Shresth (Vidhu) Bhatnagar - ICT A2 Course Work

`xf

1

Shresth Bhatnagar

A2 Course Work

ContentsBackground and Investigation................................................................................4

An Introduction to the Organisation..........................................................................................4

A description of the current system (or existing situation) and its environment..................4Environment:..............................................................................................................................4Problem Identification.................................................................................................................5A business case (reasons) for change.......................................................................................5

Identification of client and users...............................................................................................6

Evidence of the use of relevant investigation techniques.......................................................8

Requirements of the client.......................................................................................................19

Analysis and Deliverables.....................................................................................20

Statement of scope...................................................................................................................20

Description of the proposed system.......................................................................................23Benefits and impacts on the organisation................................................................................26Impact on the organisation.......................................................................................................26

Documentation of processes...................................................................................................27Input, Processes and OutPut...................................................................................................27Process Flow Diagram.............................................................................................................31Entity Relational Diagram.........................................................................................................32Signoff Sheet............................................................................................................................33

Description of the users of the proposed system..................................................................34

Evaluation Criteria.....................................................................................................................40

Agreed Deliverables..................................................................................................................41

Design and Planning for implementation.............................................................43

Evidence of investigating alternative design solutions.........................................................43

Draft design work......................................................................................................................48Draft Design 1:.........................................................................................................................48Draft Design 2:.........................................................................................................................50

Final design work......................................................................................................................51Homepage Final Design.................................................................................................................................... 52Planner List Final Design1................................................................................................................................. 53Planner List 2 Final Design................................................................................................................................ 54Planning Page................................................................................................................................................... 55

Plan for implementation, testing and instalment including proposed time and scales......57

Training requirements for the new system.............................................................................59Video Tutorial:................................................................................................................................................... 59Frequently Asked Questions.............................................................................................................................. 59

Testing strategy.........................................................................................................................60

Test Plan.................................................................................................................................... 62

2 Shresth Bhatnagar

Testing and documentation of the implementation............................................71

Evidence of testing...................................................................................................................71

Evidence of client/user testing and Operational Testing....................................................100

Evidence of Environment Testing..........................................................................................102

User Documentation...............................................................................................................104Preface...................................................................................................................................104Content.................................................................................................................................. 104Perquisites.............................................................................................................................104Installation..............................................................................................................................104Configuration..........................................................................................................................106Usage of the System..............................................................................................................107Backup and Recovery............................................................................................................111

Testing Of The User Documentation.....................................................................................113

Evaluation of the implemented solution.............................................................115

Evaluation of the solution.......................................................................................................115Weaknesses...........................................................................................................................118Strengths................................................................................................................................118Improvements........................................................................................................................118

Evaluation of my performance...............................................................................................119

Appendix...............................................................................................................121Appendix 1:............................................................................................................................121Appendix 2:............................................................................................................................122

3 Shresth Bhatnagar

Background and Investigation

An Introduction to the OrganisationCompany Name: Dubai British School

Location: Dubai, UAE

Dubai British School (DBS) is a private British international school located in The Springs, Emirates Hills, Dubai. It is a primary and secondary school and is a member of the Taaleem group of schools.

On the school website (www.dubaibritishschool.ae) it states:

“Dubai British School is a prestigious National Curriculum (England) school designed to satisfy the demand for a first-class, traditional British education. This world-renowned curriculum covers a broad and balanced range of disciplines that enables each child to develop an advantageous skill-set to meet life’s challenges confidently.”

There are over 60 members of teaching staff in the secondary school and more than 30 teachers in the primary. Other than this there are more staff such as administrative, facilities and security staff.

Dubai British School has been established for 6 years and in that time period it has seen facilities expand to accommodate more than 1000 students.

Mr.Mark Wood is the Head of primary ICT and secondary ICT teacher; he will be my contact for this project

A description of the current system (or existing situation) and its environmentTeachers, before they teach a lesson are required to plan their lessons. This is achieved by using a physical hard copy of a planner which is issued by the school. The planner has different sections each for its own purpose. The sections are: Lesson Planning, lesson outcome, Lesson Notes, Reminders, student list, student’s achievements, and scheme of work. To plan a lesson teachers have to open up the page to the corresponding date of the lesson, write down their plan for the lesson and any important notes or key points, and reminders. On the lesson day, they flick to the page they have written the plan down and execute it in a chronological order whilst considering any reminders and/or notes etc. When the lesson is over, they write down their Outcome of the lessons and if any of the student’s work were graded, it is noted down in the student’s achievement section. The outcome is used for evaluation and to check alongside the planning process. This overall system is used to plan lesson for 15 – 26 students, 20 periods (20 hours) in a week. The planning is usually done in school, in the teacher’s office or at the teacher’s form room or the room which the lesson is going to take place. However, sometimes the teachers carry their planner’s home to do the planning. Whilst in school it is awkward for the teacher to carry the planner around due to it size of (210 x 297 x 50mm).The planner also has other uses such as they are submitted to the “Knowledge and Human Development Authority” (KHDA) a government run organisation, to moderate the teaching styles in schools.The planner is showed to parent on parent teachers meeting to show to give an over view of the lessons taught to the parent’s children.

Environment:Dubai British School main campus is a building divided into 3 floors. On each floor, it has about 24 teaching classrooms. It does also contain 8 utility rooms. On the second floor, one of the utility room is a server room with an area of approximately of 6x3 meters. This is the main server room which controls the LAN in the school such as active directory, internet proxy and web server. The internet from this room is distributed across the school using 1GBPS Cable to area such as class room and ICT labs. The school internet bandwidth is 24mbps which is shared across the school. The school has one public ip address.

4 Shresth Bhatnagar

Problem IdentificationThe current system can be difficult to use in terms of the identification and searching of archived data and grades. And at this moment in time, the teacher’s daily planners are prone to general wear and tear, and are vulnerable to liquids that can cause permanent damage. Teachers have to flip back and forth to keep track of lessons and of different year groups. They have to keep a log of all the grades students get and categorise them according to year group, group and tests. This can, over time, become a very tedious task which is prone to lot of errors and wastes valuable lesson time.

A business case (reasons) for changeThe current system involves teachers having to go through their planner every time they want to cross check their planning. This leads to frustration according to some teachers (see appendix 1). Subject co-coordinator and key stage leaders would like to moderate uses of the planner. This is not efficient and feasible in the current system since to moderate, leaders will have to order in planners which are quite thick and heavy, cross referencing takes up a lot of time while flipping through the pages. I have proposed a website which will digitalize the teacher planner.

Due to the nature of dynamic content, organizing, creating, viewing will be done with ease. A website will allow access from almost any digital device which has access to the Internet with a web browser to remotely access to planners form anywhere. Since the system will be developed centralized, regular backups will be taken and therefore prevent loss of work in an disastrous event .After it has been developed, additional widgets and options can easily be added for enhanced collaboration within the school community such as integration with Google calendar to synchronize school events with the teacher’s planning.Other inherent benefits include:

Environmental Friendly systemo It’s a green solution since no paper is used. The use of toxic, bio hazardous material such as

tonner from printers will be eliminated. A simple calculation shows that since there are 100 teaching staff in this school and each planner consists of 400 pages, this will eliminate the need to print 40000 pages each year.

Becoming a more technology driven organization.o Replacing traditional paper pencil by technology, this help the planning process become

faster easier and more efficient. Planner Sharing can enable staff monitoring and evaluating. Helpful when inspectors from

organisations such as the KHDA (Knowledge and Humanitarian Development authority) want to see teacher planning

o A read only access can be given to such organisation so that they can access the planners

faster and more easily instead of having to collect 10 planners to moderate since this would not be feasible as it would be half a meter when stacked and heavy to carry around.

o This is also good for the school since the sharing of planner can be done internally also to

moderate staff

5 Shresth Bhatnagar

Identification of client and usersClient: The Client for this project is Mr.Mark Wood, the Primary ICT Coordinator and Secondary ICT teacher. He has been working for DBS since 2010User: Users will be the system audience also. The users of this system are the teaching faculty of Dubai British School. They will be using the system to plan their lessons, take down notes and write reminders some of the users:

Throughout this project, these users will be the ones I investigate. They will also be the one who will test my system during the user testing stage.

Mr.Wright: Director of Sport and Activities and PE TeacherMr.Wright’s background:Mick has spent the last nine years in the teaching profession, specialising in Physical Education. Upon graduating from Liverpool John Moores University in 2001, with a BA Hons in Secondary Physical Education with Qualified Teacher Status, Mick became Assistant Head of Department at Calderstone's School in Liverpool, where he worked for five years. Mick joined Dubai British School as a Physical Education teacher in August 2006. In August 2007 he was appointed Subject Leader for Physical Education and has gone on to become Head of Faculty.

Since Mr.Wright has P.E teachers working under him, he will be an audience in a sense that he will have read only access to their planners so he can moderate their work. Since he himself is also a P.E teacher he will be a user of the system since he will be able to plan lessons

Mr Gillett: Science Teacher and Year 9 TutorBackground:Gillett had several management positions before recently making the decision to move into teaching. Graduating from The University of Hull with a BSc Chemistry (Hons), he went straight from there on to Durham University to complete his teaching training, working in some of the most challenging schools in Stockton-on-Tees. Upon returning to his home county of Lincolnshire, Tim took a post at Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School, Horncastle, the area’s top school, before coming to DBS. Outside of academia he competed in Ballroom and Latin dancing for Durham University and enjoys all outdoor pursuits from Rock Climbing to Wild Camping having a ‘try everything once’ attitude.

Mrs Kelly: Head of 6th form and TeacherBackground:

Kelly graduated from the University of Sheffield in 2003 with a BA Honours Degree in Modern History and trained as a teacher in her home town of Liverpool. She then moved to London to pursue her teaching career. During her time in London Kelly worked in a large, successful, state school teaching History. As well as her teaching duties Kelly also took on a number of different roles within the school system such as Gifted and Talented Coordinator and Head of the PSHE and RE departments. Kelly is also the Head of Sixth Form at DBS.Since Mrs.Kelly teachers working under her, she will be an audience in a sense that she will also have read only access to their planners so she can moderate their work. Since she herself is also a History teacher she will be a user of the system since she will be able to plan lessons

Mr Damien: Director of Educational Technology and teacherBackground:Graduating in 1992 with a Bachelor of Applied Science from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Damien taught secondary Science, Physical Education and Outdoor Education for the next 4 years in a small country town in the south of Australia. In 1997 Damien decided to travel the world for one year; however he enjoyed England so much that he stayed there for eight years. Teaching Science and ICT, Damien ended up Head of ICT in The Heathland School London for five years, as well as managing school reports and SIMs. Now residing in Dubai, Damien first taught at The School of Research Science for almost 2 years and since 2006 at Dubai British School as PE, ICT and Science teacher, along with managing the school information management system.

6 Shresth Bhatnagar

Audience:Faculty leaders: They will be monitoring the digital planner’s usage by the teachers but will not have access to edit and modify planning’s.Parents/Guardians: These people will have access to the planning done by their child’s teacher. They will only be able to access planner if the teacher grants them a guest account.External organisation: Organisation such as the KHDA will use the digital planner to moderate the teaching in this school

Others:Principal: Mr Ford has the say in almost every decision that takes place in this school. He is also responsible for every department in this school. He takes strategic decisions regarding the school as a wholeManagement: Talleem. This is the management who owns the school and several others. They takes strategic decisions regarding the company as a whole

Mr Ford and Talleem will have an overall say in the implementation of the system. They will assess the effectiveness, the benefits, the disadvantages and other operational factors.

7 Shresth Bhatnagar

Evidence of the use of relevant investigation techniquesInvestigation 1I am now at a point where I need to conduct further research into who requires this system and why. I need to hear from the teachers, I need to know what they want and how I can support them. I am going to create an online questionnaire using Google docs and send it to all the teachers in the school to find out:

How frequently will teacher write down lessons to plan? How often do teacher use their lesson planner that is issued by the school How frequently will teacher write down the outcome of a planned lesson? How frequently will teachers note down student's grades or progress? How frequently will teachers access the 'Digital Planner' out of school via the web? Will teachers evaluate themselves by comparing your 'lesson plan' with themselves 'lessons outcome’ Will teachers evaluate themselves by comparing themselves 'lesson plan' vs. 'lessons outcome’ If teachers have a smart phone, would teachers like to have a mobile version of the 'Digital Planner'?

Here is the questionnaire and the responses to the questionnaire: scale 1 – 5 where 1 being not frequently and 5 being Very frequently

How frequently will

you write down lessons

to plan?

How often do you use your lesson planner that is issued

by the school

How frequently will you write

down the outcome of a

planned lesson?

How frequently will you note

down student's grades or progress?

How frequently will you access the 'Digital

Planner' out of school via the web?

Will you evaluate yourself by comparing your 'lesson plan' with

your 'lessons outcome'

If you have a smart phone, would you

like to have a mobile version of the 'Digital

Planner'?

Will you be comfortable if someone can access your

planning possibly a subject Head teachers

1 I barley use it 1 1 1 Maybe Yes Yes5 I barely use it 1 5 5 Yes Yes Yes

4 I barely use it 2 5 5 MaybeI don’t have a smart phone Yes

3 I use it to plan every week 4 4 4 Yes Yes No5 I barely use it 3 2 2 No Yes No

5I use it to plan each and every lesson 5 5 4 Yes No Yes

3 I barely use it 1 5 5 Maybe Yes Yes

4 I use it to plan every week 2 1 2 No Yes No

3 I use it to plan for a month 2 4 5 Yes Yes Yes

5I use it to plan each and every lesson 1 3 1 No No No

5I use it to plan each and every lesson 4 5 1 Yes

I don’t have a smart phone No

5 I barely use it 4 4 5 Yes No Yes1 I barely use it 4 4 4 Maybe Yes Yes

3 I use it to plan every week 4 4 3 YesI don’t have a smart phone Yes

5 I use it to plan every week 4 4 2 YesI don’t have a smart phone Yes

8

Screenshots of the actual questionnaire in a web browser:

9

10 Shresth Bhatnagar

Here is what I can conclude from the questionnaire results

Most teachers use their planner issued by the school frequently however a minority don’t. The teachers who do use the school planner responded positively by suggesting that they will use the digital planner. Teachers who don’t use the school planner also suggested that they would use the school planner.

Quite a few teachers said that they would use the planner, out of school by accessing it through the Internet and also said that they would use their smart phone to access it. This means the frequency of use would be quite high.

The questionnaire was sent out to several teachers since this means of research was better than other methods such as interviews because:

Data can be gathered from a larger audience Short responses encourage accurate answers if not precise Data can be visually represented by means of graphs and charts

This was useful to understand what features are needed and which ones will be used more. This way the audiences get what they expect and allow them to use the system efficiently.

Investigation 2 – Document Analysis

Now at this point I need to investigate the current system. I have decided to do document analysis.I have asked a few teachers to let me have a look their planner.

The reason I’ve have done this is so that I can see the data input into the system. Its information and procedures.

On the next page are the scans of the teacher planners.


Here are the scans of a teacher’s planner:

12

The analysis from the planner shows that there are mainly 2 section in the planner:

1. The planning section where the teacher plans the lessons. This area is also used for taking down note which relate to the planning of that lesson. It is also used for taking down reminders and other notices.

2. The student assessment section is used for recording the student’s grades and assessments marks.

It seems that the planner section is being used a lot and the assessment section is being barley used. A reason for this is stated by Mr Wood is that a digital spread sheet is more feasible because it allows you to enter formulas, edit data, Have practically unlimited number of entries and fields.

Investigation 3Mr Wood and I had a meeting this was to discuss how the website will be hosted and what are his requirements. We came to a conclusion that the website will be hosted internally on a spare computer temporarily during its alpha stages. After the final project build, if approved by Mr.Wood, I will transfer it to an external hosting company. Transcripts are on the next page.Interview was best means of obtaining the client requirement due to several Reasons:

1. Important and relevant information is obtained quickly2. Ability to explorer and express opinions and suggestions3. Big area of topic covered4. Discussion can take place (helps point out potential problems)

Regarding the requirements, the requirement are stated after the transcripts on the next page

16

Below is the Transcript of the interview between me and Mr.Wood

[Mr.Wood]: I would like to be able to see and enter a plan for each lesson and evaluation of all previous lessons

[ Shresth ]:Ok so you’d like to see what you have planned for the current lesson and past lessons

[Mr.Wood]: Yes that’s right

...

[Mr.Wood]: The fact I can plan it on a computer would enable me to digitise my work, I also need to be able to access it securely that’s the key thing as well.

[ Shresth ]:OK just to sum up everything, you would want to plan for the future lesson, you would want to plan for the current lessons and you would like to see what you had planned for the previous lessons

[Mr.Wood]: Yes that’s absolutely right

[ Shresth ]:Ok and you said you wanted it to be secure

[Mr.Wood]: Yes I definitely want it to be secure, since it’s going to have multiple users, it’s going to have multiple accounts which they can login to and see their lessons as well. So by it being secure one person can dip into another’s.

[ Shresth ]:Ok so you want it to be secure, have the ability to be used by multiple users, and have multiple planners.

[Mr.Wood]: Ok this is the core elements of the requirements for now. The other thing I would like to be able to do in it is to have some sort of assessment in it for the class list.

[ Shresth ]:How about I deliver it to you in phases where the first phase is going to be the core elements, the second phase would be the class list assessment

[Mr.Wood]: Yes that is a good idea.Ok now I’m going to tell you the requirements for the second bit (assessment). It would be ideal if I were able to enter my own class list for that class.

<Explanations according to diagram> (see appendix 3)

<Be able to edit lessons>

<Be able to enter lesson plan>

<Enter lesson date>

...

[Mr.Wood]: On the login screen, when it should say welcome and the teachers name. The teacher should be presented with a list of class they teach

[ Shresth ]:But what if you are teaching more than one class, how about you are presented with planners instead which relate to different classes so u can have same class but 2 different subjects.

[Mr.Wood]: Yes that would a brilliant idea,

....

[Mr.Wood]: on the user registration page, users are asked their username, password, email, first name, last name and when the user hits a registration button, it checks if the user is using an official school email address to prevent other people from registering on the website

[ Shresth ]:Ok


[Mr.Wood]: Then a create new planner wizard is displayed, the prompts would be the subject, grade and then class.

Yeah and the name of the planner can be automatically generated.

[Mr.Wood]: Yes brilliant. When the user is entering their class, have a little text which tells them what sort of format the class should be such as "e.g. 13D"

.....

[Mr.Wood]: When the planner is created it will take you to that planner and it will have just a blank page, with nothing in it. Users will have to enter the students list

.....

[Mr.Wood]: How about adding a system where I can share my planning with other people?

[ Shresth ]:Yes so how would you want that to work?

[Mr.Wood]: Well...

[ Shresth ]:How about each user’s account has a sort of a guest account or allies if you prefer which can be given out. This will have only reading permission and not writing.

[Mr.Wood]: yes that’s it!

....

[ Shresth ]:What about help and support, I would suggest that there should be some video tutorials

[Mr.Wood]: Yes that was going to be my next requirement; I would like video of help and support on how to get started from registering an account, creating a planner to added students and their test grades

…

[ Shresth ]:Anything else you would like sir?

[Mr.Wood]: No that’s it, however how would we host it?

[ Shresth ]:Well if I were you I would purchase a domain name and a hosting service, which you would authorise me to access and I can host it on there

[Mr.Wood]: Ahh now you see that would be a problem because the school won’t give me the fund instantly, it’s a lengthy process. Can we host it on our intranet?

[ Shresth ]:Yes that is possible provided if I can have access to a server.

[Mr.Wood]: There is a spare computer we have which we can use as an internal server. I’ll make sure it’s set up so that you can use it. When you’re done with the project, we can host it internally to test it, sort of like a closed beta or during its alpha stages. Later hopefully after 3 month when u have developed the planner fully, we can shift it to an external hosting if it is all working.

[ Shresth ]:Ok that is fine with me.

…

Conclusion:

This meeting has been very helpful to me since before I had assumed a lot of requirements that the client needed. After this meeting, those assumptions have been clarified. This will enable me to write a quality, full list of the client requirement so I can deliver exactly what the client has asked for.


Requirements of the clientAfter the meeting I have deduced the following client requirements. I am going build this project based on these requirements and use this list for the testing and evaluation of the project.

1. The users should be able to view lesson plans for each class that they teacha. They should be able to view the current lesson plan for each classb. They should be able to view the future lesson plan

2. The users should be able to enter lesson plansa. They should be asked the date for the plan they are going to enter b. They should be ask for the planning of the lesson

3. The user should be able to view lesson plan assessment4. The planner should support planning for multiple users5. The planner should be accessible by authorising users6. The planner should have a class assessment feature7. - the assessment feature should allow users to enter students name8. - the assessment feature should allow users to attach assessment to them9. - the assessment feature should allow users to able to add Grades to Assessment

(According to diagram in appendix 2)10. The lesson planner should be on the left hand side of the website page11. The Students Assessment should be on the right hand side of the website page12. Both the planner and Assessment has to resemble the drawings

(End according to diagram in appendix 2)

13. Users should be able to attach more than 1 planner to their account14. Users should be able to set an allies guest account for guest viewing so that the planned could be

shared by faculty leaders and external organizations such as the KHDA.15. When users are registered they should be asked their:

a. usernameb. passwordc. email

16. When the user hits a registration button, it should check if the user is using an official school email address

17. The planner name is automatically generated according to subject and class they teach18. When the user enters their class, it has to be restricted to a format of year/grade-class and an

example should be show of what it should look like19. The user will be able to enter their students list and assessment20. Help and support in the form of video need to be created to help the user getting started on their

new planner.21. The planner has to be hosted on an internal webserver during alpha stages22. The whole solution should be developed within three month23. A User Documentation has to be delivered along with the system describing how to install the

system, configure it and use it.


Analysis and Deliverables

Statement of scope

After all the research I have gathered from meeting with the client and the end users of the proposed system, It is clear that there is a substantial problem that needs resolving. Turning the teacher planner digital is a huge task and if each element within the planner were to be required e.g.(the calendar, to do list, contact list, noted, web links etc. then I believe this project might be too large for me. However, I have been asked to provide a solution purely for the lesson planning and assessment elements of the planner. Therefore this is what I intend to provide a solution for. A shared secure system that allows teachers digitally manage their lesson planning and assessment. I will now look at all the internal and external constraints of the proposed system.

Internet access is required to/ use the systemsince the system is going to be built as a website, Staff will require internet website. Dubai British School has poor web infrastructure. It lacks wireless access points. The only way a member of staff can connect to the internet is via an Ethernet cable provided in each room in the school. Outside, school staff will have to rely on their own internet connection such as 3G. This could lead to several problems such as, if the school experience problems with their internet, it will affect the entire school’s teaching staff since they won’t know what they have planned for their lesson. They can miss out on important dates or reminders which could lead to a big disruption. Also since only internet via Ethernet cables is available only laptop can be used to access the digital planner. Teachers don’t carry their laptop around regularly and portable devices such as smart phones can’t be used also however external connections such as 3G can be possible. This can lead to frustration and unnecessary effort to access the planner

Hostingthe school’s management is sceptical about the project being a success and so are reluctant to buy a hosting package with a domain, and the legal process of purchasing a domain is very tedious. Therefore me and Mr Mark Wood (my client) have decided to set up a server on a local machine. This way it is cheaper and the management doesn’t have a problem. Setting up a webserver in school solves the problem for 2 other website base projects since they will be also hosted on the internal webserver. However this server doesn’t have a public/external IP address so testing and uploading new builds of the website is not possible using whilst outside the school’s network.School will need to allow external access into their network

Access mediumsDubai British School has 270 desktops pc that are made up from 4 manufacturers: Dell , Acer , Lenovo and HPIt also has 91 laptops that are given to all the teachers in this school. Majority of the make is Lenovo.

According to the survey I carried out (appendix 1), 3 out of 5 teachers have smart phone which can browse the internet.

Laptops and desktops hardware specification Majority are core i5 and/or core 2 due 2.3 GHz

2 – 3 Gb ram

1336x768 screen resolution

Mobile phones Average of 900mhz processor speed with 512 mb ram


All these hardware are capable of visiting the lesson planer on the extranet and therefore I don’t see any potential problems associated with it.

Hosting MachineThe server I have chosen is one of the latest desktops the school has purchased. It has a i5 processor with 2gb ram and 500gb hard disk memory.This desktop will act as a server. The requirement of running a webserver, MySQL database server and ftp server should be able to run smoothly. I have run the server with all the applications for 2 weeks nonstop and there seem no signs of hardware overheating, slow performance or anything in such nature. (See figure 1a & b)

Figure 1a: MySQL Server status

Figure 1b: Over all Server status

Overall I am satisfied with hosting the web application on a this server with the given configuration

Software:

The only software required to use this web applications is a simple web browser. It is required to support JavaScript & CSS styling. However most modern browser have these capabilities and so should not be a problem. What a potential problem might be is the different rendering engine of each individual browser. Since according to w3c statistic (see figure 2) the majority of the browsers used are Internet explorer, Firefox and Google Chrome, therefore I need to use the best practices when designing the website aesthetics to ensure cross browser compatibility.


Figure 2: Browser Statistics for year 2011

Software that may be needed to maintain, modify and edit the website:

Visual Web Developer Expresso This software is Integrated Development Environment software. This software is provide an

user friendly interface to edit almost every aspect of the website possible. Some of these are: CSS Styling, html, visual basic, SQL. It also provides easy functionality to do command tasks such as compiling a website and publishing it via ftp.

FTP server cliento An FTP server client will be required to access the webserver for minute changes. Although

this can be done via Visual Web Developer, an standalone ftp client can be more efficient when doing such minute changes such as adding new link to external websites.

Windows Remote Desktop Connectiono This can be needed to access the server remotely if any changes to the configuration or

installations or web server is to be made Team Viewer

This is virtual VPN software, this also allows you to connect to the webserver remotely. The only difference is you can connect to it remotely outside the school’s network since the webserver doesn’t have a public IP address during it beta stages.

StaffingThe website will be run on an individual level where a user can see only his/her work posted by them. The website will not need any extensive maintenance, minor changes might be needed which can be edited in the website configuration file. My client Mr Wood shall be the person who will be maintaining the website. Mr Wood will not need any expert skill to maintain the system. Only 30 minutes of training which I will provide should be sufficient enough to handle the web application

Trainingusers of the system i.e. the teachers of Dubai British School will need some basic kick start on how to use the digital planner. I will be creating a video demonstrating how to perform basic tasks on the website. I will also display my email on the website in case any query regarding the system arises.

SecuritySince this web Application will hold sensitive data such as student’s grades security is essential.During the beta stages whilst the Web Application is being hosted on the internal webserver. The web server will be kept in the main server room in the school. This room has password locked door and had


restricted access. Only the schools IT manager and assistant are allowed into the room. Later on after the Web Application is hosted on a public server, I will have to find a host which guaranties essential security.

BackupI will be keeping an archived copy of the web application in 3 places.

1. On the webserver its self2. On a cloud storage3. With me on a Hard Drive

Data which has been generated by teachers at the school will also have to be backed up. This will be done by running a SQL script specifically writes for taking backups. I will run it every 1 hour from 8 o’clock to 3 o’clock (back will run after every lesson completes). The SQL script will extract the data and store it in ONE file which will be then archived and stored on the schools backup system.

All this backup of data and the web Application its self should ensure proper functionality in a short pace of time if any unforeseen even occurs such as system crash etc.

Description of the proposed systemI had a face to face meeting with Mr Wood about how he would want the system to function, how the UI was to be laid out. How the user would interact with the system. We also discussed how he wanted it to be integrated with Google calendar to list school events. Aesthetics was also discussed but his first priority was the functionality therefore I shall be concentrating on functionality more than aesthetics.

Description of deliverablesthe new system will be created which will provide teachers with a useful and efficient tool for planning their lessons. Data will be entered by teachers on the website about their lesson planning times notes etc. This will be then stored and displayed appropriately in a calendar.

HomepageThe homepage will have a login panel for teachers to login using their credentials. The login panel will be centre aligned both vertically and horizontally on the screen. After a member if staff logs in, he/she will be redirected to the planner list where they can then select a planner to view the content. The home page will also have a low height footer (about 10px) which will contain important links such as

Register Contact Help topic How to Frequently Asked Questions

This should give the users a centralised access to different areas in the website. Thus make the website more user-friendly

Main planning page

The main planning page will consist of mainly two components of a planner.

Planning sectiono This section will be on the left hand side of the planner. It will be divided in 3 sections (past

planning, Today’s Planning and Future planning) the planning will be organised and displayed in the relevant section.

Students’ progress sectiono This section will consist of a spread sheet style layout which will contain all the list of student

in a class which the planner is assigned to. The purpose of this section is to help teachers in recording results of student in test, exams, assignment etc.


This page will provide an easy to use interface to make planning lessons and recording them easier compare to flipping through 100s of pages back and forth which was an issue according to an investigation carried out previously

Register pagehere teachers can register an account to access the planner. Only emails ending with @dubaibritishschool.ae can be used. This will ensure only DBS staff can register and can register only one account.

The registration page will ask for the following details form the teachers: (in brackets are the validation methods)

First name (required field validator) Last name (required field validator) Type of school [primary/secondary] (required field validator) Email (Double data entry) (required field validator) Desired username (required field validator) Desired Password (Double data entry) (required field validator)

After a teacher has registered they will receive an email which will contain an activation email which when clicked, it will activate their account.

These fields will be validated by using a “required field criteria”.The Email will be validated by checking for a “@” The password will be required to be enter twice to verify the password.

Login pageThis will be a simple form which requires the teachers to enter their username and password. When they login they will be redirected to the ‘Main planning page’

During the logging the system will carry out the following steps.

Help pageThis page will contain help articles which will be made by me. The page will be divided into two sections. Left hand side will list the contents and the right hand side will display the help content. The content will be mostly text.

Frequently Asked QuestionThis page will contain FAQ which I think will be asked. At a later stage I will update this page depending on the emails I get regarding the system

Other Functions

The teachers can link their Google account to the system so any lessons added updated, etc., will be updated in the Google calendar app. Vice versa.

The teachers can access the website form a mobile phone. The system will detect if the client browser is a mobile phone and will render the webpage accordingly to provide an easy to use interface.

The website will use authorization so teachers can access only their planner


Subject heads/subject leader will be able to access their subject teacher’s planner.

Frequent backups will be taken after every lesson finishes and will be stored on the schools storage server.

In case of a failure, teachers will be notified and will be sent a copy of their planned lesson which will be extracted from the database using a backup site.

There “other functions” weren’t stated by the client explicitly however it was vaguely implied and I felt the need for such features on the web application


Benefits and impacts on the organisationBenefits: This system will solve a lot of problems the teachers are having when planning their lessons. Currently it seems as formality that teachers have to be given a planner to use to plan their lessons but in reality the planner is difficult to use since it wastes a lot of time and is not as efficient as it should be. This system will help

Reduce time for teachers to write down a plano Teachers don’t have to waste time flicking to the planning section for a particular day.

Instead he/she can rather just select a date form the web interface Reduce time searching for a plan

o Teachers will again no longer have to search for a particular plan from hundreds of pages.

The plan will be on the planning webpage Reduces time for editing planning

o Paper based plans are difficult to edit and append to. A digital planner make this easier since

data can be changed easily Reduce time for recording students assessments

o This new system allows teachers to enter student assessment data on the spot unlike the

paper based planning system where teachers have to flick to the appropriate assessment section

Better Moderation by the faculty leaders and or Subject headso Faculty leaders and or Subject heads can access the subject teachers planner to see how

the lessons are progressing. This can be useful in countless scenarios such as warning newly recruited teachers if they are going off course, suggesting teachers new approaches. On the other hand, praise teachers for their planning and recognise their efforts

Backup of planningo Due to the nature of digital data, backing it up is very easy. This lowers the chances of any

mishaps which paper based planning system is more prone to such as spilling drinks on the planner etc. and then not being able to recover the original work in the same condition

Portabilityo Since the planner is going to be stored on the internet, it can be accessed form almost any

device anywhere. This allows more accessibility which was not possible with the paper based planner due to its large size and weight.

Impact on the organisation Teachers will now have to discard their old paper based planner and use the Digital planners since

it will no longer be needed Teachers will have to learn to use the new system, so training well be provided as well as time

allocated for training IT department needs to buy web hosting service package to host the Digital Planner Dubai British Schools needs to supply guest username and password to parents and subject

leaders for viewing planners Increased load on the network

o Possibly resulting in the school having to increase its internet bandwidth.

Reliability on the technology and the servero Possibly more responsibly on the technical team since they have to manage the server

which I will host the beta version if the web application Staff reaction to change

o Teachers might still prefer to use the hard copy paper based system

Porting data from the papers based system might be a hassle since the only way is to rewrite the planning in the paper based system

multiple planning methods might be confusing to teacher special newly recruited teachers


Documentation of processes

Input, Processes and OutPutIn this section I will be looking at the outputs required from the system and then establishing the required input and the processing that needs to take place in order to achieve those outputs. The table below shows how this will work.

Inputs Processes Output

Login Page – Login Function

Username entered in textbox Password Entered in textbox Go button click

Login Function

Data posted to server Server connects to MySQL Database Username and password is match to

corresponding row If math found, check if user is activated[1]

If activated user is authenticated[2] elseauthentication fails[3]

[1]message is displayed saying user is not activated

[2]if authenticated, user is redirected to main planning page

[3]If authentication fails, exception is thrown stating “username or password is not valid”

Registration page – Register Function

Username entered in textbox Password entered in textbox Email address entered in textbox First name entered in textbox Last name entered in textbox Type of school entered in textbox

Register Function

Data is posted to the server Email is check if it is a dubaibritishschool.ae

email. [1] Email is check in the database to see if it has

been registered or not [2] User is registered by entering their details in

the database using SQL including their GUID

[1]Exception is thrown stating user is not eligible to register using the current email

[2]Exception is thrown stating user is already registered

[3]Email is sent with activation link with users guid in the query string and message is displayed stating user is now registered

Registration page – activation function

The registration page is visited with the GUID(Globally unique identifier) in the URL

activation function

GUID is extracted form URL and compared with row matching the GUID.

If match found, user is then activated

activation function

user is sent a message stating he/she is now activated

user is the redirect

Contact US – Send message function

Anonymous enters their first name and last

Send message function

Server checks if any fields are blank[1]

Send message function

[1]error is displayed telling the users to fill In the

27

name, email and massage They hit the submit button

Server stores message in database using SQL

Server generate email message

missing fields

I and My client; Mr.Wood are emailed the message

Frequently asked questions page

Users visits page


Databases is queried using SQL for all the FAQ inserted


Question list is displayed

Main Planner page

User requests the webpage from the server by visiting it

User then selects the subject and year grade

Main Planner page

Checks if user is authenticated [1] Queries database for planned lesson written by

the user for the selected year grade and subject

Server list planned lessons, and lessons out come if any and post them back to the client.

Main Planner page

Lesson planned displayed

Main Planner page – add lesson Function

User type lesson info; title, plan, date, time, additional notes

User then hits submit button to post information

add lesson Function

Server does Validation and verification to check

If data was inserted If Time entered was in the future

Server grabs data and processes it to store it database.

add lesson Function

page is refreshed to display the newly added planned information


Main Planner page – delete lesson Function

User selects lesson plan from list of lesson plans

User clicks on delete button

delete lesson Function

Server gets lesson plan id from a hidden field Server uses that ID by inserting it into a SQL

delete statement Server execute the delete statement

delete lesson Function

Lesson plan is deleted in the list

Confirmation message is displayed that the lesson is deleted

Main Planner page – edit lesson Function

User selects lesson plan from list of lesson plans

User clicks on edit button

edit lesson Function

Server gets lesson plan id from a hidden field Server uses that ID and changes by inserting it

into a SQL update statement Server execute the update statement

edit lesson Function

Lesson plan is updated in the list

Confirmation message is displayed that the lesson is updated

Main Planner page – add lesson outcome Function



add lesson outcome Function





The lesson outcome is displayed


Main Planner page – delete lesson outcome Function

User selects lesson outcome plan from list of lesson outcomes

User clicks on delete button

delete lesson outcome Function

Server gets lesson plan id from a hidden field Server uses that ID by inserting it into a SQL

delete statement Server execute the

delete lesson outcome Function

Lesson outcome is deleted in the list

Confirmation message is displayed that the lesson outcome is deleted

Main Planner page – edit lesson outcome Function

User selects lesson outcome from list of lesson plans

User clicks on edit button

edit lesson outcome Function

Server gets lesson plan id from a hidden field Server uses that ID and changes by inserting it

into a SQL update statement Server execute the update statement

edit lesson outcome Function

Lesson outcome is updated in the list

Confirmation message is displayed that the lesson is updated


Process Flow DiagramThis diagram illustrates the process that is involved when a signs in and access a restricted resource

31

Entity Relational DiagramThis Diagrams illustrates relations between the entities in the database for the Digital Planner

32

Signoff SheetI have showed this inputs and outputs to Mr Wood to check if he is satisfied with it. I have written a signoff sheet for him to sign if he is happy with it

I Mr Wood agree that the outputs of the system stated are meeting my requirements. There is no requirement that needs to be added or delete or modified in any form.

Signature ____________ Date __/__/____

Mr Wood didn’t agree that all of the outputs met his requirement. He referred to the “Main Planner page – Add lesson outcome Function” output.He said that he wanted a confirmation message to display that the lesson has been Added. This is so that the user doesn’t add the lesson two time which they might do whilst the database is updating with their first lesson plan. “Main Planner page – add lesson outcome Function” is now changed to:

Main Planner page – add lesson outcome Function








The lesson outcome is displayed with a confirmation message.

I have asked Mr Wood to sign of the sheet with the changes he wanted. Below is the signed, signoff sheet

I Mr Wood agree that the outputs of the system stated are meeting my requirements. There is no requirement that needs to be added or delete or modified in any form.

Signature ____________ Date __/__/____

33

Description of the users of the proposed systemI have designed a questionnaire for my users at Dubai British School. Since my users are my audiences, they are in a large number and therefore have randomly selected 6 users from a list of 100 teachers. However I have made sure that 2 teachers are teaching foundation school. 2 teachers are teaching primary school and 2 teachers are teaching Secondary school. This way I can get an overall average picture of the average use skills required to use the system. Below is the following questionnaires which were given to the teacher. The results were also recorded

SECTION 1:

Questions Teacher 1 Teacher 2 Teacher 3 Teacher 4 Teacher 5 Teacher 6

Do you have an account online

✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Do you have an email account

✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

What would a good password be made up off Password with more

than 5 characters

Password which contains numbers

and letter

Password which contain a mixed

case letters, number and

alphanumeric characters

Anything which doesn’t have a

meaning

Nothing related to you

Long password and something random

which is meaningless

Do you tend to forget information easily such as username and password

x x x x ✔ x

34

SECTION 2:By looking at the above screenshot of a webpage from an email service provider (Gmail), would you be able to register an account?

Teacher 1 Teacher 2 Teacher 3 Teacher 4 Teacher 5 Teacher 6

✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔


SECTION 3: By looking at the above screenshot, is it intuitive enough to guide you to…


be able to login ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Know where to go if you forgot your password?

✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Keep yourself signed in

✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Be able to go to registration page ✔ x x x x ✔


SECTION 4

By looking at the above screenshot would you know how to… (Screenshot of a non-functional draft design of the Digital Planner)


Create a new planner ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Edit a planner ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Delete a planner x x x x x x

Open a planner? ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Logout of your account x x x x x x


SECTION 5: By looking at the above screenshot, would you know how to… (Screenshot of a non-functional draft design of the Digital Planner)


Create a new plan ✔ x ✔ ✔ ✔ x

Delete a plan ✔ x x x x

Edit a plan ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Edit student assessment SpreadSheet

✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Save students assessment SpreadSheet

✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔


User’s Skills Conclusion

Section 1o In this section if found out that all the teachers have an account registered online. With an

exception of two teachers, all the other teachers knew that a good password is made up of a minimum 5 – 8 alpha-numeric characters and non-alphanumeric characters. Only one teacher stated that he tends to forget his username and password.

o This Information was necessary because teachers will have to register an account with the

Digital planner. From the data I have concluded the there is no need to providing teachers with the information on what a good password is made up of. However I need to provide a feature which will allow teachers to recover lost passwords

Section 2o Section 2 assessed the users’ skill in filling out an online form. All the teachers have

responded by saying that they would be able to fill out an online form which look similar to the form in the picture

o This was necessary because if the teachers were comfortable with filling out an account

registration form, then I would have to provide some sort of assistance when each field is being filled out.

Section 3o This section assessed the user’s skills to perform basic online account task such as the

ones asked in the questionnaires. Most teachers said that they would be able to login, keep themselves signed in, know where to go to recover a lost password, and go to the registration page.

o The skills assessing the questionnaires will be applied to the Digital Planner when the

teachers will have to login with their account after registering Section 4

o Section 4 tested some of the teacher’s skill on a custom interface. The interface presented

to them was part of the Digital planner. Here the teachers were more than comfortable in answering the questions they were presented. However 0 out the 6 sample knew how to log of their account by closing the web browser. Some had an idea how to delete a planner. This indicated that there now needs to be a logout link to logout the user.

o This section was useful since the users skills were applied to the interface design of the

actual system. It shows that the teachers can create, delete, edit and open planners. Section 5

o Section 5 also tested the teachers’ skills on a custom interface. The interface was again part

of the digital planner. Here none of the teachers had any problems in answering any of the questions.

o This conclude section 5 positively since it the users passes the tests; creating deleting,

editing the plans, and opening and saving the student assessment sheet.

Over all I am satisfied by the user skill levels. Some minor adjustments are required but other than that, the system interface development can continue being assured the users have the basic skills the 5 questionnaires tested.

39

Evaluation CriteriaThe evaluation criteria have been colour coded using the following key:Qualitative: GreenQuantitative: Blue

Characters entered in the password field has to be censored

Registration

1. The registration form must be intuitive enough for the user to be able to fill out2. Validation: Email Format has to be right. This will be checked against a Regular Expression3. Verification: Password will be asked two times to make sure that the intended password was entered4. Validation: All fields are necessary and needs to be filled in5. Upon Registration, Password will be Hashed and salted to prevent account from being stolen if the

database is compromised6. Upon registration, an activation email will be sent to the user, in that it will contain a link which when

clicked, activates the account so the user can login. This is to prevent bot registering accounts.7. If username or email is taken, then error message is displayed describing the problem

Login

8. Validation: The username and password field are necessary9. Error message will be show if the username and password do not match10. Error message will be show if the user is not activated11. Error messages should be descriptive enough so that the users can easily deduce what the problem is12. When user logs in, the user is redirected the planner list page13. Login form is displayed on the home screen14. Authentication is going to be cookie based15. Anonymous users cannot access restricted content16. Existing users cannot access planners which do not belong to them

Planner

17. Users should be able to edit the planners18. Users should be able to delete the planners19. Links should be easily visible to the user20. Lessons plans are listed in chronological order21. Users should be able to edit lessons22. Users should be able to delete lessons23. Student assessment should be a spread sheet loaded into the webpage using 3rd party plugins24. The spread sheet should be saved on the local server


Agreed DeliverablesAfter investigating my client requirements, I thought it would be best to get Mr Wood to agree and sign off. I did this by an email stating the client requirement I deduced from the interview I had with him

Requirements confirmation message: the requirements were sent to Mr Mark wood. Below is the confirmation


Dear Mr. WoodFrom the meeting we had last week. I have deduced the following requirements from the conversation we had. Can you please confirm if these are accurate.

1. The users should be able to view lesson plans for each class that they teacha. They should be able to view the current lesson plan for each classb. They should be able to view the future lesson plan

2. The users should be able to enter lesson plansa. They should be asked the date for the plan they are going to enter b. They should be ask for the planning of the lesson

3. The user should be able to view lesson plan assessment4. The planner should support planning for multiple users5. The planner should be accessible by authorising users6. The planner should have a class assessment feature7. - the assessment feature should allow users to enter students name8. - the assessment feature should allow users to attach assessment to them9. - the assessment feature should allow users to able to add Grades to Assessment10. The lesson planner should be on the left hand side of the website page11. The Students Assessment should be on the right hand side of the website page12. Both the planner and Assessment has to resemble the drawings 13. Users should be able to attach more than 1 planner to their account14. Users should be able to set an allies guest account for guest viewing so that the planned could

be shared by faculty leaders and external organizations such as the KHDA.15. When users are registered they should be asked their:

a. usernameb. passwordc. email

16. When the user hits a registration button, it should check if the user is using an official school email address

17. The planner name is automatically generated according to subject and class they teach18. When the user enters their class, it has to be restricted to a format of year/grade-class and an

example should be show of what it should look like19. The user will be able to enter their students list and assessment20. Help and support in the form of video need to be created to help the user getting started on

their new planner.21. The planner has to be hosted on an internal webserver during alpha stages22. The whole solution should be developed within three month23. A User Documentation has to be delivered along with the system describing how to install the

system, configure it and use it.

Thanks,

Shresth Bhatnagar

Approval message:


Design and Planning for implementation

Evidence of investigating alternative design solutionsIn this section, I am going to investigate alternative solution to my project. I will be looking at 3 technologies; A website with a database backend, A local standalone database and a SpreadSheet. Below is a table which compares each solution against a client requirement.

Requirement

Website connected to remote database

(Using Asp.Net and MySQL) Local Database (Microsoft Access) SpreadSheet (Excel)

View Lesson plans Lesson can be displayed by querying the database and displaying the results on a webpage

A local database can be queried and displayed in a report generated or the raw format can be displayed in a table format

Data can be filtered according to planners to display only the necessary data

Enter Lesson plans Data captured from web form and inserted into database using SQL

Data captured from MS Access forms and inserted into database using SQL

Data will have to be manually inserted into the spread sheet on the next blank row

View lesson plan assessment Use SQL query to select lesson plans and filter it by class and order it in chronological order

Use SQL query to select lesson plans and filter it by class and order it in chronological order

A separate sheet will be used for each planner. This can be automated by a macro. A new sheet can be created for every new row inserted in the planner sheet

Support planning for multiple users

Authentication can be done to display data only for a specific user. This can be done by encrypting username & password in cookie which will be used to present data only for a specific user.

A local database can be used only with an external application such as a website and/or desktop application to support multiple users. This is beyond the scope of this alternative design solution

A database linked to an external user interface such as a website and/or a desktop application and used by many users will experience severe performance issue as quoted by Microsoft

However a database on its own

A SpreadSheet can be used simultaneously since when users save their SpreadSheet, their version will over write other version which could be edited by someone else.

43

cannot be used simultaneously.

Access the planner securely by authorising users

User can be asked to login, from a web form. Their username and password will be checked against the database. If valid an authentication cookie will be set in the browser. It will include the encrypted username.

This way the web application can know which data to send to the user.

It is not possible to set multiple passwords on the database.

It is not possible to authenticate users

Hence it is not possible to restrict content to unauthorized users. Therefore all the teachers can see other teachers planning

It is possible to authenticate users by setting username and password and locking sheets to specific account how ever since the macro can be viewed, it is possible to compromise the username and password sheet.

Class assessment

View the student assessment sheet

Each planner will have its own SpreadSheet for the student assessment. When the planner is loaded open, Google docs Api can be used to load the spread sheet into the browser

The user can simple open the table which contains the student assessment

The user can open the sheet which contains the student assessment

Enter students name User enters name in SpreadSheet and clicks save button to insert it into a SpreadSheet attached to the planner using Google docs Api

User enters name in the table directly User enters name in SpreadSheet and clicks save button

Attach assessment to them User enters assessment in textbox and clicks save button to insert it into a SpreadSheet attached to his planner using Google docs Api

User assessment in textbox and clicks save button to insert it into database

A relational database design will have to be used for it since there it should allow an infinite assessment entered

Users enters assessment directly in the SpreadSheet In an different sheet ,and then clicks the save button to save it

Add Grades to Assessment User enters name in SpreadSheet and clicks save button to insert it into a SpreadSheet attached to his planner using Google docs Api

User enters name in the assessment table

User enters name in SpreadSheet and clicks save button

According to diagram in appendix 4 section 1

The lesson planner should be HTML can be used to position the controls which will display the

This is not possible using a database unless using external applications such

ActiveX objects can be used to design an interface which will have the lesson


on the left hand side necessary controls to construct the planner interface

as desktop application or Microsoft access forms

planner on the left side

The Students Assessment should be on the right hand side

Going to use html to position the controls which will display the necessary controls to construct the Students Assessment interface

This is not possible using a database unless using external applications such as desktop application or Microsoft access forms

ActiveX objects can be used to design an interface which will have the students Assessment should be on the right hand side

The both planner and assessment has to resemble the drawings

Going to use html to position the controls which will display the necessary controls to construct the user interface



End according to diagram in appendix 4

Users should be able to attach more than 1 planner to their account

Users will be presented with create new planner wizard, this wizard can be accessed any number of times

The details will then be entered in to the database can be seen on the next page reload in the planner list

An external application such as a database form has to be used.

Users will be presented with create new planner wizard, this wizard can be accessed any number of times

The details will then be entered in to the database can be seen on the next page reload in the planner list

A macro can be used to present a wizard to the user. The details will be captured and then inserted in the planner sheet into a new blank row

Users should be able to set an allies guest account for guest viewing

User will be able to do this in a form presented and will have an interface such as a wizard

This is not possible since the database cannot support authentication

This can be done by protecting the sheet thus, preventing guest from editing it.

When users are registered they should be asked their

Note: Multiuser and authentication is not supported and therefore the registration methods below is not possible

Username User can enter this detail in a textbox, and when save button is clicked, it is inserted into database using SQL


User can enter this detail in a textbox, and when save button is clicked, it is inserted into database using SQL

A Form can be created and launched using macros. In this user can enter this detail in a textbox, and when save button is clicked, it is inserted into a username table


Password User can enter this detail in a textbox, and when save button is clicked, it is inserted into database using SQL




Email User can enter this detail in a textbox, and when save button is clicked, it is inserted into database using SQL




first name User can enter this detail in a textbox, and when save button is clicked, it is inserted into database using SQL




last name User can enter this detail in a textbox, and when save button is clicked, it is inserted into database using SQL




When the user hits a registration button, it check if the user is using an official school email address

Visual Basic Script will be used to check if the email address is part of the “dubaibritishschool” domain. If it is, the wizard will continue, If not then a notification will be displayed on the webpage


Visual Basic Script will be used to check if the email address is part of the “dubaibritishschool” domain. If not then a notification will be displayed on the a the form

Visual Basic Script will be used to check if the email address is part of the “dubaibritishschool” domain

When new user account is created, a new planner wizard can be started

When a user register, he/she is taken to the planner page where the create new planner wizard is launched

Multiuser support not feasible When a user register, he/she is taken to the planner page where the user can launch the planner wizard


The planner name is automatically generated according to subject and class they teach

This will be done using visual basic, it will be generated form the text the user enters in the “subject” and “class” textbox



When the user enters their class, it has to be restricted to a format of year/grade-class and an example should be shown of how it should look like

This will be done using visual basic; it will use a validator to check if the input format is correct.



When the planner is created it should have a blank page

Only the visual element (html) will be loaded

Only the visual element will be loaded of a blank table can be presented

A blank SpreadSheet will be displayed

Help and support in the form of video need to be created to help the user getting started on their new planner.

Flash video will be embedded into the webpage

Link will be provided to a video sharing website such as ‘YouTube’.

Link will be provided to a video sharing website such as ‘YouTube’.

The planner has to be hosted on an internal webserver during alpha stages

It will be installed on a server (windows server) and will be accessed by a local ip address or using a VPN software

It will be saved on a cloud computer such as dropbox or on a local shared drive

It will be saved on a cloud computer such as dropbox or on a local shared drive

After conducting this research I have concluded that opting for a website based solution is the best method to proceed with this project due to several reason, but mainly considering of feasibility, and accessibility. As we can see it’s not feasible to have multiple users use the same application and have a secured interface. And accessibly wise, it will have to be hosted on cloud storage. These will require users to register on these cloud storage before they can use the application. As stated earlier, therefore, a website is the most practical solution to this problem


Draft design work2 drafts design were proposed in line with the client requirement which consist of:

Draft Design 1:

48

Draft Design 2:Mr Wood generally liked the designs. However he was unhappy with few things. One of these was the homepage. Mr Wood doesn’t like that the users have to go to another page to register their account. He would like the registration form on the homepage itself. Second, on the planner page, Mr Wood didn’t like the way the data was displayed. He wanted some more formatting to be done to make it more visually appealing. I have amended the design to his liking and have added some more details. I am now going to propose these designs to Mr Wood again


Final design workAfter showing my second draft design. Mr Wood has given to approval to work over this as a template. He also wanted some more changes. One of this was the home page should include a picture of the system as a preview for new users. He wanted a colour scheme of orange and blue and wanted the student assessment to open in a new window instead of having it next to the planner. I am going to produce a detail design of the website on an image manipulation software and propose this to Mr Wood for the finally approval.


Homepage Final Design


Planner List Final Design1


Planner List 2 Final Design


Planning Page


After Showing the final Design to Mr Wood. He was satisfied for the Project development to continue based on the Final Designs. Below is a sign of sheet which shows Mr Wood’s Confirmation.

I Mr Wood agree that the proposed design of the solution is satisfactory. There is no element that needs to be added, delete or modified in any form or manner.

Signature ____________ Date __/__/____


Plan for implementation, testing and instalment including proposed time and scalesIn this section I am going to produce a development plan. This will break down the project into specific tasks. Each task is made sure that it covers the client requirement. These tasks will be assigned a development time and some extra time to allow any unexpected halt, problems, obstacles etc. This whole plan is designed to be completed less than three months as this is one the client requirement. (Requirement 23)

58

Training requirements for the new systemIn order for the system to be used to its full potential the clients and end users will have to be trained correctly by their means of video tutorials and through a bank of frequently asked questions.

Video Tutorial:This training material will be created for the user of the digital planner. The video will cover the following topics

Registering on the websiteo This video will be targeted to new users. It will guide them through the process of registering a

new account, what are the requirements such as a valid dubaibritishschool.ae email. Creating a new planner

o This will guide users into the process of creating a new planner, it will cover areas:

How to name a calendar Setting a class for it Defining the academic year Creating a guest account for it

Adding Students to the class listo This will show user how to add users to the class list

Add assessment for the class Update class list Remove pupils from class list Purge class list Update assessment grades for student

Adding a new lesson plano This will show users how to

Add new lessons plans and assign a date to it How to view planned lessons How to view previously planned lessons How to edit planned lessons

Frequently Asked QuestionsThis will be a bank of frequently asked question (FAQ). Initially this bank will be populated by questions I think users would want to ask. Later on as users use the system and give me their feedback. I will update the list periodically to ensure that all of the FAQ are covered. Below is the initial FAQ title I will be adding into the system

1. How do I register2. How do I login3. How do I create a new planner4. How do I modify an already existing planner5. How do I delete a planner6. How do I enter a lesson plan7. I entered the wrong date for a lesson plan, how do I change it8. How do I record my student assessments9. I entered my student assessment but it didn’t save, why is this?

60

Testing strategyThe purpose of the test strategy is to check whether the system works correctly and that there are no errors throughout the entire process. There are several different types of testing that I have to do to make sure that my system will work correctly for the intended users and audience. I will perform several tests on my system.

Modular Testing

Modular testing, this is an extremely important type of testing because it checks whether each part of the system work the way it does in detail. This also tests if each part of the system interlinks well with other parts of the system. Here I will test every functionality of every part of the system, thus effectively testing all the client requirement and evaluation criteria. This will put every functionality of the web application to test. Any error/bugs will be resolved before moving on to the next test.

User testing

This testing will test if the user can use the system effectively. I will give my 3 test subjects (2 teachers and a Parent) several tasks to perform on the system. After performing these tasks, I will ask the users to rate how easy it was to do it and then ask them if they have any suggestions to on how their experience can be improved or how the system can be modified improve usability.

Whilst doing a user testing, I am going to perform an Integration testing. In this testing whilst the users are testing the system, I will use them to test how well the modules have integrated with the system. If no errors are produced during the user testing, this shows that the module have integrated well with each other.

Environment Testing

By this stage, I consider the software ready use. However there might be some potential of hidden bugs, which are environment specific. Therefore I am going to run an environment test on this system. To accomplish this I will have to setup the hardware exactly the way it will be on a production server. This means that the exact hardware, software and networking it to be done which matches the exact specification of the production environment. This setup will be done on a Virtual private Server and therefore will be shifted out of the school’s test server.

After the setup, I will put the system under its expected load be announcing by email to all the teachers in Dubai British School that the system is ready for use but not telling them its running on a duplicate environment. This will ensure the most accurate test. I will also instruct them to to try and break the system and ask them report how to reproduce the problem and send me the error message. Any errors I receive will be fixed immediately. This is a Destruction Test performed by the Users.

61

This system is going to be running for approximately 1 month. After this testing duration, I should be confident that the system is fit and ready for being classified as fully developed software and ready to be deployed on a production server.


Test Plan # Test Description Purpose Test Data Expected Outcome

Module: Registration

1Registration form is displayed on the home pageSupports Client Requirement 15

User should be presented a form to enable him/her to be able to register an account

4 fields and a submit button displayed. Along with their corresponding titles

2

Registration form can be filled in User should be able to enter details to complete the registration process

Username: sampleuserPassword: 123465Email: [email protected]

Data should be visible in the form

3

User can register an account when register button is clicked and password is hashed

Supports Client Requirement 5

User should be able to complete the registration process. The password should be hashed in case of it being compromised

Success message is displayed

4

Validation works: -All fields are required -Email needs to be part of the “dubaibritishschool.ae” domain

-Password confirmation should match

Supports Client Requirement 16Supports Evaluation Criteria 2Supports Evaluation Criteria 3Supports Evaluation Criteria 4

To check if all data needed is present to avoid the system throwing an error

Client requires only Dubai British School staff to register

To make sure the user doesn’t type a wrong password unintentionally

-Leave all fields Empty

[email protected]

12

123456

Message is displayed indicating to correct data or fill missing data.

5

If username/email is already exists, error message is displayed

Supports Evaluation Criteria 7

To notify the user to change username or use a different email

Sampleuser mwood@dubaibritishschool.

ae

Error message is displayed indicating user/email is already in use

6 When user registers, activation email is sent

To enable the user to activate his/her account Email is displayed in inbox


mailto:[email protected]


7

When activation link is clicked, the user is notified that his/her account is activated

To notify the user that the activation process has completed successfully.

Notification message


# Test Description Purpose Test Data Expected Outcome

Module: Authentication

8Login form is displayed on the home screen

The user need to be able to login to the web application to access their planner

2 fields and a button is displayed along with it corresponding labels

9Data can be entered in the login form User need to be able to provide their credentials

to login Sampleuser Password

Data visible in the input fields

10

Validation: username and password fields cannot be left blank


To prevent bad login attempts Error message is displayed indicating the user to fill in the missing fields

11

When wrong credentials are entered, error message is thrown


To tell the user to try to login attempt wasn’t successful so they need to try again

Sampleuser qwerty

Error message is displayed indicating that the username password combination is wrong

12

On successful login user is forwarded to planner list page


This is where user intent to go to open a planner Planner list is visible

13

On login, authentication cookie and session variable pertaining to that user is set


These two pieces of data will be used to check if the user is authenticated

No output which is of concern to the user

14

On every restricted page, the session variable and cookie is compared. If it matches, the user is allowed to access the resources or else the user is redirected back to the login page


This mechanise is used to check if the user is authenticated.

If the session variable doesn’t match the user is taken to the login page else he/she is allowed to access the requested resource

15 Anonymous users cannot access To ensure privacy is maintained Redirected to the login page


restricted resources


16

Existing users cannot access planners which do not belong to them


To ensure privacy is maintained Redirected to the login page



Module: Planner

17On planner list page, is the user’s planner listed

User need to be able to see all the planner that he/she has access to

List of planners

18

On the planner list page can the user edit the planner


User need to be able to edit the properties of the planners

Subject: ICTClass: YR13Year: 2012

Once edited, the changes are visible

19

On the planner list page, can the user delete planners


User needs to be able to delete planner while are no longer needed

Once deleted the planner should be not visible from the planner list

20On the planner list page can the user open the “create new planners” wizard

User needs to be presented an interface to create a new planner

A form with the following asking the user the following details: Subject, Class, Year

21On the create planner popup, can the user enter planner information

User needs to be able to enter properties of the planner

Subject: MathsClass: YR13Year: 2012

22

On the create planner popup, does validation works

User needs to be prevented from entering wrong information

1.Each Field Left blank one by one

2.Year: two thousand and twelve

Error message should be displayed describing the problem

23

On the create new planner page, can the user create a new planner

Supports Client Requirement 17Supports Client Requirement 18

User needs to able to create a new planner Subject: MathsClass: YR13Year: 2012

A new planner should be visible in the planner list page along with an auto generated planner name in the format of: “Subject – class”

24 On the planner page, are the planned lessons listed

Users need to view the lessens they have planned to teach upcoming lessons

List of planned lessons for each time period; Past,


Supports Client Requirement 1 Present and Future

25

On the planner page, can the user add new lessons


User needs to add new plans for upcoming lessons

New lessons should be visible in the planed lessons list

26

On the planner page, can the user edit lessons


Users need to be able to edit lesson plans, in case a change is needed

Edited changes in the lessons should be visible

27

On the planner page, can the user delete lessons


User needs to able to delete lesson planes which are no longer needed

Deleted lesson should no longer be visible in the list of planned lessons

28

In the planner page, are the lesson organised in chronological order


So the user can go through them easily Lessons are organised in chronological order

29

In the planner page, are the lesson listed in their respective categories of past lessons, Now, Future Lessons


So the user can distinguish the plans from different period of time

30

When the planner is loaded for the first time, is a new student assessment spread sheet created


So user can start entering data into the spread sheet

Spread sheet can be seen in a folder on the web server

31

When the planner is loaded, is the student assessment spread sheet, loaded in the in the web browser

Supports Client Requirement 3Supports Client Requirement 6

User need to be able to see the planner assessment

Spread sheet is visible

32 Is the student assessment spread sheet in the browser editable

User need to be able to enter data into the Data can be entered


Supports Client Requirement 19 spread sheet removed and amended.

33Is the student spread sheet saved when the save button is clicked

User needs to be able the view the data entered at a later time.

Save notification is displayed



Miscellaneous

34

Frequently asked questions are displayed


So that people don’t have trouble in accessing the FAQs

- The frequently ask questions are pulled out from the database and displayed on the website

35

Contact form sends message to Admin when a user fills out the form

Administrator can respond back to the message the user has sent

Name: ShresthEmail: [email protected]: Testing 123

36

User Documentation should be easy to understand and follow

The users of this system needs to understand how to use this system, configure it and maintain it

User Documentation The System Administrator needs to be able to configure the server, install the system, and configure the system.

A teacher must be able to user the Digital Planner System without any problems


mailto:[email protected]

User Testing and operational Testingrating on a scale for 1 to 5 where 1 is tough and 5 is easy to perform each of the given tasks.

Task Client User: Teacher Audience: Parent

Register an account

Activate your account

Login with your account

Create a planner

Delete a planner

Edit a planner

Open a planner

Enter 2 lesson plans

Delete 1 lesson plan

Edit the other lesson plan

Enter something in the student assessment spread sheet

Save the spread sheet

Envirnoment TestingEmail I have asked my client sent to all the teachers to test the system and try and break it.

71

Testing and documentation of the implementation

Evidence of testingTest 1: Registration form is displayed on the homepage Evidence:

Test 2: Registration form can be filled in Evidence:

72

Test 3: User can register an account when register button is click Evidence:

Test 4: Validation and verification works Evidence: - All fields are required


Test 4: Validation and verification works Evidence: - Email needs to be part of the dubaibritishschool.ae domainallowed


Test 4: Validation and verification works Evidence: - Password confirmation should match

Test 5: If username/email is already exists, error message is displayedEvidence:


Test 5: If username/email is already exists, error message is displayedEvidence:

Test 6: When user registers, activation email is sentEvidence:


Test 7: When activation link is clicked, the user is notified that his/her account is activatedEvidence:

Test 8: Login form is displayed on the home screenEvidence:


Test 9: Data can be entered in the login formEvidence:

Test 10: Validation: username and password fields cannot be left blankEvidence:


Test 11: When wrong credentials are entered, error message is thrownEvidence:

Test 12: On successful login user is forwarded to planner list pageEvidence:


Test 13: On login, authentication cookie and session variable pertaining to that user is setEvidence:

Test 14: On every restricted page, the session variable and cookie is compared. If it matches, the user is allowed to access the resources or else the user is redirected back to the login pageEvidence:


Test 15: Anonymous users cannot access restricted resourcesEvidence:

Test 16: Existing users cannot access planners which do not belong to themEvidence:


Module: Planner

Test 17: On planner list page, is the user’s planner listed Evidence:

Test 18: On the planner list page can the user edit the planner Evidence:


Test 19: On the planner list page, can the user delete planners Evidence:

Test 20: On the planner list page can the user open the “create new planners” wizard Evidence:


Test 21: On the create planner popup, can the user enter planner information Evidence:


Test 22: On the create planner popup, does validation works Evidence:


Test 23: On the create new planner page, can the user create a new planner Evidence:


Test 24: On the planner page, are the planned lessons listed Evidence:

Test 25: On the planner page, can the user add new lessons Evidence:


Test 26: On the planner page, can the user edit lessons Evidence:


Test 27: On the planner page, can the user delete lessons Evidence:


Test 28: In the planner page, are the lesson organised in chronological order Evidence:

Test 29: In the planner page, are the lesson listed in their respective categories of past lessons, Now, Future LessonsEvidence:


Test 30: When the planner is loaded for the first time, is a new student assessment spread sheet createdEvidence:


Test 31: When the planner is loaded, is the student assessment spread sheet, loaded in the in the web browserEvidence:

Test 32: Is the student assessment spread sheet in the browser editable Evidence:


Test 33: Is the student spread sheet saved when the save button is clicked Evidence:


Test 34: Frequently asked questions are displayed Evidence:

Test 34: Contact Form is working Evidence:


Test 34: Contact Form is working

Done In Testing Of The User Documentation


Evidence of client/user testing and Operational TestingHere I have ask 2 teachers and a parent to test my system. I have listed tasks for them to do ensuring that all areas of the system have been used. Based on observation I have rated each task on a scale of 1 – 5 where one being difficult to use and 5 being easy to use.

Task ClientUser: Teacher

(changes made after testing of user 1) Audience: Parent

Register an account

5the user was able to register an account without any confusion

5 5

Activate your account

2the user didn’t know he had to activate his account in order to login. Changestatus message was changed from “registration successful” to “You have successfully registered an account with digiplan. We have sent you an email containing an activation link. Click on it to activate your account.”

5 5

Login with your account5the user was able to login

5 5

Create a planner

2the user was able the create a planner, but initial had trouble recognizing button to create a new planner therefore it’s text was changed from “new” to “New Planner”

Whilst filling out the form to create a new planner the user was unsure what to fill in the fields. Therefore hints/examples are now added to guid the user

5

5

Delete a planner 1 to delete a planner, the user had to click on edit to bring up the delete option next to the planner in the planner list. here the user had trouble since it was not clear that edit would also bring up the delete option. Therefore the text “edit” is

5 5


now change to” edit/delete”5

Edit a planner3the user had no problem in editing a planner

5 5

Open a planner3user was able to open

5 5

Enter 2 lesson plans

2the user had trouble finding the form to enter a new lesson. Therefore the norm had a heading over it now to indicate that it is use to enter lesson plans

5 5

Delete 1 lesson plan

1to delete a plan, the user had to click on edit to bring up the delete option next to the planner in the planner list. Here the user had trouble since it was not clear that edit would also bring up the delete option. Therefore the text “edit” is now change to” edit/delete”

5 5

Edit the other lesson plan

3 – no problem In editing 5 5

Enter something in the student assessment spread sheet

3 – No problem in this task

5 5

Save the spread sheet3 - No problem in this task

5 5

Evidence of teacher testing


Evidence of Environment TestingThis Screen Shot bellows shows the amount of users that have visited the system. There have unexpectedly more users that expected. Diagram 2 shows that there have been users for other countries

104

This environment testing shows that the system can undergo a much higher load and connection that previously presumed. This test is definitely a pass


User DocumentationThis documentation is intended for the system administrator.

PrefaceThis documentation assumes that you have sufficient knowledge with networking, setting up server, configuring them and maintaining them except for section 3(“usage”) which is also intended for user(“Teachers”)

Content3. Prerequisites1. Installation

a. Setting up the Web Serverb. Setting up remote accessc. Installing MySql serverd. Installing Digital planner

2. Configurationa. Linking to MySQL serverb. Setting Administrator password

3. Usage4. Backup

PerquisitesA Windows operating system, preferably Windows Server 2003 +

To run this Digital planner you will need to have a system with the following specifications

Minimum of 2Ghz Processor Minimum of 2 GB of ram. (1GB per 100 simultaneous users) Minimum of 1Mb line (1Mb per 1000 simultaneous) Minimum of 25Gb of HDD space (1Gb per 100,000 users)

You will also need a Webserver preferably Microsoft Internet information Service (IIS) version 6+To store the user data, you will need a MySQL Server version 5+

InstallationTo set up the webserver, follow the steps below

1. Click on start2. Go on control panel3. Click on programs4. Click on “Turn windows features On or Off5. Check “Internet information services” (IIS)

6. Click ok and wait for windows to install your web server

106

7. Test you webserver by visiting http://localhost. If you see a welcome page. You have successfully configured your webserver

To setup the MySQL Server

1. Download the MySQL server form the following link (windows installer)http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/installer/

2. Follow the onscreen steps of installation

Setting up remote accessTo allow remote access to your server, make sure you have a public IP address. Then unblock port 3306 for allowing MySQL connection and unblock port 80 for HTTP connections. Step by Step procedure in unblocking the ports is beyond the scope of this article

Installing DigiPlannerAssuming you have a copy of the Digital planner copy the contents of the digital planner in to the following Directory: “%SYSTEMDRIVE%/inetpub/wwwroot” Below is how the Digital planner Root directory should look like


http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/installer/

http://localhost/

ConfigurationConfiguration of the web application is set in the web.config file. This is where almost every setting of the website can be set. Open the Web.Config file.The file should look like this:

Stage 1: Configuring the Web Application to connect to the MySQL DatabaseOn line 8, change the value of connection string to this:“server=<ipaddress>;user=<username>;password=<password>;database=<database>”<ipaddress>: This should be set to your public ipaddress<username>:This should be set to the username which you use to access your database<password>: This should be set to the password you use with the combination<database>: This should be set a database you create.NOTE: The database has to be empty and on first run of the web application, it will auto generate the schema

Stage 2: Configuring the SpreadSheet APIThe SpreadSheet displayed in the website is from a 3rd party website. To access their API, you need to assign DigiPlan an API key. Register in Zoho.com and obtain an API key.

Stage 2: Configuring the Domain nameIf the website has a Domain name linking to it, then you can fill this information in the “Domain Name” key. This is optional, but if done it will allow emailing services to work.

Stage 2: Configuring the Emailing systemRegister your domain with Google apps. The guide to do so is beyond the scope of this article. Once done change the MX record of your domain to match those with Google. Then setup an emailing account on Google and verify it. Once done, enter your email in the key: “support_Email”. This will now enable emails to be sent form the website to you inbox. It also allows users to directly email you with their own preferred client


Stage 3: White Listing Email addressWhite listed emails are emails which are allowed to be used when registering with DigiPlan. All other emails are not allowed. To allow multiple whitelist emails, separate each email with a comma Example: “@dubaibritishschool.ae,@dbs.ae”

Stage 4: DebugingWhen experiencing problem with your web application, Set debugging to True. This will generate a detailed error report. Never use Debugging in a live environment

Stage 5: Set the website to be accessible to public

To allow external connection to the website, set the online key value to true

Usage of the SystemThe following part of the documentation is meant for all audiences / Usersthere are 4 key components in the system

1. Registration2. Signing in3. Planner

a. Creatingb. Deletingc. Editing

4. Planninga. Creatingb. Deletingc. Editing

5. Student Assessmenta. Editing

Registration:

to register on the system, follow the steps below:

1. Visit the Web Application2. On the home page enter your username, password and email address in the registration form3. Visit your email inbox and open the email you have got from the system4. Click on the link enclosed to activate your account


Signing in:

To signing on the system, enter your user name and password in the login form on the home page

Planner:To create a new planner follow the steps

1. Click on Create new planner

2. Enter your preferred planner details in the form. Examples are given to assist you

3. Click “Add”

To delete an existing planner follow the steps:

1. Click on edit

2. Click on delete to delete the planner you want

3. Click on view to exit Edit mode

To edit an existing planner follow the steps


1. Click on edit

2. Click on edit to edit the planner you want

3. Edit you planner details

4. Click on view to exit Edit mode

Planning

To add a new lesson plan, follow the steps below

1. Click on the data in the text box, A data picker should popup. Pick a data for your lesson plan

2. Enter you lesson plan in the planning textbox3. Click Add


To edit a lesson plan, follow the steps below

1. Click delete at the top of the page

2. Click delete which corresponds to the lesson plan you want to delete

3. Click view to come out of edit mode

To edit a lesson plan, follow the steps below:

1. Click edit at the top of the page

2. Click edit which corresponds to the lesson plan you want to delete

3. Edit the lesson plan details to your liking

4. Click update5. Click on View to exit editing mode


To open the student assessment sheet follow the steps below

1. Click on Student Assessment

2. Edit the SpreadSheet to your liking3. Click on save to save your changes

Backup and RecoveryFor taking backups of the system, install the following software “MySQL Workbench”

Then follow the following steps

1. Open MySQL Workbench2. Add a new connection to you MYSQL server by inputting the correct data in the fields

3. Under manage server , click you server connection

|


4. Under Data Export / Restore click “Data Export

5. Under “Object Selection” select your database and then select all of the schema Objects

6. Click start export to run backup script


Testing Of The User DocumentationIn this testing, I am going to test whether the “User documentation” was easy to understand, follow and perform tasks using it. Below I am going to test 2 users; A system Administrator and a Teacher. I’m going to rate each task on a scale of 1 – 5 where 1 being difficult and 5 being easy. I have instructed both test subjects to read the guide and perform the tasks outlined below. Upon completion of these task, they must rate how easy it was to follow the Documentation

Test Description User: System Administrator User: Teacher

Installation: Hosting ServerInstall Internet Information Services 5 Not Applicable

Test if Internet Information Services has been successfully installed

5 Not Applicable

Install MySQL Server 4 - Not Applicable

Give the server remote access 5 Not Applicable

Configuration: Digital Planner

Install the Digital Plan 5 Not Applicable

Configure the Web Application to connect to your MySQL Server

5 Not Applicable

Configure the Spread Sheet Api 5 Not Applicable

Configure the Domain name 3 Not Applicable

Configure the Email Services 4 Not Applicable

Add an Email Whitelist 5 Not Applicable

Set the Web Application to allow Public connections

5 Not Applicable

Take a backup Of the system 5 Not Applicable

115

Configuration: Digital Planner

Register an account 5 5

Sign In with Your account 5 5

Planner

Create a Planner 5 5

Delete a Planner 5 5

Edit a Planner 5 5

Planning

Create a new lesson plan 5 5

Edit a lesson plan 5 5

Delete a lesson plan 5 5

Student Assessment

Open and Edit the Student assessment SpreadSheet 5

5

This testing shows that my user documentation is both easy to follow and help full for my users. Therefore meeting the client requirement.


Evaluation of the implemented solution

Evaluation of the solutionNow that the system had finally been delivered to Mr Wood and is on trial use by 70% of the expected user count, there seems to be no major issues at the moment. If it continues like this, I can classify the software as fully developed and put it out of beta.

I am now going to analyse how the development of this system has gone. I am going to see if it has met the client expectations and to a high standard

1. The users should be able to view lesson plans for each class that they teacha. I believe this solution has allowed teachers to view their lessons with ease. There is not

much clicking involved from logging into the system and navigate to the lesson plans. This takes only 3 clicks which is ideal for any web application. The user interface has been laid out well to minimise any confusion and or frustration when finding a lesson plan

2. The users should be able to enter lesson plansa. The procedure to enter a lesson plan has been designed very well; there is no complex

wizard or form which involves a lot of user input. The user can enter a lesson plan within 5 seconds. When selecting a date for the lesson plan, a calendar widget pops up enhancing the user experience. When a lesson plan is entered, the lesson plan list is updated automatically avoiding any unnecessary round trips to the server thus preventing any delays This together make entering a lesson plan, easy to do

3. The user should be able to view lesson plan assessmenta. The lesson plan assessment has also been made to require very little user input. The

interface provided to accomplish this requirement is a SpreadSheet. This is very beneficial since a SpreadSheet user interface is familiar amongst the majority. This prevents any hassle when a user needs to use the student assessment feature

b. One negative thing about this is, once any changes have been made, the users need to save it unlike in existing SpreadSheet software programs where saving is done automatically and periodically.

c. Another negative is that the user is not warned that their work is not saved if they close the student assessment window.

4. Student Assessment tasks

i. 7. - the assessment feature should allow users to enter students nameii. 8. - the assessment feature should allow users to attach assessment to them

iii. 9. - the assessment feature should allow users to able to add Grades to Assessmenta. These can be performed without any trouble since it provides a simple familiar SpreadSheet interface.

5. The planner should support planning for multiple usersa. By the use of authentication the Digital planner can support multiple users. Authentication is

done by cookies and session variables. This is a proven and efficient standard across the web. It is very unlikely to harm the Digital planner’s performance when simultaneous users are using it. This can be proven as there is no complaint of any performance issues with 40 teachers using the system

6. The planner should be accessible by authorising usersa. By authorising a user and assigning them an identification Number, only content which

belongs to that user can be accessed. This allows users to be restricted to only content that they created and not any other teachers content.

117

7. Users should be able to attach more than 1 planner to their accounta. By the use of relational databases users can have multiple planners. Creating a planner is a

very simple step. It just involves 3 details from the user; Subject name, Class and academic year. The limit of planner is practically unlimited. The planner is listed using a simple yet elegant user interface.

8. Users should be able to set an allies guest account for guest viewing a. This can be done on the system in a very simple way. It follows a basic standard. Each

planner will have its one set of user name and password for the guest to access. The standard is that each account name is the planner id and the password is set by the user.

9. The planner name is automatically generated according to subject and class they teacha. This automatic name generation make the planner list look organised and neat.

10. When the user enters their class, it has to be restricted to a format of year/grade-class and an example should be show of what it should look like

a. This has been implemented well. It provides a standard format for classes. This is useful for audiences such as parents to recognize the class

11. When the planner is created it should have a blank pagea. This was relatively straight forward, when the planner loaded it was blank since there is no

data for new created planners

12. The user will be able to enter their students list and assessmenta. This can be done using the familiar spreadsheet interface which can be launch by the click

of a link13. Help and support in the form of video need to be created to help the user getting started on their

new planner.a. The video created for this Digital Planner has covered all of the possible tasked a user might

have to perform. This is from registering to using planner. It has view more than 100 times by users

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - -- - -- - - Evaluation Criteria - - - -- -- - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -Registration

14. The registration form must be intuitive enough for the user to be able to fill outa. The registration form is displayed with labels which indicate what exactly must go into the

fields. Any input error are pointed out to the user using a descriptive message which enhances user experience

15. Upon Registration, Password will be Hashed and salted to prevent account from being stolen if the database is compromised

a. The password is hashed a salted using an SHA-512 Algorithm. This is a method used worldwide in many applications and have been successful so far. If a password is compromised, other hashed password of the same phrase can’t be searched as they are all salted by the username

16. Upon registration, an activation email will be sent to the user, in that it will contain a link which when clicked, activates the account so the user can login. This is to prevent bot registering accounts.

a. This feature has a potential to prevent many external scripts from running and registering accounts on the website. If the account is not activated it cannot be used thus effectively defeating the purpose of running these scripts

17. If username or email is taken, then error message is displayed describing the problema. This indicates to the user that his username has been taken in a user friendly manner


Login

18. Error message will be show if the username and password do not matcha. This indicates to the user that his credential do not match and therefore denied access into

the system. This error has been displayed in a user friendly manner19. Error message will be show if the user is not activated

a. In case the user missed out the message during registration that they have to active their account, this is another place which repeats the message. This enhances user experience

20. When user logs in, the user is redirected the planner list pagea. This prevents the user from clicking too many times. In an ideal web application, the fewer

the clicks the better it is.21. Login form is displayed on the home screen

a. This again prevents too many clicks from the user which enhances their experience22. Authentication is going to be cookie based

a. This has been implemented well. By using a cookie, the web Application makes use of client side storage thus saving resources on the server.

23. Anonymous cannot access restricted contenta. This has been implemented in the best interest of the users since it protects their work

form unauthorized users.24. Existing Users cannot access planners which do not belong to them

a. This has been implemented in the best interest of the users since it protects their work form unauthorized users.

Planner

25. Users should be able to edit the plannera. This feature allows users to edit a planner in case they have made a mistake, instead of

deleting their planner and recreating it again. It also allows users to carry their existing planner into the next academic year and thus saving time instead of having to type all the lesson plans again from scratch

26. Users should be able to delete plannersa. This feature allows users to delete any planners they don’t want. This is essential since

otherwise, the planner list will become cluttered with too many planners fill with old planners or planners created by mistake. The cluttered planner list can prevent confusion and frustration the user might encounter

27. Lessons plans are listed on chronological ordera. This has been done to enhance user experience. It makes it easier to quickly find lessons in

the lesson plan list.28. Users should be able to edit lessons

a. This feature again is implemented to enhance user experience. It was a problem in the old paper based planner when the users wanted to edit a lesson plan they had written down.

29. Users should be able to delete lessonsa. This feature has been implemented to enhance user experience, It was another problem in

the old papers based planner when the user needed to delete any lesson they has written down. This feature solves that issue


30. Student assessment should be a SpreadSheet loaded into the webpage using 3rd party pluginsa. This feature makes use of 3rd party distributed systems. The system administrator doesn’t

have to maintain a spreadsheet system. It is done by the 3rd party system. Running the distributed system is free thus reduced cost for running and maintain the Digital planner

31. The spreadsheet should be save on the local servera. The spreadsheets contain confidential data and therefore are best kept in a trusted

location.

There are some inherent strengths and weaknesses of the Digital Planner

WeaknessesThis system requires people to be computer literate. By this they require to have some basic knowledge on how to use a computer, how to navigate, understand error messages, instruction etc., especially in a web browser. This creates an age barrier. It is not wise to assume that everybody is computer literate. There are senior citizens who find it difficult to use a system like this. If the whole school moves to this system, and stop producing the traditional paper based system, there are a small number of people who might suffer.

This system is obviously limited in the types of data you can put in it. In a paper based system you are flexible to write down anything anywhere you please and don’t have a follow the planner format. Example it possible to take down quick handwritten notes on the student assessment sheet In a paper based planner. In the digital planner, this is not feasible since it’s a pure spreadsheet system therefore it’s not meant to take down notes. Naturally, this system requires a hardware run on. This adds cost into running the system. It also uses resources such as network bandwidth. A high number of simultaneous users can cause the network to slow down.

StrengthsThis system has its share of strengths. It’s a powerful way of noting down plans quickly in an organized way. It can be accessed anywhere, any time. Since it’s stored on the cloud there is no physical system to carry around unlike the paper based system. This system can be further developed using its HTTP API to include features such as linking to calendars services (Google, Hotmail) to include event from other sources like school calendar, personal calendar etc.

Its spreadsheet software allows for complex data entry and processing such as the use of formulas, and data formatting.

This system also allows for practically unlimited data such as unlimited planning, student assessments unlike the paper based system. Due to its digital architecture, it is possible to erase data and over write data unlimited number of times, again unlike the paper based system.

ImprovementsThere could be several improvements done to the system.

1. He planner could include a feature where users can attach files such as resources for each plan they make

2. Link to 3rd party calendar services such as Google and Hotmail.a. This will allow School calendars, personal calendars and other calendars to be linked in.

This will provides a bigger pictures when planning a lesson since some events might conflict with a plan a user’s wishes to create

3. Provide a feature which allows the Digital Planner to be configurable via a web interface.a. This prevent any miss-configuration by the system administrator when configuring the Web

Application after installation4. Export the lesson plan and Student assessment in various formats such as CSV format which can

be used to import data into any application


Evaluation of my performanceDuring this time of me building this solution I have followed an Iterative method to develop this system. It involved building the system in the same order the user would use it in. This approach according to me was quite effective but it had its down falls. I am going to analyse this.

StrengthsBy Following the method I used I found it useful since I was sure that the whole system was effectively made at each stage. An example would be the first thing a user would do is to register an account. I would then start building the Registration feature. Since I am focused on only one thing, this allowed me to think of any possible inputs and procedures the system might have. Other approaches involve working on several components at the same time. This can have a negative impact since some key procedures such as validation might be missed out etc.

Other than the technique used I personally found the following as my strengths. These contributed towards the successful development of the system:

Committedo I felt I was very committed to this project. I was very disciplined when developing the

system. I made sure not to rush or delay each task and had a well-defined time plan for me to work within

Efficient o I was efficient in problem solving. Any problem or obstacles I encountered during building

the project, I was able to make use of support material, mostly user base. Communication

o I was in touch with the client during the whole project. There was a lot of discussion during

this time which clarifies a lot of details and confusions enabling me to produce an effective solution

Researcho I used my research skills to conduct effective research to tailor the system to the needs of

the users. This had an end results of an effective system Technical Skills

o My technical skills played a big role in developing this system. It allowed me to build complex

and efficient procedures effectively without much hassle. I have a wide range of skills ranging from database administration, server side programming in websites, to creativity which I used in designing an intuitive elegant interface.

WeaknessesThe approach I took never involved planning/designing the system as a whole and then starting from point 1. I planed the system as I was developing it. This could have a very negative impact when developing large scale systems since by this method it prevents the developer from foreseeing any problems in the design. If any problems / obstacles are come across, it might involve redesigning the system from scratch again. Fortunately this didn’t happen to me whilst developing this Digital planner

Another weakness I had was that I started with a programmer’s mentality i.e.: “ if it works, then I’m done”. This was a problem during the early stages when I was building this solution. The problems were that even though the system worked, it was not user friendly. I was only focused on the client requirements and not on the actual usability of the system. An example was, I had expected the users to always enter the right data and therefore didn’t originally plan for validation except in critical places such as when entering password. Fortunately my frequent communication with Mr Wood soon made me realise that my mentality had to change and it did.


Improvements

In the future if I have to work on a similar project, I would first of all establish all the criteria for each element within the system. I would do this in detail and then design each and every module before any building is carried out. I did not do this for this project instead I was designing and building the system at the same time. I will use this other method so that I am more efficient and faster at coding instead of wasting my coding time for planning. These means that the improvement will not only help me work faster since I would know what to do next but also do it immediately since the planning has already been done.


AppendixAppendix 1:

How frequently will you write down

lessons to plan?

How often do you use your lesson planner that is

issued by the school

How frequently will you write down the

outcome of a planned lesson?

How frequently will you note down

student's grades or progress?

How frequently will you access the

'Digital Planner' out of school via the

web?

Will you evaluate yourself by

comparing your 'lesson plan' with

your 'lessons outcome'

If you have a smart phone, would you

like to have a mobile version of the

'Digital Planner'?

Will you be comfortable if someone can access your

planning possibly a subject Head

teachers

1 I barley use it 1 1 1 Maybe Yes Yes

5 I barely use it 1 5 5 Yes Yes Yes

4 I barely use it 2 5 5 MaybeI dont have a smart phone Yes

3I use it to plan every week 4 4 4 Yes Yes No

5 I barely use it 3 2 2 No Yes No

5I use it to plan each and every lesson 5 5 4 Yes No Yes


4I use it to plan every week 2 1 2 No Yes No

3I use it to plan for a month 2 4 5 Yes Yes Yes

5I use it to plan each and every lesson 1 3 1 No No No

5I use it to plan each and every lesson 4 5 1 Yes

I dont have a smart phone No

5 I barely use it 4 4 5 Yes No Yes


3I use it to plan every week 4 4 3 Yes

I dont have a smart phone Yes

5I use it to plan every week 4 4 2 Yes

I dont have a smart phone Yes

123

Appendix 2:


Shresth (Vidhu) Bhatnagar - ICT A2 Course Work

Documents

Transcript of Shresth (Vidhu) Bhatnagar - ICT A2 Course Work