Introduction
In the year 1988, the Abu Dhabi Women College opened its doors as one of the higher colleges of technology. The college was started with the aim of attending to the educational needs of the female students in a country where education was predominated by male student. This college has realized increased growth in the number of student since its inception. It is rated as the largest college among the existing 14 campuses.
The current enrollment of students exceeds 2500 per year. In the year 2009, the college opened a second banch in the city of khalifa to cater for the students who encounter problems relocating to the capital city. The college has several faculties namely business, communication and information technology, education, and health sciences. The instruction language of the college is English.
The college offers its study programs as diplomas, higher diplomas, bachelor degree, masters and doctorate degrees. The main administration personnel and building are found at the main campus in Abu Dhabi. The senior management includes chancellor, vice chancellor, deputy vice chancellor and deans. This report targets at implementing a robot that can make tours for visitors to the Abu Dhabi women college.
Current system
The college provides third level education that is conducted in universities. ADWC, also, hosts pupils who are in the 10 to 12 grade from both government and private institutions. The purpose of this hosting is to enlighten the upcoming student on what they should expect in the higher education institutions.
Furthermore, the students are advised on methods that they can apply to reach their academic goals. The occasion is steered by school faculty staff and volunteer students who take the junior student through the experience of high school education and introduce them to tertiary education experience.
The lectures and teachers play another role of providing technical information. The lecturers are responsible for informing the visiting student on the various programs that the university offers within their area of expertise. In addition, lectures explain how each of the degree programs is subdivided to facilitate specialization.
This means that, the lectures take the student through combination of subjects that a student needs to take at the 12th grade and the required points that are needed for one to be enrolled in a certain program. Also, lectures take the student through the careers opportunities that are associated with a certain line of specialization.
Faculty members play a role in the tours. The staffs are responsible for taking the young women through the operation of the university. In this regard, staff members take up position at their station of duty. For instance, the student will be guided through the operation procedural of the library by the librarians while laboratory procedures will be handled by the laboratory technicians.
Student volunteers take up the bulk part of the work that goes on during these tours. First, these volunteer students are responsible on preparing the operations for those students who will visit to the university. This means that they will design tour places and tour schedule for the visiting students. Secondly, they identify the number of student that could be handled effectively.
The university allows 120 students from each school. The student will, therefore, identify which schools to invite and how to balance the schools in order to expose as many students as possible from different school to expectations of university education.
The assembly hall serves as the convergence point. This is where the students are subdivided into smaller groups of 30 students. At the assembly hall, the lectures step in to explain on various issues as mentioned earlier. This role is carried out by a minimum of six lecturers. After the talk, the students are taken through various school facilities where they are guided by the people in charge.
The role of the students is to guide the visiting students in finding directions and controlling their movement. After the tour, another bunch of volunteer student will be waiting at block B to help the student fill in the survey forms. This survey helps the university to evaluate whether these students benefited from the tour.
The current system is manual and slows the operation of the university. Although the program has a good intent, it should not be at the expense of the efficient learning process of the current students. As such, the following are the challenges, advantages and disadvantages of this system.
Challenges of the current system
Adherence to the number limit is not always observed. This means that the student send invitation to school requesting them to send 120 students per school. Some school has violated that requirement concessionary. This will result to confusion among the volunteer who are compelled to guide a large number of student.
In several occasions, the student service has been forced to seek additional staff from other departments since they are overwhelmed by the number of visiting pupils. This happens especially when the student are filling in the survey form.
When invitation is sent, the invited institution is required to confirm its attendance. In many occasions, some institutions have cancelled their attendance during the last minutes. This is disadvantageous to the university since it will amount to wastage of resources. Other invited schools confirm their attendance but fail to show on the event.
This causes a lot of mix up and time wastage since the organizers have planned for a specific number of visitor but they experience a short fall in that number. This, further, means that the volunteering students will have wasted their time preparing for that day.
The university ensures balances on invitation to ensure that each school within their reach has a fair chance for invitation. This means that not all available schools are invited. As a result, the university invites specific schools each year. However, some schools do not get in touch with the university to confirm or cancel their attendance. This, therefore, causes the difficulties in the planning process.
The process lowers the functioning rate of school operation. This is because of some personnel taking part in the event organization and actualization not being available to conduct their routine duties. This means that some services will not be available. If the services are available, they will be at a slow pace.
Advantages of the current system
- The tour offers exposure to young students which will help them to psychological prepare for higher education.
- The students interact with other students from other institutions. This helps them to share ideas and establish useful peer networks.
- The students gain information on career paths and career opportunities that are associated with certain degree specialties.
- The students get insights on how to match their talent and career choices.
- The tour helps the university in fulfilling its social obligation of nurturing young talents.
- The volunteer students develop role of civic and professional responsibility to taking part in shaping of the society.
- The tour provides an interactive platform between university student and pupils.
Disadvantages of the current system
- The students miss crucial classes especially those taking practical classes.
- The teachers waste a lot of student’s class time when the pupils go on this tour.
- The lecturers miss lectures since they are involved in guiding the students on degree programs.
- The tour slows university operations due to involvement of student, lecturers and faculty staff in this tour.
The main disadvantage of this system is loss of time. This has led to a thought of development of robotic system that will take over from the manual system. The system is meant to improve on the advantages that are associated with current system and eliminate disadvantages of the current system.
Robot system
The robot set for development focuses on doing real human tasks. The success of the robot will be facilitated by coupling with specificities that are developed through feasibility study.
The application space that is meant to influence the development of this robot involves manipulation of tasks in human scale. The study case relies on the event where the college hosts pupils in 10th to 12th grade which are the most complex. The robot should fulfill the following essentials.
Safety
A robot is meant to function in a human capacity scale. This means that it will interact with human beings especially in taking instruction.
The robot will, therefore, have measures to secure and guarantee safety during execution of activities. This safety is emphasized through robotic structure and design. At this point, structure of the robot must be rigid enough to handle breakage, obstacle, weather fluctuation and movement (Baer, 2008).
Machine learning
Adopting a robot will translate into making the tour an occasion of machine learning. In this mode of learning, the robot will take the responsibility of explaining and taking pupils through the required curriculum coverage of the tour. This means that the tour will be generalized in order to facilitate uniformity of content coverage.
Information management systems
The flow of information in an organization is facilitated by an established information management system (Hunt, 1983). The system should be well structured to meet the dynamic and organizational structure. It should, therefore, convey accurate information.
Communication breakdown is caused by failure of information management system which leads to confusion and inappropriate decision making. The following are systems that should be installed to enable effective operation of the robotic system.
Artificial intelligence system
Artificial intelligence system is a wide range of research that facilities development of computer based systems capable of simulating human behavior. The robot is required to have this system for its semi-autonomous nature.
This will be vital in saving time to execute routine instruction as well reprogramming non-routine actions. The robots will not only be used in the tours, but also in other functions that the university undertakes that involves visitors.
Expert system
This is an advanced artificial intelligence system technology. The system will ask users a series of questions in order to determine the required answer. Under this system, it attempts to codify and manipulate knowledge other than information.
The installation of the system is important in handling the explanations of technical issues such as explaining the career opportunities and explaining degree programs offered by the university. In addition, this system will help the robots to assist the controlling staff on the event progress. This is due to its capacity on addressing certain issues at a particular time.
Executive information system
This is the highest level of information system that will be installed in the robot. The system will be accessed by the senior management staff. It will help in collecting data from the visiting pupils and presenting it to the senior management staff. This will enhance policy makers to get the data without any human error or manipulation.
Data categorization
Various departments in an organization require different information in order to function effectively (Kang, 2011). The information management should, therefore, establish a criterion to categorize, differentiate and move data to a step further in establishing the most effective means of relaying information to the relevant audience.
There will be relatively large amount of data that is supposed to be collected and disseminated during that event. This means that the robot must have a system that will categorize data at a given period. In addition, the categorization criterion will be needed in storing acquired information in the right section of storage devices of the computer.
Data Collection Confidentiality
Organizations are sometimes caught up in wrangles that require information gathering through investigations. In such cases, there should be a well established system and strict rules regarding confidentiality (Harres, 2013). The organization should prioritize the safety of information sources first. Such systems should, also, be applied in handling of complains, recommendations and complements.
In cases where there are more than professional relations and personal relationships, there should be a clear directions to uphold professionalism. The robot will serve as a good method to enhance confidentiality of the data. This is because a pupil who may experience some unpleasant behavior from a student or staff can file a complaint with the robot without fears.
Information control
There are two methods used in information controls. These are decentralized information control system and centralized control system. The technicalities of these two systems arise with relative sizes of events. Decentralized control strategy involves controlling information from various automated centers. However, they must follow the guidelines provided by the head office.
On the other hand, centralized strategy control involves coordination of information from one central point. These two aspects of information management will be applied by the robotic system.
This means that the robots will be programmed to disseminate certain level of information relating to the university. This will be regulated by the university head office. In addition, the level of information disseminated by the various faculties and departments will be determined from the people in charge.
Relevance of the Information
Information management should incorporate a system of filtering out unnecessary information from reaching the target audience. Relevance of data saves time in the decision making process and improves the quality of decisions made. The pupils who attend the tour are in 10th to 12th grade. This means that the robot has to manage the information so that it covers on the universal needs of each of the three grades.
For instance, if a student attends the tour in her 10th, 11th and 12th grades, she will only learn about the same thing for the three visits. A robotic system will ensure that the pupils in the three grades cover different material such that the pupils are assured of different topic coverage if they visit thrice to the university. This helps the system to deliver relevant information for each grade.
Challenges to the Robotic System
The main challenge is controlling information. There is no standard measure of determining the needs of every pupil. Each student will have unique expectation from visiting to the university. The robotic system is generalized and sidelines cases that are unique. The system will, therefore, face challenges in answering questions.
The student may be reluctant to interact with the robot. Considering the state of technological advancement in the United Arab Emirates, few pupils have ever seen a robot. This will create excitement among students or disseminate others into induction of fear. The system fails to deliver due to limited interaction with the system.
Advantages
- The robotic system saves student time. This is because the students will not be required to aid in visiting students through the institution. This will be done by the robots.
- The system will save preparation time. Student, staff and lecturers spend a lot of time preparing materials that to be used for the educational tour in the university. This will be eliminated since only one copy will be required to update all the robots.
- Pupils will be interested in understanding how the robots work. This may influence students into taking a lot of interest in science and technology.
- The robotic system enables automated collection of data and data categorization during the end of tour survey.
- The robotic system enables the university to study on methods of improving machine learning.
- The robotic system will not be affected by the number of pupils who turn up for the event.
- The robot can be taken to the individual schools instead of arranging journeys to transport students to the college.
- The robotic system eliminates time wastage since it is effective in implementing its tasks without delays.
- The system eliminates the chance of slowing down university operations
Disadvantages
- The robotics system eliminates the platform where university and pupils can interact.
- The method may not determine the optimal information to disseminate especially when responding to non-structured questions.
- The robot will still require supervision since the pupil may tamper with it
- The system is disadvantageous to people with disabilities such as sight and hearing.
Conclusion
Technology has revolutionized the way human beings have been carrying out their activities. In this regard, robots have become knowledgeable friends to man. This is because they have the ability to carry out human simulations.
Although there is no university that is known to have a robotic system responsible for taking visitors around the school, there are reasons to believe that such a system will come to be in the future. It will be an honor if our university was the first to generate such a system.
References
Baer, P. A. (2008). Platform-Independent Development of Robot Communication Software. Kassel: Kassel Univ. Press.
Harres, D. (2013). MSP430-based Robot Applications A Guide to Developing Embedded Systems. Burlington: Elsevier Science.
Hunt, V. D. (1983). Industrial robotics handbook. New York, N.Y: Industrial Press.
Kang, S. (2011). Robot development using Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.