4

Development and Validation of Flora

Inventory Management System
Raymond S. Bermudez1 and Maria Cecilia G. Cantos1
1
College of Computer Studies
Manuel S. Enverga University Foundation

Abstract
This study aimed to develop and validate an information management system for flora
inventory of Manuel S. Enverga University Foundation Lucena City. The system was developed
following the phases of Rapid Application Development (RAD). This process involves the following
stages: requirements planning through interviews with the flora inventory study proponents who
technically know the flora inventory processes and its importance; user design for the development
of the system models that represent all outputs, inputs, system process / features and database design
of the system; and construction which focused on application development in which PHP, JavaScript,
CSS, Adobe Dreamweaver, Apache server, and MySQL database were used in coding of the system.
After the iterative process of user design and construction phases, system testing was conducted in
order to validate the system features. The system testing involved the project developers and the
flora inventory study proponents. From the validation results, it was concluded that the developed
system has successfully attained the intended features. However, enhancement and additional features
were suggested by the validators of the system. These will be incorporated to prepare the system for
implementation. Among others, this research recommends the implementation of the system and its
use to assist the on-going flora inventory in the university.

Keywords: Flora Inventory Management System; RAD, System Testing

Introduction
Flora inventory is a comprehensive reference on management information systems or MIS have made
plant diversity of a country or locality. Considering that managing of records and accessing data accurate and fast.
Manuel S. Enverga University Foundation (MSEUF) in The primary objective of this study is to develop
Lucena City is bounded with rich flora, an exploratory and validate a flora inventory management system that
flora inventory was started to determine the species will not only effectively enhance record management
richness and evenness of trees and shrubs found in the of the inventory of plants found in the campus but will
campus. also provide reliable data for decision-making. The
The data collected in the inventory are significant flora inventory management system can also serve as
and provide the university a guide in its flora situation. reference material for plant study. Specifically, the study
It also assists teachers and students in studying plants. sought to identify requirements that will serve as the
Therefore, the need to store and manage data and basis for the design and development of the inventory
information as far as flora inventory is concerned becomes management system; design the system plan including
necessary for higher education institutions that provide the system functionalities, infrastructure, database
information that may be used in managing and responding design of the inventory management system based on the
to the challenges brought about by climate change. The identified requirements utilizing initial phases of Rapid
use of information technology and implementation of Application Development (RAD); develop the inventory
 5

management system using web development tool such requirements. The processes done in the inventory were
as PHP, Javascript, Cascading Style Sheet, MySQL as looked at in order for the system developer to understand
the database and Apache as the web server; and validate the procedure of flora inventory. This led to identifying
the system features of the inventory management system the system’s functionality and user’s requirements.
through system testing. Knowledge on the Rapid Application Development is
needed because this is the foundation of the software/
Methods and Procedures system development. In developing the system, the
The paradigm in Figure 1 illustrates the processes researchers needed to be engaged in web design and
as well as the inputs and output involved in this study. application as well as on database design and application.
This paradigm was designed to guide the researchers This is because the proposed system was created in these
throughout the study. platforms. Also, both the developers and the users of the
The input includes the needed requirements such system are vital in the development of the flora inventory
as Knowledge, Software, Hardware and Manpower management system.

Figure 1. Paradigm of the study

BERMUDEZ & CANTOS

6

The process involved the use of Rapid Application proponents and the developers validated each module and
Development (RAD) for its software development specific features found in the system. Validation checklist
methodology. It followed the three phases of RAD such was used to document the validation. The validators
as Requirements Planning, User Design and Construction. checked whether the feature was attained or not. Also
The system has undergone final system testing. suggestions on additional features were gathered during
In the requirements planning stage, the researchers the validation. Results of the validation determined
conducted interviews with the flora inventory study whether the system met the intended final feature. The
proponents who technically know the flora inventory additional features suggested were also incorporated to
processes. The researchers and the flora inventory study the system as agreed upon by the development team.
proponents composed the development team of the After the system development and final system
project. The requirement planning phase covered the testing, the study produced as an output a working Flora
project needs, project scope and system requirements, Inventory Management System.
technical design and development of the project.
The user design phase involved system modelling Results and Discussions
that represents all outputs, inputs, system process/ a. Manual System Processes
features and database design of the system. This phase Data-Flow diagram was used to exhibit the
is a continuous process that allows users to modify and processes of the manual flora inventory. These were
agree on the working model of the system that meets identified based on the requirements gathering.
users’ needs. Figure 2 shows the context diagram which exhibits
The construction phase focused on program and the top-level view of the flora inventory process and
application development for the coding of the system. its corresponding inputs and outputs. It shows that in
This phase iteratively involved the user design phase that the inventory, the surveyor entity provides inputs of
allows the users to participate in the improvement of the flora records. The output master list of flora records
different processes that have been developed. can be accessed by both the surveyor and faculty/
The final system testing validated the system to students. The diversity report can be viewed only by
see if it met the needs and requirements specified in the the surveyor.
beginning of the development. The flora inventory study

Figure 2. Data Flow Diagram (Context Diagram)

Development and Validation of Flora Inventory Management

System for MSEUF Lucena City
 7

In order to show the detailed processes in the user name and password should be entered in order
inventory, Diagram 0 was used which is shown in Figure to access all the features for the administrator.
3. Different processes identified are Manage Flora Records The Manage Back-end References module
where adding and editing of records is done, Create covers the management of back-end data that is
Report of Flora Diversity where computation analysis vital in creating database records of flora and flora
is processed and Create Flora inventory reports where inventory analysis. This is composed of three sub
the master list of flora encountered is created. From the modules: Manage System User, Manage Location
three processes identified, only the Create Flora Inventory Preferences, and Manage Species Profile. Manage
Report process can be done by the faculty/student entity. System User allows the logged-in administrator to
Also, the diagram shows that the records that were add, edit or remove users. Added users can access
collected are only stored in an excel sheet file. all the features of the system. Another sub-module

Figure 3. Data Flow Diagram (Diagram 0)

is Manage Location Preferences where locations
b. System Features or the target area for inventory are managed. Here,
Figure 4 illustrates the Use-case diagram of adding, editing and removing location records can
the system which showcases the different use-cases be done. Data such as the name and the direction
or modules. The system was designed to have 5 (with guided mapped) are specific location records
modules namely (a) Login/Logout, (b) Manage being managed here. Another sub-module is the
Back-end References, (c) Flora Inventory, (d) View Manage Species Profile. In this module, the species
Flora Records and (e) Plant Diversity Analysis encountered in the inventory are managed. Data
Report. Also, the systems will be used by two types such as Common Name, Scientific Name, Category,
of users such as the administrators and students/ Growth Habit of a certain species can be added,
viewers. Generally, administrators have access on edited and removed by the administrator. Also, field
all features of the system while the students/viewers for a detailed description for a species details can be
have limited access. managed where text formatting can be done. Image/
The Login-in/Logout module covers the photograph (with image profile such as resolution,
accessibility to the administrator’s pages. Correct photographer, etc.) can also be added for each

BERMUDEZ & CANTOS

8

species. With this module, the system can provide The View Flora Records module primarily
the database of all species being encountered in the handles viewing the records of the flora in the
inventory. The Manage About Flora Inventory database. Data that can be viewed are common name,
Method sub-module handles the editing of the data scientific name, category, growth habit descriptive
about the flora inventory methods used which is the details and the image of the flora. In this module,
Shannon Weiner formula. This was established so filter or searching can also be done.
the administrator can edit the details if any changes Plant Diversity Analysis Report module
or additional details are to be added. covers the analysis of the diversity of plants included
The Flora Inventory module covers the in the inventory. Here, analysis report can be
actual inventory process and is based on the manual generated in a printable format. Computational data
inventory process. Plant record can be added, edited based on Shannon Weiner formula (computation
and removed by the logged-in administrator. With the for the diversity analysis) are generated which will
help of the back-end modules, adding plant records determine the diversity of each plant in the area.
is easier because drop down for Species Name, and Records to be included in the report can be filtered
Location is provided in this module. according to their location or by growth habit. Details
of the computations are also shown in this module.

Figure 4. Use-Case Diagram of the System

Development and Validation of Flora Inventory Management

System for MSEUF Lucena City
 9

c. Database Design that handles location preferences details which

Database design of the system was established includes Loc_Code (primary key), Location_Name
in order to have a guide in developing the system. and Direction. Related table to tbl_Species and
Figure 5 shows the Entity-Relation (ER) Diagram tbl_Location is the bl_SpecRecord_inventory. This
that displays the database plan of the system. table will hold individual plant record included in the
The database of the system is composed of five inventory. This table has a many-to-one relationship
tables connected to their corresponding related tables on both tbl_Species and tbl_Location with their
which is illustrated in Figure 5. related field, Spec_Code and Loc_Code respectively.
Table tbl_UserAccount holds the records This means that in table tbl_SpecRecord_inventory,
for all the users in the system. Fields stored in this many similar Spec_Code and Loc_Code can be
table are Username which acts as the primary key of stored while in table, tbl_Species and tbl_Location
the table that uniquely identifies each record in the one Spec_Code and Loc_Code cannot be repeated
table such as Last_Name, First_Name, Password as another field. This is a good practice to avoid
and Date_Created. Table tbl_Species will store redundancy in database records. Another table is the
the records each time species are entered in the tbl_computeData that primarily holds the computed
system. This includes fields Spec_Code, Common_ data every time analysis report is to be done. It has
Name, Scientific_Name, Category, Growth_Habit, relationship to tlb_SpecRec_inventory in order to
Description and Image. Spec_Code serves as the avoid redundancy on Frequency and Dominance field.
primary key. Another table is the tbl_Location

Figure 5. Entity-Relation (ER) Diagram of the System

BERMUDEZ & CANTOS

10

a. Project Development b. Project Validation / System Testing

The system was developed in the construction The researchers conducted system testing with
phase of the RAD. In this phase, coding and initial the flora inventory study proponents. The testing and
testing were conducted. validation of the system were done to find out if the
The developers used web-related software Flora Inventory Management System has met the
and applications in order to develop the system. required system functionalities. A checklist was used
Particularly, PHP was used as the programming to perform the validation. The developers together
language, with the support of Javascript and with the users thoroughly examined every module
Cascading Style Sheet(CSS). Also, WAMP package and all functionalities of the system and they put a
was used to utilize the Apache Server as web server mark on the checklist to determine whether a certain
and MySQL administrator, phpMyAdmin as database functionality was attained or not.
that works on Windows Operating Systems. After validation of the system, the data and
Furthermore, the system utilized the MVC feedback gathered were tabulated and analyzed
(Model-View-Controller) framework. Specifically, according to requirements specification of the system.
CodeIgniter was implemented which is a powerful However, remarks, comments and suggestions were
PHP framework with a very small footprint, built for considered to better enhance the system’s features.
PHP coders who need a simple and elegant toolkit Tables were presented to show the results of
to create full-featured web applications (www. the validation made on the system. Table 1 shows the
codeigniter.com). validation results for Manage Reference (log-in/log-
It was found out that developing the system out) module of the system. Most of the respondents
in an organized way is effective and faster than believed that the features of correct username and
the normal development without the framework. password are accepted which allows user to proceed
CodeIgniter matched the intended software and to the admin page and the feature wrong username or
applications used in the development of the system. password are not permitted to proceed to the admin
The language used was PHP which also supports page with corresponding error notification message
use of Javascript and Cascading Style Sheet. Also were successful. The log-out feature worked properly
CodeIgniter has built-in functions than can be used indicating that the managing reference, particularly
in manipulating the database, MySQL. With this in log-in/log-out modules are attained in the system.
framework, the development time frame fitted the However, the design of the log-in/log-out, specifically
software development methodology used, RAD. in the background design, needs to be more visible
Utilizing this framework makes it easy to modify in the confirmation of log-out button.
features of the system typical of RAD project. This
provide more convenience during the testing and Table 1
Validation Results for Log-in/Log-out Module
modification processes of the development.
Initial testing such as Desk Checking and
Unit testing was also done. Desk checking was
done primarily for reviewing the code to spot logic
errors, which produce incorrect results. This was
done by the developers. Also, informal meetings
and consultations with the users were conducted to
check whether every module or unit of the system is
working properly.

Development and Validation of Flora Inventory Management

System for MSEUF Lucena City
 11

Table 2 illustrates the validation results for one of the However, showing the details of species records in an
sub-module of Manage Back-end References, the Manage organized way was rated 50% only.
System User module. Adding, editing, deleting/removing
and showing the details of the system user were attained as Table 4
validated by all the respondents. Also filtering the records Validation Results for Manage Back-end References
worked properly. Navigations/Links also worked correctly (Manage Species Records) Module
as all respondents marked it as attained.

Table 2
Validation Results for Manage Back-end References
(Manage System User) Module

The result shown in table 5 describes that the flora

inventory module can add, edit, delete/remove plants
Table 3 shows the validation results for Manage properly. It can show and filter the details of species
Location Preferences sub-module. The features such records efficiently and it can navigate/link the different
as add, edit, delete/remove locations; filter records; functionalities. The process in the system slightly reflects
and navigate/link functionality are working properly. the procedure done in the manual inventory.
However, in showing the details of location records, it
partly displays the details of the location in an organized way. Table 5
Validation Results for Flora Inventory Module
Table 3
Validation Results for Manage Back-end References (Man-
age Location Preferences) Module

Tables 6 reveals that the respondents approve the

features in Plant Diversity Analysis Report module. This
Table 4 shows the result of validation on the Manage shows that the features in generating report, showing all
Species Records sub-module of the system. The result the data, saving, and printing reports are efficiently and
indicates that adding, uploading pictures, editing, deleting/ correctly done in an organized way. However, creating
removing species; filtering records and navigating/linking report in different preferences seems to be less attained
of different functionalities of the system are attained. in the system.

BERMUDEZ & CANTOS

12

Table 6 Also part of the validation is to put suggestions and

Validation Results for Plant Diversity Analysis Report Module additional features in order to address the unsatisfied
features. Suggestions on some features were noted.
Significant suggestions were as follows: adding university
map picture with directions on the manage location
preferences module to guide the user on selecting the
direction field; add a capability to format the scientific name
in a right format (italic or bold, etc) on the manage species
records module; add an additional page for explaining the
process used in the analysis of flora inventory records;
and in inventory report, add a functionality to filter the
location by group (e.g. all locations inside the campus, all
locations outside the campus, etc.). Another suggestion
was to put an interactive map where species found in each
location can be shown by clicking on the location spot on
the map. All suggested features were incorporated in the
Table 7 shows the results of student’s access system as enhancement features.
modules. This proves that the respondents agree that the
system can filter data in different categories, can sort the Conclusions and Recommendations
data in different preferences, can display for each flora, can Based on the findings of the study, the following
create report in different preferences, can generate report conclusions were derived:
that reflects important and reliable details, can show all The researchers have successfully gathered users
the data, and can print and save the generated report in and system requirements that were used as the basis in
an efficient and organized way. However, the home page the design and development of the system. The system
briefly describes what the system which was given a low is composed of 4 modules that represent the system
rating by the validators. features. These are (a)Login/Logout, (b)Manage Back-
end References, (c)Administer Flora Inventory, (d)
Table 7
Plant Diversity Analysis Report. The Manage Backend
Validation Results for Student Access Modules (Home,
View Flora Records, Diversity Report) References module is composed of sub-modules Manage
System User, Manage Location Preferences, Manage
Species Profile. The administrators have the access to
all modules while students/viewers can only access the
View Inventory Records and Plant diversity analysis
report modules. Use-Case Diagram and E-R Diagram
were used in order to have a clearer view of the system
design specifications.
The system has successfully utilized CodeIgniter
which implements the MVC (Model-View-Controller)
framework. The systems development was more organized
with this framework. The system’s features were validated
by means of document comparison, consultations with
the inventory study proponents and the final system
testing. Based on the validation from the final system

Development and Validation of Flora Inventory Management

System for MSEUF Lucena City
 13

testing, the system portrayed the intended features and Software Development Life Cycle.(2008). Retrieved
expected outputs as the project development team found from http://www.stylusinc.com/Common/Concerns/
that features in each module are visibly working in the SoftwareDevtPhilosophy.php
system. Suggestions noted were incorporated to the system Sommerville, I. (2001). Software engineering. Addison Wesley.
as enhancement.
The researchers recommend conducting an
evaluation that would rate the systems technical aspects
and its usability as perceived by the target end-users and
experts in IT. They also recommend using and deploying
the flora inventory system in the continuation of the flora
exploratory study and finally, conducting a validation with
Flora experts such as botanists to further validate whether
the data representations are valid and are correct.

References

De Castro, P.L., & Tolentino, C.V. (2009). Exploratory inventory

of flora in MSEUF campus: A preliminary study. MSEUF-
Lucena City. An Unpublished research paper. MSEUF.
California Flora Nursery (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.
calfloranursery.com/pages_plantlists/plantinfo.html
California Invasive Plant Inventory Database(nd.). California
Invasive Plant Council. Retrieved from http://www.cal-ipc.
org/ip/inventory/weedlist.php
CodeIgniter. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://codeigniter.com/
Field Guide to the Rare Plants and Animals of Florida Online.
(n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.fnai.org/fieldguide
Flora in the Philippines. (2010). Retrieved from http://www.pnh.
com.ph/category/4-Articles/34-Flora-of-the-Philippines-
page-1.html
Herbarium Digital Library (2010). Retrieved from http://www.
pnh.com.ph/
Inventory of Rare and Endangered Plants. (2010). Retrived from
http://cnps.site.aplus.net/cgi-bin/inv/inventory.cgi
Kendall, K.E. & Kendall, J. (2003). Systems analysis and design.
Prentice Hall.
Kohan, B. (2010). Guide to Internet Database Development,
Benefits and Guide to Internet Database Development.
Retrieved from http://www.comentum.com/guide-to-
Internet-database-development.html

BERMUDEZ & CANTOS