Design and Implementation of Timetabling Software for an Improved Decision Making at the Tanzanian Higher Education Context: A Design Science approach

The use of information systems in higher education institutions in Tanzania has led to improvement of different operations in these institutions though most of these information systems have no enough functionalities to support on data collections and processing for decision making support. Different information systems like Students' Academic Register Information System (SARIS) have been used to support different activities in managing students. Apart from systems like SARIS there have been other separate software which are used to support other operations like accounting, timetabling and others which recently their integration to these SARIS like information systems has been found very crucial to allow more data collection for decision making support. This work therefore involve the design science research in providing a solution to the timetabling process integration to SARIS for an improved decision making in Tanzanian higher education context. The implementation of the solution will ensure easy access of timetables to both students, lecturers and all decision makers while ensuring easy access of timetable data for different reports generation for decision support. Easy accessibility of timetable information to both students, lecturers and decision makers is expected to improve the quality of services in the higher education institutions in Tanzanian context.