Section A – ALL THREE questions are compulsory and MUST be attempted

The following information should be used when answering questions 1, 2 and 3.

Scenario

CAET have implemented a bespoke Human Resources (HR) system. The system has gone live but it has not proved very

popular or successful, with users claiming that it only partly fulfils their requirements. A consultant has been hired to

examine their claims and to suggest how their concerns might be tackled.

The consultant’s report has highlighted the role played by the Requirements Specification. He suggests that the

Requirements Specification’s reliance on ambiguous textual specifications has led to problems of ill-defined and poorly

communicated requirements. He claims that the ‘analyst’s failure to use diagrammatic models has meant that many

requirements were not fully understood before they were programmed. Specifications without diagrams are very difficult to

quality assure.’ His report quotes several examples of textual specifications. Two specifications are reproduced below;

Specification 1(field names are shown in italics)

The system should hold information about Jobs (job number, job description, grade) and about the Departments

(department name, department head) that these Jobs are in. A Department may have many Jobs allocated to it, but one

Job is only in one Department. When these Jobs become vacant they should be advertised in both Internal and External

media. The information that must be stored is

date advertised, size of advertisement, noticeboard location

(for internaladvertisement only),

newsletter reference

(for internal advertisement only),

newspaper edition

(for external advertisementonly) and cost of advertisement

(for external advertisement only). Information about Applicants (applicant name, applicantaddress) is required,specifying which Job they are applying for and where they saw the Job advertised.

Specification 2

When an application form is received from an Applicant, a Clerk enters the information on the form into the system. As it

is entered, it is validated against Job details to ensure that the Applicant is applying for a valid Job. Once details have been

entered they are stored on an Applicant database. Overnight a batch process is run to send an acknowledgement letter to

each Applicant. The date that the letter is sent is noted on the Applicant details held in the system.

Redefinition Project

The consultant has suggested a Redefinition Project to address the problems encountered by the users. He says that,

‘I am suggesting a mini-project with agreed Terms of Reference and a project plan. These problems need to be addressed

in a planned manner’.

The consultant is keen to stress that he does not wish to over-engineer the software solution. ‘We have to ensure that the

trade-off between time, cost and quality is appropriate for the delivered software’, he says, ‘the delivered software must be

appropriately located on the time/cost/quality triangle.’

1The consultant has recognised that ambiguous textual specification has contributed to the software’s problems. He

claims that the ‘analyst’s failure to use diagrammatic models has meant that many requirements were not fully

understood before they were programmed.’ The implication is that the use of such diagrammatic models in analysis

would have solved many of the ambiguities of the specification.

(a)Specification 1 in the scenario describes static structures, which could be modelled with a class model, entity-

relationship model or logical data structure model.

(i)Briefly explain the notation of EITHER a class model OR an entity-relationship model OR a logical data

structure model;(4 marks)

(ii)Using this notation, model the information given in Specification 1. Note any assumptions you have

made or issues you would need to clarify with the user. Your answer should indicate the fields in each