SenecaCollegeSchool of Computer Studies
PRJ566 Project Initiation Document

Last Revised: / Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Date Submitted: / Friday, February 04, 2005
Team Number:
Team Members:
Project Title: / The Collegiate Management System
Client Information:
Target Completion Date: / August 2005

Scope of System Being Developed

The Collegiate Management System to be developed will help the staff of THE VISA STUDENTS’ COLLEGIATE manage the school’s tasks in a more efficient and secure way. In detail, the system will have the following functions within its scope:

Security

The security component will provide user authentication and access control by user group.

  • Login

-Valid credentials (id and password) must be given in order to access the system.

  • System User Management

-The system users must belong to one of the following groups:

  • Administrators:Staff privilege + ability to perform administrative functions such as data backup and recovery.
  • Staff: Able to use all the functions offered by the system for the school’s business, but prevented from using the admin functions such as creating a new staff account or performing data backup and recovery.
  • Teachers: Able to view their classes’ information and to manage student grades.
  • Students: Able to view their timetables and transcripts.

-The system administrators and staff can manage user accounts.(Note. The administrators can manage accounts of any group. On the other hand, the staff can manageaccounts of the teachers or the students groups.)

  • Create:Create a new user account to be a member of a certain group.
  • Modify:Reset a user’s password, change the group membership of the user and edit the user profile information.
  • Delete:Delete a user account.
  • Deactivate / Activate:Disable/enable a user account.

Backup and Recovery

The backup and recovery component will provide the administrator of the system ability to backup all the data in the centralized database and restore the database with the backed-up data in case of emergency.

  • Backup

-The system administrator will be able to perform the database backup through the admin application whenever he/she wishes to do. The administrator will also be able to set a backup schedule in order to make the database backed-up on a regular basis.

  • Recovery

-The system administrator will be able to replace the existing data in the database with the backed-up data through the admin application.

Student Registration

The student registration component will provide the system an ability to process a new student registration request.

  • A person who wants to register in the school can make a registration request through the online registration form. The system will create a student user account for the person as soon as one of the staff confirms a payment from the person.

Staff Management

The staff management component will allow the system administrator to add, modify, deleteand deactivate/activate staff profiles [accounts].

  • The system will keep the following information of a staff user:

-Personal information (Name, contact info, etc.)

-Hired date

-Title

-Specialties[Skills](e.g. FluentFrench, proficient in using MS Office)

Teacher Management

The teacher management component will allow the system administrator and the staff to add, modify, delete and deactivate/activate teacherprofiles [accounts].

  • The system will keep the following information of a teacher:

-Personal information (Name, contact info, etc.)

-Hired date

-Available courses which he/she is qualified to teach

Student Management

The student management component will allow the system administrator and the staff to add, modify, delete and deactivate/activate student profiles [accounts].

  • The system will keep the following information of a student:

-Personal information (Name, contact info, nationality, etc.)

-Registered date

-Enrolled courses/programs

-English level

-Start/end date

-Agency

Curriculum Management

The curriculum management component will allow the system administrator and the staff to add, modify, delete and deactivate/activate courses.

  • The system will keep the following information of a course/program:

-Course code and section

-Start and end date

-Available seats

-Assigned teacher

-Required English level in order to attend

-Prescribed textbook

-Day and start/stop time of the class

-Class room number

Agency Management

The agency management component will allow the system administrator and the staff to add, modify and delete agency profiles.

(Note.Most students register in the school through agencies. An agency receives commissions from the school for the students who have been registered through it.)

Homestay Management

The homestay management component will allow the system administrator and the staff to add, modify and delete homestay profiles. The system will have a function to recommend a homestay for a new student.

  • The system will keep the following information of a homestay:

-Address of the house

-Number of available rooms and price of each room

-Preferred gender, age range and nationalities

Promotion Management

The promotion management component will allow the system administrator and the staff to add, modify and delete promotions.

  • The system will keep the following information of a promotion:

-Benefit of the promotion

-Effective period (Start/expire date)

(Note. The school offers promotions occasionally. For instance, there was a summer special promotion which gave 10% discounts of tuition fees to the students who registered for the summer program (July-August).)

Student Mark Management

Thestudent mark management component will allow the teachers to grade and post evaluationcomments of students they teach, and students to view their own transcripts.

  • Store/EditStudent Grade: Teachers store/edit students’ grades along with evaluation comments into the system.
  • View Student Grade: Students can view their own transcripts.

Tuition Fee Management

The tuition fee management component will manage all tuition fee information in the system.

  • Set/EditTuition Fee: The administrator decides how much each course costs.
  • Set/EditTuition Fee Refund Policy: The administrator decides how much deductions are applied to tuition fee refunds.

Marketing Management

The marketing management component will manage fairs that the school participates in and advertisements which the school runs.

  • The system will keep the following information of a fair:

-Place where the fair is held

-Period

-Fee

  • The system will keep the following information of an advertisement:

-Content

-Name of newspaper/magazine on which the advertisement is put.

-Period

-Fee

Reporting

The reporting component will provide functionalities to generate various school reports of various information by various conditions.

  • View Student List: Lists of students. (Possible filtering conditions are ‘whose grade is higher than 90’, ‘who owes money to school’ and so on.)
  • View Agency List
  • View Homestay List

System Error Log

Thesystem error log component will keep track of any unusual operations took place in the system.

  • (i.e.) Whenever the system encounters an error such as failing to connect to the database, it will keep the error occurred in the log file. The admin application will allow the system administrator to view the log. This function will help the administrator figure out what causes an abnormal operation in the system if one occurs.

Scope / Use Case Grid

System Function / Use Case
Security:
Login / Login
System user management / Manage System User
Backup/Recovery:
Backup data / Manage Data Backup
Restore data / Manage Data Backup
Student:
Student registration / Register Student
Student information management / Manage Student
Staff:
Staff information management / Manage Staff
Teacher:
Teacher information management / Manage Teacher
Curriculum:
Add course / Manage Curriculum
Edit course / Manage Curriculum
Delete course / Manage Curriculum
Deactivate course / Manage Curriculum
Activate course / Manage Curriculum
Agency:
Add agency / Manage Agency
Edit agency / Manage Agency
Delete agency / Manage Agency
Homestay:
Add homestay / Manage Homestay
Edit homestay / Manage Homestay
Delete homestay / Manage Homestay
Promotion:
Add promotion / Manage Promotion
Edit promotion / Manage Promotion
Delete promotion / Manage Promotion
Mark Management:
Store/edit student grade / Manage Mark
View student grade / View Mark
Tuition Fee Management:
Set/edit tuition fee / Mange Tuition Fee
Set/edit tuition fee refund policy / Manage Tuition Fee
Marketing Management:
Manage fair / Manage Marketing
Manage advertisement / Manage Marketing
Reporting:
View student list / Generate School Report
View agency list / Generate School Report
View homestay list / Generate School Report
System Error Management:
Keep system error log / Manage System Error
View system error log / Manage System Error

Constraints

-No budget.

-THE VISA STUDENTS’ COLLEGIATE has a server which runs on Windows 2007 Server.

-The system will be a web-based application which will be written in ASP .NET with VB .NET.

-The system will use MySQL database.

-The system will be basically an intranet application. (i.e. No access allowed outside the school except the Online Registration interface.)

Risk Assessment and Planning

-A couple of members will take co-op work-terms during the next semester.

  • We will record all the documents in a clear and easily understandable way for the new members.
  • We will modularize and prioritize all the components in the system, so that we can be sure about what functionalities we need to implement first.
  • We will make sure that staying knows leavingby having presentation sessions in our group meetings.

Moral, Ethical and Legal Issues

-Sensitive data, such as information of students, agencies and homestays, need to be confidential.

-We as The Collegiate Management system developers might have chances to handle the school’s confidential data. We must make sure that no members of the team keep the data for hisown purpose.

-The ownership of the system belongs to the team members as a group. Team members as individuals have no right to take ownership, but only as a group. The system cannot be used for commercial purposes unless all the team members agree in a written contract.

Other Issues or Information

-THE VISA STUDENTS’ COLLEGIATE currently uses MS Access as its data store. This fact requires us to transfer/convert data from MS Access to MySQL.

  • We will write a program to perform the data transfer/conversion. The program will be executed in the first phase of the system deployment.