How to layout your Controlled Assement

Design of Solution 

What the problem involves

For this section you are required to consolidate all of the information from the Scenario booklet, highlighting all of the key requirement of the proposed system. The best way to tackle this section is to build the overview of the system in a few paragraphs. Then take each task from the booklet and break it down. It’s important to make sure that you are not just copying word for word the information from the booklet, this should be your own words.

You should be looking to complete a good A4 page outlining the problems, any less you will find that you won’t be able to get all the marks available.

Overview Plan

There are three main elements that make up this section:

·         Data dictionary (This shows all of the fields that will be required for a database, this is arranged by table)

·         How you flow through the system (Any menu systems, links to files or databases)

·         How information is displayed in the program, such as queries or reports, the process of entering information into the system.

Detailed Plan (Proposed Solution)

You are now looking at the way in which to code the solution to the problem.

All of the code that you produce should be pseudo code, and not language specific at this point in time (That comes later). E.g.

IF …… THEN …… ELSE

monthChosen ← INPUT

In addition to the code you should also specify any SQL that you’re planning on using and also the format of any text files, including the name that you are going to give your file.

Solution Development 

How my solution meets the User's Requirements

You need to be thinking about the requirements of the user throughout the design and build of the system. Things to think about:

·         Menu Systems

·         How data is saved and read from a file or database

·         How information is printed to the screen

·         How many key or mouse presses are required.

This information can be shown using the output from your code. NOTE – you are not expected to put all of your code in this section.

Annotated Code

In this section you need to put all of the completed code for the project.

It’s extremely import that you annotate you code (Comment). You should be explain what your importing, the variables you’ve declared, processes/functions you are building or using.

This will become a very large section and may take you some time to get all your code in here. Please make sure that your code is formatted correctly and you have indents in the correct place and it’s easy to read. If it’s difficult to copy and paste the code as text you can also print screen and then paste. However if you do this you will need to crop the image to just show the code.

Programming Techniques Used 

Different Programming Techniques

Now is your chance to show the breadth of your coding knowledge, you should be explaining what and why you used different programming techniques. Things to think about are:

·         Any libraries

·         Constants and variables

·         Text files or databases

·         Errors

·         Functions and procedures

·         Validation

·         Data structures (i.e. hashing tables or arrays)

Processes

For this section you will need to show how the different functions and procedures work together, also including any databases or text files that you may use.

Efficient Coding

How have you managed to make your code as efficient as possible, what programming techniques have you used in the process. You also need to explain why you think the programming technique is efficient.

Data Structures

Have you used any data structures (This is going to be arrays) in your solution. If so, for what purpose are you using them and why did you decide to use them.

You can also show an example of your data structure in use, by copying and pasting some of your code, as well as explaining what’s happening. For example:

Months = {1: ‘Jan’, 2: ‘Feb’, 3: ‘Mar’}

Validation 

It’s more than likely you will be building a solution that will at some stage require user input, as such you will need to put solutions in that will ensure the data that’s entered by a user is valid.

In this section you need to discuss and highlight some of the solutions that you have used in your code this includes:

·         User validation

·         Error Catching

Testing & Evaluation 

Test Plans & Evidence

You will need to create a test plan for this section. All the main elements of the program should be tested. Don’t worry if some of your testing shows that you have errors and that you need to change some of the code, this is the point of this section. However don’t purposely leave out or fail to action anything. You will also need to show evidence of all the testing that you complete, this is done using screen printing, don’t forget to crop the image again, so that it just shows the code or output.

Below is an example of a test plan.

No.	Description	Test	Input/ User Action	Expected Outcome	Actual Result	Action Required
1.1	Opening Menu Works	Menu choice 1 works	1	Quote number is prompted	As expected	No

Changes made (Remedial Action)

In this section you will address all of the issues that have been highlighted in the testing. The purpose is to change your code so that the function or procedure works the way that it’s expected to. Just like the test plan you need to explain what you’ve changed and then screenshot the outcome/output as evidence.

Evaluation

The last section of work. For this section you are required to write few paragraphs, on why you feel the work you have done has lead you to produce a solution that fits the needs of the brief and also the user. Remember to refer back to the explanation of the problem, and include some of the processes that you’ve used. You also have the opportunity to talk about any other additions you would like to add to the system if you had more time.