CINS 370- Database Management Systems Semester Project

Proposal Phase

Due Date: For Mon-Wed lecture: Wednesday, February 15, by midnight

For Tues-Thursday lecture: Thursday, February 16, by midnight

DELIVERABLES: Proposal uploaded as a single document in VISTA by the team lead or designee. ALSO DUE : the individual team member evaluations to be uploaded by each team member in VISTA.

For the proposal phase of your project you will need to list who is on your team, who is your team leader and who is going to be assigned what responsibilities for your project. Each team will thus submit one proposal. The team leader is responsible for collecting together, collating, editing and providing a table of contents for the proposal and also making sure the proposal is uploaded in VISTA/WebCT. The responsibilities of team members may change over time, but give the initial assignments. You will need to turn in a preliminary Problem Statement/Requirements Definition, and initial Entity-Relationship (ER) Diagram, and an initial set of Use Cases. These are the items 1), 2), and 5) as described in your Design Phase Requirements. Present the elements of your proposal in exactly this order. Again, these are preliminary and I would expect that they will change as you refine what you need to do to implement your project over time.

If your project is for an ACTUAL CLIENT, You will develop your proposals based on verbal and written information provided by the client. Be sure to be very professional and formal in your communication with the client. Minimize any inconvenience to your client by planning ahead. Be sure to communicate effectively with your client by using language that is familiar to your client, translating technical terms into concepts familiar to the client.

1) Problem Statement/Requirements Definition (5 points). Develop a narrative statement of the needs for this project. Begin with a overview and background description of the organization and enterprise. What is the business operation that you are automating? Next describe what is to be done and what business processes you are focusing on for the project. Your Requirements Statement needs to include the problem scope, what is needed, the application context, and assumptions and performance needs.

2) The Entity-Relationship Model (10 points) which will provide the mapping to the global schema for your database. Entity-Relationship Modeling is covered in Chapter 3 of your text and in the course notes. Object-Oriented and Object-Relational Databases are covered in later chapters.

NOTE: Not due in the Proposal Phase, but due in the Phase 1 Design phase you will also build a *simple* Object Model diagram according to the Rumbaugh Methodology discussed in class and shown in notes.

3) A Set of Use Cases (5 points): You will need to include an overall use case diagram and a separate narrative description of each use case. If use cases are complex, break them down hierarchically into sub-use cases. Use cases are described in the notes. See other links on my web page for more on Use Cases including the examples of other student projects.

4) A filled-in evaluation form from each and every one of your project team. These evaluations are to be uploaded in VISTA/WebCT by each individual team member ON THE DATE THE PROPOSAL IS DUE, September 16, 2010.