MCS-014- June-2019 (Solution)

Q.1. Develop SRS for Study Center Management System for an Open University.SRS
should be as per IEEE standard SRS template. Make necessary assumptions.
Ans.
SRS (System Requirement Specification for a Study Center Management System)
From our case study (based on Indira Gandhi National Open University [IGNOU] i.e. an
Open University system studied in Regional Level, i.e. RC-Kolkata) it is generally revealed
that,
 A University has many Departments.
 University offers many UG and PG Level Programs.
 A Programme is offered by only one Department.
 A Programme consists of many courses
 A student is allowed to take only one Programme at a time and is
attached to one Department.
 Most of the student data is available with in the Department only,
however, a student may avail some of the common facilities like
 Central Library and Computer facilities, etc.
So, to design a project to be developed, we need the following details firstly,
 A brief account (1-2 pages) about system requirements.
 The system catalog/ Data Dictionary.
 More or less details of normalized tables.
 Constraints on data values & Integrity Constraints.
 Design of minimum two interfaces.
 Simplified “View” and SQL Queries for various users.
 SQL commands for users and their access rights.
The discussion is as follows:-
System Requirements:-
 The University having the above mentioned criteria is required a complete software
package to manage all of these. The package should be any tailor made package having
number of forms and reports according to their needs. The package may be built either
through VB-Access or through Oracle-D2K, combination yield best results.
 It is also to be suggested that the processor of the machine should be already speedy
enough to take care of daily huge transactions of a popular University System.
 Now, it is also required to clarify the entire system in the point of view of a
DBMS/RDBMS.
 Though the entire system based on management, so keeping a well maintained database is
essential.
 The University should maintain some registers as an important database. Before going to
discuss or sketch the entire databases, we shall mention the name first and briefly describe
them.
The University Admission System Computerization is actually based on three modules, it is
purely modular in nature, and the modules are as follows:-
1. University Module:-
The University System included the details of University itself, Departmental Details,
Programme Details as well as its Student Details.
The Programme Details in its turn is further consists of different UG and PG Programmes.
Course Details includes different courses conducted by the University under different
Programme Structure.
Faculty Details is the details of all faculties involved in the different courses, programmes as
well as in turn different Department, also.
Moreover, University is facilitated with some central facility which will be accessible to the
students.
2. Admission Details:-
University has a number of internal processes for taking admission of students. Moreover
though on-line, hence students can apply from any where of the world and may generate
different types of queries to be answered. The University has to prepare all time to face these
and existing allowed facilities for the students, certain external norms etc. also will affect
upon the student admission system. Without using Admission Details module, tailor made
software for University and its facilities cannot run successfully.
3. Student Details:-
Here, the target is to keep track of the details of students, along with their association or
better to say relation with Department, Courses, Programmes, Faculties, and Accessing
centralized facilities as well as along with the University itself, entirely. It is also helpful for
publicity and keeping balanced criteria to be maintained for new admission.
Lastly, the management system is considered as a package, so it should having some
attractive screens and reports, too.
1. Home Page- Though, the entire system is considered as a on-line , so it is better to
maintain a glamorous web page reflecting University’s glory and other services, too. It
should automatically attract people to join with them and increase its good-will which
make admission procedure smooth. It allows every body to enter inside each services
offered pages and see the details, but while, one should try to alter or interfere , then
he/she needs authentication to administer services having a specific user name and
password. Otherwise, interaction is always welcome thorough e-mail.
2. The home page consisting of the name of different modules, i.e. University Details,
Courses, Departments, Faculties, Examination system, Student Details, and Admission
obviously. The pull down menus of the modules have some specific task to be performed,
e.g. when we click on Courses it will further display a pull down menu showing UG
Programme, PG Programme, Both.

Courses
UG Program

PG Program
Programs then further subdivided into course master and course status, subjects
master, etc.
3. Student Details also subdivided into Student master, Student Attendance, Student
Status along with Fee Structure, too. While, clicking on the Student Details it will
open Student Details, Accessing Facilities. Centralized Facility will have a single
screen for entering or showing details of these facilities e.g. Computer and Library.
4. Faculty will consists faculty Master and Faculty Class Details.
5. Last, but the most important one is the Admission System. A scrolling text in home
page allows downloading on-line application form. After knowing all the facilities
and advantages the University is offering one can opt for himself to apply judging the
required criteria or can send his/her queries for seeking admission. The forms are
submitted on-line and drafts are accepted by ordinary mail or couriers or by having
any on-line banking facilities. Accepting and collecting application forms thee
candidates are sort listed, called for a counseling and lastly issued an enrolment
number and registered as new student, too.
6. Moreover, number of report can be generated and queries can be processed based
upon all the systems and mainly the on-line admission that University possesses.
The schematic representation of system requirements with relationship among different
interfaces is required is discussed below:-
Schematic Representation Drawing

Download Admission Application Asking Application

Application Criteria Given Queries forms verified
Form Checking

Registered &
Students Getting Enlisted in
Responses Students table

Issued Enrolment
no.

Used Username
& Password

Present working system-

At present our system has lots of manual work which needs to be computerized. So, lots of
paper work is required. In order to minimize this we need to computerize all those
departments which require record maintenance. The different points which illustrate the
present working of the System are:
 All the different administrative department works require paper work which includes the
record maintenance of current Study Centre, Students Affiliated, Teacher Details or Faculty
Details.
 Fees of the students include submission of the form which is duly filled by the student
(This feature is not there in IGNOU system but we are assuming it from the long-term plan
point of view).
 Records of Marks of Assignment, Theory and Practical are maintained on the paper.
 No FAQ facility, so students who have some confusions and problems regarding courses
structure and fees need to talk to specific functionaries who are normally not available on
weekdays at study centers as most of the Study Centers operate on Saturdays and Sundays
only.
 They are not able to find out their teacher qualifications and experiences.
Proposed working-
After the implementation of this project, there would be lots of benefits as there would be
less manual work, more computerized working, resulting in faster resolution of students‟
queries. It would provide all the goals and aims which we have discussed in the earlier
sections. So, making the present system faster, quicker, and more active and user friendly to
the students, teachers and study centre staff members. The system will become more
responsive and fast.

Long-term model for study centre-

The student at an Open University undertakes a methodology of instruction which is different
from that of conventional universities. The University follows a multimedia approach for
instruction. It comprises:
 Self - instructional written material
 Audio-Visual Material Aids
 Counseling Sessions at the Study Centers
 Live one-way video two-way audio Teleconferences
 Practical / Project Work at the Study Centers
 Repeated telecast on Gyan Darshan Education Channel
 Interactive Radio-Counselling through Gyan Vani the Radio Channel.
A student primarily visits the Study Centre for watching audio-video programmes,
counselling sessions, live teleconferences (as they are on specific channel at present not
widely telecast by cable operators), and practical work. However, in the long run it is
expected that IGNOU would reach the home of the students through its Teleconferencing,
Radio sessions, and using EDUSAT. Then the role of the Study Centre in such cases may
primarily be to provide on-line Administrative support and practical work.

Gantt Chart of Project

In our case, the Top level Management is under the administrator who is either the
Study Centre Coordinator or Principal. Next, in the middle are the teachers, or faculty
members. However, they sometimes work at lower levels also. The students come at
the bottom level or lower level. They can avail of the facilities provided by the
system. Now, what is the use of this analysis phase? It allows you to examine the
eight basic characteristics of the system which are:
1. Goal: Each system is developed for a reason. It has some purpose for its existence.
2. Inputs: The inputs to the system are the resources like manpower, capital,
materials, equipment, etc.
3. Output: These follow from the system. They are usually goods (may be furniture
from a factory or leather handbags from a workshop) or services (legal consultation
from a lawyer‟s office or a project feasibility report from a management consultancy
firm).
4. Boundaries: Each system has boundaries. In other words, each system has a
definite scope. We may wish to include everything in one system but that is
practically impossible. Each system has some definable limits. Remember the user‟s
wish list? Some items in the wish list may be outside the scope of the system.
5. Environment: Each system exists in an environment that can influence the system
in a number of ways, such as making it more or less difficult to perform.
6. Components: The components of a system transform the inputs into outputs and
the linking together of the components is accomplished by interrelations.
7. Interrelations: These describe how resources pass from one system component to
another.
8. Constraints: These represent the environmental, social, technical or behavioral
factors that typically limit system performance. You need to find out all about the
system’s environment, boundaries, inputs, outputs, goals, components, resources and
interrelations.
Preliminary Investigation-
After having a brief idea of the project, let us undertake the preliminary investigation
to ascertain the feasibility of the project. Ideally this stage of analysis should be
performed prior to project approval. The three most important stages of preliminary
investigation are:
1. Request Clarification
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2. Feasibility Study
3. Approval of Request.
Request Clarification -
This step is a one of the component of preliminary investigation stages. Many
requests from employees and users in the organization are not clearly stated. So, it
should be clear in advance what the originator wants. Problem clarification is a
difficult task because requester is making a request but how to state it or where
actually the problem is or what is the problem is not clearly stated. For instance in this
project the Coordinator has made the request for adding web-site facility for the study
centre but what would be the contents was not stated. Thus, the cost estimation for
website could not be done.
Feasibility study-
It is an important part of the Preliminary Investigation because only feasible
projects go to development stages. Let us do a very basic feasibility study for the
current project.
1. Technical feasibility: Technical feasibility raises questions like, is it possible that
the work can be done with the current equipment, software technology and available
personnel? And if new technology is required what is the possibility that it can be
developed?
In case of our project, the software which we have built up fully supports current
Windows OS but it lacks the support for other OS environment like Apple Mac, Unix
and Linux. Next, it is not dependent on the number of users so it can handle a very
large number of user environments (in principle, but does not happen in practice).
Next, the Support for Hardware, it has full support for new hardware, so no hardware
compatibilities issues arise as it requires minimum configuration but only non-Mac
environment.
Minimum Hardware Support Required-

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(i) Additional memory may be required, depending on operating system requirements.
(ii) Actual requirements will vary based on your system configuration and the
applications and features you choose to install as well as SQL Server Space
Allocation.
2. Economic Feasibility: It deals with economical impacts of the system on the
environment it is used, i.e., benefits in creating the system.
In case of our project we are assuming an economically feasible solution.
3. Operational Feasibility: It deals with the user friendliness of the system, i.e., will
the system be used if it is developed and implemented? or will there be resistance
from the users?
In case of our Project we have done the Operational Feasibility Study with Centre
Coordination and In charge about the usage of the project, and regarding user
friendliness we have tried our best to make the software highly user friendly so that a
person having only a little knowledge of English can handle it. By the way we have
also built on-line as well as special help programs which help in training the user.
Also one of the interesting parts of the Project is Tips of the Day which gives some
special Tips to the user for proper functioning.
4. Time Feasibility: In this type of feasibility study, we examine whether our
proposed project can be completed in the specified time frame or not. In our case, our
project is finished in the targeted time-frame. So, it is feasible regarding time scope.
5. Legal Feasibility: This type of feasibility evaluates whether our project breaks any
law or not. According to our analysis, our project doesn‟t break any laws. So, it is
legally feasible too.
Request approval-
Not all the requested projects are desirable or feasible. And only those which are
desirable or feasible should be put into the schedule. In some of the cases the
development can start immediately but in some of the other cases, the staff members
are busy on their ongoing projects. Many business organizations develop information
systems as carefully as they plan for new products, or new manufacturing programs.
After a request is approved its cost, priority, completion time and personnel
requirements are estimated. For example, in our case the management who will be
investing the money might feel that there is no requirement of such a system, so
unless they approve it work cannot start. However, this project does not have such
constraints, as it is just a sample project.
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Requirements Determination-
Any software project can succeed only if it has been fully analyzed in this stage of
Requirements Determination, since Requirement Determination is the heart of the
systems analysis, aimed at acquiring a detailed description of all important areas of
business that is under investigation. Analysts working closely with employees and
managers must study the complete business process for the designers of the system. In
this stage, the system analyst will talk to a variety of people in detail and will take
their ideas and opinions. We use fact-finding techniques like Questionnaires to collect
the information from people who cannot be interviewed individually and interviews
with special appointments for discussion on the project. The detailed investigation
includes:
1. Study of manuals and reports.
2. Actual observations of work activities.
3. Collection of sample forms and documents.
In our case we have several interviews with Mr. Goel, centre incharge, about the
project discussions. He helped us regarding this project on what to build in it, what
are user requirements, etc. We also got ideas from the students who may be users of
the system. Now let us have a brief overview of the fact-finding techniques of the
project which we used. The most commonly used techniques of fact finding by us are
as follows:
 Existing documentation, forms, file and records
 Research and site visits
 Observation of the work environment
 Questionnaires
 Interviews and group work sessions.
All these techniques helped us a very great deal in finding out the information related
to the project. Let us first have a glance at all these techniques.
Study of Existing Documentation-
You may feel that getting existing information may not be right since you are there to
create a new computerized system. So why bother about what happens at present?
Think back to the earlier session. What did we say? To build a computer-based
system, it is essential to first clearly understand what happens right now. You will be
able to build a system only after a correct understanding of the current system. You
may even improve it. So, existing information is absolutely essential. It will give you
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a clear picture of what actually happens in the department or organization being
studied. For each document, it is important to know its use in the system. To
understand this, it is useful to prepare the document-department routing grid. So
talking about getting existing information, what are the advantages of this technique?
 You don‟t have to disturb any person while they are working. You can take the files
to an empty room and study them at your leisure.
 There is no time constraint. This does not mean that you take 3 months just to study
the existing documentation. What it means is that there is no time deadline like an
interview. If your interview carries on for 2-3 hours, you are going to have a very
unhappy user. Whereas if you spend 2-3 hours studying the document, you will have
bothered no one.
 You will know exactly what happens and not what the user wants you to know. You
will be able to study the processes free from the bias and personal viewpoint of the
user. You will be unaffected by the users‟ feelings or personal office politics and get
an impartial view of the system.
We are talking about getting existing documentation but what are the documents that
you should seek? Some of the documents looked into by us were: After this you can
collect documents like:
 Class schedules, faculty schedules.
 Minutes of important meetings.
 Accounting records of the students
 Assignments submission of return records
 Making system and results communication
 Attendance record, student batches record, infrastructure etc.
Let us look at some of the above documents more closely and see how they can help
an analyst.
Completed Forms-
The most important documents are the completed forms representing actual
transactions. Remember that blank forms should not be accepted. This is emphasized
because commonly, users prefer to tear out a blank sheet from their file or register
when they are asked for a form. A blank form will tell you nothing about the kind of
information that is actually filled in the columns. The form design may be obsolete
and the users may have devised their own forms within the framework of the old one.
The heading to the column may be totally misleading and the user may actually be
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entering something different out there. We have said that we should study only
completed forms. All right, but how many should we study? Just 1 or 10 or 100 or
1000? What is the correct sample to study?
There exists an empirical formula by which you can find the sample size to be certain
of the quality of data. In our case a sample size of 25-50 forms is ok. Then comes the
question – how do we choose the sample? There are 2 ways. The first is
randomization, i.e., you pick up any 50 documents and use them as a sample. The
other approach is stratification, that is, a systematic method for choosing the sample.
Let us take an example. Suppose the total number of student documents we have is
5,000. We have to choose 50 documents in our sample. So we choose every 100th
document which is 5000/50.
Reports (Manual and Computerized) All manual and computerized reports-
Must be collected. This may sound easier than it actually is because many users
devise their own reports for follow-up or for statistical analysis. These reports are
normally prepared by hand or word-processed from information available in the
system. These are considered by the users as „their‟ property and normally not shown
to the analyst. Remember in our last section we talked about some notebook or
register maintained by the user privately? Well, these are reports. Therefore, when you
ask for all reports, make sure that you really get all the reports. The reports prepared
manually by the user are actually the most important because they are the ones being
used regularly. You may wish to modify the existing computer reports to absorb the
manual report. If the organization has standard operating procedures (SOPs) in
place, it makes life easier for the analyst. The analyst will know how things ought to
be done and then, when the procedure is being reviewed with user, the gaps or
inaccuracies will be easily identified. In case of missing SOPs, the analyst will have to
write the procedures himself after identifying all responsible parties and determining
the tasks appropriate to each. It is very important to review the SOPs very carefully to
verify that they are complete and accurate. Any mismatch between the actual
procedures carried out and the SOPs should be identified and resolved. You may find
a number of duplicate information flowing from one department to the other or a
particular procedure being eliminated in actual practice or different information
recorded on the same form. Let us now see how it helped us in our project. “You may
find that a different type of form was used to record the details of Students Marks,
Fees and Attendance Schedules, etc. We questioned about the formats, the conclusion
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may well be that no one really knew why those formats were used but they were
doing it because it was always done that way.” Therefore, the point to be made is that
collection of existing documentation is important because it clarifies your
understanding of the current system. It also throws up gaps, missing parts and other
questions about the current system which you may need to clarify with the users.
Research and Site Visits-
Let us consider the next fact-finding technique, that is, research and site visits. This
particular technique is not used very often because it is not relevant in many projects.
Here research means studying the application and the problem areas. You could do
this by studying the trade journals or you can visit reference rooms in libraries to find
out more about the application and the problems. You can discover how others have
solved similar problems and whether any tools (whether mechanical or manual) exist
for solving the problems. You can visit other companies or departments in other
organizations who have already gone through the analysis exercise and get some tips
from them. This technique of fact finding was not employed in this project.
Observation of Work Area-
This technique involves observation of place of work and work procedure. In this
technique, the analyst watches a person perform certain tasks and tries to understand
the system. This technique is not very commonly used. Can you think of the reasons?
 To create a „good impression‟ on the analyst, very simple or routine work may be
shown to the analyst. In which case the analyst will not be able to observe the special
or irregular cases.
 The tasks may be carried out at odd times, e.g., there may be a graveyard shift
(night shift) which may be difficult for the analyst to observe or there may be too
many interruptions.
 In case persons have been performing a task contrary to the standard operating
procedures, s/he may perform it correctly temporarily while under observation.
Hawthorne Effect People perform differently on stage as compared to real life, i.e., if
someone knows that s/he is being observed, s/he becomes aware of it and
subconsciously performs better. The Hawthorne Effect may prove this point. What is
the Hawthorne effect? It has been described as the rewards you reap when you pay
attention to people. The mere act of showing people that you are concerned about
them usually spurs them to better job performance. That is the Hawthorne Effect.
Suppose you have taken a management trainee and given her specialised training in
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management skills she doesn‟t now possess. Without saying a word, you have given
the trainee the feeling that she is so valuable to the organisation that you will spend
time and money to develop her skills. She feels she is on track to the top, and that
motivates her to work harder and better. The motivation is independent of any
particular skills or knowledge s/he may have gained from the training session. That is
the Hawthorne Effect at work. When people spend a large portion of their time at
work, they must have a sense of belonging, of being part of a team. When they do,
they produce better. That is the Hawthorne Effect. Occasionally, managers object
saying that observation is not a valid test. Of course they will do a good job if you are
watching them. Isn‟t that the Hawthorne Effect? Which is why some people do not
count observation as a useful fact-finding technique. On the other hand, there are
many points in favor of observation The main point in its favor is that the analyst is
able to see exactly what is being done. Sometimes, users may find it difficult to
explain complex procedures. In such cases, the analyst may get a clear idea if s/he
observes the person at work.
 Observation also reveals the physical conditions (like excessive noise, poor
lighting, physical layout and place of movement) which may have a bearing on the
work being done and which may have been missed or inaccurately described during
discussions.
To obtain maximum benefits from observation, you should be fully prepared. Ideally,
the analyst should observe the work during normal hours and during peak times. The
analyst should prepare proper data collection forms in which he can record the data
observed. Your findings should be documented during or immediately following the
observation. In this project the efforts were made to watch various activities of the
students/teacher etc. to determine the environment of working.
Questionnaires-
All of you would have received and even responded to some questionnaire. So what
is a questionnaire? It is a document prepared for a special purpose that allows the
analysts to collect information and opinions from a number of respondents. It contains
a list of questions. The questionnaire is distributed to the selected respondents; the
respondents answer the questions in their own time and return the questionnaire with
the answers to the analyst. The analyst can then analyze the responses and reach
conclusions.

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Sample Questionnaires Used by Us:
 What are the services provided by the Study Centre?
 What are the specific data of Student?
 How Schedule is created for a Teacher?
 How are Marks, Fees and Attendance recorded?
 Some of the Sample Layouts of Reports
 What are the various outputs of Systems?
Personal Interview-
There are always 2 roles in the personal interview. The analyst is the interviewer who
is responsible for organizing and conducting the interview. The other role is that of the
interviewee who is the end-user or the manager or the decision-maker. The
interviewee is asked a number of questions by the interviewer.
In this project we have done interviews of centre in charge, co-coordinator and other
main functionaries to ascertain their expectations of the system.
Q.2. Draw the DFDs up to 3rd level for Study Center Management System for
an Open University.
Ans.

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Q.3. Draw ERD for Study Center Management System for an Open University.
Make necessary assumptions.
Ans.

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