Posted: February 5th, 2015

Information System Engineering

Paper, Order, or Assignment Requirements

 

 

Assessment Brief

 

 

Module number	SET11106
Module title	Information Systems Engineering
Module leader	Rob Kemmer
Tutor with responsibility for this Assessment	Rob Kemmer
Assessment	Coursework 2: Practical Coursework:   Pine Furniture Company
Weighting	50% of module assessment
Size and/or time limits for assessment	.
Deadline of submission Your attention is drawn to the penalties for late submission	Friday 12th December 2014
Arrangements for submission	Your Coursework must be submitted to the School of Computing Office: Room C34 using the appropriate School of Computing cover sheet (in basket outside School Office).   Further submission instructions are included in the attached specification   Please ensure you bring your matriculation card with you.   Please note that you submission must be anonymous, therefore include only your Matriculation Number. Do not put your name on the title page or in page headers or footers or on forms within the application.   You must demonstrate your work to the module leader during w/c 8th December 2014 or earlier

 

Assessment Regulations All assessments are subject to the University Regulations.
Requirements for the assessment	See Attached
Special instructions	Coursework assistance will be provided during timetabled laboratory sessions from Week 9 onwards.   Your disks will not be returned to you. Please retain an electronic copy of your submission in the event of disk errors etc.
Return of work	Mark sheets will be provided within three weeks of submission. Your original coursework will be retained.
Assessment criteria	Your coursework will be marked using the marking sheets attached as Appendix C   This specifies the criteria that will be used to mark your work. Further discussion of criteria is also included in the coursework specification attached.

 

INFORMATION SYSTEMS ENGINEERING

 

Module No SET11106

Coursework Specification

 

Trimester 1: Session 2014 – 2015

 

 

The Pine Furniture Company

 

Learning Outcomes Assessed

The learning outcomes for Information Systems Engineering (SET11106) are as follows:

 

LO1: Critically appraise the information needs of organisations

LO2: Critically assess the concepts of development stages and methods

LO3: Evaluate possible models, designs and specify elements of existing/proposed systems

LO4: Construct and critically evaluate a system using system construction tool(s)

 

This assignment primarily assesses outcome 4 , and also contributes to understanding of outcomes 1, 2 and 3.

 

Scenario

 

The Pine Furniture Company wishes to extend the analysis work (done for Coursework 1 of the module) into a prototype system that will demonstrate the capabilities of the proposed system.

 

In due course a full working web-based system is envisaged but for the meantime a PC-based system is planned to pilot the proposed system. Initial discussions suggest that the system will use the existing small network of PCs plus at least one in a new informal customer browsing area that is currently being constructed that will allow customers to browse the stock items while waiting to be seen.

 

At this stage your responsibility is to prototype enough of the system to demonstrate its capabilities rather than to build a complete working system. Your brief is therefore to develop a prototype of the new system and to advise on the management of its further development.

 

You are free to extend this work into a web-based system but that is not recommended for novice developers within the class.

Requirements:

 

1. Prepare a data model of the proposed system comprising: an Access relationship diagram, a list of the tables, fields, field sizes, field types and keys within them. The relationship diagram should be based on the outline relationship diagram supplied as Appendix A.                                                                                                                     [15 marks]
2. Develop a prototype system to automate at least the following functional requirements:                                                  [75 marks]

Maintain details of:

• the Customers of the Pine Furniture Company
• The furniture items for sale by the company
• Recording of Sales Orders

 

Provide dialogues for the conduct of client visits:

• if not an existing customer record customer details
• if a registered customer find customer details
• record details of furniture items
• Browse available furniture items including the following searches

1. By room item used in (Bedroom, kitchen, living room etc.)
2. Item type (beds, tables, chairs, sideboards etc.)
3. Price per item

• Record a customer order

 

Print:

• Report of orders received, including date, customer and items ordered

 

3. Write a short report (ca 500 words) evaluating the quality of your prototype, in particular detailing further work that will be required for the finished product.

[10 marks]

 

Notes

• The prototype need pay no attention to the multi-user aspects of the system – the client browse should be implemented as a separate form accessible from a menu.
• Printed reports from the system must be available as report previews not direct output to printer.
• The above list of functions is only a suggestion as to the functionality of the prototype. Any additional functions that demonstrate the usefulness or attractiveness of such a system are welcome. Additional functions might include:
• Management reports including sales analysis by date, item popularity etc.
• A password protection system,
• Different screen styles for different users
• Export of reports to Excel

 

Submission Materials

 

Parts 1 and 3 should comprise a submission on paper

 

The Entity Relationship diagram may be word-processed or may be the Access Relationship Diagram.

(See additional submission notes – Appendix B).

 

The list of tables, fields, field types and keys may be word-processed or may use the automatic documenting features of Access.

(See additional submission notes – Appendix B).

 

Part 2 Options

 

As noted above students are free to implement the system in an environment of their choice. Novice developers in the class are strongly advised to use Microsoft Access as those features necessary for the prototype have been used within in-class practical sessions.

 

If developed in another environment allowance will be made for different interface styles and elements, however an underlying database and forms or pages that support the functions described above must be provided.

 

For Access users your submission comprise an Access database uploaded to Moodle using an automatic start-up screen as developed in Worksheet 6. As part of the database submission you may also wish to submit printouts of any queries or custom-written macros or VBA code of particular note. (See additional submission notes- Appendix B). For users of other environments your project should be uploaded to Moodle using the link provided. It should be zipped into a file named with your matriculation number. (e.g.12345678.zip.)

 

Assessment Criteria

The mark gained will be based on the overall quality of the submission materials, including the overall functionality of the system, usability of forms, extent of input validation and enhancements made to the basic requirements. A specimen marking cover sheet detailing the breakdown of marks is attached as Appendix C.

 

Appendix A Relationship Diagram

 

• Using the Documenter Tool

 

Access provides some automated assistance for the creation of system documentation. To activate select Database Tools: Database Documenter from the Access menu. This provides a tabbed dialogue for documenting the various features of the database.

 

To provide a report on tables within your database select Tables. Select all the tables in the database and appropriate options (click Options)*. Select only Names, Data Types and Sizes. The listing provided can be output to Word for editing and printing by clicking the Word icon on the toolbar.

 

To provide listings of the VBA code within your forms select Forms from the dialogue, select the appropriate Options, click OK and again output to Word.

 

*Important Note: The Documenter can provide excessive amounts of output. Please edit appropriately for submission.

 

• Printing Relationships

 

To print the relationships carry out the following steps.

• Select Relationships Report from the Design tab.
• Press Print Screen – this will copy the screen into the Clipboard
• Open “Paint” and paste in the relationships diagram

 

 

• Compacting the Database

 

Access occasionally produces very large databases for no apparent reason. If your database is getting excessively big try compacting the database. From the File tab select Compact & Repair Database.

 

 

Information Systems Engineering (SET11106)

Trimester 1: Session 2014-2015

Lecturer: Rob Kemmer

 

Assessment 2: Pine Furniture Company (50% of Module)

 

Matriculation No:
Component	Comment		Weight	Mark
Report: Content: Is the evaluation realistic? Presentation: Presented as report? Error-free & grammatical?			10%
E-R Model			5%
Data Dictionary Appropriate: tables fields field names field sizes field types keys foreign keys		10%
Database Functionality Minimum New / Existing Customer &                         product dialogue Order recording Search Reports Additional Features		45%
Database Look and Feel Overall impression Consistency of Forms Appropriate Style		30%
Overall			100%

Marked By:                                                         Date: