University of Michigan-Dearborn                                 Handed out: 1/15/97
Computer and Information Science Department                     Due date: 1/29, 2/5
Professor Ken Modesitt                                          Points: 20 
CIS 375:  Introduction to Software Engineering                  INDIVIDUAL

Objectives

• Develop a useful and working software product for a wide user base, including prospective employers.
• Develop appreciation for software re-use (benefits and pitfalls), by evaluating earlier related products, [and then choosing sections for re-use].
• Pay particular attention to issues of copyrights, ethics, and professionalism.
• Evaluate the product of other students and present the results in a formal format, using a MECCA model
• Learn and use HTML, if a novice (rating of [0,5), or JAVA, if expert [5,10].
• Make use of existing software engineering standards.
• Use project management tools on a small project.
• Summarize lessons learned and post on Netforum, after reviewing LL from last term.

Context of Project
The Computer and Information Science Department currently has the premiere world-wide web home page in the School of Engineering at the University of Michigan- Dearborn (over 14K hits). The successful completion of this project will continue to ensure such pre-eminence -- most noticeably in the student component.

You are to exercise that very precious quality of creativity, combined with competence, to create your own home page. All of your combined efforts should then be linked to the CIS home page under "CIS majors" by a daemon. You have already investigated some other home pages, to serve as a baseline, to learn how your predecessors accomplished their goals. Then, being the wise person you are, you will "build on other's shoulders, instead of their toes" to leverage what they have done to accomplish your own goals. After development, you will evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the product of your classmates, using a formal evaluation tool (MECCA model), and then compare your final product with theirs, using the same model.

The immediate customers for this project will be an employer (in the guise of the instructor) and some of his "employees" -- your fellow classmates. If you can learn how to gain additional input (via on-line forms and/or a way to record the number of hits on your home page), you will have a much wider customer base. Feel free to use any on-line references. Future users could include: real employers, graduate schools, scholarship funds, etc. How about friends or family?

So this is really a two-part project:
1. Develop your own home page including "about you" and a resume, and
2. Evaluate the home pages of your classmates.

Based on the evaluations, the person in each category with the top over-all score will receive a one-year subscription to Internet World or Application Development Trends. See April, 1996 issue of the former on "Good, Bad and Ugly Pages."

Project Summary
There are numerous home pages of individuals on the world-wide web (WWW) of the Internet -- many here at UM-D. You have already looked at several of them and posted what you like and did not like about them. Use this informal evaluation as the basis for a formal (MECCA) evaluation from both the user viewpoint and a developer one (you can view their "code" at any time by using the View Source option from the browsers).

Combine what you have learned from such browsing, with your own creative juices, to develop a prototype of your own home page -- simple directions for starting are part of the UM-D home page. There are also a host of references available on the net, as well as in printed form. One on the WWW that novices have found useful in the past is by Professor Joan Brown, here at UM-D (www.umd.umich.edu/~jobrown/ and www.umd.umich.edu/~demohp7/).

When you hand in the required developer documentation on the first due date above, you will simultaneously let your classmates (and me) know, by posting on netforum, your URL address which is required for them to access your home page on the network.

You will then be responsible for looking at the home pages of your classmates during the next week, and evaluating their efforts using a MECCA model. Clearly, your own home page will be one of the products evaluated, according to your model.

Even though this is an individual project, and smaller than others you will be working on, planning is still vital. Some (not all...) of the tasks you may wish to consider include:
1. planning
2. requirements analysis
3. design
4. implementation
5. QA, including testing
6. documentation
7. evaluations
8. presentation of results.

The results of the plan should be in the format of a Gantt chart (for schedule) and person-loading chart (for work-breakdown and budget). This will be a little easier since there is only one of you!! A first WAG for Parts 1 and 2 will be due on the next class day. Be sure to build your system in phases (rapid prototyping). This is FAR preferred to the "big-bang" mode of software development where NOTHING works until version 1.0 is delivered!!

You are advised to review copies of the grading sheet and "lessons learned" from the last time this assignment was given. Why make mistakes when they can be avoided simply by reading of the shortcomings of your predecessors? These, plus this assignment, will be posted on Netforum under Project #1.

Novices (rating of [0,5) and Experts [5,10]. Those of you who already have home pages, presumably "experts" MUST explicitly show in their code what changes they have made for this project, i.e., where Java code was added. Otherwise, I will have no easy way to determine your baseline product.

Deliverables on next class day (as Developer -- one copy)
Tentative work plan, including Person-loading chart, Gantt chart.

Final Deliverables on schedule (as Developer -- two copies)
1. Hard copy of your software product
2. Source code listing of your software product
3. URL address of your home page

Deliverables (as Evaluator -- two copies)
Final Report. See attached. You are to use a MECCA format for evaluating a subset of the products from your classmates, from both the user and developer viewpoints. Evaluate your own home page plus the pages of the next 10 people in this course (by sorted last name). What is the driver component? Who was the "winner"? Be sure to indicate your "status" as a novice or expert, when evaluating the other pages -- it clearly makes a difference if a person who already knows HTML looks at the code of a person who just learned it!

Evaluation
The evaluation on this project will be based on several criteria! Some criteria include:

• Budget: estimated vs. real (less is better, all other criteria being equal)
• Schedule: estimated vs. real (earlier is better, all other criteria being equal)
• Analysis and design documentation
• Code and documentation
• Test plan/executions
• Evaluations: MECCA models
• Lessons learned
• Presentation of results in reports.

Binder
Cover sheet (names, class, date, etc.)

Three ring binder
Sections tabbed

Table of contents

Executive summary
Concise description of problem addressed and results

Problem statement

Analysis

Design

Evaluations
Your evaluation of the specified home pages from the CIS 375 students: user and developer viewpoints. This will be in a MECCA format and must include an evaluation of your page as well.

Budget
Person-loading schedule (include the original marked-up WAG)
estimated vs. actual (dates of each)

Schedule
Gantt chart (include the original marked-up WAG)
estimated vs. actual (dates of each)

Reality vs. Predictions
Discuss any discrepancies between estimates and actual results for budget and schedule

Lessons learned (also posted on Netforum)

Log Book