Software Engineering Techniques for Reducing Maintenance Cost

Learning Outcomes

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this Module, you will be expected to be able to:

·LO1: Decompose given problems and devise requirements specifications using engineering best practice.

·LO2: Formulate design specifications using appropriate methodologies.

Assignment Task

Read the Following Guidelines Carefully and Understand all Requirements Before Starting this Assignment.

Assessment Overview

You are to answer a set of tasks about material of the unit. Any diagrams required in response to questions must be drawn in Lucidchart. Textual responses will be written using Microsoft Word.

This assignment is worth 30% of the total marks for the unit. Students complete the assignment individually.

For late submission, see Assessment Regulations in the module guide.

Maintaining software contributes significantly to the overall cost of a software product.

i.The cost of changing software during its maintenance phase can be reduced by investing in good Software Engineering techniques during its development phase.

Identify and analysis THREE Software Engineering techniques you believe contribute to reducing the cost of maintenance and describe how each of these techniques achieves this.              

ii.When a system requires significant and continual change, a decision must be made as to whether or not it is better to discard the old system and build a new one to replace it.

Create FIVE questions you would ask to assist making that decision.           

iii.A software development company has been experiencing significant issues regarding the maintenance of some of its existing systems.

You are a senior Software Engineer responsible for the evolution of a new software product. You have to decide how your Software Engineers will be split between the development team and the maintenance team of the new product.

Discuss and compare which factors would influence whether there should be separate teams for development and maintenance, one team covering both activities, or a small overlap between the teams.              

A client wishes to set up an internet shopping application. Requirements include the ability of a customer to register with a name, address, payment details and be assigned a unique customer identification. A customer should be allowed to order any item from the site. When an order is completed by a customer the items are either dispatched from stock or placed on back order from a supplier, in either case the customer is notified. Items dispatched from stock are debited to the customer, items on back order are debited when they are eventually dispatched.

Assignment Task

i.Draw suitable UML class diagrams clearly showing a static view of the individual elements and their relationships.           

ii.Evaluate the dynamic organisation of objects and messages within the system and draw a UML sequence diagram. The diagram should clearly show the sequence of message flow.           

Plagiarism is a form of academic dishonesty that in this case would involve theft of material, and this would result in penalisation of the student.

To avoid students plagiarising material, and therefore prevent penalisation of students, all content that is used in the student’s answers must be totally written in their own words.

You should watch the plagiarism-related videos placed on VU Collaborate.

Formatting requirements

·A title page identifying the programme name, module title, assessment title, student ID, marking tutor and the date of submission must be included.

·Page numbers should be inserted in the center of the footer section of each page.

·Font style used should be either Arial or Calibri Light. Font size should be 12. Text should be double-spaced.

·The Harvard referencing format must be used to credit secondary research sources. In-text citations should be included within your discussion (where relevant) using the author-date format and full reference details should be included in your bibliography. For further details, click here.

·A Table of Contents should be included.

·All diagrams should be captioned and referred to within your discussion.

·You should include a word-count at the end of the assessment section where a word count applies. This should exclude references, figures, and appendices.

Please submit each completed task to the relevant Turnitin assignment submission section on the Moodle course page.

Students carry out the assignment individually. Students must not share any part of their work with each other.

Issues with submission

·Unless otherwise notified by your Module Tutor, electronic copies of assignments should be saved as word documents and uploaded into Turnitin via the Moodle class area. If you experience problems in uploading your work, then you must send an electronic copy of your assessment to your Module Tutor via email BEFORE the due date/time.

·Please note that when you submit your work to Moodle, it will automatically be checked for matches against other electronic information. The individual percentage text matches may be used as evidence in an academic misconduct investigation.

Specific Marking Criteria

To be awarded a given grade, submissions will typically (but not necessarily exclusively) exhibit the following indicative attributes.

Design documentation to a satisfactory standard only, UML and report text explaining their use may be sparely provided and/or may be logical only in some places.

Design documentation to a good standard, UML and report text explaining their use logical in the main though may be far from extensive.

Design documentation to a very good standard, UML and report text explaining their use mostly extensive and logical in the main.

Design documentation to an excellent standard, UML and report text explaining their use extensive and logical.