CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Introduction

This chapter presents the introduction of court proceedings management system. It contains the theoretical background, aim and objectives of the study, statement of the problem, purpose of the study, aim and objectives of the study, research questions, scope and significance of the study, organization of the research and definition of terms.

There are a number of trends and issues affecting courts that creates an impetus for greater use of available technology. As legal practice has become more technologically advanced, pressure mounts on the courts to join the flow of technological progress. One aspect of this impetus for technological growth is increased interest in implementation of e-filing and/or a more or less paperless court process.  A court proceedings management system is an e-filling (electronic filing) system that enables the record and management of court cases. A court proceedings management system can provide for more effective use of resources for data input and retrieval, as well as in system deployment and maintenance. This system can assist the court in meeting current demands for information by making access to case and court data more effective and efficient. A well designed court proceedings management system will provide core functionality that provides meaningful benefits to courts. It provides efficient data entry, more effective data retrieval, better and enhanced information access [1].

In a court, information is everything. The verdict of the judge for instance and the name of the plaintiff, defendant, witness etc are all relevant information that needs to be stored for future reference. Many courts especially in Nigeria are not adopting Information and Communication Technology to facilitate the recording and retrieval of information despite the importance. Technological developments in the world have made organizations to shift from manual systems to computerized systems. With due consideration to software applications such as database management which enables large amount of information to be stored, it is therefore important as organizations are looking for easier, faster and less expensive ways of managing information. This background has necessitated the development of this research study [2].

1.1 Theoretical Background

The technologies adopted to implement the system are Visual BASIC 6.0 programming language and MySQL. The programming language provides the tools needed to create a graphical user interface that will be used to capture court case records. The interface will in turn be linked to the database. The source code below for instance shows the command to save a court case record to the database.

Private Sub Command1_Click()

Adodc1.Recordset.Update

MsgBox “SAVED, CASE REGISTERED”

End Sub

Fig 1.1: Message box

1.2 Statement of Problem

The major problem that gave rise to this research project are face by staff of magistrate court, ikot ubo in Nsit ubium. The problems are:

Accumulation of paper files which may get missing and problem in the management of case files are some of the problems faced by courts. It is also imperative to note that there is a significant level of delay in the retrieval of needed information to make informed decisions. Unauthorized usage and access to important case records by intruders and impersonators in the ministry.

It is in view of these problems that this research work is carried out to improve the services of courts by developing a court proceedings management system.

1.3 Aim/Objectives of the Study

The aim of the study is to develop application software that would handle court case record management system. The following are the objectives of the study to achieve the aim:

To develop a database application to store court case records To develop a system that can be used to retrieve needed information of court cases. To develop an effective system that can be used to update court case records. To develop a system that can replace the manual system of saving court case records.

1.4 Scope of the Study

This study covers the development of Computerized law court information system, a case study of magistrate court Ikot ubo in NSIT UBIUM. It is limited to an information system to manage court case records.

1.5 Significance of the Study

The significance of the study is that it will facilitate the easy storage and retrieval of needed information pertaining to court case records. This will in turn boost the operations of the courts and make them operate professionally.

1.6 Organization of the Research

The research project has been arranged in the following order:

Chapter one starts with the introduction, theoretical background, and statement of problem, aims and objectives of the study, organization of research and definition of terms. Chapter two focuses on the review of related literature. Chapter three is concerned with the system analysis and design which includes: Research Methodology, System Analysis, Analysis of the Existing System, Problem of the Existing System, Analysis of the Proposed System, Advantages of the Proposed System, and Disadvantages of the Proposed System, System Design, Input Layout, Program Flowchart, and Output Format. And also Chapter four consists of system implementation and documentation which are system design, diagram, choice of program language, analysis of modules, programming environment, hardware/software requirement and implementation. Chapter five contains summary, conclusion, constraint of the study and recommendation.

1.7 Definition of Terms

Court: Meeting where legal judgments are made. Also seen as an official body that has authority to try cases, resolve disputes, or make other legal decisions.

Case: A matter examinee or judged in a court of law.

Crime: An action prohibited by law or failure to act as required by law.

Plaintiff: Somebody who brings a law suit against somebody else (defendant) in court.

Defendant:  a person or company required to answer charges in a court.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background Of The Study

A database is an organized collection of data. It is the collection of schemas, tables, queries, reports, views, and other objects. The data are typically organized to model aspects of reality in a way that supports processes requiring information, such as modelling the availability of rooms in hotels in a way that supports finding a hotel with vacancies.

A database management system (DBMS) is a computer software application that interacts with the user, other applications, and the database itself to capture and analyze data. A general-purpose DBMS is designed to allow the definition, creation, querying, update, and administration of databases. Well-known DBMSs include MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, MariaDB, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, Sybase, SAP HANA, MemSQL and IBM DB2. A database is not generally portable across different DBMSs, but different DBMS can interoperate by using standards such as SQL and ODBC or JDBC to allow a single application to work with more than one DBMS. Database management systems are often classified according to the database model that they support; the most popular database systems since the 1980s have all supported the relational model as represented by the SQL language. Sometimes a DBMS is loosely referred to as a “database”.

Following the technology progress in the areas of processors, computer memory, computer storage, and computer networks, the sizes, capabilities, and performance of databases and their respective DBMSs have grown in orders of magnitude. The development of database technology can be divided into three eras based on data model or structure: navigational, SQL/relational, and post-relational.

The two main early navigational data models were the hierarchical model, epitomized by IBM’s IMS system, and the CODASYL model (network model), implemented in a number of products such as IDMS.

The relational model, first proposed in 1970 by Edgar F. Codd, departed from this tradition by insisting that applications should search for data by content, rather than by following links. The relational model employs sets of ledger-style tables, each used for a different type of entity. Only in the mid-1980s did computing hardware become powerful enough to allow the wide deployment of relational systems (DBMSs plus applications). By the early 1990s, however, relational systems dominated in all large-scale data processing applications, and as of 2015 they remain dominant: IBM DB2, Oracle, MySQL, and Microsoft SQL Server are the top DBMS.[10] The dominant database language, standardised SQL for the relational model, has influenced database languages for other data models.

Object databases were developed in the 1980s to overcome the inconvenience of object-relational impedance mismatch, which led to the coining of the term “post relational” and also the development of hybrid object-relational databases.

The next generation of post-relational databases in the late 2000s became known as NoSQL databases, introducing fast key-value stores and document-oriented databases. A competing “next generation” known as NewSQL databases attempted new implementations that retained the relational/SQL model while aiming to match the high performance of NoSQL compared to commercially available relational DBMSs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database).

1.2 Statement Of The Study

The problem currently facing the organization such as my case study (Abiolian Solution Limited) is that they easy loss or don’t know exact where they record or keep the information of a client / customer.

Till date, organization still keeps their information and customer data using the manual method of using biro to write their information on books. This particular manual process of keeps or storing information are face with much problem and issue like the following:

Difficulty in Retrieving of information / record Time wasting and occupy more space Important documents may be altered by an unauthorized personal

1.3 Significance Of The Study

The significance of this study includes the following:

It helps in economic cost reduction in running a particular application. It provides humans with effective resource management. It will help organizations in focusing on core business in the sense that you only concentrate on what means most to you. Since your applications will be run over the internet, you do not have to worry about technical problems and other inconveniences associated with physical unified storage solution spaces. It increases performance and support by updating the fact that all your software and applications automatically. It provides security and compliance. It provides anytime anywhere access to information.

1.4 Objective of the study

The main objective of this project is to design and implement a database management system for Abiolian Solution Limited. The specific objectives are:

To develop software that can be use to save customer information To increase resource availability of Cloud Computing system. To develop an address book application that will be launch as a cloud application. To develop application that can reduces stress of looking paper or book in which a particular customer is save.

1.5 Scope Of The Study

The scope of this proposed system is center on design and implementation of database management system for Abiolian Solution Limited address book.

1.6 Limitation Of The Study

Usually, every work has some limitations and this study is not exempted.

The two major limitations of this study are the high programming technique as well as financial constraints. The high programming technique constraint in PHP, JQUERY and MYSQL prevents the researcher to have an in depth study and analysis on the subject matter. While the issue of financial constraint limits the frequency of investigation to/from the institution toward gathering the necessary information relevant for the study.

1.7 Definition Of Terms

Cloud Computing: the practice of using a network of remote servers hosted on the Internet to store, manage, and process data, rather than a local server or a personal computer.

System: A method or set of procedures and even personnel working together as a whole to achieve a goal.

Data: This are numbers, text or images which are in a form suitable for storage in a computer or processed by a computer, or an incomplete information/ unprocessed information.

Information: This is a meaningful material derived from computer data by organizing it and interpreting it in a specific way.

Input: Data entered into the computer for storage or processing.

Output: Information produced from a computer after processing.

Information System: A set of interrelated components that collect (or retrieve), process, store, and distribute information to support decision making and control in an organization.

HTML CODE: – HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language. It is a type of computer language that is primarily used for files that are posted on the internet and viewed by web browsers. HTML files can also be sent via email.

Markup language: – A markup language is a combination of words and symbols which give instructions on how a document should appear. For example, a tag may indicate that words are written in italics or bold type.

Web browser: -A Web browser is a software program that interprets the coding language of the World Wide Web in graphic form, displaying the translation rather than the coding. This allows anyone to “browse the Web” by simple point and click navigation, bypassing the need to know commands used in software languages.

File extension: – A file extension is the suffix at the end of a filename that tells a computer, and the computer user, which program is needed to open the file. Also called a filename extension, this suffix preceded by at least one period, is generally one to five characters long but the norm is usually three characters in length.

Email: – Email, also sometimes written as e-mail, is simply the shortened form of electronic mail, a protocol for receiving, sending, and storing electronic messages. Email has gained popularity with the spread of the Internet. In many cases, email has become the preferred method of communication.

TCP/IP: – This often used but little understood set of operations stands for Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. TCP/IP is the combination of the two and describes the set of protocols that allows hosts to connect to the Internet. In actuality, TCP/IP is a combination of “more than those two protocols, but the TCP and IP parts of TCP/IP are the main ones and the only ones to become part of the acronymthat describes the operations involved.

TEXT FILE: – A text file is a computerfile that stores a typed document as a series of alphanumeric characters, usually without visual formatting information. The content may be a personal note or list, a journal or newspaper article, a book, or any other text that can be rendered accurately in typewritten form.

Hyper Link:-A hyperlink is a graphic or a piece of text in an Internet document that can connect readers to another webpage, or another portion of a document. Web users will usually find at least one hyperlink on every webpage. The simplest form of these is called embedded text or an embedded link.

WWW: – acronym for World Wide Web