Accommodation has been one of the major problems students face on Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology (KNUST) campus. Continuing students are not accommodated in the halls and therefore are forced to move into hostels located in and around KNUST campus. One problem students face when looking for hostels is, they do not know where to find the hostel of their choice. In search of hostels, students prefer to have informaton on hostels which are nearer to campus, especially with good facilities, proper sanitation, better management services, conducive atmosphere for learning and most of all with affordable lodging rate. This lack of hostel information arises because there is no proper archive of the hostels in and around KNUST for the students. It is of this view that this project is carried out to archive hostels information using Geographic Information System (GIS) where the students will be able to locate the hostels on a map and find descriptive and pictorial information about the hostels. Global Positioning System (GPS) was used to collect the spatial location of the hostels. Questionnaires were also used to collect the non-spatial data on the hostels’ rate, room size, number of rooms, entertainment fascilities, parking lots etc. Macromedia Dreamweaver MX software was also used to design the webpages on the spatial and non-spatial information of the hostels for users to access on the World Wide Web (WWW).
Introduction
A hostel is an inexpensive supervised, short lodging especially for young people (Macmillan and McGraw-Hill, 1993). In other words, a hostel is a hotel providing short lodging for travelers. A hotel is a commercial establishment that provides lodging and often food, entertainment, and other services for the public, especially for travelers (Macmillan and McGraw-Hill, 1993). There is a relation between a hotel and a hostel since both provide short lodging for visitors. As a result, hostels need to meet ordinary standards of hotels in the provision of good conditions such as good sanitation, easy access to clean water, electricity, proper supervision etc. There is also the need for the hostels’ maintenance. That is, proper preservation of the hostels for students to live in. The problem that arises is that some of the hostels in and around KNUST campus do not meet the criterion spelled above. It is of this view that the project is undertaken to design ways and means of archiving hostels’ spatial and non-spatial information which accommodate KNUST students. The non-spatial information considered are accessibility to hostels and information about their conditions such as water and electricity situation, hostel charges, sanitation, class of hostel, number of students per room and conducive atmosphere for learning. The spatial information is the spatial location (that is, the X and Y co-ordinates) of the hostels. The Global Positioning System (GPS) was used to collect the spatial location of the hostels. The idea behind the project is to collate all these spatial and non-spatial datasets into Geographic Information System (GIS) environment for efficient and effective data input, data management (that is, data storage and retrieval), data manipulation and analysis, and presentation (Aronoff, 1989).
To enhance easy accessibility to the spatial and non-spatial information about the hostels, it was published on the web using HTML programming software. This programming software, that is the Macromedia Software, helped in designing the webpages. This software provided easy access to information and a means of hyper-linking images and illustrations to data in order to provide detailed information.
Although the paper focuses on using GIS to archive spatial and non-spatial information of hostels, hostel maintenance is highlighted to raise the issue of proper preservation and better service for students of KNUST.
Materials and Methods
Verbal Interviews and Questionnaire.
Verbal interviews were conducted for the basic inputs for the design of the GIS application. Fifty-five students responded for the verbal interviewing and questioning. The designs of the questionnaire for the interviews were based on the objective of obtaining information on water and electricity situation, hostel charges, sanitation, number of students per room and nature of atmosphere for learning of the hostels. The questionnaire used exists of closed-ended questions in which the questions are ‘structured’ and ‘totally structured’ types. ‘Structured’ types consisted of questions that are determined and the interviewer codes responses as they are given. ‘Totally structured’ types consisted of questions that the coding is predetermined and the respondent presented with alternatives for the questions so that the phrasing of the responses is structured. These types of questions were chosen for easy coding and easy analysis of respondents’ feedback.
Hostel maintenance
Hostel maintenance is the combination of all technical and associate administrative actions intended to retain hostel or restore hostel to a state in which it can perform its required function (Adjetey et al, 2005). According to the authors, hostel maintenance can be classified under four specific headings namely: planned maintenance, preventive maintenance, running maintenance and unplanned maintenance. Planned maintenance is when hostels are organized and carried out with fore thought, control and the use of records to a predetermined plan. Hostel maintained without predetermined plan is unplanned maintenance. Preventive maintenance and running maintenance falls between planned and unplanned maintenance. Preventive maintenance is a type put in place to reduce the probability of failure or the performance degradation of the hostel. It is carried out at predetermine interval or corresponding to prescribed criteria. Maintenance of hostel carried out whilst in service is termed running maintenance. The hostels sited were classified under planned maintenance, preventive maintenance, running maintenance and unplanned maintenance.
Classification of Hostels
Hostels in and around campus have different facilities which makes them fall into different classes. The criteria used in classifying these hostels were provided by the Estate Organization Unit of KNUST. There are five classes in all (see figure 1). First class is the best, graduating down to the fifth class. A hostel qualifies to be in a class when it satisfies majority of the conditions in that class.
The KNUST Estate Organisation Unit (2005) criterion was used in the classification of the observed hostels. With this criterion, hostels were grouped under five classes. In all spatial and non-spatial information of fifty-five hostels were collected. The classification of hostels according to classes is shown in table 1.
Table 1: Classified hostels in and around KNUST campus
| Class type | 1st Class | 2nd Class | 3rd Class | 4th Class | 5th Class |
| Name of Hotel | Brunei Gaza Sun city Westend | Alster Amade Diploma Int. Nana Adoma No Weapon Outlook Rowlex Sir Max Spring Steven Paris | Asabek Asona Christ the King Cornel Eden Ford Hydes Jita Kentcity Kuyajoe Mango road Nasco Nyberg Penthouse SDR Shaba Shalom Shepherdsville SRC St. Francis Memorial St. Peter’s Credit union | Acropolis Cowas Diaspora Ebenezer Jalex Kankam Kingdom Pantan White house | Adonai Asbed Bujumbura City CFFR Continental El Shadai Millenium Nazareth Peace Stone Castle Wisdom |
Table 2 shows that the continuing (non-resident) students in the hostels outnumber the resident students in the halls. This calls for the proper management of hostels in and around campus to effectively cater for the accommodation needs of non-resident students. This is in line with one of the expected outputs of the University’s Corporate Strategic Plan 2004-2014 (PLAN2K14) launched in the year 2004. That is to expand residential facilities (halls and hostels) for students.
Table 2: KNUST student enrolment in 2004/2005 academic year (source: KNUST Estate Organisation Unit, 2005)
| Halls of residence | Number of males | Number of females | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Queen Elizabeth hall Independence hall Republic hall Africa hall Unity hall University hall Students enrolled |
657 628 643 0 1,694 1,199 11,681 |
549 500 560 700 0 0 4,614 |
1,206 1,128 1,203 700 1,694 1,199 16,295 |
The use of GIS in archiving information on hostels
To start with the execution of the task, maps covering the area was digitized in the GIS environment for visualization. Coordinates of the hostels were picked with GPS and then downloaded into the GIS environment. Results of the questionnaires about the hostels pertaining to the information about their condition was tabulated in MS Access and then exported into the GIS environment. The advantage of using GIS is that public utilities such as water, power, facility management, landscape architecture and sanitation can be well stored, retrieved, managed, analysed and presented (see figure 2).
Figure 2: Spatial locations of Hostels displayed in ArcView 3.3
The study was carried mainly to integrate the topographic maps of the study area and the geographic positions as well as the attribute information of the hostels for visualization in a GIS environment for easy access of hostel information. As a result there was the need to determine the number of students per room and availability of water and electricity as well as to determine the sanitation conditions of the hostels compared to the halls. There was also the need to determine the serenity, distance from the campus and charges of the hostels, how students can obtain quick hostel information and lastly to develop a user-friendly platform for updating the database of hostels. These datasets were incorporated into macromedia flash software including the images captured with the digital camera for easy access to the public through the WWW. This was done because students and the University community need information about hostels in and around KNUST campus.
The GIS was used to store, update, retrieve and analyse the spatial and non-spatial datasets of hostel. With the collection of the non-spatial data, thorough review of existing data and verbal interview would be used to investigate and analyse the requirements of the hostels in our study area. The interview would be conducted by interviewing the target group that is the students in the various hostels through questionnaires.
GIS makes it possible to store, handle, analyse, visualize and model spatial data and therefore may contribute to the better understanding of geographical phenomena. It also supports the creation and maintenance of a more accurate land records base map using the tools and functions of GIS (e.g., topology checking, map projections and adjustments, map editing tools)
The questionnaires which were sent out to the various hostels were used in building the attribute table. The table containing the geographical locations as well as attributes information on the hostels was created in Microsoft Access and later exported into ArcView 3.3 GIS software.
The use of GPS in archiving information on hostels
GPS provides a means of locating the spatial (or geographical) locations of all the hostels. Handheld GPS was used to determine the geographical locations of the hostels. This survey technique was chosen because it is easy in data acquisition, direct coordinate location, and compatible with the GIS software. ‘Advantage of GPS compared with conventional surveys is that it can be used in any weather conditions day or night. This enables GPS surveying to be carried out over extended periods at any time of the year without restrictions such as rain, fog, and poor visibility delaying work. Another advantage when surveying with GPS is that intervisibility between stations or points surveyed is not necessary. This allows control stations to be placed where convenient and not at locations which may be difficult to get to in order to establish lines of sight’ (Schofield, 1993). Although handheld GPS was used for these measurements a more precise GPS measurement would be an update for further research. This is because; handheld GPS has error in the range of 5-25m in measuring horizontal distances. The type of hand-held GPS used in the observation was the ‘Megalin Silva’, which was found to have accuracy of 20 meters. This was achieved by comparing the observations of the transformed results from the handheld GPS and known coordinates in order to obtain a transformation parameter of 20 meters between the two results.
The procedures put in place to ensure that more accurate readings were observed such that the observations would not be thrown off from their original positions on ground are outlined below:
- Three of the four corners of the hostel building were chosen as points for the GPS observation.
- On each of these selected points, three readings were taken at different times of the day.
- The average of the three readings at a point was calculated in the Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) projection system for that point. These GPS coordinates obtained were then transformed to the national (Ghanaian) coordinates using the transformation parameters
- The length and width of the hostel building was measured using a tape-measure.
Table 3: Transformed GPS coordinates of the fifty-five (55) hostels
| Hostels | Eastings (feet) | Northings (feet) | Hostels | Eastings (feet) | Northings (feet) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Acropolis | 695,493.49 | 728,437.42 | Mangoroad | 696,857.44 | 728,850.92 |
| Adonai | 695,800.80 | 728,167.35 | Millenium | 696,737.41 | 727,423.66 |
| Alster | 688,482.44 | 732,596.06 | Nana adoma | 695,680.74 | 726,732.22 |
| Amade | 690,978.26 | 731,645.36 | Nasco | 690,582.78 | 730,708.03 |
| Asabek | 697,614.50 | 727,355.49 | Nazareth | 696,429.83 | 728,691.78 |
| Asbed | 695,808.07 | 727,736.03 | No weapon | 698,054.10 | 724,705.44 |
| Asona | 698,103.18 | 728,242.85 | Nyberg | 697,163.23 | 727,273.52 |
| Brunei | 692,376.29 | 725,827.65 | Outlook | 698,969.88 | 728,826.43 |
| Bujumbura | 695,549.68 | 727,661.54 | Pantang | 695,752.01 | 728,546.67 |
| CFFR | 695,577.88 | 727,571.57 | Peace | 696,630.18 | 727,414.63 |
| Christ the king | 697,802.14 | 726,202.28 | Pent house | 695,923.50 | 727,284.63 |
| Continental | 695,863.86 | 727,923.10 | Rowlex | 690,975.75 | 731,614.44 |
| Cornel | 696,681.85 | 725,424.16 | SDR | 691,176.59 | 732,807.23 |
| Cowas | 697,278.06 | 726,122.21 | Shaba | 692,069.23 | 726,255.16 |
| Diaspora | 695,612.49 | 728,511.77 | Shalom | 695,616.49 | 726,207.69 |
| Diploma | 689,256.23 | 733,153.74 | Shepherd | 697,397.19 | 727,482.89 |
| Ebenezer | 696,019.93 | 725,856.25 | Sir max | 698,635.02 | 733,471.21 |
| Eden | 695,875.99 | 728,545.24 | Spring | 691,992.05 | 726,228.22 |
| El shadai | 696,432.99 | 727,142.71 | SRC | 692,579.12 | 729,793.18 |
| Ford | 696,090.84 | 727,480.81 | St. Francis | 696,514.54 | 725,681.26 |
| Gaza | 698,195.21 | 732,316.04 | St. Peters | 697,100.58 | 725,753.56 |
| Hydes | 697,163.23 | 725,935.68 | Steven Paris | 692,322.17 | 726,096.14 |
| Janelex | 695,811.00 | 726,033.14 | Stone castle | 695,670.91 | 726,110.08 |
| Jita | 695,723.27 | 728,757.34 | Suncity | 698,730.68 | 732,550.21 |
| Kankam | 695,930.38 | 728,174.42 | Westend | 695,607.44 | 728,474.07 |
| Kent city | 697,553.74 | 733,313.81 | White house | 695,798.32 | 726,867.24 |
| Kingdom | 696,331.33 | 727,147.02 | Wisdom | 698,289.07 | 726,974.53 |
| Kuyajoe | 698,204.06 | 728,883.38 |
The information on the selected datum, datum parameters and transformation parameters used for the transformation are shown in table 4.
Table 4: Information on the selected datum, datum parameters and transformation parameters used for the transformation
| Transformation Parameters | |
|---|---|
| Datum | Clarke 1880 |
| Major axis diameter (a) | 6378249.145 |
| Minor axis diameter (b) | 6356514.87 |
| 1/ f | 293.465 |
| Datum Parameters | |
| Translation in x-axis (Tx) | -159.506 |
| Translation in y-axis (Ty) | 262.531 |
| Translation in z-axis (Tz) | 221.791 |
| Rotation in x-axis (Rx) | 1.82800 sec |
| Rotation in y-axis (Ry) | 2.39900 sec |
| Rotation in z-axis (Rz) | 7.46000 sec |
| Scale change (S) | 0 ppm |
| Datum Selected | |
| Origin Latitude | 4°40`00` N |
| Origin Longitude | 1°00`00` W |
| Scale | 0.99975 |
| False Easting | 27432.00 m |
| False Northing | 0 m |
The use of WWW in archiving information on hostels
Macromedia Dreamweaver MX is a professional HTML editor for designing, coding, and developing websites, web pages, and web applications. Apart from these, it can also be used for running a web server on a local computer, or uploading files to a staging server. This software provided the means of designing the web pages required to upload the spatial and non-spatial information about the hostels onto the WWW for easy access.
In designing web pages, the software enables you to set a variety of properties for a page including its title, background colour, text colour, and so on. Buttons, images, sounds and customized navigational buttons can be added to web pages. The designed interface of accessing hostel information is shown in figure 3.
Figure 3: Home page for accessing hostel information
Results
The survey conducted on students during the study revealed that students need information pertaining to rent or hostel charges since rent or charges are fixed depending on the type of hostel, the number of students in a room, facilities present and the location. Hostels closer to the campus are preferred by students to those further from campus. From the survey, it was observed that in managing energy within the hostels, some of the hostels use prepaid electric meters whiles others have theirs added to the initial hostel charge. Also, it was observed that water is supplied to the occupants through pipe-borne, underground storage tanks or both. The consumption rate depends on the number of people living in the hostels. The hostel charges include water consumption rates.
The data collected on the fifty-five (55) hostels in and around KNUST indicated that 25% of the hostels fall under planned maintenance, where hostels are organized and carried out with fore thought, control and the use of records to a predetermined plan. These hostels were classified under first (1st), second (2nd) and third (3rd) class hostels. 20% of the hostels fall under unplanned maintenance, where hostels are organized and carried out without a fore thought, control and the use of records to operate it. These hostels were classified under fourth (4th) and fifth (5th) class hostels. 25% of the hostels fall solely under preventive and running maintenance. These hostels could be found in the first (1st) class and second (2nd) class hostels. There, however, exist overlaps in some of hostels as in relation to the preventive and running maintenance especially the third (3rd) and fourth (4th) classes. See table 1 for the classification of the hostels in and around KNUST as at March 2005. Figure 1 also shows the percentages of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th class hostels in and around KNUST campus.
Figure 1: Percentage display on the number of classified hostels as at March 2005.
The hostels falling under the first class are hostels having quality wall tiles in bath and water closet (WC), shower, shop, telephone and good security, finished terrazzo floors, sliding windows and sliding doors. These hostels are closer to KNUST campus. Hostels falling under unplanned maintenance have no tiles in bath and WC, Kumasi Ventilated Improved Pit (KVIP), no shop, no telephone, no good security, cemented floor finish, mixed mode of painted and unpainted wall finish and burglar proof windows. These hostels are not closer to campus and are located in very noisy areas. In addition, there is uneasy access roads and transport from these hostels are to KNUST campus. Most of these hostels were individual houses being converted to students hostels.
Discussion
Based on the above results, there is the need to raise an awareness of how these hostels are being maintained. This will in turn improve the learning conditions for students of KNUST.
Most of the hostels accommodating students have safe environment for students’ academic activities. However, from the survey conducted there is a concern that the living conditions in some hostels could harm students' physical and emotional development and their ability to learn. At present, some hostels are operating without any supervision and regard of the statutory laws. This is happening because there is no database of all the hostels in and around campus. The following can be deduced from the study:
- Hostel operators must be educated on hostel management and endeavour to provide portable water, electricity and good sanitation for occupants (students). They must form a union to help curb the mushrooming of illegal and sub-standard hostels.
- Better checking and monitoring of people who operate hostels. They must be made to pay taxes to the government or the university from which they are benefiting. Hostel charges must be monitored since most hotel operators take undue advantage of this.
- Setting of clear minimum standards for hostel premises and management practices. That is, minimum standards for hostel management practices must be set to monitor hostel standards. For example, many of private hostels are operating without any standards. Almost all the compound houses around campus, for instance, have been converted to hostels and must be checked and added to the database.
- Better intervention options where unsafe and inhabitable hostels can be identified. This must be done to check the safety of students in those poorly managed hostels.
- The Ministry of Education must call for the various Universities’ input into the development of new regulations designed to monitor the operations of hostels in and around the universities throughout the country.
- Hostel classification criteria defined must be made available for upgrading of this database between some time intervals. Updated maps of KNUST and the surrounding areas where there are hostels must be available to reflect current changes in status and emergence of new hostels.
- Suggestion boxes must be placed at vantage points to obtain suggestions from students because they have in-depth information about the hostels they live in.
- Maps of hostels could be placed at vantage points on campus for hostel direction. Hostel information must be published in a gazette and made available to students seeking hostel accommodation. In addition, the classified hostels can be a form of advertisement for continuing students. This can be part of the Universities admission forms in order to help students have a fair idea of the hostels in and around KNUST campus.
Out of the total number of students admitted in the 2004/05 academic year, the total number of students with accommodation in the halls is 7,130 and that of the non-resident students is 9,165. These numbers shows that greater number of the students is not accommodated by the University, hence the need to inform students of the hostels available for their lodging.
The developed GIS application is composed of a geo-spatial database which describes the geographical location of hostels, pictorial view of hostels and attributes information of hostel as well as a web application for dissemination the geo-spatial information to students through the World Wide Web. However, further study is needed to help present maps of hostels in and around KNUST campus in a dynamic and interactive manner.
Conclusion
In designing the application, the spatial location and attribute information were integrated into ArcView 3.3 software and the web pages were created using the Macromedia Dreamweaver MX trial version software. These developed application have varied unique capabilities such as:
- easy identification of hostels at Ayigya, Ayeduase, Ayeduase New Site, Bomso, Kentenkrono Kotei and on KNUST campus.
- obtaining detailed hostel information such as the charge, number of students per room, availability of water and electricity et cetera.
- estimating the shortest distance between a hostel and central classroom block, lecture theatres, commercial area, central library, the halls and any other important place for students on campus.
- visualizing the spatial location of the various hostels on the map.
- updating of both the spatial and the non-spatial data can be done easily.
- easy access of hostel information for users on the WWW.
The objective of the research by integrating the topographic maps of the study area and the geographic positions of the hostels for visualization in a GIS environment as well as making hostel information readily available were achieved. Other key information and issues that influence hostel management in KNUST were identified and archived for reference. The software ArcView 3.3 provided a very excellent management tool in terms data storage, data retrieval, data update and analysis, and data visualization.
The Macromedia Dreamweaver MX software which was used to design web pages which displays attribute and pictorial information of the hostels helped in publishing the application on the WWW for the benefit of accessing by both local and international students.
The hostels have been put into five classes with the first class being the best, down to the fifth class being the lowest. With this research, students seeking hostel accommodation can easily access and make decisions beforehand and also customers interested in management of University hostel may also be interested in the information provided by the database.
Reference
- Adjetey, E. S., Eshun, Y. F. and Jiro, K. K. (2005): “Use of GIS in Hostels Management.” BSc. thesis, Department of Geomatic Engineering, Faculty of Civil and Geomatic Engineering Dept., KNUST, Kumasi, Ghana.
- Aronoff, S. (1989): “Geographic Information Systems: A Management Perspective.” WDL Publications, Ottawa Canada.
- KNUST Estate Organisation Unit (2005) : “Criteria for Hostel Classification.” KNUST, Kumasi, Ghana.
- Macmillan and McGraw-Hill (1993): “School Dictionary 3.” MacMillan and McGraw-Hill School Publishing Company, New York, USA.
- Uren, J. and Price W.F. (1994): “Surveying for Engineers.” MacMillan Press Ltd., London, Great Britain.
- Schofield, W. (1993). “Engineering Surveying.” Butterworth – Heinemann Ltd. Oxford, UK.