System Analysis and Design - Report Example

SYSTEM ANALYSIS AND DESIGN P number: Module: Module deadline: Introduction In the current speedy and constantly advancing academic world, the adoption of productive systems has always been a subject of great concern. In other words, stakeholders in the academic industry have been fighting tooth and nail to adopt the best technology to facilitate achievement of top performance. This is through integration of software systems that focus on enhancing the operations of different crucial functions of an institution’s daily academic activities (Shelly and Rosenblatt 2012). On this regard, this paper focuses on the development of a well-organized requirements specification and design document of an advanced Time Tabling System via an account of Surrey school of computing (Burke and Erben 2000). In simple terms, the time tabling system entails a well-designed set of computer program that facilitates efficient management of time in the day-to-day learning activities of the institution. It provides an advanced platform for creation of timetables for both lecturers and students. In addition, it acts as the basis for efficient management of room booking and allocation activities in the institution (Shelly and Rosenblatt 2012). Purpose It is important to outline that the development of a quality Time tabling system is of great importance particularly in promoting successful continuity of an academic institution. In essence, a quality timetable facilitates efficient management of key activities such as lecturing and timely class attendance by all students. Success in any learning activity depends hugely on the fact that there is an organized utilization of all the allocated time. To be precise, the following are the main purposes behind the development of the time tabling system (Burke and Erben 2000). The top purpose is to finalize the preparation of the next semester’s timetable a week before it actually begins. That is, the system has to provide timetables within a period that is satisfactory enough for all the users. The system should be configured in a manner that it presents the lecturers with an automated timetable a week before a semester begins. The second purpose of the targeted system is to ascertain that there is perfect and accurate timing of all lectures in the institution. This is to play a crucial in preventing any possibility of a lecturer facing the problem of overlapping sessions within a single timeframe. It is essential to outline that the third purpose is to guarantee completion of all room booking processes for all lecturers. To be precise, the time tabling system is aimed at facilitating complete execution of the whole booking process for rooms needed by different lecturers. The fourth purpose is to ensure that there is a quality room booking for each lecturer. That is, the system should be well configured to avoid any issues of double room booking in the institution (Shelly and Rosenblatt 2012). The system is also purposely aimed at ensuring that every group of students is allocated the right room at the right time. In essence, students in the institution face significant challenges particularly on the fact that they get allocated to the wrong rooms. Therefore, the system is targeted at delivering the best solution to this issue of room allocation to students. Lastly but certainly not the least, the system is aimed at notifying students of their respective timetables on the first day of the beginning of a semester. Additionally, all the timetable updates have to be reflected to all students as soon as they are implemented. Objectives There is a significant number of objectives that the time tabling system is expected to deliver to its targeted users and the institution at large. The system objectives revolve around ensuring that the institution enjoys an efficient platform for the day-to-day activities related to an efficient time and classroom management in the institution. On this regard, the following two operational capabilities of the targeted system act as the main objectives for the development of this system (Burke and Erben 2000). The top objective is to provide an efficient platform for timely scheduling of lessons available in the institution. This objective entails a number of functional components, which include creation and notification of the timetable to both the lecturers and students. Most importantly, the system will be configured in a manner whereby the lecturers will get the timetable a week before a semester begins. On the other hand, students will get the timetable on the first day of the beginning of a semester (Shelly and Rosenblatt 2012). Another objective of the system is to ascertain that there is a strategic and accurate room booking and allocation in the institution. In other words, the system is expected to deliver its users with the following services under this objective. The first one is to avoid overlapping of lecturing sessions and double room booking for different lecturers. It is also to provide a service of efficient room allocation for all groups of students. That is, the system is expected to aid the institution in avoiding any issues related to wrong allocation of rooms to students. Assumptions It is very important to note that there is a considerable number of assumptions included in the development of this system. The first assumption is that each of the users (lecturers and students) will automatically have their respective email accounts integrated into the operation of the system. This is to aid in ensuring that each user experiences timely notifications on each timetable update that takes place in the institution (Burke and Erben 2000). Another assumption is on the implementation of system security. Here, it is assumed that the system administrator will be the only person responsible for the management and creation of user account passwords. This is to avoid creation of ghost passwords by hackers, which can result into alteration of the system data. It is also assumed that all the rooms that students are allocated to are of the same quality and quantity. In other words, it is assumed that each of the rooms will be able to withstand same number of students. This is to ascertain that there is no issues such as having same group of students requiring more than one rooms (Shelly and Rosenblatt 2012). System Requirements In order to facilitate efficient operation of the targeted time tabling system, it is essential that there is a well-defined set of system requirements. These requirements act as the building to ensuring that the targeted timetabling ends up very successful in achieving all the predefined objectives. In this sense, the next section of the paper has provided a well-defined requirements gathering plan. The plan aims at capturing each of the necessary functional and non-functional requirements in the day-to-day operation of the system. Requirement gathering Plan Gathering of the best set of requirements for the timetabling system is the basis to the success in achievement of the institution goals. In fact, the whole concept of delivering a quality timetabling system depends primarily on ensuring that there is a quality requirements gathering plan (Shelly and Rosenblatt 2012). It is on this front that the following plan has been put into close consideration. Step 1 – Capturing data from users Step 2 – Data analysis to comprehend user needs Step 3- Converting the user needs into system requirements As indicated above, the first step in the plan is to capture the required system data from the users. Here, two groups of users are involved in ensuring that the requirements gathering process is a success. The first group entails the day-to-day institution users of the timetable. These are lecturers are students. These users play a huge role in capturing the main functional requirements of the system. The other group is that of the other institution stakeholders such as financial controllers. The data gathered from these users act as the basis to coming up with the non-functional requirements (Shelly and Rosenblatt 2012). Three main techniques will be applied in capturing of these requirements. These are questionnaires, analysis of previous system documentation and prototyping. In interviewing, lecturers and students will be handed with predefined sets of questionnaire papers. These papers will contain questions that will aid the system development team in understanding how the current system operates. Most importantly, this information will act as the basis to facilitating efficient understanding on the problems that the new system is expected to solve (Shelly and Rosenblatt 2012). Analysis of previous system documentations is another high quality technique in the gathering of system requirements. In the current constantly advancing world, there is a wide set of time tabling systems that are in use in different global institutions. Therefore, upon close communication with the respective software vendors or from the internet it is easy to get this documentation. In general, this information plays a huge role in making it easy to comprehend the various sets of functional and non-functional system requirements. Prototyping involves creation of several working versions of the targeted final system. That is, this technique involves development of software modules and presenting them to the users. Upon interaction with the system, the users give feedback on the areas that need changes. The main target of capturing this information is to provide the development team with the right set of functional requirements that are necessary for the system (Burke and Erben 2000). The second step in requirements gathering is analysis of user data to identify their needs. Upon capturing of the various set of user data using the aforementioned techniques, it is important to analyze it. The main goal of the analysis process is to determine their respective needs. The user needs define the operational features that users expect from the new or advanced time tabling system. The third step in the requirements gathering plan is conversion of user needs into the targeted system requirements. As aforementioned earlier, the user data, which is now identified as needs comes from two main groups of users. These are the ordinary users (lecturers and students) and business stakeholders (Institution top management and financial controllers). Therefore, in this step of the requirements gathering plan is to convert the needs into either functional or non-functional requirements. The needs from the lecturers and students act as the basis for conversion into the functional requirements of time tabling system. On the other hand, the institution top management, financial controllers and other stakeholders aid in defining the non-functional requirements (Shelly and Rosenblatt 2012). Functional requirements It is crucial to stipulate that functional requirements of a software system define the processes or operational features that the system is expected to deliver to its targeted users. That is, it outlines how the system is expected to behave in the execution of a particular task. In essence, the following are the main functional requirements that the targeted timetabling system is expected to deliver. i. Allow users to login. This is to allow them in accessing different resources available in the system. ii. Create a lesson timetable for each group of students iii. Create a lecturing timetable for each lecturer in the institution. This functionality focuses on ensuring that each lecturer in the institution has the right timetable for different lessons (Burke and Erben 2000). iv. Book and allocate a unique room for each lesson in the timetable. The main aim of this functionality is to ascertain that there is no session overlapping at the same time for a lecturer. v. Broadcast timetable notification to the individual lecturers and students. Non-functional requirements The ability of the timetabling system to deliver the highest set of services to its users is also a very crucial subject of concern. It actually acts the unit of measurement on how exactly the system maintains its ability to keep on satisfying all the targeted functional needs. In simple terms, non-functional requirements define or elaborate the respective performance characteristics of the system. There are so many non-functional requirements that can be applied into a software system. However, for the timetabling system, the following are the main non-functional requirements that have been put into close consideration. i. Accessibility – This feature lays major emphasis on the ability of the system to keep on presenting the targeted with all time availability or connectivity to the specific timetable resources (Burke and Erben 2000). ii. Data recoverability – Data recoverability focuses on the ability of the system to allow easy, efficient and effective recovery of all data lost after a disaster. iii. Maintainability – This is about the capability of the timetabling system to allow for new features to be added without any distraction on its normal operations iv. Security – This entails the ability of the system to prevent any unauthorized access on the institution timetable data or resources. v. Interoperability – This feature focuses on the ability of the system to be able to offer the set of functional features not only on a personal computer but also on mobile devices. Use case model Use case descriptions As seen in the above use case diagram, five key use cases are involved in the efficient operation of the targeted timetabling system. These are the login use case, a use case for the student timetable, a use case for the lecturer timetable. The student timetable use case includes an integrated use case for automated notification. On the other hand, the lecturer use case extends a room booking use case (Burke and Erben 2000). The login use case is a very crucial module for the operations of the system. It acts as the gateway for accessing all the timetable data as contained in the system. For efficient management of the student learning activities, the student timetable use case provides a quality platform for creation and generation of a timetable for use by the students. The automated notification use case is the functional area for notifying respective users on any timetable update implemented in the system (Shelly and Rosenblatt 2012). In order to ascertain that lecturers enjoy a well-organized schedule on all the lecturing activities, there is a special use case. This is the lecturer timetable use case, which provides a quality platform for the scheduling of all the teaching activities in the institution. Lastly but certainly not the least, it is the room booking use case. As seen in the diagram, this use case is integrated into the lecturer timetable use case. The aim is to provide an easily configurable solution to key challenges such as double booking of same room by different lecturers (Burke and Erben 2000). Class diagram Sequence diagram Conclusion It is vital to note that the adoption of an advanced timetabling system plays a fundamental role in promoting success of an academic institution. As seen throughout the document, Surrey school of computing has a great room of achieving its set out goals mainly because the new system contains functionalities that solve most of the major timetabling challenges. These functionalities include an efficient booking module for all classes to be handled by different lecturers. This solves the problem of double booking of same room at the same time. There is also a quality time allocation function for each timetable, which is essential in curbing the challenge of overlapping sessions. In general, the targeted timetabling system will add great value to the academic success of the institution. References Burke, E & Erben, W 2000, Practice and theory of automated timetabling III third international conference, PATAT 2000, Konstanz, Germany, August 16-18, 2000 : selected papers. Shelly, G & Rosenblatt, H 2012, Systems analysis and design. Boston, Course Technology Cengage Learning. Read More