https://ir.kdu.ac.lk/handle/345/3835 2026-04-22T02:50:35Z https://ir.kdu.ac.lk/handle/345/1142 Learning Basic Mathematic Concepts with Computer Games Rajika, SNT; Ranasinghe, DDM Mathematics lays the foundation for abstract, logical and analytical thinking abilities. Therefore teaching basic mathematic concepts such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division are started in schools from primary grades. It was revealed that teaching mathematics only in the traditional classroom environment with teacher centred learning has yielded poor performance so far among learners. Therefore in this project a computer game was developed to teach the basic mathematics concepts in a gaming environment considering the interest of small children in playing computer games. Levels of the games are developed based on Bloom’s taxonomy to ensure that the pedagogical objectives are met. According to evaluation results student acceptance of the system was very high because they have been able to grasp the concepts in a very friendly and an effective manner. The teachers also had a very positive acceptance indicating the high level of effectiveness mainly due to aligning the games with levels of Blooms taxonomy because it aids achieving educational objectives. Thus the system was recommended as an additional support tool for learning mathematics, for primary students. Article Full Text 2015-01-01T00:00:00Z https://ir.kdu.ac.lk/handle/345/1140 Soft Skills for Sri Lankan ICT Professionals De Silva, GIF The report ‘The national ICT work force survey 2013’, (ICTA 2013), conducted on behalf of the Information Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) has identified a growth of ICT work force of 50,159 in 2010 to 75,107 in 2013, a 50 % increase. The projected figure for 2014 had been 82,854 and the momentum is expected to continue, with a shortfall of nearly 500 ICT graduates in 2014. The report quotes the Central Bank Report for 2013 according to which the country had earned US $ 600 million from the ICT sector that year. The ICTA report identifies 26 university faculties and 45 private colleges providing ICT degree and other programs. Further, according to the report ICT professionals are expected to provide core, technical and soft skills. As guidance to ICT trainers the following is stated at the final conclusion. “An area that needs special attention is developing soft skills that have ranked high among the skills in demand by employers. Among others, supply situation of soft skills seems to be unhealthy.” Objective of this research is to broadly investigate reasons for this short fall and to seek for ways of improving this situation. Whereas core & technical skills belong to the cognitive and psychomotor intelligence, soft skills will be considered as pertaining to emotional intelligence as identified by researchers, see Coleman (1992, 1996). Matters such as shortfalls in creative thinking and team work & professional ethics are national issues which needs wider inquiry. Special emphasis will be made on the English language issue as it is connected to communication & presentation and even to team work and also because it is relevant only to our country. To use concepts of emotional intelligence to improve the CIT industry three levels of activity are identified, which are (a) the national, (b) training institutes, (universities & others), and (c) by ICT firms itself. Describing what need be done at the national level will be a wasteful exercise and will be treated only in passing. There are matters that institutes providing ICT training should make use of as emerging from emotional consideration conceptualized by Coleman and these will be discussed. There are activities that ICT organizations can adopt to improve team work and communication skills. The technique SCRUM, used in most US companies and Extreme Programming (XP) will be discussed, see, Pressman (205); Sommerville (2009). Article Full Text 2015-01-01T00:00:00Z https://ir.kdu.ac.lk/handle/345/1138 Modification of User Friendliness into a HydroGIS Tool Pradeep, RMM; Wijesekara, NTS In present context venders have developed fewer number of GIS software to perform advanced GIS manipulations with customised tools for specific uses. Nevertheless those provide general functions, whilst the real world-applications demand advanced geospatial calculation in customised ways. The automation of hydrological model for decision making in urban development is one of such areas which needs customised GIS tools. Such tools are to be handled by non-GIS experts; hence software developers have to develop userfriendly GIS extensions. However at the present there is no proper guideline to develop user- friendly Hydrological-GIS (HydroGIS) tools, hence it becomes a considerable time consuming process. Then main objective of this research is to find the important areas which the developers must pay the maximum attention to result the user-friendly HydroGIS tools. For that, in line with present software development guidelines which found through comprehensive literature survey, a HydroGIS tool was developed. Then it had been tested with the potential users for user-friendliness. Based on the user responses, the repetitive design and development process was practised to achieve the saturated level of user satisfaction. When such, the work able to isolate; the Easy GIS Operational capability, Information Security, Spatial Data Error handling & Accuracy Confirmation, On-Screen Capability, Continuity in Operation and Tested and Verified Results as the main areas to be considered in HydroGIS tool development. The works demonstrated the requirement of specific guidelines to achieve the higher user-friendliness when developing software for specific models. Article Full Text 2015-01-01T00:00:00Z https://ir.kdu.ac.lk/handle/345/1136 Performance Appraisal System for Allion Technologies (PVT) LTD Wimalarathna, DDN; Wimalaratne, DPS The purpose of this paper to introduce an automate performance appraisal system for a software developing organization. Allion technologies used, manual form based performance appraisal system for assessing the performance and productivity of individual employees. This manual appraisal system generated several difficulties like data redundancy, data inaccuracy and delayed submissions of forms due to lack of communication through the system. The web based performance appraisal system is built to cover some of the crucial aspects of the system goals like administrator login and dynamic user creation, role base user access functionality, automating the excel sheet based performance appraisal process, designation based performance criteria handling, user rating interface and report generating and etc. This web base system allows, system users to access it and monitor it whenever it is needed avoiding the problems caused by geographical distance. The performance appraisal system has been developed over Intel(R) Pentium(R) CPU 2.00GHz, 3GB RAM, 320 GB Hard disk computer installed with Windows 7 home basic 64-bit OS,XAMPP and Yii PHP Framework for providing the MVC architecture ensuring a clear separation of logic and presentation. SQLyog Enterprise was used for handling the database tables, TortoiceSVN was used to have records of continuously made modifications to the system from its beginning.PHP, HTML, CSS, Java script, AJAX were used for coding. Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 were used for GUI creations. Entire system was tested to find out the errors of the system and performed necessary corrections. System was modularized and each module was tested in contrast to system requirements. System testing together with Given User trial proved automated performance appraisal system reduced almost all the manual processes dealing with the appraisal discussion and provided secure environment for rating process and minimize most of labour works currently done by staff members. Overall, the automated system enhanced the employee productivity and organizational growth. Article Full Text 2015-01-01T00:00:00Z