A newspaper refers to a printed publication consisting of folded unstapled sheets and containing news, feature articles, advertisements, and correspondence. It occupies an important place in our life. It plays an important role in shaping the destiny of a country. Every morning a newspaper brings up news from every corner of the world. A good newspaper is a sign of good civilization and progress of a country. It satisfies the demands of the literates, it covers a wide range of subjects like sports, advertisement, education, trade etc. the government makes important announcements only through a newspaper. It plays a very important role in a democratic country. It is a true mirror of the public opinion. The importance of newspapers can’t be ignored in the social uplift of the country. Hence, newspapers still enjoy an integral part in the society (Prajwal N., 2010). The Sumilang Group of Publications, the publisher of The Sumilang Chronicles and other scholastic newsletters, is the official publication of Cavite State University – Silang Campus. The organization is built under Republic Act No. 7079 or the Campus Journalism Act of 1991. According to Section 2 of R.A. 7079, “It is the declared policy of the State to uphold and protect the freedom of the press even at the campus level and to promote the development and growth of campus journalism as a means of strengthening ethical values, encouraging critical and creative thinking, and developing moral character and personal discipline of the Filipino youth. In furtherance of this policy, the State shall undertake various programs and projects aimed at improving the journalistic skills of students concerned and promoting responsible and free journalism.” It is the responsibility of the organization to provide the members of the academic community with all the current news and updates happening around the campus which includes university and academic news, development news, community news, features, sports news, literary, opinion and photo essays. However, release of newsletter inside the university is not frequent unlike other schools, resulting to lack of information on the latest happenings inside the university.
To address this problem, the proponents have come up with a proposed study to develop a website for The Sumilang Group of Publications, in which the current news and events of the university can be read and accessed anytime and anywhere by the students, faculty members, and administrators of the university. 1.2 Statement of the Problem
According to some interviews conducted to the members of the The Sumilang Group of Publications, they are experiencing difficulties with their operations. With the traditional process in communicating with other members, they are affected in terms of reaching out to its members, thus resulting in miscommunication. The manual system of checking and passing of news articles are also affecting the operations of the organization. Some articles are not following the proper process in proofreading, thus resulting to multiple unseen errors. As observed by the proponents, developing a website for The Sumilang Group of Publications of Cavite State University – Silang Campus will greatly benefit the organization. With this, the students, faculty members and administrators, will now have access to information on the latest news and updates inside the university online. The organization will also have the ability to import and manage their data and articles with the help of the website.
1.3 Objectives
The general objective of this study is to create a website for The Sumilang Group of Publications of Cavite State University – Silang Campus. Also, this study has the following specific objectives: a. To design a website that will highlight the official publication of the university; b. To disseminate the latest news and events inside the university in real time; c. To develop the system as intended, and;
d. To test and implement the system.
1.4 Significance of the Study
The project design, “Website for the Sumilang Group of Publications in Cavite State University – Silang Campus”, was developed in order to address the need of the organization in managing updates about the latest news and events happening inside the university. Also, this was intended for the rapid processing of articles to elevate their services.
This study is also intended to benefit the writers of the Sumilang Group of Publications because it will let them post their articles in a more secure and convenient manner. Also, the students and instructors of Cavite State University – Silang Campus will benefit with this website because they can now coordinate and contribute in ensuring that all information found are correct and well-updated.
Multitasking will also be more efficient with the help of this project design. The members will now be able to save time in submitting their articles, while other staffs and members can now handle other tasks, thus making their operations more efficient. Also, the university can save resources, time, and energy in producing accurate reports that in return, will eliminate time hindrances and data inconsistencies.
As for the students and instructors that will serve as the readers, this system can assure that all data found on the website are timely and accurate; Giving the impression that the Sumilang Group of Publications is a credible organization that will result in more confidence for the members of
the organization in order for them to continue serving the academic community. Scope and Limitation
This project design is only limited in the development of a website for The Sumilang Group of Publications of Cavite State University – Silang Campus with the following features: Add, edit, and feature news articles, display news and announcements, and highlight the Sumilang Group of Publications as the official publication of Silang Campus. In order to develop the project design, the researchers used a single unit of computer with the following specifications: Intel® Atom™ processor N270 (1.60 GHz, 533 MHz FSB, 512 KB L2 cache) processor, 2GB memory and 500GB hard disk storage. For the software, the researchers used Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate (32-bit) operating system, PHP for the scripting language, and MySQL for the database. In order to properly address the problem of the organization and to produce software that will meet certain standards, the researchers used the Rapid Application Development (RAD). RAD is a software development process used to speed the overall development time of a system. The objective of RAD is first to decrease development time, which will decrease expense, by involving end-users in every phase of the software development life cycle. (http://www2.ds.psu.edu/AcademicAffairs//IST260W/topic03/topic_0112_06.html) There are four phases in RAD as shown in Figure 1. The first phase is requirements planning. Requirement planning is the process of identifying the solution to the current problem. The user design phase is the phase when the end-user gives thoughts on how the system should be designed. This would be a non-technical design. It is a local design of the system. The next phase is the construction phase, which is the actual building of the system. The final phase is the installation of the system, which is called the cutover phase. Included in this phase is the testing and training of the users.
