• Functional Requirement
• Quality Requirement
• Supporting Policy or procedure

2. Evaluation (Semester Project)

Identify an organization that needs a software/hardware evaluation done and is willing to work with you on business goals, requirements, and evaluation criteria.

You must complete a formal evaluation process for this client, clearly identify stakeholders and their business goals and constraints, evaluate at least 3 feasible alternative solutions, and present a written report and a PowerPoint summary presentation of the evaluation results. I have provided an outline describing the required sections of the document you will be producing. The sections in the document outline are not optional. Please include all sections and subsections and answer all questions raised in the outline. Click here to see samples from prior semesters

E1: Client and problem identification - Please complete sections 1, 2, and 3 of the evaluation document. Also do a quick first draft answer to section 4 giving the preliminary functional requirements and business constraints such as cost and platform.

E2: Technical requirements - Complete section 4 of the evaluation document. The business goals may need clarification and elaboration, the requirements of the software will need to be elaborated (both functional and non-functional), and additional constraints such as performance will need to be detailed. Turn in the revised document with sections 1-4 complete. Format your document so that it has the appearance of a professional business report.

E3: Evaluation process - Complete section 5 of the evaluation document that describes the specific process you will be following in doing your evaluation. Use the sample outline to help you, but the evaluation process should be configured and elaborated to be specific to your client. For example in SAU's case it would talk about the formation of the committee with the department heads, the demo by the vendors that all employees were invited to attend, the submission of the employee feedback to the vendors, etc. A key subsection of section 5 is the Specific evaluation criteria and weighting of each criteria. This will result in a R2ISC-like multi-level spreadsheet similar to the one you did for the camera assignment, but tailored to the package you are evaluating. Revise any of the previous sections as necessary and turn in the revised document with sections 1-5 complete. Maintain a professional business report format for your document..

E4: Identification of 3 alternative solutions - Complete section 6 of the document. Revise any of the previous section as necessary and turn in the revised document with sections 1-6 complete. Maintain a professional business report format for your document.

E5: Written report of evaluation results and corresponding powerpoint's presentation. - Complete the remaining sections of the document including title page, table of contents, etc. Don't forget the executive summary. Make a corresponding powerpoint presentation. Hand out copies your evaluation document to your classmates when you do your presentation. If your client is local, invite them to your final presentation.

3. Hardware Assignment

Your assignment is based on the following brief Email:

GK,

The PR department wants to purchase a digital camera for a variety of in-house uses. We are willing to spend up to $1,500 if necessary, but we don't want to spend any more than needed.

Our most frequent use will be to take photos for integrating into our web site, but we will also from time to time take photos for print publications. The largest print we will most likely need to make is 8x10, but if we had a camera with enough resolution to take photos that could be blown up to poster size (3 feet by 5 feet) that would be a nice, but not worth exceeding our budget. We have heard that the Canon EOS Rebel T3i  is highly rated but if you are "upgrading to capture sports, kids, or pets, the T3i may not be able to keep up." We do place a high value on capturing action shots.

Please research digital cameras for me and come up with 3 alternatives and your recommendation for our department. As your research progresses you will likely need to get back in contact with me to discuss possible alternatives.

Thanks.

JD, Head
PR Department

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Assignment:

From the above email you can tell that JD doesn't really know what he wants. So the first part of your assignment is to go out and research what the distinguishing attributes are for digital cameras. Place these in a multi-level spreadsheet (see example spreadsheet) which you will email me to find out how JD ranks those attributes - I'll use a numeric scale for ranking the importance of each attribute. Then use the web and other sources such as photography magazines that review digital cameras to narrow the list to 3 cameras that rank highly in the attributes most valued by JD. For each attribute of each of those 3 cameras assign a value from 1 to 10: Superior=10, inferior=1. Then determine the winner by completing the spreadsheet that contains the attributes, the ranking for each attribute; and for each camera: the raw value for each attribute, the weighted value for each attribute and the sum of the weighted values. Include a 4th non-existent, but theoretically "perfect," camera and use its total weighted score to compute a percentage fit for each of the cameras you are ranking. The basic outline is already set up for you in the sample spreadsheet. The attributes should contain footnotes explaining how you determined the ratings for each of the attributes.

Also create a Powerpoint presentation of your recommendation. In the powerpoint credit the primary sources that you used for your research and something about how you narrowed the field to your 3 chosen finalists. Show photos of the 3 finalists and some overall comments about the winner and what it's most highly rated features are.

Here are a couple of sites that you may find useful:

http://www.imaging-resource.com/CAMDB/compare_cameras.php

http://www.cameras.co.uk/html/shutter-lag-comparisons.cfm?sort=ShutterLag

http://reviews.cnet.com/digital-cameras/

http://www.dpreview.com/

H1: A completed multi-level spreadsheet (see example spreadsheet) with the list of the attributes important in evaluating digital cameras of the type desired by DJ. I will rank the attributes and sent them back to you, and may suggest other attributes (at a cost to your grade) if you have forgotten any major ones. (Note: For the purpose of this exercise, I may give different ranking to different persons)

H2: Identify the 3 candidate cameras that best match my desires relative to the attributes and then research the values for each of the attributes for each of the cameras selected. Complete the spreadsheet and powerpoint's referenced above and email them to me. The best submissions will present the PowerPoint slides and go over the spreadsheet in class. If you want to paste the spreadsheet into the powerpoint, you may, but it is not required.

4. Online Lecture Notes

N1: The material in the online lectures will be covered in the exams. For each of the online lectures, please take notes while you are listening to the lecture. Take notes in sufficient detail for you to use to study for your exams. The powerpoint slides are available for you to download, so you don't need to include the powerpoint material in your notes. Please organize your notes by slide number. Many of the slides ask a question, your notes should answer the question according to the lecture. Please email me your notes by midnight of the day of the lecture. Please paste your notes into the body of the email, so that they are easy for me to process and grade. Conclude your notes with the following statement. "I verify that I have listened to ______% of the recorded lecture and that these are my original notes." Please fill in the percentage accurately and honestly.