Course Description | Resources | Course Grading | Class Schedule | Tasks & Deliverables | Policies | SQL Worksheet | Weekly Activity Log

Course Information

Instructor Information

I. Course Description  Top

The objective of this course is to create a web-based database application using current languages and information technologies.  Student teams will follow the planning, analyzing, designing and implementing stages of the systems development life cycle to solve a real world problem facing a client organization.

Since this is a continuation of the Systems Analysis I (M&IS 24060) more emphasis will be placed on the actual creation of the application.  The class will be divided into three portions: 1) a review of the Systems Development Life Cycle, 2) an introduction of the basic building blocks for creating the application and 3) team-specific coding guidance.

Prerequisites include M&IS 24060 (Systems Analysis I) and M&IS 24070 (Principles of Systems Development).  Students attending the course who do not have the proper prerequisite risk being deregistered from the class.

II. Resources  Top

No specific class materials are required.  Students are expected to obtain resources such as software manuals, programming language guides, etc. appropriate to the tools that are being utilized in their project.  A recommended list of books and web sites are listed.

• Books

  Que Publishing

  • Active Server Pages by Example  by Bob Reselman, ISBN: 0789722402 http://www.quepublishing.com/detail_que.cfm?item=0789722402
  • Active Server Pages 3.0 from Scratch by Nicholas Chase ISBN: 0789722615  http://www.quepublishing.com/detail_que.cfm?item=0789722615
  • HTML by Example by Ann Navarro ISBN: 0789722283 http://www.quepublishing.com/detail_que.cfm?item=0789722283  

  WROX Press

  • Beginning Active Server Pages 3.0 by David Buser, Jon Duckett, Brian Francis, John Kauffman, Juan T. Llibre, David Sussman, and Chris Ullman.  ISBN 1861003382 http://www.wrox.com/Books/Book_Details.asp?sub_section=1&isbn=1861003382&subject=ASP&subject_id=28

  • Instant HTML Programmer's Reference, HTML 4.0 Edition by Alex Homer, Chris Ullman and Steve Wright. ISBN: 1861001568 http://www.wrox.com/Books/Book_Details.asp?sub_section=1&isbn=1861001568&subject=HTML&subject_id=27

  Classroom materials

  Pertinent handouts and other course materials will be distributed in class or through the web site.

  Editors and access 

  • A text editor is needed for creating HTML and ASP files.  There are four common code editors: Visual InterDev, FrontPage, Allaire's Homesite and Notepad. Microsoft Visual InterDev 6.0, part of Microsoft's suite of professional programming tools, is available through the bookstore.  For more information check out this link
  • Access to a web server and to an Oracle 8 database will be provided.  Ad hoc SQL statements will be entered through this web site.  The access strings will be distributed during class. 
    

• Worthwhile web sites

  A compilation of several web sites are listed here.   This list is intended as a place to start and is, by no means, exhaustive.

III. Course Grading  Top

Final grade will be computed as follows:

Notes:

• Final letter grade determinations will be assigned according to the following percentages:  A>=90%;  B>=80%;  C>=70%; D>= 60%; F<=60%
  
• Attendance Policy - Students are expected to attend all class sessions and to actively participate in class discussions. "Active participation" means providing substantive, insightful comments about a topic (e.g., quality); asking stimulating and probing questions that further the discussion and everyone's understanding of the topic; and being an enthusiastic participant in cooperative learning exercises.

IV. Tentative Schedule  Top

V. Description of Tasks and Deliverables  Top

• Quizzes - 10 points

  At the beginning of each classroom meeting there will be a short quiz on material presented during the previous classroom meeting. You will not be able to take the quiz if you had an unexcused absence when the material was presented. If you take the quiz and leave class - the quiz will not be graded. Excused absences will be dealt with on an individual basis. Each quiz counts the same amount. This grade will be based on the student's mean quiz score. The lowest quiz score will be dropped. Quizzes missed due to unexecused absences will not be dropped.

• Weekly Activity Logs - 6 points

  Each team member will fill out an online activity log documenting meetings attended and project activites performed. Members will need to review their team member's previous week's entry. Full credit will be given to those who provide complete entries in a timely fashion. Deductions will be taken by a subjective assessment proportional to the amount of deficiency.  The weekly log will be due before class (7:00 p.m. Tuesdays)

• Planning, Analysis and Design Deliverables - 30 points

  All students on a team will be assigned the same score for this portion of the grade. Basic requirements or deliverables are:

  Deliverables Weekly Gantt Chart Executive Summary System Request Feasibility Study Project Plan System Proposal System Specification	20 points
  Presentation	10 points
  Click for more details

• Implementation and Maintenance Phase Deliverables - 30 points

  All students on a team will be assigned the same score for this portion of the grade. Basic deliverables are:

  Deliverables Weekly Gantt Chart Executive Summary Documentation Testing Plan Conversion Plan Training Schedule Support and Maintenance Plans Fully functional, error-free application Well-documented code	20 points
  Presentation	10 points
  Click for more details

  Peer Evaluation of Individual Performance - 12 points

  Team members can choose how to organize and run their project. Evaluations will be absolutely confidential and will be performed after the midterm and final presentations. These factors will be considered:
  • Quality of work performed by the student - 4 points
  • Level of effort - 4 points
  • Participation on group meetings - 4 points
    
  Evaluations will be done on a rating scale, ranging from 1 to 15, where 1 is worthless and 15 is invaluable. A score of 8 is considered average. It would be possible for a student to do outstanding work on a small part of the project (a 15 for quality but a 1 on effort) and receive a low overall grade due to effort level. As an additional measure students will rank their peers in each area from most valuable to least valuable. 

  Participation in group meetings is based on the same scale and takes attendance into account; a score of 1 means the person never attended a single meeting.  A score of 15 means the person attended every meeting.

  Two rules are in effect with respect to peer evaluations:

  1. No one may turn in a low evaluation (below 8) of another team member unless I have been notified no later than the fifth week of class that the target of the poor evaluation has not been pulling his/her own weight.
  2. Each member of the team must be allowed to play a significant part in the development and implementation of the project. If an individual feels he/she is being shut out by the group, the individual must notify me early. This requirement does not mean each group member must be involved in every aspect of the project. Rather, it is meant to prevent one or two individuals from monopolizing the project and then giving poor participation evaluations later.

• Instructor's Evaluation of Individual Performance - 12 points

  Each student will receive two performance evaluation scores. The first performance evaluation will occur at midterm time. The second evaluation will occur at the end of the quarter. Both evaluation scores will be equally weighted and based on the following inputs:
  
  • quality of work, level of effort and level of participation.
  • weekly activity logs, due on Tuesdays, at 7:00 pm for the preceding week. This report must itemize "time on task" for the week. Each task will be accompanied by the appropriate amount of time spent in hours. This report must be copied to all members of the team; team members have the opportunity to dispute entries.
  • In addition to "time on task", the student is encouraged (but not required) to include any additional information that will enhance my understanding of your efforts for that week. Possible entries may be a description of a problem encountered, the solution (proposed or real) and how this problem is related to other tasks.
    

VI. Policies  Top

• Necessary Prerequisites

  Students attending the course who do not have the proper prerequisites risk being deregistered from the class.

• Enrollment Registration

  Students have responsibility to ensure they are properly enrolled in classes.You are advised to review your official class schedule during the first two weeks of the semester to ensure you are properly enrolled in this class and section. Should you find an error in your class schedule, you have until September 7, 2001 to correct it with your advising office.If registration errors are not corrected by this date and you continue to attend and participate in classes for which you are not officially enrolled, you are advised now that you will not receive a grade at the conclusion of the semester for any class in which you are not properly registered.

• Academic Honesty

  Cheating means to misrepresent the source, nature, or other conditions of your academic work (e.g., tests, papers, projects, assignments) so as to get undeserved credit. The use of the intellectual property of others without giving them appropriate credit is a serious academic offense. It is the University's policy that cheating or plagiarism result in receiving a failing grade for the work or course. Repeat offenses result in dismissal from the University.

• Course Withdrawal Deadline

  For Fall 2001 the course withdrawal deadline is Saturday, November 3, 2001. Withdrawal before the deadline results in a "W" on the official transcript; after the deadline a grade must be calculated and reported.

• Students with Disabilities

  In accordance with University policy, if you have a documented disability and require accommodations to obtain equal access in this course, please contact the instructor at the beginning of the semester or when given an assignment for which an accommodation is required. Students with disabilities must verify their eligibility through the Office of Student Disability Services (SDS) in the Michael Schwartz Service Center (672-3391).