Course Registration System
Vision Document
Version 1.0
Revision History
Date |
Version |
Description |
Author |
1/Dec/98 |
Draft |
Initial Draft |
Sue Gamble |
13/Dec/98 |
1.0 |
Minor revisions following Peer
Review.
Added performance requirements. |
Sue Gamble |
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Table of Contents
- Objectives
- Scope
- References
- Positioning
- Business Opportunity
- Problem Statement
- Product Position Statement
- User Description
- User/Market Demographics
- User Profiles
- User Environments
- Key User Needs
- Alternatives and Competition
- Product Overview
- Product Perspective
- Summary of Capabilities
- Assumptions and Dependencies
- Cost and Pricing
- Licensing and Installation
- Feature Attributes
- Product Features
- Logon
- Register for Courses
- Course Cancellations
- Student Billings
- Enter, Update, and View Professor
Information
- View Student Grades
- Select Courses to Teach
- Enter, Update, and View Student
Information
- Record Student Grades
- View Course Catalog Information
- View Course Schedule
- Monitor for Course Full
- Constraints
- Quality Ranges
- Precedence and Priority
- Other Product Requirements
- Applicable Standards
- System Requirements
- Performance
Requirements
- Environmental
Requirements
- Documentation
Requirements
- User Manual
- Online Help
- Installation Guides,
Configuration, and Read Me Files
- Labeling and Packaging
Vision
- Objectives
The purpose of this document is to define the high-level requirements of the
Wylie course registration (C-Registration) system in terms of the needs of the
end users.
- Scope
This Vision Document applies to the Wylie course registration system, which
will be developed by the Wylie College Information Systems (IT) department. The
IT department will develop this client-server system to interface with the
existing course catalog database.
The C-Registration System will enable students to register for courses
on-line. The C-Registration System allows professors to select their teaching
courses and to maintain student grades.
- References
Applicable references are:
- System Business Case for the C-Registration System, WyIT388,
DRAFT, 1998, Wylie College IT.
- Course Billing Interface Specification, WC93332, 1985, Wylie
College Press.
- Course Catalog Database Specification, WC93422, 1985, Wylie
College Press.
- Stakeholder Requests Document for the C-Registration System,
WyIT389, V1.0, 1998, Wylie College IT.
- Glossary for the C-Registration System, WyIT406, V1.0, 1998, Wylie
College IT.
- Requirements Attributes Guidelines for the C-Registration System,
WyIT404, V1.0, 1998, Wylie College IT.
- Positioning
- Business Opportunity
This project will be replacing the entire front-end of the existing
course registration system with a state-of-the-art on-line system that
allows student and professor access through PC clients.
The current registration system has been in use since 1985 and lacks the
capacity to handle the student and course load projected for year 2000. In
addition, the current system is outdated mainframe technology, which only
supports access through the clerk in the Registration Office. The new system
will enable all professors and students to access the system through PCs
connected to the Wylie College computer network and through any personal
computer connected through the Internet.
The new system will bring Wylie College to the leading edge in course
registration systems thus improving the image of the College, attracting
more students, and streamlining administrative functions.
- Problem Statement
The
problem of |
The outdated and largely
manual student registration process at Wylie College |
affects |
Students, professors, and
College administration. |
The
impact of which is |
A slow and costly process
combined with dissatisfied students and professors. |
A
successful solution would |
Improve the image of the
College, attract more students, and streamline administrative
registration functions. |
- Product Position
Statement
For |
Wylie College students,
professors, and the course registrar |
Who |
Attend, teach, or administer
college courses |
The
Course Registration System |
Is a tool |
That |
Enables online course
registration and access to course and grade information |
Unlike |
The existing outdated
mainframe registration system |
Our
product |
Provides up-to-date
information on all courses, registrations, teachers, and grades to all
users from any PC connected via the College LAN or internet. |
- User Description
This section describes the users of the Wylie Course Registration System.
There are 3 types of users of the C-Registration System; the Course Registrar,
the Students, and the Professors.
- User/Market
Demographics
The University User Community is a large sophisticated community that
demands the flexibility and response time that an on-line course
registration can provide.
The users are educated, computer literate, and in most cases own personal
computers in their homes. The ability to register for courses via personal
computers and to review their grades on-line would greatly streamline course
registration.
The initial release of C-Registration will be limited to Wylie College.
Marketing subsequent releases to schools, colleges, and universities is
under consideration by the Wylie IT Department. As a result, Course
Registration will be designed to be expandable and all user community data
(i.e. College Name) will be table driven and easily modifiable upon system
installation.
- User Profiles
Registrar:
The Registrar is responsible for administering course registration for
each school term. The Registrar is typically a college-educated professional
with full computer skills. The current Registrar has been trained on the use
of the old batch-oriented registration system.
Professors:
The Professors that will use C-Registration are educated, computer
literate and familiar with the Wylie registration process. It can be assumed
that not all Professors have personal computers in their home and that not
all Professors have Internet access.
Students:
Up to 2000 students will use the C-Registration System each school term
to register for courses and to review their final grades. The students are
typically educated, computer literate, and have access to the Internet. It
is expected that each term 10% of the students will be registering at Wylie
for the first time and will be unfamiliar with the course registration
process.
- User Environments
The user community is situated on the Wylie College campus. The Course
Register works out of the College Admin Headquarters building and is
connected to the campus LAN. The students and professors have free access to
the LAN through personal computers situated in the campus library and
student lounge building.
- Key User Needs
A representative sampling of students, professors, as well as the current
Course Registrar completed a User Survey to determine the user problems with
the existing course registration system and to solicit user input on
improvements. The complete survey results are included in the Stakeholder
Requests Document [4]. A summary of the survey results are listed below in
order of relative importance from high to low:
- Student Course Registration is slow and inefficient.
Currently
students must complete a course registration form and submit it to the
Registrar. The Registrar takes up to 2 weeks to process the form and another
week to send the confirmation back to the student. At this point, any
schedule changes due to full courses or student preference require the
entire three week process to be repeated. This provides students limited
flexibility in selecting their schedule of courses. Students would like to
have online access to quickly determine course availability and assigned
professors.
- Early access to Student Grades is recommended.
The final report
cards are typically mailed out to the students 8 weeks after the start of
the examination period. During this time, students continually phone their
professors in attempts to find out their marks sooner. Online access to
individual course grades was a recommendation from most students completing
the survey.
- Clerical effort is time intensive and costly.
The Registrar and 2-3
temporary clerical hires take 400 – 500 hours each term to process the
course registration paperwork. Much of this time is spent entering
information into the main course registration database and then
re-registering students into other courses to resolve schedule conflicts and
course availability problems. Student access to the course registration
system would effectively reduce this effort to zero.
- Alternatives and
Competition
The user community was unaware of any viable alternatives or
off-the-shelf solutions. The user community supported the strategy that the
system should be developed internally by the College in order to reduce
costs, ensure appropriate functionality, and to guarantee continued support
and maintenance on the system.
- Product Overview
This section provides a high level view of the C-Registration System
capabilities, interfaces to the external Billing System and Course Catalog
Data Base System, and the system configuration.
- Product
Perspective
The C-Registration System will replace the existing mainframe course
registration system at Wylie College. The new system will interface with the
existing Billing System and Course Catalog Database System as shown in the
context diagram below (see Figure 6.1.1).
The C-Registration System will consist of a client component and server
component as illustrated in Figure 6.1.2. The server component resides on
the Wylie College UNIX Server. The server component must interface with the
Billing and Course Catalog Database Systems on the College DEC VAX Main
Frame. This interface is supported by an existing Open SQL Interface.
The client component resides on a personal computer. The College PCs will
be setup with the client component installed. Any non-college PCs must
download the client software from the UNIX Server via the Internet. Once the
client component is installed on the PC, the user may access the
C-Registration System from the PC through the College LAN or Internet. A
valid ID number and password must be entered in order for access to be
granted.

Figure 6.1.1 C-Registration System Context Diagram

Figure 6.1.2 C-Registration System Overview
- Summary of
Capabilities
The table in this section identifies the main capabilities of the
C-Registration System in terms of benefits and features. The features are
further described in section 7 of this document. Refer to the Glossary [5]
for a description of terms.
Customer Benefit |
Supporting Features |
Up-to-date course
information |
The system accesses the
Course Catalog Database for up-to-date information on all courses
offered at Wylie College.
For each course, the Students and Professors may review the course
description, prerequisites, assigned teachers, class locations, and
class times. |
Up-to-date registration
information |
All course registrations are
immediately logged in the Registration Database to provide up-to-date
information on full or cancelled courses. |
Easy and timely access to
course grades |
Students can view their
grades in any course simply by providing their user ID and password.
Students may access the registration system from any College PC or
from their home PC via the internet.
Professors enter all student marks directly into the Registration
Database from their PCs. |
Access from any College PC |
Students may access the
registration system from any College PC or from their home PC via the
internet.
Installation of the client component of the C-Registration System on
a PC is an easy to follow process using the internet. |
Easy and convenient access
from your PC at home |
Students may access the
registration system from any College PC or from their home PC via the
internet. |
Secure and confidential |
A valid user ID and password
is required to gain access to the C-Registration System.
Student report card information is protected from unauthorized
access. |
Instant feedback on full or
cancelled courses |
All course registrations are
immediately logged in the Registration Database to provide up-to-date
information on full or cancelled courses. |
- Assumptions and
Dependencies
The following assumptions and dependencies relate to the capabilities of
the C-Registration System as outlined in this Vision Document:
- The existing Billing and Course Catalog Database Systems which
reside on the College DEC VAX Mainframe will continue to be supported
until at least 2005.
- The external interfaces of the Billing and Course Catalog Database
Systems are as defined in [2] and [3] and will not be altered.
- It is assumed that the College will continue to operate and support
the existing UNIX Server and the DEC VAX Mainframe until at least
2005.
- It is assumed that additional funding will be available by 2005 to
replace the legacy Billing and Course Catalog Database Systems.
- Implementation of the new registration system in time for the
January 2000 school term is dependent upon funding approval by March 1st,
1999.
- Cost and Pricing
Due to funding constraints, the costs for developing the system must not
exceed $1,200,000.
It is anticipated that existing computers of the college will be used as
the target machines and that no hardware budget is required.
- Licensing and
Installation
There are no licensing requirements for V1.0 of the system, as it will be
available only to Wylie College.
Installation of the client component must be available via diskette, CD,
or downloadable from the Internet.
Installation of the server component must provide the options for
retaining the existing Registration Database (without loss of any data) or
generating a new Database.
- Feature Attributes
The defined features of the C-Registration System have been given
attributes that can be used to evaluate, track, prioritize and manage the
product items proposed for implementation. The feature attributes that apply
to this development are defined in the Requirements Attributes Guidelines [6].
- Product Features
This section defines and describes the features of the C-Registration
System. Features are the high-level capabilities of the system that are
necessary to deliver benefits to the users.
- Logon
Students, professors, and the Course Registrar shall provide a valid ID
and password for entry to the C-Registration System. Users are assigned
their ID and a temporary password at the time they apply for admission to
the College. The system shall enable a user to change their temporary
password.
- Register for
Courses
The system shall display available courses to the student upon request.
The student shall be able to query based upon course name, course code, and
department. The system shall accept course registrations from students and
shall validate based upon course availability, schedule conflicts, and
completed pre-requisite courses. The system shall notify the student
immediately if the course registration does not succeed.
The system shall allow the student to change course selections prior to
the end of the registration period.
- Course
Cancellations
The system shall allow the Registrar to cancel courses. The Registrar
typically reviews all courses at the end of the registration period and
cancels courses that have no assigned Professor or which have less than 3
registered students. The Course Registrar notifies students of cancelled
courses by telephone or mail.
- Student
Billings
The system shall send notifications to the Billing System following
closure of the Registration period. These notifications shall include
student name, address, course selections, and payment due.
- Enter, Update, and
View Professor Information
The system shall accept and update professor information, including name,
address, phone, fax, and email address. Professor information shall be
available to the Professors and Course Registrar for viewing.
- View Student
Grades
The system shall enable a student to view one course grade or their
entire report card. The system shall protect the student grade information
from access from any user other than the student and the Professors.
- Select
Courses to Teach
The system shall enable Professors to sign up for courses to teach prior
to the end of the Registration period.
- Enter, Update, and
View Student Information
The system shall accept and update student information, including student
ID, name, address, phone number, and email address. Student information
shall be available to the Professors and Course Registrar for viewing. The
system shall ensure that a student only has access to his or her own student
information. The Registrar maintains student information.
- Record Student
Grades
The system shall accept, validate, and retain student grades entered by
the Professor.
- View Course Catalog
Information
The course catalog information maintained in the Course Catalog Database
shall be displayed to the user upon request. Users shall be able to query
for information based upon course name, course code, professor name, and
department.
- View Course
Schedule
The system shall display the complete course schedule for a specific
student upon request by that student.
- Monitor for Course
Full
The system shall ensure that no course is filled beyond the limit of 10
students.
- Constraints
In addition to the assumptions and dependencies listed in Section 6, the
following constraints apply to the C-Registration System:
- The system shall not require any hardware development or procurement.
- The course information available is limited to the type of data
supported by the existing Course Catalog Database.
- Quality Ranges
This section defines the quality ranges for performance, robustness, fault
tolerance, usability, and similar characteristics for the C-Registration
System
Availability: The System shall be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Usability: The System shall be easy-to-use and shall be appropriate for the
target market of computer-literate students and professors.
Usability: The System shall include online help for the user. Student and
Professor users should not require the use of a hardcopy Manual to use the
System.
Maintainability: The System shall be designed for ease of maintenance. All
college-specific data should be table-driven and modifiable without
recompilation of the System.
- Precedence and Priority
This section provides some direction on the relative importance of the
proposed system features. The features defined in this Vision Document
should be included in the first 2 releases of the system. All features
critical to student registration are planned for the first release.
As development progresses on this system, the feature attributes
(referenced in Section 7 of this document) will be used to weight the
relative importance of the features and to plan the release content. The
benefit, effort, and risk attributes are used to determine priority of a
feature and target release.
It is anticipated that the C-Registration System will be released for
general use at Wylie College through 2-4 main releases.
Release 1 must contain as a minimum the basic functionality as listed
below:
- Logon
- Register for Courses
- Interface to Course Catalog Database
- Maintain Student Information
- Maintain Professor Information
Release 2 should include:
- Submit Student Grades
- View Grades
- Select Courses to Teach
The functionality for Release 3 has not yet been determined. It is
anticipated that this release will contain enhancements to the existing
functionality.
Future replacement of the legacy Billing System and Course Database
System is targeted for Release 4 in Year 2005.
- Other Product
Requirements
- Applicable
Standards
The desktop user-interface shall be Windows 95/98 compliant.
- System
Requirements
The system shall interface with the existing Course Catalog Database
System. C-Registration shall support the data format as defined in [3].
The system shall interface with the existing Billing System and shall
support the interface as defined in [2].
The server component of the system shall operate on the College Campus
Server and shall run under the UNIX operating system.
The client component of the system shall operate on any personal computer
with a 486 Microprocessor or better.
The client component of the system shall not require more than 32 MB RAM
and 20 MB Disk Space.
The client component of the system shall run on Windows 95, Windows 98,
and Microsoft Windows NT.
- Performance
Requirements
The system shall support up to 2000 simultaneous users against the
central database at any given time, and up to 500 simultaneous users against
the local servers at any one time.
The system shall provide access to the legacy Course Catalog Database
with no more than a 10 second latency.
The system shall complete 80% of all transactions within 2 minutes.
- Environmental
Requirements
None.
- Documentation
Requirements
This section describes the documentation requirements of the C-Registration
System.
- User Manual
The User Manual shall describe use of the System from the students’,
professors’, and Registrar’s view point. The User Manual shall include:
- Minimum System Requirements
- Installation of the PC client
- Logging On
- Logging Off
- All System Features
- Customer Support Information
The User Manual shall follow the format as defined in the Wylie College
User Manual template.
The User Manual should range from 50 – 100 pages. The User Manual
page dimensions shall be 7 by 9 inches. The User Manual shall be available
as hardcopy and through the online help.
- Online Help
Online Help shall be available to the user for each system function. Each
topic covered in the User Manual shall also be available through the online
help.
- Installation
Guides, Configuration, and Read Me Files
The Installation Guide for the server portion shall include:
- Minimum System Requirements
- Installation Instructions
- Configuring College-Specific Parameters
- How to Initialize the C-Registration Database
- How to Retain the Existing C-Registration Database
- Customer Support Information
- How to Order Upgrades
The Read Me File shall be available for display following installation.
The Read Me File will also reside on disk and be available for viewing at
any time by the user. The Read Me File shall include:
- New release features
- Known bugs and workarounds.
- Labeling and Packaging
The Wylie College logo shall be prominent on the user documentation and
splash screens.
As the initial releases are strictly for Wylie College and not the
general market, product marketing literature, product packaging, and
promotional materials will not be developed.
Copyright
© 1987 - 2000 Rational Software Corporation
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