The Design Of Computerized Database Of Scientific Reports Of Federal Institute Of Industrial Research Oshodi (FIIRO)

Abstract

The study was carried out with the objective to analyze, design and develop a computerized information retrieval system (database) of scientific reports of FIIRO. The existing manual system of storage and retrieval was analyzed to determine the bottleneck areas. The analysis was done by conducting interview and record inspection on method of storage and retrieval of scientific documents such as research reports, technical memoranda, feasibility reports, journal articles, seminar papers, conference proceedings etc. The analysis revealed the shortcomings of the manual system and the alternative system design, that is, computerized database was developed to address these problems.
Visual Basic 6.0 and Microsoft Access 2000 were the software packages used for the systems design, and the sources of data collection is from the reports generated by the scientists in the institute since its inception in 1956. The result of the analysis shows that computerized database is better than the manual system in terms of speed of access, accuracy, storage capacity, confidentiality of information. The computerized database offer the most effective answer to scientific and technological information needs of scientists at FIIRO due to vastly increased amount of information generated over the years.


Keywords: Computer, Information retrieval, and scientific documents.


The Information Technologist Vol. 5 (2) 2008: pp. 7-18