CMP-5003A Systems Analysis

Learning outcomes

The main overall learning outcomes are:

1) The importance of systems analysis

2) Knowledge of multiple approaches to systems analysis

3) Techniques used in the early stages of development

4) Analysis experience

In more detail, by the end of this exercise students should be able to:

· Demonstrate consideration of what is meant by the environment surrounding a system and the stakeholders involved

· Draw up a specifications using soft systems and OO methods, and a range of techniques

· Describe various elements of systems design

· Carry out an analysis and preliminary design exercise for a real system

· Work in a group to prepare both oral and written outlines for a proposed system

Specification

Overview

The purpose of this assessment is to further develop an understanding of the analysis process, and to gain experience in the use of a variety of modelling techniques in a realistic setting. These skills will be gained through the analysis and preliminary design of an improved system for the UEA Parking and Permit Management system.

Description

UEA IT & Computing Services (ITCS) have issued the following brief on the real problem situation that will form. the basis for your summative assessment for this module. More information about this is given in the lecture session of week 5, and during a Q&A session with an ITCS representative to be organised later in the semester.

“The UEA has over 3,500 staff and 17,000 students plus visitors, with a majority travelling and commuting to campus daily. The existing car parking hardware and computer system currently provided by an external supplier have reached their end of life and are causing revenue drainage. Sourcing replacement parts has become challenging and expensive, and the chip coin platform. used in the system is soon to be discontinued, posing a risk to income generation. Additionally, the system is associated with significant cyber risks. Inoperable barriers, missing chip coins, and high maintenance costs further add to the problems. The system's poor condition also poses reputational damage, which could impact UEA's public image, especially during open days.

Some car parks within the scope of this project are barrier controlled with entry card readers or chip coins while others are open and use paper permits or pay and display tickets. For chip coin barrier entry, users are issued with a chip coin on entry to the car park, which they later take to a payment machine in order to pay their parking charge and have the chip coin validated for exit.

Various car parks have permitted users based on their location and type of permit users hold. The following systems are involved in car park permit management and operations:

PermIT System: Parking permit management software provided by an external supplier. It helps to manage parking permits for staff, students and some external user types, and implement some of UEA’s parking policy. PermIT resolves all the data from the Middleware system (see below), calculates the applicable parking charges based on the user’s pay band or category and produces a file to payroll at the end of the month for staff to be debited, while for external user types, direct debit is applied. PermIT receives data feeds from SPOT and can terminate access when people are no longer studying or working at UEA.

Middleware System: Internal system maintained by the UEA development team. It processes the combination of car park entry and exit times into one single record for total charge for the day and sends it to the PermIT system.

SPOT: SPOT is the identity management system that holds user information for both staff and other external users with access cards. SPOT feeds all the user information directly to PermIT every night. SPOT categorises users into a particular band, holds user email addresses and stores the status of users as active or inactive. With the data from Gallagher (below), SPOT provides the band for the user, username and status, and feeds the data to the Middleware system.

Gallagher: At the car park entry barriers, users will swipe their cards on the Gallagher access control readers, and the system verifies from the SPOT identity management system if user is still active. If a user is active and permitted on the access point, access is granted. On exit, users will swipe their cards on the access control reader at the exit barrier. The Gallagher system records all car park entry and exit activities.

As the current chip coin system must be phased out, UEA is keen to upgrade to ANPR (automatic number plate recognition) camera technology that can interface with the current payroll and direct debit systems. The ideal solution should be barrierless with a strategy to prevent unauthorised entry and offer multiple payment solutions. The solution should be future proof, resilient, with minimal downtime and easy to use for car park users. Additionally the solution should provide a full management framework to include processes for infringement and enforcement.

There are few scenarios that would need to be catered for by the new system:

· Sportspark members currently enjoy free parking after 4pm at the Main car park on weekdays and weekends. They collect a token at the barrier and validate chip coin using a chip coin validator at the Sportspark. UEA staff and students that are Sportspark members should also receive free parking benefits when they use the Sportspark rather than being charged applicable staff parking rates, but they must confirm they have used the facility before they are whitelisted for free parking.

· During specific events or projects, such as clearing, the university may want to grant free parking privilege to a group of staff members.

· Users may have multiple vehicles registered to their permit which can cause difficulty in determining parking charges.

UEA ITCS needs help to analyse the existing processes and systems involved in permit and parking operations, in order to determine an optimal, modern, and secure solution to efficiently manage its parking system, without disrupting existing policies or causing reputational damages to the UEA.”

Your group’s task is to investigate, analyse, recommend, specify and create a preliminary design for an improved system for the UEA Parking and Permit Management system.

Your grouping for this exercise can be found under the Module Information tab on Blackboard. Minutes should be recorded at every group meeting. All minutes should be collated and should be submitted as an appendix in the group report. These minutes will also be used to verify your individual level of contribution to the group work, and your attendance in group meetings.

The following sections describe the tasks which comprise this assessment. All tasks must be completed.

Tasks

Analysis tasks:

1) Produce a rich picture to depict the Parking and Permit Management “problem situation”.

2) Identify and analyse all stakeholders in the problem situation, and discuss how you would manage them based on their power and interest levels.

3) Write a short description of the possible solutions available to solve this problem, such as leaving the current system as it is, creating a custom-built solution, or using a pre-made solution. Recommend the best option from these alternatives.

4) Produce a prioritised requirements list for the proposed solution.

5) Complete a brief feasibility study of your chosen solution to the problem situation.

6) Produce a use case diagram to describe the functionality of the proposed solution.

Outline design tasks:

7) Produce at least one appropriate OO UML diagram to model the system or a process within it.

8) Outline an appropriate user interface for the solution you have recommended, and describe how this design adheres to usability guidelines and heuristics. If choosing a pre-made solution, discuss the usability of the existing UI design, and produce prototypes of any changes you would make to it.

9) Outline an appropriate implementation plan for your recommended solution.

Management reporting task:

10) Write a business case for your recommended solution.

Meeting minutes:

Record minutes at every group meeting. These should include who attended the meeting, who sends their apologies, the topics discussed, any decisions agreed upon and any actions to be taken.

Individual report:

Write a reflective account of your work and experience during this group project. This can include a professional critique of group engagement and progress, your view of how successful the project was, and an analysis of your own performance, including the processes and tools you used. Additionally, you should state your opinion of the contribution levels of the team by allocating a percentage rating to each member, including yourself, with the sum of all ratings being 100%. For example, in a group of 5, equal contribution for all team members would result in ratings of 20% for each person. Failure to submit your ratings of all group members will result in your own overall rating being reduced.

Group presentation:

Produce and deliver a presentation of your proposal to the teaching team and your fellow students, which will take place during week 12, with a date to be announced. Be prepared to answer any questions they may raise. Unauthorised absence from the presentation will result in a mark of zero for the individual(s). Those that are present but do not participate will receive only half of the group presentation mark.

Attendance and participation:

Each individual will receive marks for their attendance and participation in seminar sessions and group meetings from week 5 onwards. Seminar attendance will be manually recorded by the teaching team, and attendance at group meetings will be determined using the group minutes.

Relationship to formative assessment

Formative seminar exercises provide a good basis for many of the tasks included in this assessment.

Deliverables

Group report and minutes:

Collate your work for tasks 1-10 above (analysis, outline design and management reporting tasks), and submit as a consistently formatted group report. Your report should state which group members were responsible for each task. Minutes of all group meetings should be submitted as an appendix to your group report. Please make sure that you include all group members’ names and registration numbers on the front page of your group report. Please state clearly any assumptions that you have made. You may also include a glossary of relevant terms as an appendix.

Each member of the group should submit a copy of the group report (and minutes) with their individual report appended.

Page recommendations for each task are shown below:

1) Rich picture, maximum 1 page.

2) Identification and discussion of stakeholders, recommended maximum 2 pages.

3) Description of possible solutions and recommendation, recommended maximum 2 pages.

4) Prioritised requirements list, recommended maximum 2 pages.

5) Feasibility study, recommended maximum 2 pages.

6) Use case diagram, recommended maximum 1 page.

7) UML diagram(s), recommended maximum 3 pages.

8) User interface designs and discussion of usability, maximum 8 pages.

9) Discussion of proposed implementation plan, recommended maximum 2 pages.

10) Business case, maximum 2 pages.

Individual report: 

Each member of the group should add their individual reflective report (maximum two pages), including the contribution ratings of each member, to the end of the group report and submit a copy of this individually. You are not required to share the contents of your personal account with the other group members.

Group presentation:

Deliver your group presentation, each held in 20 minute slots, to include 15 minutes maximum on the presentation itself, followed by 5 minutes for questions and changeover. Presentations will be held in-person during week 12 and you will be presenting to a small number of other groups as well as the markers. A running order for the group presentations will be released in week 11.

Resources

· A representative from the UEA ITCS will provide further information on the brief, and will be able to answer any questions you have, during a Q&A session to be organised later in the semester.

· Rich pictures are explained in the lecture content for week 7 and practical experience is gained during the following seminar.

· Feasibility considerations are covered in the week 2 lecture content, and week 3 seminar.

· Stakeholders and requirements are covered in detail in the week 3 lecture content.

· OO modelling techniques are covered in the week 8 lecture and seminars.

· Implementation methods are introduced in the week 10 material.

· The recommended textbook, “Business Analysis”, Third Edition, by Debra Paul, James Cadle and Donald Yeates, published by the BCS, contains useful material on the majority of these tasks.

· If you need further information, please contact a member of the teaching team via email or Teams, or after the teaching sessions. Please pass any questions related to the case study itself to the teaching team, so they can be collated and passed to ITCS. Responses to these questions will be fed directly back to your group, or posted to the announcements on Blackboard.

Marking scheme

Report:

Group report (55%) – Marks will be awarded for tasks 1-10 (analysis, outline design and management reporting tasks) and the quality of the report and meeting minutes, and totalled to produce a group mark. This mark will be scaled for each individual according to the contribution ratings they have received from their group members, using the CMP Group Work Policy. (See appendix A for report mark scheme)

Individual reflective report (10%) – Marks will be awarded for the quality and level of detail of reflection on your experience during the group project.

Presentation:

Group presentation (30%) – This will be assessed on both presentation quality and content including: overview, contents, visuals, structure, timing, delivery, and summary. Competence in answering questions is also important. (See appendix B for mark scheme)

Attendance (5%) – Marks will be awarded for attendance levels in seminars and group meetings.

Plagiarism, collusion, and contract cheating

The University takes academic integrity very seriously. You must not commit plagiarism, collusion, or contract cheating in your submitted work. Our Policy on Plagiarism, Collusion, and Contract Cheating explains:

· what is meant by the terms ‘plagiarism’, ‘collusion’, and ‘contract cheating’

· how to avoid plagiarism, collusion, and contract cheating

· using a proof reader

· what will happen if we suspect that you have breached the policy.

It is essential that you read this policy and you undertake (or refresh your memory of) our school’s training on this. You can find the policy and related guidance here: https://my.uea.ac.uk/departments/learning-and-teaching/students/academic-cycle/regulations-and-discipline/plagiarism-awareness

The policy allows us to make some rules specific to this assessment. Note that: 

In this assessment, you are permitted to work within groups proscribed by the assessment setter. Discussing solutions to tasks between groups, or groups otherwise working together to perform. the assessed tasks will be considered as a breach of university regulations. Please pay careful attention to the definitions of contract cheating, plagiarism and collusion in the policy and ask your module organiser if you are unsure about anything.