300585 - Systems Analysis & Design

Workshop 2
Workshops will run to cover the practical aspects of the topic each week via workshop case study
that runs across the whole semester and other examples via 2 parts

• Workshop Quiz
o Students to visit app.gosoapbox.com, click Join and use access code ‘wsquiz’ to
attempt the workshop quiz. Pls note this quiz is not assessable. Students must
attempt this quiz in the time allocated by the workshop facilitator/tutor,
followed by discussions on the student attempt and the topics
• Workshop questions
o This document contains 2 parts
o Part A contains Classwork case study and questions that are done in workshop
with the tutor in Groups of 2 students. Task 1 would always refer to Workshop
Case study and some additional case studies in rest of the tasks
o Part B contains questions and tasks related to case studies that individual
students need to answer in their own time and submit the answers ONLY as
Portfolio exercises as per the Portfolio due dates given in the Learning guide.

Part A: To be done during the workshop

Task 1

Workshop Case Study

Willowbrook School is a small, private school in the Midwest United States. As an

independent systems analyst, you work as an IT consultant, specializing in developing IT
solutions for small businesses. You have been contacted by the director, Victoria Owens,
to discuss the possibility of setting up a computer system to handle some of the school’s
administrative and financial tasks. You agree to meet with Victoria and the principal, Kathy
Gilliard next week to discuss the school and its need for an information system.

Victoria explains her role as the executive director of the school. She administers the
activities of the school in accordance with the mission, vision, and policies established by
the Board of Directors. She supports the educational staff and oversees the financial,
payroll, and human resources functions for the school. Susan Brown is the vice principal.
She is responsible for the after-care program. Michelle Madrid is the administrative
assistant reporting to Victoria. There are six part-time after-care teachers, three for the
pre-school/kindergarten group, and three for the primary grades. After-care teachers
report to Susan Brown. The following activities are undertaken by the school,Admission,
Enrolment, Attendance management, Accounts, Transport Management and the Library
Database. The school also supports the local charity by selling artefacts and toys made by
the students and maintains an online website where people can buy and look at the new
toys and crafts made by the students, which is user friendly and has images of the artefacts,
toys and crafts. Michelle, the administrative assistant, in particular is feeling the strain of
the increased workload associated with the rapid growth in the student population. The
system that she has been using, of spreadsheets and word processing documents, worked
well when enrollments were smaller, but now the amount of time spent copying
information from one place to another is daunting, and the possibility of errors is
increasing. An information system is necessary to cope with the growing administrative
workload.

Q. Recommend the SDLC methodology you would use in developing the Information
System for Willow brook and explain in detail why you have recommended it.

Task 2

Sandia Medical Devices (SMD) – Running Case study

Medical monitoring technology has advanced significantly in the last decade. Monitoring that once
required a visit to a health-care facility can now be performed by devices located in a patient’s
home, or carried or worn at all times. Examples include measures of glucose level (blood sugar),
pulse, blood pressure, and electrocardiogram (EKG). Measurements can be transmitted via
telephone, Internet connection, and wireless data transmission standards, such as Bluetooth. A
particularly powerful technology combination is a wearable device that records data periodically
or continuously and transmits it via Bluetooth to a cell phone app. The cell phone app can inform
the patient of problems and can automatically transmit data and alerts to a central monitoring.

Health-care providers and patients incur significant costs when glucose levels are not maintained
within acceptable tolerances. Short-term episodes of very high or very low glucose often result in
expensive visits to urgent care clinics or hospitals. In addition, patients with frequent but less severe
episodes of high or low glucose are more susceptible to such expensive, long-term complications
as vision, circulatory, and kidney problems.

Sandia Medical Devices (SMD), an Albuquerque manufacturer of portable and wearable medical
monitoring devices, has developed a glucose monitor embedded in a wristband. The device is
powered by body heat and senses glucose levels from minute quantities of perspiration. SMD is
developing the Real-Time Glucose Monitoring (RTGM) device in partnership with New Mexico
Health Systems (NMHS), a comprehensive health delivery service with patients throughout New
Mexico.

SMD will develop the initial prototype software for smartphones with Bluetooth capability
running the Google Android operating system. If successful, NMHS and its patients will have free
use of the software and SMD will resell the software to other health systems worldwide.

• Sandia Medical Devices (SMD) and New Mexico Health Systems (NMHS) are
developing the system jointly. Project staff will include analysts, designers, and
programmers from both organizations. Three technical staff members from each
organization have been assigned initially, and the budget includes sufficient funds
to add other personnel for short-term assignments as needed. In addition, NMHS
will assign a physician and a physician’s assistant to the project one day per week.

• It is anticipated that SMD personnel assigned to the project will work primarily at
NMHS facilities in office space and with computer equipment dedicated to
developing the Real-Time Glucose Monitoring (RTGM) system.

• NMHS anticipates recruiting a handful of its own diabetic employees to provide

requirements and to test the prototype RTGM software.

• SMD and NMHS anticipate a six-month development schedule for an initial

version of the server software and Android-based client-side software. That will
be followed by a three-month period for evaluation and another three-month
period for development of improved software versions and support for a wider
range of mobile phone operating systems.
 • The Real-Time Glucose Monitoring (RTGM) software on the client (patient) side
apart from tracking glucose level and alerting physicians will have the following
features

1.The ability for the patient to view alerts received on the phone and also respond
back to the alerts received from the physicians.

2. Enables the patient to view historical data pertaining to glucose levels and alert
sent and received by the patient along with annotations/ detailed description of
glucose levels.

3. Provides a messaging platform for the patient to interact with the physician by
sending and receiving messages with the ability of voice control to read out
messages.

The Real-Time Glucose Monitoring (RTGM) software on the client (patient) side apart
from tracking glucose level and alerting physicians will have the following features
1.The ability for the physician to view alerts received on the phone and also respond
back to the alerts received from the patient.

2. Enables the physician to set alert conditions to send alerts automatically to the
patients. Example – Have a rule setting to send low glucose level alert if glucose level
falls to 65 mg/dl.

3. Provides a messaging platform for the patient to interact with the physician by
sending and receiving messages along with the ability of voice control to read out
messages.

Q1. How well understood are the system requirements at the start of the project? What are
the implications of your answer for using a predictive, adaptive, or mixed SDLC? What are
the implications of your answer for using Agile techniques?
Q2. Medical personnel at NMHS have very busy schedules. NMHS’s decision to assign two
medical practitioners to the project for one day a week represents a significant investment
in salary and lost revenue. How should project iterations be structured to ensure rapid
progress to completion, high quality, and efficient use of medical practitioner time?

Task 3:

Describe a technique you use to make sure you get assignments done on time. What are some
of the tools you use with this technique?
Part B: Portfolio exercises to be included in Portfolio submissions

Question 1

Global Hotels and Mommas Motels

Suppose you work in the IT department of Global Hotels, a multinational hotel chain. Global Hotels
runs several specialized business support systems, including a guest reservations system that was
developed in-house to meet the requirements of a large company with worldwide operations.
Guests can make one-stop online reservations by visiting Global’s website, which has links to all
major travel industry sites. Global Hotels just acquired Momma’s, a regional chain of 20 motels.
Momma’s uses a vertical reservations package suitable for small- to medium-sized businesses and
a generic accounting and finance package.

Should Momma’s use Global Hotels’ information systems or continue with its own? In your answer,
consider issues such as business profiles, business processes, system interactivity, and e-
commerce. If it is decided to move to using Global Hotels systems, list pros and cons of using V-
model to extreme programming technique for this project. Give 3 points each for each of them.

Question 2

Case Study WSU Transport Management Information System

WSU is experiencing a high number of student intakes and the immediate concern is the lack of
adequate transportation facilities from major stations such as Parramatta. Further to this is the
added complication of non-availability of free parking. The university has come up with solutions
such as a dedicated bus route from University to Major bus interchange/station, monorail link to
Rydalmere station. The university is also looking to integrate the Opal ticketing system with their
student database to track the number of students using public transport or the mono rail and offer
travel concession to students on their travel costs when using the OPAL card wherein a tap on tap
off at the University bus stop or monorail is recorded in the system and every student gets a travel
concession up to 40 dollars per month. The following is the process flow/description for the WSU
transport management information system. Firstly the OPAL ticketing system is integrated with the
University student database and they form an information system of student details, OPAL card
details, Record the number of trips made by students to and from the university. The database is a
Oracle based data base system supported by 2 high capacity servers of the university. When a
student taps on or off at the university bus stop or the train station, the trip details is recorded in
the information system and the OPAL card number is searched and matched with a student record
in the database. Subject to student records being matched, the university IT admin staff generates
a monthly report on the student information software which contains the total number of trips
made by students and their relevant costs. This report is later sent to the data analytics team to
segregate the number of students who have spent more than 40 dollars a week on transport to the
university and process the concession for the students onto the accounting system. The accounting
software then credits back the amount into the student’s bank account on a monthly basis. WSU is
keen to implement the information system in a phased manner as there is considerable amount of
system upgrades to be done. WSU still has challenges to iron out especially in the System
integration with the OPAL and linking of the data base. The current priority of WSU is to ensure
that the current system are capable of the new data needed to be entered and reporting details to
be passed onto the other departments. Cost is also a factor with funding only being given on a half
yearly basis and additional expenses have to go through several layers of approval. It is a well-
known fact that in order for the Information system to be fully operational, every component
(hardware and software) need to be upgraded, developed and integrated.

Q. Recommend the SDLC methodology you would use in developing the Transport
Management Information System for WSU and explain why you have recommended it.

Question 3 Wayne's Geocaching System

Based on the case study below, answer the question…

Q. Recommend with reasons and justifications the system development methodology you
would use in developing the geocaching system.