Concept Paper Electronic Registration and Personnel management for the National Service Scheme.
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Table of Contents I.
Introduction ................................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
II.
Objectives ................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
III.
Project description ...................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
IV. Time frame ............................................................................................................ 5 V.
System Requirements ............................................................................................ 5
VI. Training ................................................................................................................. 6 VII. Project team and delivery ...................................................................................... 6
This document is only a concept paper that is yet to be delivered to the deciding authority for pursuance. It is therefore not a complete proposal of the project; neither is it meant to serve as an agreement. For more information please contact the author.
Introduction This document is a team initiative put together by a number of computer systems developers, all serving their term of National Service who have identified an opportunity to improve upon the registration and management operations of the National Service Scheme. This document is intended for viewing by the National executives of the National Service Personnel Association (NASPA). The aim is to propose this system development initiative as a NASPA project for consideration by the requisite authority of the National Service Scheme.
Preamble Every year, approximately 50,000 graduating students from various tertiary institutions who live in several parts of the country are allocated to some organization to serve for a period of 12 months in fulfillment of the National Service Scheme act. The process begins with the allocation of PINs to prospective service persons across the country. They then enroll for the scheme on the official website for the National Service Scheme after which they are assigned unique numbers. Using these numbers, they are then able to check back at the website after postings have been made. Once a graduate has been posted, he is required to undergo a registration procedure prior to commencement of the job. This document is a draft proposal based on assumptions made by the prospective development team of the system to be provided. The assumptions are below: Assumptions: 1. Through the registration process, the National Service Secretariat is able to either disseminate or confirm information on persons who will be enrolling for the scheme for a particular year to regional offices, district offices and requisite public or private agencies 2. Private/ for-profit organizations to whom service personnel are posted are required to pay 20% of allowances to the scheme 3. Bank accounts are set up during registration via which personnel will receive allowances
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4. Photographs taken during the registration are purposely for the application of bank accounts only. Taking the photographs with the official cloth as background is a means of authenticating service personnel
Objectives The purpose of the proposed system is to: 1. Eliminate the need for manual registration by personnel. It is quite a fact that the allowances paid to service persons are inadequate as is the remuneration paid to most public workers and workers in general in Ghana. Accomplishing this objective will save persons who have to travel to distant regions, the need to travel for registration purposes. Hopefully this will save them the costs involved in travel and accommodation as the registration process sometimes takes a while and can get hectic. 2. Eliminate the need for manual submission of monthly personnel assessment before release of funds This process is also another hectic one as service personnel are sometimes required to travel significant distances from where they live or their office locations to submit and sign documents. It is worth noting that information that can be transferred electronically within a few seconds need not travel on paper through ink on fuel over a significant time period. Making this process electronic also reduces the chances of impersonations and fraudulent reports submitted by service persons. 3. Facilitate the dissemination of information and communication between agencies and prospective service persons who will be assigned to them 4. Automate internal administrative tasks involved in registration and payment of allowances and provide reports to various stakeholders of the scheme - National, Regional and district offices
Project description This project will involve the design and development of a comprehensive database schema and interfaces for data access and modification. The main source of data for this system will be the existing system which should essentially be data on personnel who have registered online to be posted and where they have been posted to. Also data on all private and public organizations to whom service persons are posted will be required. The data on the system is aimed at serving five CONCEPT PAPER - MARCH 2014
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main user categories; Headquarters of the National Service Scheme, Regional offices, District offices, Public or private organisations and National Service persons. Unless otherwise requested, the system will have the following deliverables: This system will provide statistics on how many personnel are required where and how much funds can be generated from the private organisations. All organisations to whom service persons are posted will be provided with online accounts with which they can liaise with NSS as well as communicate with service personnel. It is assumed that these organizations usually request for particular specialties of personnel posted. The system will provide these organisations with a list of individuals who have been posted to them. They will be able to review persons posted and reject them. This practise is already common in circumstances where more personnel are posted to a particular organisation than they can handle. These technicalities however will be handled as per the policies of the Scheme. These accounts will ease and facilitate communication between the secretariat and the agencies. At the end of every month, the system will make available forms via which authorized officers from the organizations can submit feedback about service persons to the district offices before allowances are released to deserving personnel. The system can also provide reports on funds paid or pending by private agencies to whom service personnel have been allocated Service persons will be provided with accounts where they can confirm acceptance for postings or reject them based on policies of the NSS regarding these decisions. When a service person accepts a posting, this information is made available to the National and requisite regional and district offices as well as the organization where he/she has been posted. The organization in return must confirm that they have a place for this personnel. Based on the forms completed by service persons and the authorized supervisors of the various organisations every month, the district offices around the country can assess and release allowances as appropriate. This system will provide accounts to the district offices with which they will view information submitted and make their decisions. Using such a system, the district offices may communicate back to the organisations in case there are any queries that need to be addressed. Setting up bank accounts: The registration process is a good time to have service persons set up bank accounts through which allowances will be paid. It is obvious that working with particular banks reduces the burden on NSS in the disbursement of funds. CONCEPT PAPER - MARCH 2014
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Fulfilling this aspect of registration will involve negotiating with partner banks to set up online applications for bank accounts. Since the paper applications are used to essentially collect personal information about individuals, service persons can submit these details electronically. They can then go to the banks only to verify their identities and confirm the details. A process that shouldn’t take up to 5 minutes and can be done after they have started work. A deadline can be stipulated for this last step of the bank application. Other matters to note: It is currently unclear what the operational needs of the National and regional offices are with regard to the registration of service persons and processing of allowances. If there is such a gap, it must be discussed for inclusion in the final draft of deliverables. The policies regarding re-posting of personnel are unclear. These processes must be discussed so that the required functionality can be included in the deliverables
Timeframe Based on experience, a project of this magnitude can span approximately three months provided the total processes of requirements gathering, design, development, testing and training are pursued continuously from the onset till completion. The prospective team will work diligently and should be able to deliver as long as all stakeholder cooperate to make this project a success.
System Requirements The application described above will be developed as a web application and thus will be a hosted service. To use this system, all stakeholders will be required to have a computing device such as a computer (Notebook or desktop) or tablet with an internet connection. As a hosted service the following will be fundamentally required to set it up and run:
Platform and operating environment o o o o o o o
The web application itself and accompanying database schema Web server Database management system Server operating system Firewalls Physical server Domain name and SSL certificate
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Training Web applications usually require minimal training and users who are computer literate should not require much effort to use them. However it is necessary to provide some training to the stakeholders of this system to give them a holistic understanding of how this system is meant to simplify their daily tasks and how it is going to be a positive reform to the current system.
Project team and delivery This project is to be implemented by a team consisting of requisite skilled members of the National Service Personnel Association. Hopefully using service persons will significantly reduce the software development costs involved in developing such a system.
The team Roles
Number
Project manager/ Team lead
1
Programmers
3
Database architects
2
Front end developers/designers
3
Research assistants
3
This document is only a concept paper that is yet to be delivered to the deciding authority for pursuance. It is therefore not a complete proposal of the project; neither is it meant to serve as an agreement. For more information please contact the author.
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