Weightings.
The following table indicates the planned weighting for each of the
graded parts of the course for this semester.
Unit
Approximate Weight (±10%)
Exams
20%
Assignments
10%
Project
70%
Project Grade.
The project grade consists of two components, a base grade and a
modifier. The base grade for a project is proportional to the quality
of the software product developed by the team and is modified
according to the individual participation of the students within a
team. The software product consists of system including software and
supporting documents. Central to the evaluation of the product is
the fact that the system will be used to satisfy a real client's
need over a period of time. The interfaces should be designed to make
the software easy to use and effective in its purpose. The
documentation should be complete, correct and of professional quality
. This portion of the project's grade is based on an evaluation of
the team's oral presentations, documents handed in, and software
demostrations.
In the first semester, the project grade for the team will be based
primarily on the formal write-up of the Preliminary Design, with
lesser but significant contributions from the Requirements
Specification, the Prototype, and the class presentations. However,
you should strive to do as well as possible on each Milestone. The
Milestones are there to give you concrete intermediate goals, early
feedback from the team's supervisor and instructors, and to assist
in evaluating your progress. In the second semester, the project will
be evaluated as to how well it serves its original purpose-software
quality, functionality, and documentation are the dominant factors.
The performance and participation of students in projects will be
observed by the team's supervisor and the instructors. Also, at the
end of each semester, you will be asked to evaluate relative
performance of the members of your team including yourself by filling
the form shown on page 39.
Finally, because the success of a team depends upon the contributions
of each and every team member, a last-resort mechanism has been
established to remove a member who does not participate in and
contribute to his or her team project.
Assignments.
The assignments include a variety of tasks, primarily practice in
evaluation and modeling techniques. Traditionally, students taking
the Information Systems courses underestimate the value of the
assignments. It has been observed that students who do a poor job
on the assignmets have their final grades affected. You are advised
to work on the assignments.
Note that a draft of the E-R model is required as part of an
assignment. As long as a resonable effort has been made, the draft
E-R Model will be graded very leniently; the purpose of requiring
it is to give you good feedback on your specification.