Information Systems Design 3

1
Information Systems Design 3

• UFIE8V-20-3
• 2005-6

2

• Admin
• Staffing
• UWE Online
• Assessment
• Themes
• Case studies
• Changes from 2005-6
• Workshops
• Next week
• Following week

3
Staff

• Chris Wallace
• Module leader, Friday tutorial, most of the
  lectures
• Kevin Doyle
• Some lectures, Thursday tutorial and linkage with
  ISD2
• Prakash Chatterjee (VL)
• 2 Tutorials on Monday and XML

4
Changes from 2004-5

• More emphasis on Development and Design
• More on XML and native XML databases
• Coursework introduced
• Better use of UWE Online

5
Assessment

• 75 Exam, 25 coursework
• Change from last year due to popular demand
• Coursework due end of this semester
• Individual work to develop a small web
  application using PHP and MySQL
• Summer Exam had marks from 85-14, 21 1st, 11
  fails after resits 94 pass (of those
  participating)
• Exam structure will be the same as the last 2
  years
• 3 hour
• One compulsory short, technical questions 25
• 3 out of 7 problem-based, topic-based questions
  25 each

6
UWE Online

• Module set up and should be visible if not you
  are not enrolled!
• Will be used for
• Notices
• Tutorial reminders
• Discussion groups
• teaching material and links to teaching material
  slides, notes, applications
• Key is the schedule which links to supporting
  documents.

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ISD
John Banbury (1924-2005)
Sainsbury Supply Chain
Sainsbury Stock control
Child Support Agency
Children and Mothers
Information Requiring System (IRS)
Information Providing System (IPS)
Information Systems Development (ISD)
People, Computers, Networks, Databases,
Software
People, Organisations, Society, Machines
8
Some observations

• IPS is not just a computer system, it, like the
  IRS, is a human activity system
• In general, both IRS and IPS are complex
  systems.
• The behaviour is unknowable
• The boundary is problematic
• The systems are adaptive
• The range of systems is increasing rapidly new
  technologies, new information needs
• IRS and IPS co-evolve

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Information Requiring Systems

• Businesses still need information for
  operational, tactical and strategic control but
• Operations are distributed over the supply chain,
  not localised in a single organisation
• Customers are part of the operations layer as
  e-buyers
• Scope of tactical control increased for large
  companies
• Other organisations have become major providers
  of information
• Government (NHS, Work and Pensions, Inland
  revenue, MOD)
• Local Government
• The Voluntary sector
• Media organisations
• Information has become democratised
• Social systems like wikipedia
• Blogs, plogs and podcasts

10
Information Providing Systems

• Human activity systems and thus include Work
  processes, training, instructions,
  documentation..
• We are mainly concerned with IPSes which contain
  a significant Computer-based information system.
• Most attention is paid to the CBIS component
• Technologies for implementing CBIS are changing
  more rapidly than humans, so our attention is
  drawn to this movement.
• The CBIS is a symbolic system and in theory is
  predictable (in practice, human cognition and
  limited resources mean that complete knowledge is
  impossible)
• Our needs are often driven by emerging technology
  the mobile phone, the internet have both
  reshaped societies needs for information.
• Core business functions largely met by Commercial
  Off-the Shelf Software (COTS)

11
New possibilities for CBIS

• 3-tier web-based systems
• Presentation - (IE, Mozilla HTML, Javascript)
• Application layer (PHP)
• Persistence layer or Data store (MySQL, Oracle)
• SMS and MMS as alternative presentation layers
• Web services for connection between applications
• XML and related technologies
• Using and designing XML applications
• XQuery for querying XML databases
• Business process modelling and integration
• Workflow modelling
• Process enactment
• System integration and Process orchestration

12
Information Systems Development

• IDS is about the relationship between the two
• not just a one shot development process but one
  of continual maintenance of fitness between IRS
  and IPS
• in functionality
• in quality of information
• Design methods guide the structure of the IPS
• we need help to choice the right approach and
  components in the face of widening choice
• Development methods and methodologies guide the
  structure of the development process
• Can current methods meet the needs of the
  changing nature of both the IRS and IPS?
• Methods solve old problems (but most problems are
  old!)

13
Development Methods

• The study of the process of IS development and a
  critical analysis of ISD process models
• Alternative process models agile and XP
  processes in contrast to waterfall-based SSADM
• Alternative ways of viewing ISD
• knowledge-based recurrent problems and their
  solution
• information management
• social engagement
• learning
• a conversation with materials
• Total systems development development of the
  whole IPS in context, not just the CBIS

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Design Methods

• Describing Structure
• Extended ER modelling, realisation in an RDBMS
• Hierarchical structures Jackson notation, XML
• Using a Case tool QSEE
• Describing Processes
• User stories, use cases, sequence and activity
  diagrams, state transition models, RAD
• Problem solution patterns
• Communication
• Classification
• Terminology, taxonomy construction, testing and
  use
• Matching
• Fuzzy matching, fitness functions
• Making design choices

15
Case studies

• 3-tier PHP and SQL
• SMS Straw Poll workshops 3 and 4
• Coursework
• XML
• Travel information
• Faculty Information system
• Business Process
• CEMS academic processes exam moderation

16
Workshops

• Next week
• An introduction to PHP programming simple
  Client-server interaction using Forms
• Following week The SMS Poll system
• PHP and MySQL with SMS interface
• Understand base application
• ER model the database
• Hand execute the SQL queries
• Design modifications for the application
• What issue to take a poll on?