COMS 380: Systems Analysis and Design

Announcements:  Check here regularly for announcements!

Final Exam:  A take home exam will be available on Wednesday by 12:30pm.  Exams will be due at 9am on Friday, May 7 but will be accepted before that.  I will meet with each group next week to give feedback about the projects.

Thank you!  The final presentations were very impressive and the clients have been pleased with your work.

Cool info: A link to the wikipedia is at the bottom of this page as well as a link that answers the question what is a wiki?

Previous Announcements

Course description: This course explores both structured as well as object oriented systems analysis and design.  Use of upper and lower CASE (Computer Aided Software Engineering) tools are employed in the analysis, design and implementation of a team oriented term project.

Pre-requisites: You must have successfully completed COMS 212 to take COMS 380.

Professors: Rebecca Bates (bates@mnsu.edu) 
Contact Information

Course Hours and Location
Tuesday 9:00-9:50 TR N241
Wednesday 9:00-9:50 WH 119
Thursday, Friday 9:00-9:50 WH 286

Office Hours
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
Not Available 2-4 WH 119 2-4 WH 119 10-12 10-12 by appointment
  4-5 4-5    

Unless otherwise noted, office hours are in WH 243.  If things that are useful for the entire class come up, they will be posted on the announcement section of the class webpage so check it regularly.

Course Materials
Required text: Whitten, Jeffery, Bentley, Lonnie & Dittman, Kevin.  (2004).  Systems Analysis and Design Methods. Boston, MA: McGraw Hill. 

Recommended text: Toliver, Pamela R.  (2003).  Microsoft Access 2002, Volume II.  Upper Saddle River, NJ:  Prentice Hall. 

Course Syllabus

Course Goals
This course introduces students to topics, trends, software, and terminology associated with the analysis, design and implementation of information systems. 

Course Objectives
Participants will study the methodologies associated with structured analysis and design of information systems and be assigned the tasks of analyzing, designing and implementing a prototypic system.  After successfully completing this course, participants will be able to:

  1. Apply fundamental structured analysis and design methodologies to assess the requirements of an existing system and determine the requirements of a revised system.

    1. Determine the requirements of the proposed systems including input, output, processes and their related volume, size, timing and frequency.

    2. Identify the system’s users and their degree and type of system usage.

    3. Identify the necessary management reporting and decision support components.

    4.  Identify the data components and data relationships of the proposed system.

    5. Determine the current and future hardware and application software requirements.

    6. Assess the proposed system’s technical, operational, and economic feasibility.

    7. Create a timeline for the completion of the project.

  2. Document the data flow through the proposed information system.

    1. Decompose the information system using context and system diagrams to depict the overall structure of the system.

    2. Prepare balanced data flow diagrams (DFD) and describe their component.

    3. Create Use Case Reports and a data dictionary to store descriptions of the entities, data flows, processes, and data stores.

  3. Develop an in-depth data model (DM) that supports the proposed system.

    1. Use an Entity Relation Diagram (ERD) to model file structures.

    2. Enhance the data model through Use Case Reports.

    3. Normalize the data model to support/complement data modeling.

    4. Store metadata in a repository.

  4. Implement the DFD, DM and sample prototype using MS Access.

    1. Convert the data model developed above into a MS Access relational database.

    2. Define all elements and field conditions.

    3. Populated the tables with meaningful sample data.

    4. Map the data stores to the data model.

    5. Implement the DFD using a design tool.

    6. Map the primitive processes to MS Access functions and queries.

    7. Develop a data dictionary.

    8. Implement a graphical user interface (GUI) and sample reports in MS Access.

Grading
See syllabus.

Other Information

COMS 380 Handouts and Assignments

COMS 380 Academic Honesty, Collaboration and Make-up Policies

Additional Resources

Website for the textbook: Whitten, Bentley, Dittman  http://mhhe.com/whitten

On-line programming help (various tutorials)

What do all the acronyms mean?

The biggest repository ever?

Page last modified by R.A. Bates on 04/30/2004 02:25 PM.