Ahmadu, AS and Blamah, NV (2006) A Web Enabled ...

Bagale Journal of Pure and Applied Sciences, 5:25-30

A WEB ENABLED HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PLATFORM FOR MEETING THE GOALS OF
INTELLLECTUAL CAPITAL IN A NIGERIAN UNIVERSITY

A.S. Ahmadu and N.V. Blamah

Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Federal University of Technology, Yola
{ahmaduasabe, blamahn}@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT
The major thrust of this paper is to explore the platform of the computer so as to strengthen the process of
Human Resource (HR) Management. Traditional HR Management systems rely on the intuition of HR
managers to take critical decisions on the selection, recruitment, development and utilization of human
capital. In the University system where intellectual capital is very critical the task of selecting and nurturing
the right talents for the growth of research and innovation is very important. The internet provides the
university HR manager the capacity to advertise, select and recruit staff around the globe cheaply. It allows
HR mangers to easily and cheaply collaborate with departmental managers and staff, thus improving the
productivity of staff members. The internet is a leveler, it will not only demystify the HR department, it will lead
to more transparency, accountability and growth in the university system.

INTRODUCTION
The problem of attracting, retaining,
developing and utilizing human resources are
complex today because they must be
addressed within the context of government
legislation, shrinking supplies of energy and
natural resources, heightened concern over
environmental systems, rapid changes in
technology and growing international
competition. Organizational factors such as
decreasing productivity, soaring personnel
cost, the increasing globalization of the
workforce and higher level of educational
qualification have serious impact for HR
practice. Because of these and several
factors, the HR practice in today’s university
must figure out how to deal with the following
human resource problems of how to:
• organize work and allocate it to workers
• recruit, train and effectively manage the
people available to do work
• create work condition, rewards and
disciplinary systems
• make the university to adjust to changes
in the environment and technology
• cope with competition, legislation and
labor militancy
• cope with and create a global workforce
that operate without fiction.
Traditional systems have proved ineffective in
delivering efficient HR systems. Automated
and web enabled solutions enforces the
need for global best practices in HR and
equips the HR manager with the skills to keep
up with the challenges of a technology
based workforce where intellectual capital
needs top flourish.
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Review of traditional HR system in the
University
Traditionally HR practice in the university
differs very little from what is obtained in other
firms and organizations. HR focuses on line
staff relationship. There exist two types of
management authorities viz: Line managers
are responsible for achieving the basic goals
of the organization. To do this, they authorize
and direct the work of other staff managers.
On the other hand are experts in particular
areas (finance, personnel, legal, research,
teaching) and they are authorized to advice
and assist line managers to achieve
organizational goals (French, 1978). The major
responsibilities of a HR department are as
follows:
a. formulation of personnel policy
b. implementation of personnel policy
c. auditing and control
Structure and form of HR systems
Different organizations provide different
services. Thus the structure of each
organization and staff requirement should
reflect the type of operations they perform.
An organization is social machinery for
efficiency accomplishment through groups
and means for attaining stated purposes. It is
equivalent to the blue print for the design of
machine which is to be created for some
practical objectives (Beach, 1975). In the
University system the goal is to provide the
following services:
• teaching & research
• Produce graduates in various fields
• Incubate and nurture innovations
Ahmadu, AS and Blamah, NV (2006) A Web Enabled ... Bagale Journal of Pure and Applied Sciences, 5:25-30

• Provide support to community 3. Auditing and control function of the

departments meets standard of
HR IN THE UNIVERSITY worldwide best practices.
The most important function of the University
staff system is to provide teaching and A WEB ENABLED HR SYSTEM
research services. To effectively provide these A model is a representation of a particular set
services, the University needs the services of of views (Sully, 1993). One of the essentials of
support staff, and ensure that there is a model is that it should be partitionable i.e.
effective subsystem interaction. Thus the allow an overall view to be broken into more
university HR system must ensure the detailed viewpoints. Three modeling stages
attainment of the following; are used here. They are entity relationship
1. That the personnel policy lays in line with diagram (ER) for the structure of the model,
the current trend in worldwide selection. the Data flow diagram (DF) for the Data
2. That recruitment, development, processing, and lastly the state transition
promotion and disciplinary policies are diagram (ST) to express behavior. Entity
enforced using the corporate personnel relationship diagram of HR system shows how
policy all the subject and concepts are
interconnected.

Fig 1 Selection/Recruitment ER diagram Fig 4: ERD Candidate Placement Academic

*Qualificatio
Post Candidate n Post
Academic *Years of
Qualificati experience

Non - Fig 5: Training & skill gap analysis

academic

Qualificatio
Post Training
n skills gap

Fig 2: ER diagram Non academic staff

Retirement

Non
academic Senior
Qualification
Fig 6: Appraisal ER diagram
Promotion
Junior

Fig 3: ER diagram Academic staff *Appraisal

scored last No Change
Post *Promotion date in Status
* Time in Rank

*Qualification
*Years of
Candidate experience
Post Discipline
*No of papers

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Ahmadu, AS and Blamah, NV (2006) A Web Enabled ... Bagale Journal of Pure and Applied Sciences, 5:25-30

Fig 7: Non Academic Placement

Promotion

*Qualificatn
No Change
Candidate * Years of
in Status
experience

Discipline

DF Diagram and ST Diagram

Candidate applied
Update 1 Candidate not present

Application under review

Update 2
Candidate present
Candidate Employed
Update 3 Candidate under

Candidate Promoted
Update 4 Candidate employed

Candidate Training Candidate promoted

Update 5

Candidate Demoted
Candidate for training
Update 6

Candidate on Retired
Candidate demoted
Update 7

Candidate Resigned Candidate retired

Update 8

Candidate record above Candidate resigned

5 years
update 9

A catalogue of the system’s key

functionalities include modules for staff
querying and discipline, appraisal, leave,
general error handling and data
manipulation.

Another feature that characterized the

system is the high level of security that was
built. Various levels of access can be given
to users by the database administrator
(DBA),

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 Ahmadu, AS and Blamah, NV (2006) A Web Enabled ... Bagale Journal of Pure and Applied Sciences, 5:25-30

Table 1: Appraisal Table

StaffNo SalGrade Rank
SN211 04/01 LECT I
SN227 04/02 LECT I
SN311 05/01 SNR LECT
SN345 03/04 LECT II
SN349 05/02 SNR LECT
SN455 02/03 ASST LECT
SN789 03/03 LECT II
which means users are confined to their
assigned levels. A tree structured
dialog box that looks like the main menu
was designed in order to aid the DBA in
Table 2: Biodata before update
Error Handling Module
StaffNo Surname OtherNames Dept. SalGrad Rank
SN211 Moses Daut E. Geology 03/05 LECT II
The module for the entire systems error
SN227 Samaila Golong P. Maths 03/06 LECT II handling is listed below. Any error that
SN311 Baba Moses T. M/Bio. 04/03 LECT I occurred would be generated and
SN345 Jessy Ubani W. Physics 02/05 ASST LECT reported by this module, depending on
SN349 Kasim Ibrahim L. E/E 04/04 LECT I the error number/type. This method is
SN455 Adamu Aso K. IT 01/06 GRAD ASST
SN566 Mike Moris C. Econs 07/02 PROFESSOR
declared public because it must be
SN776 Bright Algo D. Stat/OR 06/02 ASSO PROF visible to the entire project, as this is
SN789 Woolder Asemle Maths 02/04 ASST LECT intended to be a general module.
Van
carrying out this task. The dialog box is Public Sub errorHandler(DataErr As Integer,
displayed below. Response As Integer)
Each item that is ticked on this dialog box 'This is where you would put error handling
enables access for the item to the particular code
user, and any one that is un-ticked disables 'If you want to ignore any error, comment
that particular item on the menu against the out the next statement,
user. The dialog box above displays 'If you want to trap them, add codes here
information about the DBA, and since s/he to handle them
Table 3: Biodata after update MsgBox "Data error event hit err:"
& Error$(DataErr)
StaffNo Surname OtherNames Dept. SalGrade Rank Response = 0
SN211 Moses Daut E. Geology 04/01 LECT I
SN227 Samaila Golong P. Maths 04/02 LECT I
End Sub
SN311 Baba Moses T. M/Bio. 05/01 SNR LECT
SN345 Jessy Ubani W. Physics 03/04 LECT II Promotion/Appraisal Module
SN349 Kasim Ibrahim L. E/E 05/02 SNR LECT The appraisal module is one major
SN455 Adamu Aso K. IT 02/03 ASST LECT feature of the system. Promotions’
SN566 Mike Moris C. Econs 07/02 PROFESSOR
data are updated automatically by
SN776 Bright Algo D. Stat/OR 06/02 ASSO PROF
SN789 Woolder Asemle Van Maths 03/03 LECT II going through the appraisal
has control over the entire system, all the records. The biodata form is
items are enabled. Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 displayed below, which captures all the
was used for the front end while Microsoft necessary recommendations regarding
Access was used as the database. The each staff during appraisal. The form
codes for the various modules and sample consists of three tabs (pages) – two related
reports generated from the system follow. to official information (appraisal is on page
2) while one is related to staff personal data.

This form is directly connected with the

recommendations and discipline tables, so

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Ahmadu, AS and Blamah, NV (2006) A Web Enabled ... Bagale Journal of Pure and Applied Sciences, 5:25-30

that each time the appraisal exercise is running the module, data in the table 1 was
through, the modules are activated and the used to update the table 2, thereby yielding
necessary recommendations and discipline table 3 as the new biodata table. As the
are automatically updated. Changes in tables display, only the records that
level/rank are performed based on the appeared in the appraisal table were
information obtained from the appraisal affected in the biodata table.
table. Prior to performing any operation in
the database, variables were declared to The Web Backbone
access the database, and recordsets Solutions must scale up to meet the growing
opened on the database to navigate demands of the operating environment. To
through it, as usual. The module below be able to attract quality intellectual
accomplishes this. capital, the system must be global in the
nature and offer global best practices in the
Private Sub SalaryIncr() selection of staff recruitment, training and
Dim hrms As Database promotion. The system is based on database
Dim AppraisalRec As Recordset connectivity software like SQL 2000 or
Dim StaffRec As Recordset oracle. It uses the thin client front and
Dim OldGrade, NewGrade, NewRank As solution that is browser based.
String
Set hmrs = OpenDatabase(App.Path & Role based security structure
"DatabaseFolder\hrms.mdb") Security is a prime conservation in software
Set ApprasalRec = implementation. This is so because the
hrms.OpenRecordset("Appraisal", integrity of data is crucial to the attainment
dbOpenSnapshot) of the objectives of the software service. A
Set StaffRec = role-based access system allocates roles to
hrms.OpenRecordset("Biodata", users and enforces the operations they can
dbOpenRecordset) carry out. At the browser front end,
AppraisalRec.MoveFirst candidates register and create curriculum
With ApprasalRec records. After that, they are issued a unique
While Not .EOF personnel identification number with which
NewGrade = AppraisalRec!SalGrade they can track and update their Curriculum
NewRank = AppraisalRec!Rank Vitaes (CVs). Internal users have role-based
StaffRec.Filter ("StaffNo = '" & access control facility that defines the
AppraisalRec!StaffNo & "' And operations they can perform. These include
Session = '" & creation of staff records, editing of records,
AppraisalRec!Session & "'") viewing records, printing of reports, granting
OldGrade = StaffRec!SalGrade of access rights and so on.
If OldGrade < NewGrade Then
StaffRec!SalGrade = NewGrade Essential characteristics of the software.
StaffRec!Rank = NewRank If the model above minimizes a real world
End If problem then it should be applied to a
.MoveNext specific problem. The desirable
Loop characteristics of this software will be as
End With follows:
End Sub a. Robustness: the ability to function in
abnormal circumstances or in
A sample run from the module above using unintended manner
the Appraisal and Biodata files is given b. Extendibility: the ease of adopting a
below. The sample run was filtered for one product so that it may be easily
session of appraisal. Table 1 is used to extended to capture new behavior.
capture appraisal data before the module c. Reliability: the capability to be
above is run, while table 2 is biodata table reused in part or whole and when
prior to the execution of the module. After

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Ahmadu, AS and Blamah, NV (2006) A Web Enabled ... Bagale Journal of Pure and Applied Sciences, 5:25-30
used in another context it has all the
appropriate behavior as a unit.
d. Compatibility: the ease with which
products may be combined
Functionability of the software
The Functionability of software is the totality
of the services it offers its users. The web
based HR system will offer its services to the
following class of users:
* External users
The external users are potential users that will
use the software to post CV records, track
the status of the CV and update them as
new skills are acquired.
* Internal users
These users consists of internal staff who
should be able to create new staff records,
update staff records, delete records, view
reports, assign access rights to various users
and create review transaction and access.
CONCLUSION
We are living in an era where technology
has created serious impact on
organizational
forms and structures. A University faces the
challenge of streamlining its services to meet
the competition of attracting new entrants
and research funding.
The final product of the University is the
quality of graduates it produces and the
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quality of its research efforts. To be able to
achieve this, the University needs to attract
high quality graduates and researchers. A
web enabled HR system eliminates the
barrier of time and space in the attraction of
talents. It will also make the HR process more
transparent and accountable, thus making
the enforcement of global best practices
possible. This will lead to better quality
research and higher flow of research grant
from multi–lateral organizations. It will also
generate greater overall productivity in the
University system.
REFERENCE
Ahmadu, A. S. (2002). A computer based
human resource system. MSc Thesis, ATBU
Bauchi.
Sully, P. (1993). Modeling the world with
objects. Prentice Hall.
McEvoy, K. (1988). A Game plan for systems
development. Yourdon Press.
French, W. L (1978). The Personnel
Management Process. Houghton – Mifflin
Co.
Beach, D. S (1975). The management of
people at work, New York, Macmillan .
Argyris, C. (1964). Integrating the individual
and the organization New York, Wiley.