Selform System Application User Manual 2020/2021, Selform System TAMISEMI 2020/2021, Selform TAMISEMI 2020
1. Getting Started with SELFORM Application
1.1 System Installations
SELFORM application is a window based application. Information about the installation of the application can be found in Appendix 1. SELFORM application uses candidate registration data from the National Examinations
Council of Tanzania (NECTA).
This data has been packaged together with the
application, and it is already available in the system after installation. A SELFORM installation package contains candidate registration data for one region only. For example, users in Arusha region will have their installation package containing candidate registration data for Arusha region only.
1.2 Loading Registration Data into the System Candidate registration data from NECTA is already available in the system after installation. When starting the application for the first time, the system will prompt the user to specify his/her district. See figure 1.1 below.
The user should select his/her district and click the „Ok‟ button. Once the user clicks the „Ok‟ button, the system will automatically perform some configurations and prompt the user to select an examination centre (school) to work with. See figure 1.2 below.
The user can then select a school to work, click the „Ok‟ button and input candidates‟ selection information for that particular school. After the initial step, the system will not require the user to specify his/her district again.
When the application starts the system will always direct the user to the window for selecting examination centres (figure 1.2 above). It is possible to remove all data and restart again by clicking on the “Initialize District” command from the “Initialize” menu. The user can use this feature in case a wrong district was selected initially or for some reason the user decides to wipe all data and start a fresh
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2. Entering data into the SELFORM Application
Once the user select an examination to work with, a window like the one shown on figure 2.1 will be filled with candidate registration data from NECTA for that particular examination centre ready for the selection preferences information entry.
To properly describe different areas of screen in figure 2.1, the figure has been divided into five regions as shown by numbers 1 through 5. Section 2.1 below briefly describes the five regions.
2.1 SELFORM data input window
As shown in figure 2.1 above, the main SELFORM input window can be divided into five regions.
In the first region (figure 2.1 (1)), the user is expected to enter general candidate information which are home district, candidate address, health problem (if any), and telephone number.
In the second and third regions (figure 2.1(2) & (3)), the user is expected to enter further education choices for a particular candidate. Region (2) allows the user to specify the candidate general preference for further education. In region (3), the user is expected to enter detailed further education candidate choices which are a-level combination choices, a-level school choices, technical education choices and technical colleges‟ choices. There are five choices for each group and they should be entered according to the candidate preferences.
Regions four and five (figure 2.1(4) & (5)) allows the user to locate the candidate he/she wishes to work with. The user can click on any of the candidate listed on region five in order to put information for that particular candidate.
The user can also type the name or part of the name of a desired candidate(s) in the text box indicated in region 4 and the system will automatically filter candidates matching the typed information. The user can then pick the exact candidate he/she wishes to work on and the system will display information for that candidate.
2.2 Entering Data
Now that we have an understanding of the main data input window, let us see how candidates data is entered into the SELFORM application. Let us start with region 2, and then 3 and finish with region 1.
Specifying A-level or Technical Education
As stated earlier, specifying the candidate general preference for further education is done in region 2. The options are a-level and technical education. The user will enter 1 into a-level text box if the student has specified a-level as the first option and 2 in the technical college text box. However if the student has specified technical college as the first choice, then the user will enter 1 in the technical college text box and 2 in the a-level text box.
If a student has further indicated interest in joining the police force (in case he/she is not selected to join form five or technical college), the user should check the police check box in region 2. Entering detailed further education choices
In region 3, the user can enter detailed information about candidates‟ further education choices as indicated in the student‟s paper selform. In this region, there are 4 rows each representing a choice group of 5 choices. The names for each group are
self-explanatory.
To enter data for a particular group and a particular choice number, the user has to edit the text box that is on the row of the group and on the column of that choice number. For example to enter/edit the first college choice for a candidate the user has to edit the text box that is on the row “Colleges” in first column.
Once the user has finished entering data in any of the text boxes in region 3, the system scans its database to find more information about the entry. In any case the system will have one of the following results:
1. There is only one entry in the database that matches the entered information. For example if the user enters “PCM” in the a-level combination group, the system will find that there is only one combination relating to the entered entry which is a “PCM” combination.
2. There is more than one entry in the database that matches the entered information. For example if the user enters “Nyerere” in the school group, there might be several entries relating to this entry.
3. The entry doesn‟t exist in the database, for example if the user enters “PHM” in the a-level combination group, there will be no relating information in the database since combination “PHM” doesn‟t exist. The system will respond to the user depending on the three results above as follows:
1. If a single entry is found in the database that relates to the entered value, the system will not prompt the user for any action. It will just accept the entry.
2. If the system finds more than one entries relating to the entered value, the system will display a window that shows all the found entries and allow the user to specify the exact entry he/she want. Once the user specify the intended entry and then click the “Ok” button, the intended entry is accepted by the system and the entered value is linked to this entry so that the user will not be prompted by the system, the next time he/she enters the same value.
For example in figure 2.3 we can observe that, the user entered value “usagara” on the school (examination centre) group and the system found there are two entries which relates to “usagara” i.e “USAGARA” and “BUSAGARA”. The user can select the intended entry by selecting it from the “Relate to” combo-box and click the “Ok” button.
In the case of figure 2.3 if the user relate the entry with “usagara” and click the “Ok” button, the entry “USAGARA” will be accepted as the intended entry and the system will record this link so that it may refer it in future entries i.e. the user will not be prompted again by the system, when he/she enters “usagara”, but the system will automatically link it to entry “USAGARA” and not “BUSAGARA”.
3. If the entry doesn‟t exist, the system will prompt the user to specify the intended entry, amongst all the items in that group. For example in figure
2.4 below, the entry “dsm” was entered in the “colleges” group. Since the system could not related “dsm” to any of the colleges in this group, it has prompted the user to specify the intended entry amongst all the entries (in this case all colleges) that exists in the system. In figure 2.4 if the user
clicks the “Ok” button after selecting the intended entry, the system will accept this entry and remembers the entry link in future.
Using this link data functionality, the user can create own shortcuts which can help to speed up the data entry process. For example in figure 2.4, we can see that a “dsm” shortcut has been created which will always translate to “Dar es Salaam Institute of Technology” when entered by the user as a technical college entry. The user can view all data links (or data alias) created by clicking on the “Operations” menu and choose “Data Alias”. When this is done, a window like the one shown on
figure 2.5 below will appear. In this window, the user can choose the type of data from the four options available and all the data links for that specific data type will be listed. For example in figure 2.5, there is one data alias listed for the Technical
Colleges data type. The data alias is “dsm” and it is linked to the “Dar es salaam Institute of Technology (DIT)” data. The user can always delete any current data alias by clicking the delete button (the red button with a sign X).
2.3 Filtering Data
When data is loaded on the main editing window, after the user has specified an examination centre to work with, all the candidates in that examination centre will be listed. The user can select any candidate in the list and input selection information for that candidate.
The system also allows filtering candidates based on the pre-defined criteria and therefore makes it possible for the user to work with only the candidates meeting specified criteria. To select candidates based on criteria the user needs to select “Filter” command on the toolbar. When “Filter” item is clicked, it displays a dropdown with five self-explanatory criteria to choose from (see figure 2.5 below). The user can then choose desired criteria to only display data meeting the criteria.
3. Making changes to Candidate Registration data
As stated earlier, the system uses candidate registration information from NECTA. This
information originates from examination centres during the period of candidate registration for the CSEE examination. It is expected that this information will be correct, but in the event where this information is found to be incorrect, the system
allows for correction.
A user can either edit existing candidate registration information if it is found to be
incorrect or add new candidates into the system if they do not exist for one reason or another. The system keeps tracks of all changes.
3.1 Editing Candidate Registration Data
To edit candidate registration data, the user needs to click the “Operations” menu, choose the “Modify Candidate Data” submenu and then choose “Edit Candidate” command. The intended candidate should be the active/selected candidate prior to
clicking “Edit Candidate” command. After clicking the “Edit Candidate” command, the screen like the one shown in figure 3.1 below will be displayed.
The user can then change/correct any of the information which is not correct and click the “Ok” button. It should be noted that, although the original information will be replaced by the new information, it is not entirely removed from the system. The system keeps track of these changes due to the fact that NECTA registration data changes will have to be approved first before being accepted as correct information. Therefore in case these changes are not approved, the original information will be restored.
3.2 Adding New Candidates
In the unexpected event where candidate registration information is missing in the
NECTA registration data, the system gives provision for adding such candidate to the system. To do this, the user has to click the “Add Candidate” menu which is in the “Operations” menu, under the “Modify Candidate Data” submenu. Figure 3.2 below shows a screen displayed after the “Add Candidate” menu has been clicked. In the figure, the system has already inserted the candidate examination centre number and the user can now complete this number by inputting the candidate
number, input the rest of the required information and click the “Ok” button.
Once the information for the new candidate is complete, the new candidate is added to the list of existing candidates in that examination centre and selection preferences information for this new candidate can be entered in the same way as the selection preferences information for other candidates.
3.3 Deleting Candidates
To delete a candidate from the registration list, the user needs to click the “Operations” menu, choose the “Modify Candidate Data” submenu and then choose “Delete Candidate”. The intended candidate should be the active/selected candidate prior to clicking “Delete Candidate” command. After clicking the “Delete Candidate” command, the system will ask the user to confirm the command and then the candidate will be removed from the candidate registration list.
3.3 Restoring Deleted Candidates
Deleting a candidate from the original registration list does not remove completely record from the system. The system stores a deleted record in a separate place within the system. It is therefore possible to restore the deleted original record back to the candidate registration list. To do this, the user needs to click the “Operations” menu, choose the “Modify Candidate Data” submenu and the choose “Restore Deleted Candidates”.
When the “Restore Deleted Candidate” command is clicked the system display a window with the list of all deleted candidates and the user can select the candidate(s) he/she wishes to restore by checking the corresponding check boxes and then click on
the “Ok” button (see figure 3.3 below).
3.4 Set/Delete Unavailable Data Remarks
The SELFORM application provides the means to indicate the reason as to why selform information has not been entered for a particular candidate. If the user has been provided with the reason why a certain candidate does not have selform data or didn‟to fill the paper selform, then she/he can put that reason in the system using this functionality.
To do so the user needs to click the “Operations” menu, choose the “Modify Candidate Data” submenu and the choose “Set/Delete Unavailable Data Remarks”. The intended candidate should be the active/selected candidate prior to clicking “Set/Delete Unavailable Data Remarks” command. When this is done a window like the one shown of figure 3.4 below will be displayed.
Using this window the user can enter the reason as to why this candidate does not have selform data and click on the “Ok” button. Once the reason has been entered,
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