DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF AN ONLINE CAMPUS OPINION POLL SYSTEM (A CASE STUDY OF UNIVERSITY OF ABUJA). A RESEARCH PROJECT MATERIAL ON COMPUTER SCIENCE EDUCATION
ABSTRACT
The paper aims at designing and implementing a simple and concise system that collects opinions of university students concerning a subject matter via simple voting. The quest to voice out one’s opinion or thoughts on an issue in an effective, anonymous and faster method remains a challenge for most tertiary institutions in Nigeria. This online opinion poll system aims at bridging the gap between the students and management of schools in a simpler and interactive manner. The administrator of the online poll has the user privilege of presenting issues concerning the students in form of questions. The students log on to the portal and vote for the most preferred choice or option. The system is designed with Asp.net, bootstrap, CSS and MYSQL technologies.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
In general, an opinion is a view, stand point, or perception about an issue that is inconclusive. It could be said to be one’s thoughts on certain issues with no decisive conclusion. The difference between fact and opinion is that fact can probably be proven (evidence), i.e. a reasonable number of experts can attest to it. An example is: “United States of America was involved in the Vietnam War” versus “United States of America was right to get involved in the Vietnam War”. Most times, opinions are backed with evidence and principles when one is engaged in an argument. Based on individual differences, people tend to have diverse contrasting views on some sets of facts. Opinions seldom differ even in the absence of new arguments (Scheuren, 2004). It is logical to say that an opinion with facts is more held than one examined with said arguments. Over time, opinion has always been the viewpoint, perception, attitudes, feelings, and desires. It may refer to unproven information, juxtapose to knowledge and fact.
Conventionally, public opinion is the sum total of people’s feelings, beliefs, or attitudes held by a population (e.g., a city, state, or country), while consumer opinion is related to public opinion in that it is the sum total of people’s responses collected as part of marketing research (e.g., the views of consumers on a particular product or service). Basically, due to the fact that the procedures of gathering opinions from all individuals are strenuous, expensive, or inaccurate to obtain, public opinion (or consumer opinion) is estimated using Opinion Poll sampling (e.g., with a representative sample of a population).
An opinion poll also referred to as a poll is a research methodology carried out by an individual or group of individuals in order to gather the opinions of a sample of respondents from a population. Opinion polls are constructed to show the responses or opinions of a population (respondents) through the use of a questionnaire then deduce their responses in ratio or within confidence intervals. A local straw poll piloted by The Aru Pennsylvanian in 1824 was the first recorded opinion poll, presenting Andrew Jackson leading John Quincy Adams by 335 votes to 169 in the contest for the United States Presidency. Having declared Jackson, the winner through the majority votes of the people both in the state and in the country as a whole, it gave way for the continuous usage of straw votes, though locally. In 1916, The Literary Digest set out to conduct a national Opinion Poll (partially as a circulation-raising exercise) and rightly predicted Woodrow Wilson’s election as president. They distributed millions of postcards by mail and counted them on return, The Literary Digest rightly envisage the victories of Warren Harding in 1920, Calvin Coolidge in 1924, Herbert Hoover in 1928, and Franklin Roosevelt in 1932.
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