RESIDENTIAL ONLINE BOOKING SYSTEM: A CASE STUDY OF UCU

COMMUNITY.

By

David Otieno

IS10B13/506

and

Samantha Akinyi

S11B13/026

Bachelor of Science in Information Technology

Faculty of Science and Technology

A Project Proposal Submitted to the Faculty of Science and Technology

for the Study Leading to a Project in Partial Fulfillment of the

Requirements for the Award of the Degree of Bachelor of

Science in Information Technology of

Uganda Christian University.

Supervisor

Godfrey Onyait-Omoda

Faculty of Faculty of Science and Technology

November 2013
 ACRONYMS

UCU Uganda Christian University

ERD Entity Relationship Diagram

DFD Data Flow Diagram

PHP Hypertext Preprocessor

SQL Structured Query Language

HTML Hypertext Markup Language

CSS Cascading Style Sheet

 Chapter One

1.0 Introduction

The process of booking residential houses and hostels is a frequent and important activity in any
residential area. But the process becomes very tiresome and time consuming when there is no
proper and convenient system. To deal with this problem a residential online booking system
will be very necessary. Online booking system is accessed on internet by using devices which
have internet connection at any time. Residential online booking system is a convenient and an
efficient way to deal with this problem. The booking process in UCU community is manual file
system which is quite inconvenient. The residential online system will enable people access
details of hostels and residential houses online and also do the booking online. The system will
have all the necessary information about residential areas within UCU community on one single
website which accessible by anyone who wants to book.

1.1 Background of the Study

Uganda Christian University is a private University in Uganda with a large population of

students and UCU Mukono is the main campus. There are a number of hostels and residential
houses within and around UCU Mukono but booking these places has not been quite easy for
both students and non-students. Manuel booking system which is currently used has a lot of
limitations to the users (O’Brien, 2011). Some tenants end up staying in places they don’t prefer
simply because they don’t have full information about the available hostels and residential
houses and also the booking process requires their physical presence. Rev. Katumba, UCU Male
Warden stated that there are cases where continuing students book but fail to show up thereby
cause a lot of inconvenient. In some residential apartments booking is done via phone without
any commitment made which is not aptly effective but online booking system seeks to remedy
this citing its traits of simplicity, accuracy and efficiency.

1.2 Problem Statement

The current booking system is manual as all the work is done and kept in files. The bookings are
done by filling in forms manually which are submitted to custodians therefore taking a lot of
time to book a hostel meaning performance of the current system is slow and insufficient. They
face the problem of data accuracy and not being able to collect the required data in time. Both
students and non-students who want to stay in private hostels and residential houses have to
come early enough and walk around looking for places to rent and do booking. Therefore it is
necessary to develop an automated online system that assigns the rooms and houses
automatically with user defined rules that track discrete details about of each client, update status
each time a booking is made, save clients information into database and generate reports.

1.3 General Objective

To develop a residential online booking system for Uganda Christian University community that
will enable them to book hostels and residential houses online in a convenient way.

1.4 Specific Objectives

i. To analyze the current booking system within UCU community.

ii. To design a convenient and flexible system.
iii. To implement the system.
iv. To test and validate the system.
1.5 Research Questions

How is the residential online booking system going to be designed and implemented and make it
run successfully?

1.6 Project Scope

This research will be carried out at the hostels and residential apartments within the university of
Mukono campus and its surrounding. In this research an automated residential booking system
will be developed which will be used to capture data and manage all booking processes. The data
to be used will be collected from records that we shall get from the residential areas.

1.7 Significance of the Project

This project work will enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of residential online booking
process. This will improve the booking system and make it more technologically convenient.

The next chapter talks about the current system and review of related work of other scholars.
 Chapter Two

Literature Review

2.0 Introduction

This chapter gives a summary of the literature that has been researched by other scholars. It
involves the strength and limitations of the current system, related work, the conclusion and
finally the proposed system.

2.1 The Current System

Over the years the booking system at UCU has been manual where students do hostel booking at
the Custodian office by bringing two passport photos and their details are recorded in manual
files which are kept in the shelves at Wardens’ offices. Whenever a continuing student wants to
book his or her records are captured and kept in files in the shelves. There is no fee for booking
so only the details of the students are captured with assurance that he will be able to show up
within the first two weeks of a new semester having paid a minimum of one million Ugandan
shillings. The sponsored students and theology students, the university preserve for them rooms
upon request since they are suppose to be residing within campus. The first priority in terms of
room allocation is given to first year students. This same manual system of recording students’
details is what is used within the halls of residence of UCU affiliate hostels.

Private hostels have been using manual file system to record the details of students who want to
book. Most of these private hostels require students to make some booking payments which vary
from one hostel to the other. Some students prefer staying in residential houses to hostels. For
such students, UCU staff and any other person who want to stay in residential houses around
UCU have to move around and look for the apartments they would like to rent. This is tiresome
and it takes a lot of time to get the right place for renting.

Generally the current booking process in UCU hostels, UCU affiliated hostels, private hostels
and residential houses is still being conducted when one shows up physically to these places. The
practice is based on the criteria of first come first served and this does not favor those that come
from far places.
2.2 Strength and Weakness of the Current System

The current booking system within UCU community is manual file based management system
where clients’ records are kept in files. The system is faced with many limitations like prone to
errors, separation and isolation of data, duplication of data, time consuming and expensive.
When data is isolated in separate files, it is more difficult to access data that should be available
(Thomas, 2011). Whenever a new semester begins the University creates new files for booking
which have the same details of those continuing students, this leads to data duplication as a result
data loses integrity, wastage of space and time. Thomas reveals the following as some of the
problems of manual information systems:

1. Paper based systems are generally very bulky both to handle and to store.
2. Information manual techniques of processing information are more tedious, laborious, slow
and inefficient.
3. Labor productivity is low and the process is slower where large volumes of data need to be
dealt with.
The current system is disadvantageous to those that come from far places who have to travel
early enough before the semester begins to do the booking. And those who want private hostels
and residential houses have to walk around looking for better places to rent. This process is
tiresome, time consuming and a lot of expenses are incurred. Some students and non-students fail
to get the right places simply because they do not have enough information about residential
areas within.
However this system has some advantages like it has kept the UCU running for years and
available at all times. It necessary to have the hardcopy incase the software get corrupted.

2.3 Related Work

O’Brien, (2011), defines information system as the organized combination of people, hardware,
software, communication networks and data resources, that control, transform and disseminate
information in an organization. Further reveals that the data resources of information systems are
typically organized, stored and accessed by a variety of data resource management technologies
into:

i. Databases that hold processed and organized data.

 ii. Knowledge bases that hold knowledge in a variety of forms such as facts, rules, a case
examples about successful business practices (O’Brien, 2011).
The management and booking of large number of rooms in different residential areas is a tedious
and complicated task. Choosing different rooms with different sizes and other facilities as well as
choosing different dates and times is the reason why a good booking system is needed to make
the task as easy as possible. The system is required to keep track of rooms in different buildings,
locations and booking of rooms and different types of users (Sidborn et al, 2011). Public access
to and the use of online booking systems has increased globally and this has improved the level
of competitiveness and performance in this area (Tatiana, 2011). Sidborn recommends that a
booker should have the privilege to reserve and cancel his own booking and at the same time be
able to search for houses and rooms with certain properties like size, rental rate and location. But
the privilege of cancelling bookings by bookers should be limited to number of days since this
can be abused and render the system ineffective. The system administrators are suppose to have
the management privileges of add, edit and delete functions for every entity in the system
including new users and their privilege management. Sidborn further adds that a hostel booking
system should be a complete content management system for handling the bookings, residential
apartments and users.
Tatiana argues that online service is better decentralized market where any buyer has direct
access to any seller. This is true to the extent that both the buyer and seller have access to
internet services and both have the knowledge on how to use to the service. The following are
the advantages that internet booking system provides according to Tatiana:
i. Flexibility where information is updated anytime.
ii. Accessibility of information at anytime by anyone anywhere on the planet irrespective of
the number of users.
iii. Possibility to save time and reduce costs which is enjoyed by both the seller and buyer
iv. Clients enjoy self-service.
The bookers feel they are in control of the situation because they are able to compare the prizes,
make reservations, do booking and get confirmation by a click of a button. According to Tatiana
bookers have enough time to consider and make their choices at their comfort. This also aides
and expedite the decision making process by clients since the information is available to them
just a mouse click away.
In spite of all those advantages, there are also disadvantages which are associated with these
types of systems. There is the problem of disintermediation, the role of intermediaries are lost
between the suppliers of the services and the end consumers. If the management of the system
does not customize the system in a way that they can get the views of the customers and
implement improvement measures then the system may not be as effective as it should be.
Consumer’s lack of user experience may be a key issue of consideration and this can be achieved
by making the system simpler and user friendly. Factors such as insufficient inaccessible, out-to-
date, irrelevant information, lack of coordination and agreement amongst cross-channels such as
web, email and telephone are some of the elements that weaken the systems.
Matzler states that sometimes customers or bookers get confused by too much information,
unclear information or undifferentiated information and this impact negatively on potential
online bookers. Tatiana also emphasize that a number of customers are hesitant to use online
bookings as they felt insecure about online transactions so they use internet mostly for
information gathering.

2.4 Conclusion
In conclusion many scholars have done publication about online booking system as a more
convenient way and an urgent requirement and a lot of research has been carried out though
implementation is still insufficient.
However, according to the literature available, there are numerous benefits that accrue from an
online booking system when compared with manual systems. For example there will be no
duplication of records, sharing of information is made possible, the problem of missing and
misplaced records is reduced and the information is available at any time. In order to continually
improve the quality of services, Uganda Christian University need to put in place a an online
hostel booking system backed up with electronic databases replacing all existing paper-based
booking system.

2.5 Proposed System

The UCU population is growing steadily every semester so there is an urgent need to automate
the booking process to handle the data of this growing population. Online booking system will
help UCU to avoid more expenses and remain competitive. To thrive, organizations must
increase the quality of services they deliver to clients while lowering their operating costs,
maintain privacy, and comply with regulatory compliance standards (O’Brien, 2011). The new
technological education environment lowers operating costs by integrating computer applications
using real time information to reduce cycle times and to increase customer satisfaction. Besides,
they provide a means for management to respond to the increasing business needs in the more
effective and efficient ways.
According to Lucey, (2012), all organizations operations are ever changing. Management and
information systems that support them have to deal with that change and adapt to their
operations, systems and organizations themselves in order to survive and prosper. Therefore
UCU community needs a residential online booking system to solve this problem.

The following chapter of methodology gives the steps of how the system is going to be
developed.
 Chapter Three

Methodology

3.0 Introduction

In order to achieve the specific objectives stated, a set of methods will be used. System
requirements will be achieved using different data collection techniques. System design will be
achieved using entity relation diagrams and data flow diagrams. The system will be implemented
using different programming languages. Finally system will be tested and validated to check for
errors in the system to be designed and see if the system does what it will be intended for.

3.1 Research Design

The system requirements will be gathered using various data collection techniques. These
techniques will allow us to collect information about the objects of the study.

3.2 Data Collection

The following methods will be used to collect data:

3.2.1 Interview

UCU Wardens, owners of private hostels and landlords of different residential houses will be
randomly selected and interviewed since they are the ones familiar with the current manual
system of booking.

3.2.2 Observation

The members of UCU community that is students, staff and other residents will be observed as
they carry out routine transaction.

3.2.2 Library research

Library research will help us to acquire knowledge from other relevant researchers on the same
topic.
3.3 System Design

The system will be designed using the following design approaches.

3.3.1 Entity Relationship Diagrams

They will be of help to establish the entities and their relationships in the system to be designed.
ERD illustrate the logical structure of databases. They will be used because they are relatively
simple, user friendly and can provide a unified view of data, which is independent of any data
model.
3.3.2 Data Flow Diagrams
DFD will be used to illustrate the flow of information in a system. They are hardware
independent and do not reflect decision points. They demonstrate the information and how it
flows between specific processes in a system. They provide one kind of documentation for
reports. These diagrams help to show how data moves and changes through the system in a
graphical top-down fashion. They also help to give graphical representation of the system’s
components, processes and the interfaces between them. They will be used because they are
easier to understand by technical and non-technical audiences, provide a high-level system
overview, complete with boundaries and connections to other systems and provide a detailed
representation of the system components.
3.4 System Implementation

The system will be implemented using the following programming languages. These include
SQL for creating database and relation structures, PHP for creating codes that link the forms to
the database, HTML and CSS for designing and styling the interfaces.

3.4.1 SQL

It is a structured query language that will help in creating database and relation structures. We
will use SQL because of the following advantages. It is user friendly, open source and relatively
easy.
3.4.2 PHP

PHP is a scripting language that will help us to link the HTML codes to the database. It will be
used because it is speedy, simple to use, available on Microsoft windows and can run on any
other platform.

3.4.3 HTML and CSS

HTML will be used as the web template to design interfaces because of the following
advantages:
i. It has a build in functions hence easy to use.
ii. HTML is available for Microsoft Windows.

3.5 System Testing and Validation

3.5.1 System Testing

The system will be tested by running the programs and see if they have errors.

3.5.2 System Validation

The system will be presented to the members of UCU community to interact with it under
observation and also presenting the system to the experts.
References
1. Baleleng, T. (2011). Hotel Reservation Techniques. Accessed on 2-11-2013.
http://artificialintelligenceseo.info/2011/09/hotel-reservation-techniques
2. Beheshti .H .M and Bures .A .L, (2010). Information technology’s critical role in
corporate downsizing. The Journal, Industrial Management & Data Systems.
3. Gajanan B. (2012). Management information system: A Tool for Corporate
Sustainability, Journal of Business Ethics 55, no.2.
4. McTavish, C A and Suresh, S. (2010). Intelligent Agent based Hotel Search &
Booking System. Proceedings of 2010 IEEE International conference on
Electro/Information Technology, Chicago, USA, May 20-22, 2010.pp.331-336
5. Lucey, T. (2012). Management Information Systems. Continuum, 11 York Road,
London, United Kingdom.
6. Lawrence, W (2011). Application of Agents in Hotel Search and Secured
Booking System. M.Sc Computer Science Dissertation, Department of
Computing, University of West Indies, Jamaica
7. Lawrence, W and Suresh, S (2012)" Smart Agent Learning Hotel Search System-
Android Environment", Accepted in International Journal of Information
Technology and Computer Science , MECS Publishers.
8. O’Brien, J. A. (2011). Management Information Systems: Management
information Technology in the e-business enterprise. Tata McGraw-Hill, New
Delhi.
9. Sidborn, J. et al. (2011). Room Booking System. Department of Computer
Science: Umea University Sweden.
10. Tatiana, D. (2011). The Impact of Online Booking Systems on Customer Loyalty.
Romania, United Kingdom.
11. Thomas, C. and Carolyn, B. (2013). Database systems: A practical Approach to
Design, Implementation and Management.
12. VeriSign (2011). Beginner's Guide to Digital SSL Certificates. Retrieved on 2-11-
2013. http://www.verisign.com/ssl/ssl-information-center/ssl- resources/guide-ssl-
beginner.pdf
Appendix1: Budget in Uganda Shillings.
N ITEM QUANTITY UNIT PRICE(SHS) AMOUNT(SHS)
O
NO Activity Period Outcome
1 Laptop 2 1,400,000 2,800,000
1 Concept paper writing 3 days Concept paper
2 Wireless Router B260a 1 300,000 300,000
2 Proposal drafting 2 weeks Project proposal
3 Internet Usage 5 months 85,000 425,000
3 Data collection 1 week Related Information
4 Flash Disk Drive(USB) 1 (8 GB) 50,000 50,000
4 Design (DFDs, ERDs,) 1 week System design
5 Transport Expenses 68 times 5,000 340,000
5 System development 2months System
6 Communication (Airtime) 12 Scratch Cards 10,000 120,000
67 System testing and approval 3
Software 3 days Functional
250,000 system 750,000
78 Report
Memorywriting
Card 1 (2 GB)1 week Report
100,000 100,000

89 Consultation fee
Presentation I day 150,000 report
Approved 150,000

910 Report
Printing
correction 1week Report
a) Concept paper 10 pages 500 5,000
10 Binding 2days Report
b) Proposal 23 pages 500 11,500

c) Report 50 pages 500 25,000

11 Binding

a) Spiral 3 3000 9,000

b) Papers 3000 9,000

c) Hardcover 3 15,000 45,000

Total Amount in UGX 5,139,500

Appendix 2 – Work plan for the proposed system

Appendix 3: Interview Guide

The interview guide for UCU Male Warden at UCU.

Questions
1. What is your job title?

2. What is the number of resident students?

3. What is the total number of rooms in your halls of residence?

4. Which system do you have for hostel booking?

5. Is there booking fee for hostels?

6. Which problems do you face with the existing system?

7. Would you recommend all inclusive an online hostel booking system?

8. What are the details of the students being recorded during hostel booking and room

allocation?

9. How do you regulate over booking or double booking of hostels?

10. What is most unique about this hostel that you think attracts student to come?

11. Do you think students prefer residential houses to hostels?

12. Suppose the existing system was replaced with a computerized one, how would this help

to improve booking process?

13. What would you expect from the new online booking system (if introduced) as a person

going to use it?