Development and Evaluation of Co-CAMP: A Platform for Co-curricular Activities Management for Students

Abstract

For quite a while, information technology has been extensively implemented and encouraged in education. Various information systems have been developed to collect, integrate, and disseminate information from numerous sources to support planning, policy formulation, monitoring, and management in education. Unfortunately, there has been insufficiency of accessible systems that concentrate on co-curricular activities management. Co-curricular activities have been considered to be very influential on students’ interdisciplinary learning. These are components of non-academic curriculum, and do not offer any form of academic credit but in some way, supplement and provide form of complementary instruction and learning for students. Therefore, the development and implementation of a co-curricular activities management system is extremely recommended.

By adopting a co-curricular activities management platform architectural design, and utilizing descriptive and developmental research designs, the researchers were able to develop the platform. Following the phases of Dynamic System Development Method (DSDM) as the software engineering methodology, the researchers were able to deliver a working prototype of the platform. With the aid of readily available software development tools in the market today, DSDM can yield valuable software in a short span of time because it can adjust to frequently changing system’s requirements.

The level of usability of the developed platform was later on assessed through a survey questionnaire administered to selected end-users and IT experts. The usability evaluation results indicated that the developed co-curricular activities management platform is functional sustainable, usable, reliable, and efficient in supporting the co-curricular events that are sponsored and offered byhigher educational institutions. Although the effectiveness of the co-curricular management platform could depend on many aspects, to get optimum results, further study on the effects of the platform to the performance of students is needed.