COMP09051 Resit Modelling for IS Coursework

Question

Select a short article  from a recent newspaper article or magazine (i.e. published after 1^st March, 2020), which describes a scenario that you feel would merit investigation using the Hard Systems approach. Identify a client from the scenario for whom you will produce a report in the same vein as the report produced for Question 1 above. Include a copy of the article in your report, taking care to identify the name and date of the newspaper or magazine and the page on which the article is printed. The report is to contain your answers to (i)-(v) below:

(i) Undertake a pre-analysis of the situation. Explain your awareness of and commitment to the study.

(ii) Draw a diagram showing what seem to be the main variables and the relationships between them. Make sure you include a title to the diagram and give a brief summary of the key features of the diagram.

(iii) Draw an objectives network outlining mission, goals, and objectives of the client set. Select one objective as the starting point for a first pass through your analysis. State your criteria for selecting this objective as opposed to any other.

(iv) Identify four possible routes to the objective you have just chosen, suggest a suitable measure of performance, and indicate the advantages and disadvantages of this measure.

(v) Choose a modelling technique suitable for the objectives, routes and measures you have just justified. Then:

explain and justify your choice

outline the essential features of this modelling technique

indicate briefly how it might be applied in this case

indicate the additional information, if any, you would need in order to apply it.

Please Note: You are not required to undertake the modelling process.

Question 2 - Soft Systems Approach

The question for this scenario is the article “BCS adds its voice to Blackwell safety fears”, reproduced in Appendix A below.

Imagine that you have been asked to carry out a study of the situation by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) to help alleviate the situation. This is a messy problem situation so you have decided to undertake an analysis using Soft Systems Methodology.

(i) Produce a Rich Picture to represent your understanding of the scenario presented above.

(ii) Describe the benefits and problems of a Rich Picture as a tool for representing a problem situation.

(iii) One of your junior colleagues has produced the rough primary task Root Definition shown below:

(iv) Choose a different client who is likely to have a different perspective on the problem to NII. State your chosen client and identify a problem theme from your Rich Picture which relates to your client’s perspective of the problem situation. Name 3 issue-based relevant systems that relate to this problem theme. Select one of these relevant systems and develop it as a Root Definition and Conceptual Model. Describe how you would use your Conceptual Model in the next stage of the analysis.

Sophie Collins (Computer Digest, 21^st January, 2019)

The British Computer Society has reiterated its concerns over the software which is designed to shut down the new Blackwell B nuclear reactor in Redwoodshire.

The Society comments suggest that it is not entirely convinced by Nuclear Electric’s assurance, at a forum on safety-critical systems in October last year, that the software is demonstrably safe.

In the forum several Nuclear Electric officials spoke publicly for the first time about the safety of software written for Blackwell B.

They said that checks on the software showed no cause for concern. And their comments were supported by Peter Bennett, a safety-critical specialist, who wrote to Computer Digest saying that “not one person” at the forum chose to record their disapproval of the scheme presented by Nuclear Electric.

Now the BCS has given its reaction to the forum’s discussions in an open letter to the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII).

“Our major concern is simply the total size of the software,” said the letter. “The safety o the complete system depends on the ability to reason about the correctness of an item of software that exceeds 100,000 lines. We think this is unsatisfactory.”

The BCS urges the NII to insist on the strengthening of the non-computerised secondary protection systems. But Nuclear Electric says it can prove the safety of the software to the NII’s satisfaction and adds that there is no need to strengthen the systems.