System Design and Analysis - Essay Example

Introduction With the coming Olympics there needs to be an organised manner of keeping track of how many events will take place, how are the events classified, participating athletes, and the event each athlete is participating in among others. A system can be created that will fulfil these needs and more in order for the smooth running of the Olympics. This paper details the process which led to the creation and implementation of a specific system, the challenges faced and whether the system will be beneficial to the event coordinators. System Analysis System analysis involves the investigation of processes; information and procedures within an organisation with an aim to either change them of improve on them. It involves development of a system that will benefit the organisation. One of the most important objectives of system analysis is to come up with a system which meets the requirements of the user and performs the required tasks. The designed system must possess some features such as efficiency, accuracy, compatibility, flexibility, portability and acceptability. System development is made up of several steps. The first step is to carry out a research to find out which are the problems faced by the employees in an organisation. This will contribute towards defining the problem. The other steps include requirement specification where the exact requirements for the organisation are established. Then follows the design of the system, the development, testing phase and if there are no problems, implementation of the system. The diagram below summarizes the system development life cycle. When collecting data, there are factors to consider before selecting a data collection method. For example the location and ease of accessibility will be relevant. If the location is remote, collecting data through observation will be expensive and difficult. Another factor to consider would be the type of data required. Is it just short answers, figures or long story? This will determine whether the data collector needs to be there physically or can do it via mail in form of a questionnaire. How often the data will be collected will also determine the method used. One needs to ensure that the data collected will be relevant. In this case of system development for an Olympics organisation, the method chose in interviews. Interviews involve collecting data from an individual or a group by asking a series of questions. An interview can be conducted in person or over the phone. Phone interviews have several disadvantages for example the participant may not have access to a phone, or there may be literacy issues. For the case of the Olympics, in person interview is more effective because one wants to find out the need within the organisation. The benefit of in person interviews is that one can get an in depth understanding of the situation in the organisation. One can carry out an individual interview where interaction is one on one or a group interview where interaction is with a group of people. Individual interviews tend to foster a good working relationship. Other advantages of interviews include: The data collected is more accurate One can get an idea of the general knowledge or skills within the organisation It offers the interviewer an opportunity to clarify responses and questions Disadvantages of interview include: They are time consuming. If one is interviewing an organisation with over 100 employees it will take some time to finish the interviews It is expensive. One may have to hire people to help carry out the interviews for large groups The data collected may be too large which will take some time to analyse. System Design When looking at the system design one would consider the inputs and the outputs. The inputs include the data that will be required for the system while the output include the results. For the Olympics database, inputs may include data such as athlete’s names, events, categories of events among others. Outputs may include the events each athlete will participate in, categories of athlete’s events among others. The input and output data is summarized in the tables below: Outputs Description Method Type Recipient Explanation Fields (optional) Female Athletes Screen Form Event Coordinator To detail all the female athletes participating in the Olympics Athlete ID First name Surname Gender Athlete events Printed Form Athlete To detail all the events an athlete is supposed to participate in Athlete’s ID First name Surname Event ID Event name Event genre Male Athletes Screen Form Even Coordinator To detail all the male athletes participating in the Olympics Athlete ID First name Surname Gender Input forms Description Explanation Fields Validation Athletes A screen form showing athletes details and can also be used to amend/add records Athlete’s ID First Name Surname Date of Birth Gender Post code Contact Number Nationality M or F Events A screen form detailing events that can be use to enter/amend an event Event’s ID Event Name Event Genre Event Start Event Finish Venue Heat or Final Competitions A screen form detailing the Id of an athlete and the ID of the event the athlete is participating in. It can be used to amend or enter records Athlete’s ID Event’s ID File specification File/table name: Athletes File type: Access table Fields: Type Size/no. of characters Athlete’s ID First Name Surname Date of Birth Gender Post code Contact Number Nationality Text Text Text Date/Time Text Text Text Text 5 20 20 Short Date 1 9 11 20 Frequency of access/update: every new event Likely no. of records: 3,000 Retention period: indefinitely, for future purposes Back-up frequency: daily Back-up medium: magnetic tape File/table name: Competitions File type: Access table Fields: Type Size/no. of characters Athlete’s ID Event’s ID Text Text 5 8 Frequency of access/update: every new event Likely no. of records: 500 Retention period: indefinitely, for future purposes Back-up frequency: daily Back-up medium: magnetic tape File/table name: Event Table File type: Access table Fields: Type Size/no. of characters Event’s ID Event Name Event Genre Event Start Event Finish Venue Heat or Final Text Text Text Date/Time Date/Time Text Text 5 20 20 Short date Short date 22 20 Frequency of access/update: After each event Likely no. of records: 500 Retention period: indefinitely, for future purposes Back-up frequency: daily Back-up medium: magnetic tape File/table name: Switchboard Items File type: Access table Fields: Type Size/no. of characters Switchboard ID Item Number Item Text Command Argument Number Number Text Number Text Long integer Integer 255 Integer 255 Frequency of access/update: every few minutes Likely no. of records: 20 Retention period: indefinitely, for future purposes Back-up frequency: daily Back-up medium: magnetic tape Evaluation The implementation phase can be divided into coding and testing. Coding would refer to the creation of the system. Testing of the system would be done and feedback would be collected from a group of users on whether the system is functional, easy to use and meets the needs of the users. After analysis of the user feedback, adjustments or additions would be made if required. The ease of implementation may not be very difficult. The organisation would require a database application which is available from Microsoft office and is not costly. The challenge would come in on how to train the staff to use the database. This could be more of a challenge if the members of staff do not have any previous experience using a database application. They would need training on the different database objects, the purpose of the objects, how to input records, create queries, create forms, edit forms and tables. The staff would then need to understand how to create the various types of queries, how to import data into the database in order to save on time and other database skills. This may take quite some time. Should the members of staff have precious experience with database applications then it will be much easier to implement the database. The implemented system which is a database would make the running of the games much more efficient. The different tables enable the data to be organised in a specific manner. For example, if one would want to find out the details of the participating athletes, they would simply open the athletes table. To find out all the events that will be running, one would look in the events table and so on and so forth. This reduces chances of mixing up an athlete’s events and dates. The form in the database can be used to view all the event details for each athlete. It can then be printed out and handed to the athletes before the start of the Olympics so that the athletes can get acquainted with their schedules. For example if an athlete resides in Kenya, the athlete can be sent their event details in advance. Come the time for the events, the athlete would not have to waste time moving up and down looking for his or her schedule of events. This can also assist in making any corrections or adjustments in case an athlete has been assigned the wrong event. Once the system has been implemented, it would require maintenance. A good example is in the case of events where one can update the different fields. More tables can also be created to keep track on the winners of each of the events and queries can be used to count how many events an athlete has won. This will also help with the ease of running the ceremonies where the winning athletes are acknowledged. In conclusion they system will be quite functional in running of the events. It will assist greatly in time management and coordination. Maintenance of the system will also go along way for future use. Read More