The Design and Implementation of the Integrative Management System for Managing Adult Education: A Case Study

[Abstract] Adult Education in China is one the increase. Managing adult students, their studies and activities have been a challenge for many Chinese continuing education centers in universities. This paper studies the theory and complexity of adult student management, and introduces and analyzes the integrative management information systems designed and developed specially for the College of Adult Higher Education of Zhejiang Normal University. This integrative management information system consists of different modules of difference functions that manage status of the students and their school related activities. The implementation of this system has proved useful and successful in advancing the effective management of adult higher education and results management. [Keywords] Adult education status; changing status of students; selecting lesson online; results management; student management application; integrative management system Introduction Adult higher education in China is experiencing a transition period from a scholastic year system to the credit system. The College of Adult Education of Zhejiang Normal University is now using a combination of the two teaching systems during the transitional period. The integrative management information system is developed to meet the needs and demand. Management of the status of students is an important component of school administration. It includes students' basic information, their scores, graduation credential investigation and so on (Chen & Yu 2002). The College of Adult Education at Zhejiang Normal University has over 50,000 enrolled students; half of them are adult students who are working while going to school. Such a large amount of data makes the management of students' status and scores difficult. Faculty, administrators and student account managers have very hard time to process even students basic information, their scores, changes and other information recorded and processed. The system is a management tool that assists faculties, administrators and most importantly, student account managers to access student information and manage the information. How to make the management scientific and standardized have been key elements in our design and development. Through years of studies and practice, we developed this system that has been piloted first and used by the College of Adult Education of our university. The system has a good standing of versatility and safety after usability test. By adapting the system, the College of Adult Education of Zhejiang Normal University managed to improve informatization and digitalization and have achieved scientific management and the full use of information. The Functions of the System This system is divided into 10 sub-systems, which are independent from each other, and at the same time, they are in cooperation and inter-check with each other. These 10 subsystems include: teaching administration, teaching plan management, major management, class management, management of transformation of data-base, mail management, statistic management, system management, online-enrollment management, and charge management. Using this system, students can inquire about their scores and records of the classes they had taken, enroll in a foreign language class and select their courses. The student account managers can access to students' information and any change of the information; they also have access to the information related to curriculum, database transformation, score management, students' attendance/absence, awards and the management of the certificate and degree. By using the system, these managers will be able to know, handle and print school reports, teaching plans as well as virtually manage colleges, classes, branch schools and correspondence schools. With a user friendly interface, the system has approved to be of good versatility and security because it is equipped with IP-restriction, automatic IPblockade, avoiding exhaustive cracking codes, detailed log files and so on. …