KF7011 - Systems Analysis & Design with UML

The module is available to students following full-time and distance learning programmes of study. All students are provided with a module handbook that your study will be based around, with supporting reading from a prescribed textbook. The handbook includes learning materials with a section of work for you to cover each week. The materials introduce relevant concepts and techniques, provide exercises for you to practise them and indicate supporting reading to do from a recommended textbook.
If you are a full-time student you will also have classroom based supporting lecture sessions that introduce forthcoming topics, review the work done and provide opportunities for practice and feedback. Distance learning students receive equivalent support via appropriate means, such as through a discussion board on the eLearning Portal and by email contact with the module team.

If you are a full-time student, you will study using a blended learning approach that combines study of sections of the module learning materials with classroom based lecture sessions. Each session reviews the work done in the previous week, introduces the next topic, and may also give an opportunity for additional exercises to be attempted. This provides an opportunity for you to ask questions and to receive formative feedback on your work.
Support is provided to distance learning students in several ways, including through a discussion board on the eLearning Portal and by email contact with the module team. The discussion board provides the opportunity for students to interact with each other and the module team, asking questions etc.

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. The reading list for this module can be found at: http://readinglists.northumbria.ac.uk
(Reading List service online guide for academic staff this containing contact details for the Reading List team – http://library.northumbria.ac.uk/readinglists)

Knowledge & Understanding:
1. Critically discuss the business needs of organizations to use information technology
2. Critically appraise the overall rationale, key stages, deliverables and personnel roles involved in traditional and other systems development lifecycles
Intellectual / Professional skills & abilities:
3. Specify the requirements for an information system using object-oriented analysis and design techniques, based on an accepted leading approach
4. Apply analysis and design techniques to typical business scenarios, using advanced object modelling concepts and techniques

Personal Values Attributes (Global / Cultural awareness, Ethics, Curiosity) (PVA):
5. Critically appraise the concepts and techniques of object-oriented development, demonstrating an understanding of professional codes of practice applicable to systems analysis and design projects

The assignment consists of both group activities and individual activities, each worth 50% of the module mark. For the assignment, you will analyse and design a solution for a business scenario you have chosen using object-oriented analysis and design techniques as well as part of a development team/group, in which you will participate and contribute to. There is a list of organizations you can approach to work on your assignment or you can choose your own client to work with for your assignment.

Group activities (worth 50 out of 100 marks) expected you to take up different roles with a systems development team by planning the project, critically appraise the information systems requirements of organizations, and converting the requirements into object-oriented models. The group assignment shall be properly documented, peer-reviewed and evidenced, and may involve face-to-face collaboration for on-campus students or alternatively use online/electronic means of communication where applicable as in the case of DL students. The group activities assess MLOs 1, 2, 3 and 4.

The individual activities assess the knowledge of the design stage of System Development Life Cycle as well as the reflection of the project experience from system development lifecycles and professional codes of practice issues. The individual activities assess MLO 1, 2, 4, 5.

You will be provided with written feedback on your assignment work.

The practical exercises in the module handbook provide opportunities for formative assessment, helping you and your tutors assess your progress. You are strongly advised to complete all exercise work as the formative feedback provided will enable you to improve your work before the summative assessment submission. It is expected that the feedback will help to clarify understanding of the assignment and the excepted academic level, including originality, critical analysis and academic style.

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In this module you will learn about methods of analysing and designing information systems using object-oriented methods. You will gain an understanding of the general IT system development lifecycle, the activities and personnel roles applicable at each lifecycle stage, and of concepts of professional standards and codes for systems analysis and design projects. This will include learning how to specify system requirements and use systems analysis and design techniques to develop workable solutions to business information system problems. You will learn and apply the object-oriented approach to analyse and design, using the techniques of the Unified Modelling Language (UML) - the leading notation used for specifying systems. This will include advanced modelling concepts and techniques that are used to build complex object models.