Final Year Project

Welcome to my report on my final year project. The report will be split up into 5 parts with results and conclusions as closing words.

• Research chapter takes a look at some of the research involved in the project and how it impacted the end result.
• Design chapter discusses the underlying design decisions and architecture of the project.
• Implementation chapter explores the code for the project.
• Development chapter takes a look at how the application was developed.
• Testing chapter reviews how the code was tested.

Acknowledgements

• Dr. Owen Molloy - Supervisor for the project.
• Dan Abramov - A constant source of inspiration for the application.
• Facebook - For their amazing open source projects.

Formats

This report is also available online at https://adriancooney.gitbooks.io/examist/content and in epub, pdf and mobi on request.

Introduction

I choose my final year project because it was a problem I personally have had to deal with every semester for the past five years. The problem is with exam papers.

Problem Statement

The online interface for accessing exam papers here in NUI Galway is dated to say the least. The interface is reminiscent of user interfaces created for the web in the early 90s and has not been updated since. It's slow, doesn't support any features you'd expect from the system and goes down often (even during exam time!). It even uses iframes.

Another problem with exam papers is that we, the students, don't have solutions to the questions and it's a pointless exercise doing exam questions if you don't know whether you are correct or not. Often someone has to correct your work or you compare notes with a peer.

And the worst of all the problems is that the learning is isolated. In the information age, learning should be open to all. With the current system, the information is stuck in old formats and copy books.

Solution

The purpose of this project is to create an online platform where students can learn about their courses and focus on the topics covered in exam papers. It will allow students to adequately prepare themselves for an exam in a focused manner and enable them to review their performance. Students can learn from the tested course material with answers from their peers instead of working alone, blind.

The platform will host the exam papers questions, solutions and notes for all courses within NUI Galway (and hopefully any institution in the future). Students won't have to use the current system with it's shortcomings. Exploring exam papers should be breeze, not a pain.