MIRCS: A Mobile USSD-SMS Interactive Result Checking System for Resource-Constrained Settings

The development and use of educational technologies (edutech) have seen some advance over the years in most developing countries. Most Higher Education Institutions' (HEI) in developing countries have result processing software as part of an overall edutech suite. However, adoption or use of the result software has largely been web-based, hence only internet enabled phones (feature or smartphones) or PCs are able to access it. In this paper, we present MIRCS, a low-end USSD-SMS based system designed for checking Higher Education semester results in resource limited settings like Africa. MIRCS can be accessed by students without internet and by using any type of phone, including basic phone. We design the systems working with users from our University, a Higher Education Institution in a developing country and report preliminary results from trials with 784 students. Based on this trial, the system records up to 89% successful access rate from recorded 3136 USSD sessions over four (4) telecommunication networks.

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