ITP: Program and Design Concepts

Assignment 2, Semester 1, 2011

Structured Data &

Collections

Course Information

Competencies that may be covered in this unit:

Due Date: 11:55pm, 17 June 2011 (Friday Week 17)

Value: 30%

· This assignment is to be completed individually. Students are encouraged to work together within their teams to resolve problems, however all work submitted must be a your individual, independent work.

· The completed assignment is to be submitted to the ‘Program and Design Concepts Assignment 2 Task Folder’ in cLc [under My Resources].

· You are to submit a zipped archive of all the files you created for the assignment.

· You must ensure that when the archive is extracted, the files will run on the UCSSC Lake Ginninderra Student Network machine being used – especially, be wary of absolute file paths for images etc.

o See your teacher if you are unsure as to what to do or how to archive a folder.

· The assignment is to be completed in-class and should be saved on the student network [H:\ drive] after each class. Keeping a backup copy on your own USB or cLc MyResources is also essential. Students are permitted to complete extra work on the assignment outside class using their own computers.

· Late assignments will attract a penalty of 5%/day.

Goal

You can choose from either of the 2 following scenarios. Your goal is to create a working database application which can create, read, update, delete and appropriately process data for the chosen scenario.

Role

You will work as business analyst, database designer and application programmer within this project. Some parts of the project require group interactivity – for example, brainstorming and workshopping your design. You may also enlist other students to test your designs and implementations.

Your initial design must be approved by your teacher.

Roles will include:

• Business Analyst
• Database Designer
• Programmer / Analyst and Designer
  • Writing the programming code
  • Designing programming logic using Nassi Shneiderman diagrams
  • Analyzing and solving problems
• Tester and Documentation Writer
  • Developing test plans
  • Performing tests
  • Documenting test outcomes
  • Writing documentation for the program code – internal and external documentation.

Audience

Your project is intended for real-world deployment.

Scenarios

Scenario 1: iPOS

iPOS is a fantastic new development in retailing.

Using iPOS means that customers can purchase goods from stores without cash or card. This reduces the risk of theft for customers. Customers register on the iPOS system and provide proof of their identity and financial account details.

When the customers go to a store to purchase goods, a simple but strong and foolproof identity check guarantees the retailer and purchaser that this person is legitimate and credit-worthy.

The purchase transaction is completed automatically. The strong identity check mechanism ensures that customers cannot have false transactions levied, and are notified at any attempt.

All transactions are sent to the customers registered email address and/or phone via SMS.

The transactions are therefore cashless, and cardless.

You will build a prototype model for this new system with a small business retailer selling a very small number of products.

Each product has a barcode, a name, whether it attracts GST, and a value

When purchasing a product a customer can select 1 or more (quantity) for the transaction.

Transactions will list all products purchased with the individual item price, the quantity, and the sub-total. If GST is levied this will be indicated with an asterisk “*”.

The transaction summary will display the shop, the total, the GST total, and the date and time.

Customers complete their identity check and the purchase is approved.

Customers receive an email or SMS informing them of the transaction.

A typical transaction for a client works like this:

• Client clicks “New Transaction” or simply a “Start” button to start a new transaction
• Client Authenticates themselves (username and password for this prototype) [Login Form]
• Client adds products by swiping their barcode [Form to add products to transaction]
• Client clicks “Finished”
• Summary page [Form] is displayed, with a list of products and the total and GST
• Summary email is sent to the client.
• Return to “New Transaction” form – client is “Logged Out”

BONUS: Customers can login to a web system to view all their own transactions.

Scenario 2: Blogosphere

You have come up with a plan to bring social media benefits to the blogosphere. Your application will allow users of the system to “follow” blogs; comment on blog entries; get summaries of latest blogs; add blogs and blog entries and see who is following their blogs.

A blog entry for this assignment is simply a text document (unformatted).

Comments on blog entries are also simple text documents.

Users need to sign up to use blogosphere. They will need a username, password and email address. No, we don't care about real name, address or phone number.

Users log in with their username and password. Users will timeout after a period of inactivity (a feature that only needs to be implemented for web applications).

Users must be logged in to interact with the system in anyway.

Users can search for blogs on name or category. Users can follow blogs. Users see the list of blogs they are following when they log in, with the latest blog entries and comments. Users can read blog entries. Users can comment on blog entries.

Users become bloggers when they create a blog.

Bloggers can post entries for their own blogs. Bloggers can delete their own blog entries.

Blogs – created by bloggers

- bloggers Can add their own blog entries

- bloggers can modify their own blog entries

- bloggers can delete their own blog entries

- are owned by one and only one blogger (user)

- Created at a date/time by a blogger

- Have a title and a category – both searchable

Blog Entries are posted by blog owners

- Are for one and only one blog

- Are entered at a given date and time

- Contain a text blog entry

- May have zero or many comments made by blog followers (users)

Blog Comments are posted by blog followers

- Are for one and only one blog entry

- Are entered at a given date and time

- Contain a text comment

- “Like” is a special kind of comment

BONUS: Users can opt-in to have emails sent to them about new blog entries [for which they are following] and new entry comments [for blog entries they have made]

Product – What you will submit for assessment

Planning Documentation:

• Data Design – including Class Responsibility Cards (Classes, Properties, Methods)
• User Interface Design
• Nassi-Shneiderman Diagrams for any complex processing

Programming

• A Visual Basic Project which addresses the issues
• A database which is used by your application. The database must contain all of your test data.
• Multiple Forms for User Interaction.
• Forms which include collections.

Documentation

• Evidence of Test Plans and Test Log
• User Help: Tell the users about the system
• Progress Reports/Learning Journal – how you are performing and problems you are having.

You will keep a learning journal online in the cLc, and submit this journal separately.

Process

Marking

The assignment will be marked according to the rubric on the following page.

The learning journal is worth 10% of the overall mark, and can make the difference between a lower grade and a higher grade.