Reference no: EM133361617

Assignment:

Journal circulation

An insurance company with about 1,000 employees subscribes to about 50 periodicals (magazines and journals). The periodicals are circulated in-house and employees can subscribe to the circulation. At present subscription works in this way: When a periodical arrives to the company, it goes to the library where it is registered. Next the librarian attaches a list of the subscribers to it, and sends it to the first employee on the list. The internal snail-mail distribution is used to transport the journal round the building. The employee is supposed to read it within three work days, sign off on the list with name and date, and send it to the next employee on the list. When the last employee on the list has read it, he returns it to the library, where it becomes available for common use.

Unfortunately, employees often forget that they have received the journal and they don't pass it on to the next person on the list. After a while nobody knows who is supposed to have the journal. It is difficult to keep track of the whole thing, and employees keep accusing each other of being forgetful, careless, etc.

The company has an IT department that develops business applications for in- house use. The department suggests that they create a computer-supported system that can keep track of where the journals are. When an employee has finished reading a journal, he tells the system, and the system tells him where to send the journal in the internal snail-mail system. The next reader has to acknowledge that he has received the journal. The system should of course warn people when they have forgotten to pass a journal on.

The personnel department, where the library belongs, thinks this is an excellent idea. In particular, they would like to prioritize people on the circulation list according to vacation (people cannot read journals when they are on a two-week vacation) and according to their ability to observe the circulation deadlines (the three work days for passing the journal on). However, they have experience of such systems dragging on for years while the IT department and the user department fight about what the system is supposed to do. For this reason they want a requirement specification as basis for the study.

Imagine that you are a consultant from the IT department.

A. Specify a context diagram. If you feel you don't know enough, make your best guess and state what you would like to discuss with the customer.

B. Draw a class diagram (conceptual data model) for the project.

C. Define two usability requirements.

D. Suggest an elicitation technique for the project.

E. Outline two business goals for the project.