSMS and GSM modem. Fig. 3, Fig. 4 and Fig. 5 show the Use Case diagram, Context diagram and Data Flow Diagram of the proposed system respectively.
ISSN: 1790-5117
Fig. 4 Context Diagram
160
ISBN: 978-960-474-166-3
Proceedings of the 9th WSEAS International Conference on APPLICATIONS of COMPUTER ENGINEERING
Figure 5 Data Flow Diagram for (Level 0) other hand stores data for each courses offered by the university. Details for each course are stored in 3.3 Database this table such as course code, description and credit Two databases were created for running of the hour for each course. Finally, the Result table stores proposed system; NowSMS and ExaminationResult each student’s examination result. The examination databases. NowSMS database records the message result details are student’s exam id, course taken for received and sent by the NowSMS software. It has that respective semester, course description, credit one table, inbox for incoming messages. If SMS hour for the courses, grade for each course, credit message is received, NowSMS will interact with the point for each course, semester credit pass, semester SQL script that has been defined in the system point, GPA, CGPA, accumulated pass, accumulated application program. The message and the sender’s point and result for each student. This table is mobile number are extracted from the SMS. These correlated with Course and Student tables because it data are then inserted into the inbox table. contains the courses taken by each student and the The message sent is inserted into sms field while student’s exam ID as its primary key. Fig. 7 shows sender mobile number is inserted in hp field. These the ExaminationResult database design data are then passed to the system application programs for further processes. Fig. 6 shows the NowSMS database design. The ExaminationResult database is connected to the system application program in order to perform the retrieval process of students’ examination results. There are three tables in this database; Student, Course and Result. The Student table stores students’ details such as exam ID, IC number, matric number, studying session, name and programme. The data extracted from the SMS sent by users are compared to the student’s data in the Fig. 6 NowSMS Database Student table in order to retrieve the correct result respectively to each student. The Course table on the
ISSN: 1790-5117
161
ISBN: 978-960-474-166-3
Proceedings of the 9th WSEAS International Conference on APPLICATIONS of COMPUTER ENGINEERING
SENDMATRIC NUMBEREXAM IDIC NUMBER Fig.9 below shows an example of reply that student will receive from the system which contains a PDF document of examination results.
Fig. 7 ExaminationResult Database
4 Results and Discussion 4.1 The Prototype
Fig. 9 PDF document in MMS
4.2 System Evaluation The user acceptance tests were conducted in order to evaluate the running of the proposed system. 35 respondents participated in the tests which mainly evaluated the following test cases: Table 1 Test Cases No.
Test Case
Expected Outcome
1
The respondent sends a valid request SMS to the system
The respondent should get a reply MMS message
2
The respondent sends a valid request SMS to the system
The respondent should get the correct examination results
3
The respondent sends a valid request SMS to the system
The respondent should get a readable examination results in PDF document
4
The respondent sends an invalid request SMS to the system
The system should respond with a proper failure SMS message
Fig. 8 Examples of Request SMS Fig. 8 shows examples of user’s request SMS message to be sent to the proposed system in order to retrieve the examination result slip. The request SMS must follow the following predetermined format:
ISSN: 1790-5117
162
ISBN: 978-960-474-166-3
Proceedings of the 9th WSEAS International Conference on APPLICATIONS of COMPUTER ENGINEERING
[4] Kadirie J., The short message service (SMS) for schools/conferences, Recent Research Developments in Learning Technologies, FORMATEX, 2, 856-859, 2005. [5] Anna P. M. P., SMS-based information portal for Feliciano information system of Jose C. Feliciano College, National Library of the Philippines, Information Technology Division, 2007. [6] C.C. Yang & C.M . Lin, “Web Services of MMS Applications on Mobile Devices”, Journal of Marine Science and Technology, Vol. 14, No. 3, 2006, pp. 165-169.
There was some transaction errors occurred during the evaluation process as shown in Fig. 10. However, the errors are very minor which requires some error-handling measures to be imposed in the proposed system.
Fig. 10 System Testing Transaction Ratio
5 Conclusion In summary, the proposed system had been successfully developed where it allows students to submit their request via SMS, and receive their examination results in PDF document via MMS messages. By having this, it is believed that this system could complement the SMS-based examination results system especially in overcoming the stated two problems; limited number of characters in SMS and formal format of the examination slips. For future works, we believe that the proposed system could be more useful if it allows students to retrieve examination results for any selected previous semesters. Currently, the system only allows the students to retrieve the recent semester’s results. Moreover, we also believe that more security measures should be implemented for a more reliable system. Finally, the best outcome would be achieved should the MMS-based and SMS-based functionalities be integrated in a single system. This may provide both benefits of MMS and SMS to the users. While a cheaper SMS is a good option for personal use of examination results, MMS on the other hand should be opted for formal transactions. References: [1] Balan R. K. et. al, mFerio: The Design and Evaluation of a Peer-to-Peer Mobile Payment System, MobiSys ‘09, 2009. [2] Global Mobile Forecast to 2012, Informa Telecomms and Media Report, 2007. [3] http://www.indiaprwire.com/pressrelease /telecommunications/2009042023782.htm
ISSN: 1790-5117
163
ISBN: 978-960-474-166-3
