ABSTRACT
This report summarizes my life experiences with real life operations that I went through at Nairobi Aviation College. The duration of attachment was three months which I spent at the IT s department. It is in line with diploma in Information Technology that I compile this report that summarizes the relation of practical experience I gained to academic education.
Therefore, this report is a feedback to the Mawego Technical Training Institute. The Information Technology department where I was attached at comprised of the following sections Computer hardware and maintenance section Computer networking section Computer software section I gathered data through carrying out specific tasks, sharing ideas, observation and experimental work. The main goal behind this report is to give the conceptual view of the department and how it fits in the overall performance of the firm.
It is also an analysis, evaluation and assessment of whether the department is complying with the recommended IT practices. On the other hand it is there to summarize the extensive work experience that I was exposed to during my stay at KCA University. This report allows the reader to get the real feeling of how things happen in the IT department at KCA University. The intention of this report is to give a brief background of the Industrial Attachment programme as well as to give a report of the host company, its history, core business, present operations and future business prospects.
After the brief background, it will then move to main findings, recommendations and conclusion. First and for most, I thank the Almighty God for His unending tender guidance ,encouragement and protection He gave me to enable the successful completion of my three months attachment at Nairobi Aviation College. Apart from the efforts of myself, the success of any project depends largely on the encouragement and guidelines of many others. I take this opportunity to express my gratitude to the people who have been instrumental in the successful completion of this project.
I would like to show my greatest appreciation to Mr. Essanya Evans, The Principal Nairobi Aviation College- Kisumu campus, for giving me a wonderful opportunity for an industrial attachment in his organization. The attachment assisted me to gain a lot of knowledge, skills and experience as far as information Technology is concerned. Words are inadequate in offering my thanks to my supervisor, Mr. Calisto Oyugi for his encouragement and cooperation during my attachment period. I take immense pleasure in thanking Dr.
Jagongo Ambrose PhD, MBA, FKIMCoordinator, Kenyatta University-KIST Learning, for his financial support and healthy advice during my industrial attachment period . In deed this industrial attachment would have not been possible without him. Finally, yet importantly, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to my beloved mother for their blessings, my friends/classmates for their help and wishes for the successful completion of this attachment.
INTRODUCTION
This chapter begins with explaining the purpose of the report; follow by its scope and limitations. It then goes on to give a brief introduction on the history of Nairobi Aviation College and the attached department, Computer Studies and Electrical Engineering. This chapter also covers the educational goals of Nairobi Aviation College, as well as a brief explanation on the services that it offers. This chapter ends by providing an overview of the Hewlett-Packard’s partnership with the universiti
The Industrial Attachment program fulfills part of the requirement in pursuing a diploma in Information Technology in Mawego Technical Training Institute. This is a training that should last for a minimum of three months. It is intended to expose student to the real life working experience.
KCA UNIVERSITY KISUMU CAMPUS ORGANIZATION STRACTURE MANAGER PRINCIPAL
Attached Company – Nairobi Aviation College Nairobi Aviation College was established in 1999 to offer aviation related courses to the Kenyan population in a bid to supplement government effort in technical, industrial, vocational and entrepreneurial training and is fully registered by the Ministry of Higher Education, Science & Technology i. e. MOEST/PC/774/2002 and its training programmes are always validated by the Commission for Higher Education and Kenya Civil Aviation Authority.
Currently its headquarters is at Kahawa house, 1st and 2nd floor, Hail Salassie Avenue. Nairobi Aviation College is steadily growing and has its branches at Odeon Cinema, Eldoret, Kitale and Kisumu where I was attached. Currently, the college exists as a privet company run by board of directors, among them the branch manager based in Nairobi. The Path to KCA University * The Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya (ICPAK) set up Kenya College of Accountancy (KCA) in May 1989.
KCA Kisumu Campus officially launched its programmes on 14th January 2002. The move marked a special milestone both for KCA and the Western province region. KCA entry into this serene lakeside town added great value to professional, academic and Business training programmes regionally. The principles on which KCA was founded in 1989 by the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya (ICPAK) regained focus, and the dreams of thousands of professional students within this region became a reality.
The centre enrolled 300 students within the first one month of its operation and the number by the end of the year tripled its enrolment to 980 students. The current annual enrolment stands at 1200 students. The campus capacity has expanded as fast as resources became available making KCA Kisumu campus the fastest growing tertiary center in the western region. It now occupy two floors of the ultra modern Swan Center, up from the one floor we occupied in 2002. KCA Kisumu has adequate physical facilities such as a well stocked library for students’ and lecturers’ references.
It has more than 10,000 e- learning materials used for teaching and research purposes. Besides, the students continue to excel not only in academics but also in extra curriculum activities like colleges annual national drama festivals. To respond to the needs of students and to make education more accessible to students, KCA established KCA Eldoret and KCA Kericho. The two centers continue to attract many students in professional courses. Further, it has comprehensive distance learning materials to cater for the students who would not get adequate time for full time studies.
It is committed to providing first class training in all its constituent colleges to produce qualified and competent professional and academic graduates. It hope to expand satellite colleges to cover all provinces in Kenya.
The collage is well equipped to handle a wide range of information through the use of several courses like Diploma in Information Technology, Diploma in Business Management, CPA, BscIT, packages Cisco and many others. The collage has enough computer machines and classrooms to facilitate student learning. The teaching programs are divided into two categories: Academic and Professional programs. The part time classes are also available.
THE MAIN BUSINESS OF THE ORGANISATION
Nairobi Aviation College being a Private Organization is charged with the responsibility of offering various teaching activities in various courses. * Employment of lecturers and support stuffs Nairobi Aviation College employs its lecturers and support staffs on permanent basis to help in the daily operations of the organization. Registration of students After confirming with the course advisors whether he/she have the qualification to do a certain course, the client is served with admission letter with all the requirements of joining that particular course.
The following requirements apply to all courses:Three colored passport size photos, Copies and originals of result slips, certificates and other testimonials, Copy and original National ID card or Passport,Fees payable during admission plus tuition fees (Amount varies from course to course) Fees payment methods We have different modes of fees payment available to our students, parents and guardians and our clients are free to choose any of them. The following fees payments can be used:
- You can pay using banker’s cheque addressed Nairobi Aviation College
- You can deposit you fees into the college bank account.
Each college branch has its own account as follows: The college registers all its students before they could be allowed to attend their classes. The college markets the courses it offers, then the new students take the admission forms which they fill with the required information, at the customer care desk, the students then pay the admission charges with the tuition fees for one month, then they can be allowed to start classesThe students are charged Ksh. 500 for registration. They are also given admission forms which they fill and return to the register for clarity and record keeping.
The school fees is paid in two installments, first installments is during the registration and the last installment is after a month from the registration time. The students are only permitted to attend the classes that they paid for. * Industrial linkages The college has also succeeded in ensuring that all its students are attached through collaboration between its Industrial Liaison Office and the National Industrial Training Authority which is under the Ministry of labor. In addition, the Nairobi Aviation College offers several chances for industrial training of students from other colleges and universities. Teaching Teaching is the fundamental activity of the organization. It offers high level of education and ensures that each and every student is satisfied according to his /her area of specialization.
DESCRIPTION OF ORGANISATION
There are three main kinds of networking LAN- this is the local area network – it is a kind of network that covers small geographical are ie a small organization, offices, home internet cafes etc. MAN-this is the metropolitan area network- it covers urban centers e. g. a city or a town WAN- this is the Wide Area Network- this kind of network covers a large geographical area like a continent, country etc Elements of a computer network.
I was introduced to N computing card technology. N computing card is a newer technology PCI card that is used together with a multi-box extender to create a multi- user environment. One N Computing card can use three sets of multi user box to make sure that seven users simultaneously share a host of resources.
This hardware component is normally bought together with its software on a CD such as the one shown. For N computing card to function properly, the software must be installed and configured appropriately. The N computing card is normally inserted in one of the expansion slots on the mother board. I used X550 N Computing card above and the extender box below to connect the seven monitors to the host computer. The host computer had to have high capacity RAM and hard drive. The capacity of RAM and hard drive here would determine the number of workstations it would support.
This means that the host computer was very powerful. The multi box had 2 PS/2 ports for a keyboard and a mouse, a network cable port where the UTP cable from the N computing card is hooked, Video Graphics Array for connecting the display unit. In this case a keyboard, mouse and monitor makes one workstation and one extender connects one workstation as shown below:-Multi box Work stations The host computer.
While in KCA University I also gained skills and experience on how to repair and maintain various types of computers, including desktop PC, laptop, palmtop and notebook computers.
I was trained on how to perform cleanup procedures and use a couple of maintenance facilities. Under this section, I could work in the digital and CISCO laboratories, which were directly under the IT Support Department. I performed the following activities. Computer cleaning. This is a practice of physically cleaning the interior, and exterior, of a computer including the removal of dust and debris from cooling fans, power supplies and hardware components. Under this, I cleaned regularly the exterior parts of the monitors, printers, scanners, mice, keyboards as well as the system unit.
I could use a wet spongy material to wipe them , taking a lot of care not to spill water in to them since water may corrode the inner parts and cause malfunctioning of the machine. It is true that dust, dirt and grime can lead to a serious problem with PC. For this reason I used to clean the interior parts of the system unit. I could also remove all keyboard keys and clean them with a lot of care and then fix them back carefully after every month. Backing up computer dataIn Information Technology, it is the process of making copies of data which may be used to restore the original after a data loss event.
Backup routines balance expense and effort against risk and regular backups are vital insurance against a data- loss problem. Again the cost of backing up data is far less than the often impossible task of recreating data for which no back up exists. In KCA University backups were normally made during the following occasions
- When a computer had to be fully formatted.
- Whenever there was serious virus attack to the machine.
- When a computer had to be moved from a department to another.
Apart from the above, crucial information were also backed up online (backups were made and then sent to the main campus in Nairobi through mail every day for record keeping)Formatting computersFormatting hard drives completely erases all data on the hard disk. Formatting was mostly done when the hard drive was infected by viruses or Trojan that were very difficult to remove. Sometimes it was also done when the drive had bad sectors on it. A hard drive should be divided into small parts to utilize the space effectively. A hard drive can also be formatted to reorganize the space available.
Configuring Network This involved assigning new computers IP addresses, configuring network settings as well as pinging the network whenever there was a problem. Anti-Virus updating. Anti-virus software is used to prevent, detect and remove malware, virus, worms, Trojan horses, spyware and adware from a computer systemIn KCA University, I commonly used Kersperskey antivirus to protect computers from viruses. There are also other many types of antivirus like McAfee, Avira etc though they were not frequently used in KCA University. The University updates its computers online.
Instructing the students of IT on assembling and formatting computersAssembling computers means putting the parts together to make it function as a unit. During my attachment I could teach the DIT3 and DIT5 students, by demonstration how to assemble all the computer components and also how to format machines I was being guided by my supervisor, Mr. Mwangi. In KCA university especially in CISCO laboratory, there are computers that came into existence through assembling of different components e. g. CPU from different computers. These computers are called cloned computers.
The other computers are just bought new from the manufacturer e. g. Dell, Acer and Compaq computers and are called branded machineDuring the assembling of computers, I gained a lot of knowledge on the components of the system unit like power supply unit, motherboard, SATA and IDE hard drives, CDROM, memory slots and modules, processors, expansion cards and slots, IDE cables etc. I also learnt many things related to Basic Input Output System (BIOS) and the Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS). The picture below shows most components of the system unit.
SETTING DATA PROJECTORS FOR PRESENTATIONS
A data projector is used to project the contents of a computer screen onto a big screen or wall so that a large audience can see the information. Data projectors are particularly popular for use with presentation software like power point. In KCA university projectors were commonly used for presentation by lecturers during class sessions. I was therefore assigned the duty of issuing projectors to lecturers. I could give them a book to sign when they are receiving the projectors and when they are returning the same projectors.
These projectors were tagged differently for easy identification. I also had a task of a task of assisting the lecturers in setting these projectors during their lessons. A data projector is used with either laptop or desktop computers. Projectors use S-Video, RCA cables or USB connections to hook to the computer. In classrooms and business presentation rooms, data projectors are often hooked to both computer and video equipment. The most ubiquitous use of a data projector is for presentations in business meetings or classrooms.
Presentation software allows a user to create slide shows of photos, type written information and display graphs. Teachers in high school and college make extensive use of data projectors to give notes or lectures, as do businesspeople making presentations to co-workers or clients. There are a variety of features and functions to consider when purchasing a data projector. Bulbs come in varying brightnesses and have varying degrees of clarity and color replication. Some projectors can be used close to the screen or wall–called ultra short throw projectors–while others need more distance.
A part from the above, I was also introduced to serious document preparation; Nearly all documents in KCA were computerized. I used to prepare documents using word, excel, access, PowerPoint, as well as QuickBooks. This really improved my speed in using input devices like mouse and keyboard. The information gathered from computers were typed and printed then kept for future reference in hard copy form. This really trained me on how to use networked printers. I also used internet to send e-mails and gained a lot of skills.
CHALLANGES FACED DURING THE ATTACHMENT PERIOD
My attachment period at KCA University was good and enjoyable due to the support that various lecturers and students were able to give me, but still I encountered some challenges that a time threatened to cripple the success of my work experience at the University. I have stated the challenges below as follows:
The frequent loss of the internet could make it difficult to update antivirus in the networked machines, it would therefore require me to adjourn such operations until the internet could be back.
Most of the computer software used at KCA were either slow or corrupted, this could lead to slow way of working.
Some students would connect their privet laptops to the network domain unnoticed. This could bring conflict between the computers leading to failure of the entire network system. It would take me the whole day troubleshooting the network through ping process to determine the foreign machine connected to the network domain.
I was really challenged at the section of networking since I arrived at the attachment place with very little theoretical and practical knowledge on networking since I dint cover most of the topics. I therefore found it hard to configure networked computers as well as to ping the network whenever there was need to.
RECOMMENDATION
For the benefit of the University and entire employees, I recommend that the management should;
- Purchase faster machines for quick data processing
- Avail computer maintenance equipment e. g. the dust blowers to enable this service to be done by the organization workers and conserve money paid to the Copycat people. Ensure that the number of computers in the KCA is increased because the number of users outlives the number of computers available.
- Should have one site user’s support in each department
- Should have daily management and operation of distributed servers
- Avail fibred optic wire or wireless means of accessing internet for faster access.
CONCLUSSION
First and above all, l thank the Lord God Almighty for granting me this chance at my College level to reach my attachment period and also to secure a place at the KCA University, Kisumu Campus. I also thank my supervisors, Mr.
Saidi and Mr. Mwangi for all the support and assistance they gave me during my attachment. At first, the Industrial attachment was not enjoyable to me since I had not familiarized with both my workmates and the working environment. As the time went by it turned out to be fruitful. I gained so much experience and skills. There are a lot of things that I could not do before the attachment for example, formatting a computer that I can do now. I also learnt to appreciate that the theory without practical is dead. Again I learnt how to be patient and tolerant.
I am a better person now due to the attachment experience both at work and personality. In conclusion, The industrial attachment is necessary as it prepares students to the challenges of working environment in their various fields of specialization . They get a chance to put into practice the skills acquired in class though some of it will not be applied. I am grateful for the opportunity I got to do my attachment at KCA University. The experience I got at KCA has enabled me move a step towards advancing my career.
