Chapter II

Review of Related Literature and System

This chapter primarily presents the different researches and literatures from both

foreign and local researchers, which are significant on the variables included in the

research. The literatures of this study come from books, journals, articles, softcopy’s

such as PDF and E-books. Foreign and local researches are believed to be useful in the

advancement of awareness concerning the study.

Related Literatures

The term “Scholarship” is sometimes used to describe any financial aid given to a

student that does not have to be repaid. A scholarship is given to a student because of

a reason: the student has qualified for or won it by academic, artistic or athletic ability,

or by agreeing to follow a particular career, or has some special ethic. [ CITATION Abh17 \l

1033 ] Scholarships are provided by various organizations such as Government, Trusts,

College, etc. So, students start searching for appropriate provider as per their

requirements from various available options.

Kissel (2013) said that Paper-based processes involve the handling of physical

document(s), photocopying, archiving, and retrieving physical document(s) from a file

cabinet. Paper based processes are inefficient, cost valuable office space, and pose

security risks [CITATION Sel11 \p 39 \l 1033 ] notes that filing systems require a large amount
of physical space and spawn inefficiencies in searching for previously filed papers.

[ CITATION JKi13 \l 1033 ]

Organizations that use paper-based processes also face security risks due to

paper documents that have been lost, been damaged, been misfiled, or fallen into the

wrong hands [ CITATION Cha16 \l 1033 ] . [ CITATION Bru11 \l 1033 ] finds that “more and more

companies and organizations are making the shift toward electronic filing, saving space

and increasing security. Large computer servers have the ability to store mass

quantities of information in a secure state and location”.

Organizations that have replaced paper-based processes with paperless

processes performed on a computer or other device enjoy greater flexibility with digital

documents. “Digital documents are easier to search, share, and backup than paper

documents, and they take up essentially no space” [ CITATION JKi13 \l 1033 ]. Stratton

(2013) notes that “electronic files allow better SMBS PAPERLESS IMPLEMENTATION

8 access and information sharing, cost less in terms of physical space and personnel,

and can increase productivity—all of which add to the bottom line”.

Traditional file organization has security advantages over electronic filing, but it

also has its disadvantages. Electronic files are usually accessible on a network, which

means it's possible for an unauthorized person to gain access to electronic data over

the Internet through hacking methods. Electronic data can also be damaged by software

security problems like computer viruses. On the other hand, paper files can be lost in

fires and floods, but electronic data is easy to back up in multiple locations, reducing the

potential for permanent data loss (Gregory Hamel; 2018). So, creating a system that will

replace that traditional file organization will lead to more safe and secure files of data.
 Although interactive features, such as comment sections, used to be rare on

news websites, they are now the norm. Based on theoretical concepts of interactivity

and convergence, we analyze whether diverse sites are similar in the provision and use

of interactive features online. [ CITATION Str15 \l 1033 ]

In the Philippines, the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) has initiated

programs to secure academic records. CHED and the National Printing Office (NPO)

have signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) on the Securitization of Academic

Records for college and university graduates beginning school year 2007. The move is

part of CHED’s drive to stop the use of fake diplomas and school records. CHED former

chairman, Carlito Puno said, “The MOA aims to secure authenticity of academic records

such as diplomas, transcript of records and special orders from all colleges and

universities in the Philippines. Thus, protect the image and integrity of Filipino College

students to potential employers both locally and internationally.” Puno emphasized

further that the MOA would boost the competitive edge of the graduates in the labor

market for it will ensure the integrity of credentials of the graduates while protecting the

reputation of higher institutions of learning.

New ontology-supported and hybrid recommending information system for

scholars was proposed. Not only can it fast integrate specific domain documents, but

also it can extract important information from them through the hybrid filtering

technology to take information integration and recommendation ranking. The

experiment outcomes proved that the reliability and validity measurements of the whole

system performance can achieve the high-level outcomes of information

recommendation. Furthermore, this paper also discussed and investigated the

different approaches and accordingly provided the design philosophy of customized

services for recommendation systems. (Sheng-Yuan Yang, Chun-Liang Hsu, 2010)

The Matrix Institute of Information Technology (Pvt.) Ltd is an academic institute

which conducts classes for Information Technology, English and Management. The

management of Matrix gives a large number of scholarships for students each

academic year. At present most of the scholarship processing is handled manually. For

example, conducting selection test and correcting papers. There is a traditional file

handling system to keep records of students. The existing system is time consuming

and difficult to correct errors as the processing is done. (AMP Rathnasekara, 2015)

The scholarship assessment is one of the regular work of the counselors, which

is related to the vital interests of the most students. The traditional method is that the

counselors manually add points and re-rank the students who meet the conditions

according to the ranking in the student education system. This kind of work is time-

consuming and error-prone. This paper presented an automated method to evaluate the

college student scholarships, which uses computer programming technology to add and

sort the students’ scores. A lot of experiments had implemented to test the accuracy of

the algorithm and the experimental results proved that it could improve the work

efficiency and the accuracy and greatly reduce the work pressure of counselors. Most of

the experimental data come from the students in our college, whose performance data

come from the educational management system, and the winning information come

from the student work management system. In summary, the work has important
theoretical and practical significance for the daily work of the counselors and the

administrative departments. (Qiao Zhang, Zhen Kang, Junlei Yang, 2019)

The Foundation Office at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse deals with a

large number of scholarship applications typically in the range of five to eight thousands

every academic year. Nevertheless, processing these applications is time-consuming

due to their current paper-based processing. At present, applicants have to fill out their

application forms and submit them manually to the office. If there is any problem with

their applications while they are processed, it will also take extra time for both the

reviewing committee as well as the applicant to communicate and correct the errors. As

a result, additional paperwork for review may cause a delay in the entire procedure.

Some basic criteria such as GPA are now examined tediously by committee members

but it can be checked by a computerized system automatically. Furthermore,

maintaining and keeping relevant information and updates on the status of an

application for each applicant are strenuous without computerized manipulation. In

order to solve these problems, a pilot project was done to automate many of the tasks

performed by all the parties including the applicant and the scholarship committees.

This manuscript describes the development of a new software system for scholarship

application and processing by re-engineering the pilot project. Some of the important

features of this new system include efficient processing and interactivity between

multiple users under a highly secure networking environment. The document also

describes some of the challenges encountered during each phase of the development

life cycle, while adding more functionalities and techniques introduced for solving the

issues mentioned earlier. (Wen-Kai Shen, 2011)

those who are socially and economically challenged in the state, and bring them on to

the mainstream development track. Niger State Scholarship Board processes large

amount of scholarship applications every year. Processing these applications is always

time consuming and prone to errors due to their current paper based system of

processing. In this paper, an e-Scholarship System was designed and implemented in

order to allow students of Niger state indigene across the country apply for scholarship

online with the Niger State Scholarship Board. The system was designed Using Object

Oriented Analysis and Design (OOAD) methodology. The application was developed

using Hypertext pre-processor (PHP), AJAX, JavaScript, Hyper Text Mark-up Language

(HTML) as the front end and MySQL database as the backend. The E-scholarship

system provides online application solutions that save time, and sends notifications

using SMS alerts and emails on the progress of application in a timely and transparent

manner. (Mohammed Abdullahi Jibrin, Muhammad Ndagie Musa, Shittu Tahir, 2016)
 Related Systems

A study entitled “Student Information System for the University of the Cordilleras”

stressed that the concept of Information Systems (IS) emerged in the early 1960s. More

often, when information system is defined, the field Information Science is always

associated, IS is an academic field that deals with the generation, collection,

organization, storage, retrieval, and dissemination of recorded knowledge. Furthermore,

it is a collection of related components designed to support operations, management,

and decision making in an organization. Generally, IS is supposed to inform people.

Information System supports people or users in making intelligent decisions based upon

the information derived from reliable data.

“Decision Support System Of Scholarship Grantee Selection Using Data Mining”,

according to this study the problems faced to get scholarships are some of the criteria

that have been set in this study program such as majors, parent income, parental

dependents, academic achievement, non-academic achievement etc., therefore not all

who enroll as a potential scholarship grantee may be accepted, only those who meet

these criteria and conditions may receive scholarships, it is necessary to have a

decision support system to assist in determining who is eligible to receive the

scholarship. Benefits and Purposes of DSS using data mining can be used with

databases to facilitate the selection of scholarship grantee for the eligibility of

scholarship grantee to obtain students for scholarships especially emphasized to

applications can help make a scholarship recruitment decision. (E Sugiyarti, K. A.

Jasmi, B Basiron, Ml Huda, et. Al., 2018)

The developed system by aims to improve an existing web based system used

by a non-government organization in Ghana to manage their scholarship application

process. The NGO, which sponsors High School students in Ghana, currently has a

web-based application that helps them process their scholarship application and

awarding process. The existing application keeps record of applicants, generate points

for applicants, and send letters for these awardees. Given the current focus of the

existing system, this project seeks to widen the scope of the system by adding

functionalities to track payments. Therefore, instead of being just being a Scholarship

Application System, the system will be a Scholarship Management System (or a

Scholarship Fund Management System). At the end of this project, the NGO should be

able to use less time in processing payments, get a more transparent payment system,

generate reports from the system and reduce costs of operation. (Seidu, 2017)

Dompet Dhuafa Republika is a nonprofit institute that uplift the dignity of a poor

social humanity with ZISWAF funds and other funds lawful and legal, from individuals,

groups and companies. The decision making process in the selection of the SMART EI

scholarship awardee is still to estimate by Manager and central selection committee

based on the poverty of eligible nominee only and must wait for the report from the

selection committee in the area for several months. If there is a change in the education

system of local education system, it can affect the selection and ranking system. This

leads to lack of effective process of determining scholarship awardee. The purpose of

process of determining scholarship awardee. To develop Decision Support Systems

(DSS) of Scholarship, it applies Rapid Application Development (RAD) using Unified

Modeling Language (UML), programming language PHP, XAMPP as a web server and

MySQL as database. Refer to interview result with Research Manager, the system is

capable of handling and make ease to determine scholarship awardee using

PROMETHEE stage II. (Q. Aini, N. A. Hidayah and A. N. Istiqomah, 2018)

Multiple attribute decision making with simple additive weighting approach for

selecting the scholarship recipients at Syiah Kuala university. According to this

university it has extensively distributed academic achievement and Financial Aid

scholarships. Generally, students who have submitted all requirement documents and

applied to these scholarships will be selected by a scholarship committee. By using the

scholarship committee preferences, the results obtained an amount of vagueness and

subjective. The selection process is also too difficult and take so long time. In order to

solve this problem, a decision support system (DSS) using Multiple Attribute Decision

Making with Simple Additive Weighting Method was demonstrated by using a numerical

example to determine the scholarship recipients. The method is able to display a list of

the scholarship recipients by sorting the best alternative values from a number of

alternative values in descending order. In this paper, we used ten scholarship recipient

candidates as the alternatives and four scholarship requirements as the criteria or the

attributes. The results obtained with finding the weight values of each attribute, then

ranking the optimal score value of each alternative. [ CITATION Irv17 \l 1033 ]
 An automated system to follow up the scholarships of faculty members is

proposed in this paper. This framework provides a simple interface for the college

coordinators to apply for scholarships in language, master and PhD training. They

can fill the information of faculty members who are working in their respective

colleges. The proposed system helps the coordinators to manage the file of

applicant and then he can follow it. This system can also be used by post graduate

college and their higher management to follow the requests of scholarships and also

it can generate reports based on the application. The proposed framework depends

on many criteria’s which can be used by the management for evaluating the requests

to decide on accept/

reject the respective request. It can increase the productivity and also reduces the time

and effort to review the file of the applicant. (Almanza, Billy June, Gozo, Eloise Marie., et.

al., 2015)

The study aims to develop a website of scholarship management information

system with the consideration of basic requirements, components, complete and

organize information and online application system of scholars for a university. The

study utilizes the design and development of the website since it focuses on online

application and detection of the scholarship granted to the scholars. The

respondents of the study are the regular users of the scholarship office. It provides

all the information that the scholarship office can give to scholars regarding the

status of scholarship grants and how they will apply online [12]. Their study helps

the users and scholars on being updated on price changes that might happen

unexpectedly and information about the scholarship grants. (Gonzales et al., 2016)
 An online scholarship application and record management system for an agency

to eliminate the manual process of managing and profiling the scholars' information,

scholarship approval, and notification. The main focus of the system is to improve the

manual method that the said client uses, and for rapid processing of transactions.

Furthermore, having an application and record management system may lessen

manpower and results to more secured, reliable, and more organized storage of data.

The Developed system used Microsoft Expression Web 4 as their programming

language. They also used XAMMP for the back-end database to serve as a repository

of all records. The developed system enabled the users to update their personal

information, submit their credentials and view the current status of their scholarship.

There is also a module provided for the administrator where the administrator can easily

approve and disapprove applicant scholars and can effortlessly set schedule. The

system can also generate and print reports. (Malipol et al., 2018)

A web-based system used for recording of data, transactions and files of a

business or organization, while a mobile application is most used in daily

communication. These two can manage the task of eliminating paper works in daily

human transaction. The Sagip-Eskwela Beneficiary Program Web-Based System and

Mobile Application manages the records of students and data with their designated

locations and benefits that they receive. The system involves creating reports of

transactions of benefits given quarterly, the status of the students whether they are

active or inactive, reports of student beneficiaries in barangay or district and archive

information on the students who had finished the program. The system is expected to

facilitate the record management of the Sagip Eskwela Program of an agency, thus
providing better service and benefits to recipients of the said assistance program.

Mohammed (2015) developed an e-scholarship system that was designed and

implemented in order to allow students of Niger State indigents across the country to

apply for scholarship online with the Niger State Scholarship Board. The system was

designed using Object Oriented Analysis and Design (OOAD) methodology. The

application was developed using Hypertext pre-processor (PHP), AJAX, JavaScript,

Hyper Text Mark-Up Language (HTML) as the front end and MySQL database as the

backend. The E-scholarship system provides online application solutions that save time,

and sends notification using SMS alerts and emails on the progress of application in a

timely and transparent manner. (Plata et al., 2017)

Similarly, conducted a study at a Canadian university to determine the effects of

aid in conjunction with academic support on retention from one year to the next. Using

an experimental design, the researcher randomly assigned a sample of 650 first-year

students to one of three groups: (a) students receiving a large scholarship in Year 2 if

they met designated academic performance outcomes; (b) students receiving extensive

academic support and tutoring services; and (c)students who were offered both. A

remaining group of first-year students who received none of the three offers served as a

control group against confounding variables. The findings showed that although the

financial incentive alone served as a better motivator for persistence than academic

support alone, students receiving both offers persisted as the highest rate. The fact that

the financial intervention in this study was merit-based and not need-based in nature

suggests that money simply served as a catalyst for students already possessing the

skills necessary to perform in college. However, the study does not contribute to the
argument that academic performance plays a key role in student persistence patterns.

(M. Brumbaugh, 2011)

It is for the Scholarship office of a city to render the best service for the clients.

Primarily, the office personnel of the said office are having their transactions using MS

Excel in keeping records of students’ profile and funds. The record, which is taken by

the scholarship head, returns the information of the qualified applicants for scholarship.

Each application will undergo strict screening and one of its major requirements is that

the scholar applicant must be a bonafide resident of the said city. In using MS Excel, the

scholarship head consumed a lot of time before they can finish recording all the

transactions per day. One thing that makes it complicated is that there are tons of data

that needs to be updated about the scholars each time. It takes a month or few for the

scholarship head to readily update the records. (Falogme et al., 2017)