Web Portal System for University Implementation Phase - Essay Example

Web portal system for implementation phase Lecturer: Introduction The Web portal is a web based system that will aid staff and students get access to records in a modality which is always present to them. The focus of this report is to give a solid evidence of the idea its feasibility and factors that are handled in the implementation phase. The report will mainly focus on coding, testing, data conversion, cut-over strategy, user training, system documentation, and implementation of the web portal system. Coding The software development team would after sampling documents of design together with tools for equipment such as editors, debugging tools and compilers would begin coding the web portal system. It is indeed a long phase as compared to the other steps in the production cycle. Each individual in the team would be allocated module to work on individually then at the end the modules would be integrated together to form the system. The modules would be revised independently using open source revision control systems. During the revision appropriate changes would be made to the modules. Testing This is a critical stage in the web portal production as it is an important for long term product support as well as the image of the institution. The quality of the product would be determined to conform to standards set by other productions presently in application. To avoid crushes at the staff or student ends which would lead to poor credibility on the institutions side the testing would be extensive and comprehensive. The main goal of this stage is to enforce quality assurance. The testing part would be divided into the following steps. Unit Testing This would be a section of the whole system and would follow the coded modules. Its intention would be to ensure that the product really meets its objectives of design. A lot of issues would be fixed in this stage since it would be done by the coding team. The resultant product would then the pushed forward to a selected group of testers to conduct test cases on each module and ensure that they are all working as expected. Sanity Testing This would be simple check to ensure that all the modules of the system integrate well with each other. Its main goal would be to ensure that the development team has not made conflicting definitions of global variables and several functions. Stress Testing This is a basic process to ensure that the product undergoes a continuous testing process. The team would also use this test to ascertain the product behavior after continued use. This would of course unveil software bugs associated to memory leakages like in scenarios where memory has been allocated but not released. After some period of product use large amounts would be consumed by the product contrary to its expectation. Functional Testing This would be the last stage in the testing process as it will be conducted to ensure that the product has met all its intended functions and would be crucial before the product is deployed to the users. A group of persons from the team with good programming skills would be selected to conduct this test though no individual would test a module that he/she participated in writing it. The functional test plan would contain test cases run independently on the system and the guideline would be the specifications of the product prior to development. Data conversion From the student and staff previous records some records would need to be converted into the web based portal. All relevant information regarding students and staff would be factored in during this process. Information such as student and staff names, types and contacts. Since most information records are in manual formats, a group of data entry clerks would be hired to assist in the process new students and staff would be integrated to the system as the system evolves. Necessary data integrity would be enforced to do away with duplication. This process would also be extensively tested with a copy of the real database and after approval by the institution who is the main stakeholder, subsequent conversion will be conducted on the production environment. Cut-over strategy The issues that have to be addressed during this stage would be full system reconciling, final changes validation and making eventual adjustments as needed. The other alternative would be parallel processing which should be conducted at least two time cycles so as to be effective. Despite the fact that it will bring few risks and is treated as a strong security for the system introduction. User training After full training of the project development team and extensive system testing, the team leader assigned training will give further training to the end users. This would be conducted both in classrooms and in a train the trainer program. This training type might not completely resemble previous training since it would put emphasis on the day to day processes plus the configuration and set up processes of the system. This is mainly intended to give room to the staff and students to concentrate on only on issues that may trouble them in their interaction with the system. Some training would of course be scheduled prior to the product deployment and the institution would be required to avail candidates required to be trained to ensure that the training becomes efficient. All intended system users will have to undergo some training on their routine activities. According to the users literacy levels separate advanced training schedules would be provided as required. In addition the system help facility would also help address some user questions. Classroom training would include several scripts of testing to validate system readiness and its data integrity. System documentation This process would mainly entail three documentation types first, is the technical documentation which would be developed while still on the development process. Issues that would be included in this process are functional design and the system architecture. The main intention of this documentation would be to aid the institutions technical staff to give support to staff and students. It would also help students and staff to get started with the system. This documentation would also be crucial for future developments, addition of new features and bug fixing. The user manuals would be developed according to the various sections of the product and would base on the product functional requirements and would be ready before product development. Implementation In this process the development team would insert enough guiding comments on the system codes such that subsequent developers wishing to alter the code would have an easy time understanding the codes. This product is bound is bound to undergo changes in time to come due to the dynamicity in the institution staff and student records. Hence these comments would be crucial for suture developers wishing to improve on the portal. Proper development tools would also be important in this stage since they would economize on time and expenses. The team would conduct several review meetings since it would help trace whether the project met the schedule or if more resources were allocated to enhance its development. Some changes in requirements may dictate changes to the system and these changes would be aired via review meetings. 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International Conference on Software Process, ICSP 2008, Leipzig, Germany, May 10-11, 2008 : proceedings. Berlin : SpringerLink, 2008. Read More