10/7/2005 ISECON Using a “Real” Systems Development Project to Enrich a Systems Analysis and Design Course Janet Helwig Dominican University

10/7/2005ISECON Why a “Real” Project?  Students experience systems development rather than simply learning how to build models  Students encounter the people side of information systems development – listening, interviewing, negotiating, presenting, working as a team

10/7/2005ISECON What we did  Developed a registration and billing system for a local youth swim team Associates a swimmer with his/her family Associates a swimmer with his/her family Creates billing transactions based on swimmer registration detail Creates billing transactions based on swimmer registration detail Creates billing transactions based on swim meet entries Creates billing transactions based on swim meet entries Bills families Bills families Feeds swimmer data to proprietary swim team system (Team Manager) Feeds swimmer data to proprietary swim team system (Team Manager)

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10/7/2005ISECON Used same project for 2 classes  Undergrad class and graduate MIS class both interviewed the swim team coach Kathy regularly  Small classes: 7 students and 4 students  Each class formed one team  Each class developed a different system  Both project solutions presented during last week of class to Kathy

10/7/2005ISECON Initial Steps – Scope Definition and Systems Analysis  Defining scope  Requirements analysis using use cases  Data analysis – using both ERD and class diagrams to document system  Some limited coverage of process models (data flow diagrams)  Discussion of systems architecture concepts: SOA, CRC cards, sequence diagrams

10/7/2005ISECON Systems Design  Created user interface prototype and refined use cases  Refined and added more detail to data model  Created an entity object model using Modularis Architect

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10/7/2005ISECON Used Accelerator to Generate System  Used commercial ARAD tool developed by Modularis, Inc., named “Accelerator”  Based on the entity object model created through the Architect component, a architected starting point system is created in either C# or VB.Net.

10/7/2005ISECON Architecture of an Accelerator generated system Architect generates these Visual Studio.Net Projects and database objects

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10/7/2005ISECON Modifying generated code   Once Architect has generated these projects, they can be opened and edited directly in Visual Studio   All generated source code is completely open and customizable

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10/7/2005ISECON Programming and Unit Testing  We replaced the generated Web user interface with our own Windows interface  Team members split up the coding responsibilities, coordinated coding schedules and met frequently  Easy to connect custom interface to generated projects – just add references

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10/7/2005ISECON What ultimately happened  Presented two side-by-side solutions to Kathy. She preferred some features of each.  The following semester and through the summer, one programmer modified system to reflect requested improvements  System deployed recently

10/7/2005ISECON Assessing student performance  Project became main work of the semester and weighted heavily in grade  Used performance evaluations written by each team member about every other team member, following supplied template written by each team member about every other team member, following supplied template Kathy, our client, also provided input on each person Kathy, our client, also provided input on each person I wrote a business-like performance evaluation for each student I wrote a business-like performance evaluation for each student  Easy to assess student individual work and performance as a team member  Grading was straightforward

10/7/2005ISECON Challenges  Development of system is a lot to accomplish in one semester  Creating pipeline of new and viable projects takes networking and creativity  Managing teams to help them operate synergistically

10/7/2005ISECON Benefits Students learn firsthand:  The challenges of determining scope and of establishing business requirements  How to be an active listener  The value of using a development methodology  The value of analysis & design artifacts  How helpful a prototype can be Students have repeated opportunities to improve communication skills, through interviewing, working on a team, and presenting

10/7/2005ISECON Questions? For more information:  Janet Helwig –  Modularis website –