Specification and Proposed Design (Documentation and Presentation)
Background
By this stage of the project students should have completed the preliminary
research and analysis required for the project and so have a clear (preliminary)
idea of how they will carry out their project. Typically, this understanding will
be recorded in a design using some standard methodology. The purpose of the two
deliverables for this stage, a specification and design document, and a presentation,
is to present
this information both in written form and orally.
Learning outcomes
Students should be able to:
Investigate and specify a substantial problem in the domain of Computer Science,
to place it in the context of related work including, as appropriate, Computer Science
research, and to produce a plan to address this problem;
Make use of the qualities and transferable skills necessary for the conduct of
a Computer Science project: (i) the exercise of initiative and personal responsibility,
(ii) decision making in complex situations,
(iii) risk identification (including, as appropriate, commercial and scientific risk),
assessment and control,
and (iv) the independent learning ability required for continuing professional development;
Demonstrate effective time management, self-direction and originality in carrying
out a project in the domain of Computer Science;
Locate and make use of information relevant to a given IT project;
Evaluate critically, as relevant to the project, current research and advanced scholarship
in Computer Science;
Design a solution to a substantial IT problem;
Prepare and deliver formal presentations.
Description of the task
Your task is to produce a specification and design document for your project, and
to conduct an oral presentation.
The specification and proposed design documentation should comprise
a brief summary of your activities
since the project began, a plan of what you intend to do
in the realisation phase of the project, together with an outline
of your design. Your design will depend upon your chosen methodology, but should
cover all important aspects of the system, at an appropriate level of detail. The suggested
structure of the design document is described below.
It is recommended that this document should be no more than ten A4 pages
long (with reasonably-sized font and margins), but there is no penalty for exceeding
the recommended length.
The specification and design document must be written by yourself using your own words (see the
University
guidance on academic integrity for additional information).
The presentation is intended to give a description of what you have done by
way of research and design, rather than a detailed presentation of the design itself. Such detailed
information will be given in the documentation submitted earlier. The suggested
structure of the presentation is described below.
The use of presentation software is strongly recommended (such as
the LaTeX "beamer" document class, Powerpoint, etc). You should give a copy of
your presentation to both assessors. 15 minutes will be allocated for the
presentation, plus time for questions from the assessors, typically 5 minutes.
IMPORTANT Due to the current pandemic (COVID-19) restrictions it
is expected that all presentations will take place online.
The recommended system for the presentations is MS Teams.
The assessors and the students can also use other platforms including
Zoom or Skype if this is mutually agreed and convenient.
When arranging the presentation take into account the geographic locations
of all parties involved as they may be at different time zones.
If you have problems with scheduling an online presentation please let
the project coordinator know via the e-Project system as early as possible,
so some alternative ways of assessment can be considered.
Structure of documentation and presentation
A suggested structure for the specification and design documentation is as follows:
SUMMARY OF PROPOSAL:
A brief statement of what the project is about (likely both a non-technical summary and
a more detailed technical summary could be appropriate).
A summary of the research and analysis carried out so far should also be included.
DESIGN: Outline of both system design, according to the chosen
methodology, and evaluation design. Although designs will vary according to the needs of
particular projects, typical cases are as follow:
If the project involves the development of a substantial software
system and an object oriented design method is used for the system,
then the system design might include: use case diagrams; an
interaction chart (also known as an event trace); class diagrams;
pseudo-code for the key methods; interface design consisting of
interfaces sketches, navigation chart/story boards; test design
consisting of test cases. The evalution design would state what
criteria will be used to evaluate whether the system is suceesful;
how these criteria will be assessed; who will be involved in the
evaluation; what kind of conclusion you expect from the evaluation.
If the project involves the development of a substantial software
system but a more traditional (such as SSADM) style design is used
for the system, then the system design might include: data flow diagrams;
entity relationship diagrams; entity life histories; pseudo code
for the key processes; interface design consisting of interface
sketches, navigation chart/story boards; test design consisting of
test cases. The evalution design would state what criteria will be
used to evaluate whether the system is suceesful; how these criteria
will be assessed; who will be involved in the evaluation; what kind
of conclusion you expect from the evaluation.
For a project involving the empirical investigation of some
hypothesis one would normally expect to see things such as: a
statement of the hypotheses to be tested; a description of the test
data to be used; an experiment design, the experiments to be performed,
any control to be used; a description of how the results will be
analysed, including any statistical techniques that will be used;
anticipated conclusions; program designs for any software that needs
to be developed to generate the test data or conduct the experiments.
DATA REQUIRED:
What data is necessary for the project, and how will it be obtained?
Ethical use of data, including use of human data & human participants:
Ethical use of data. Explicitly specify whether you are to use:
Synthetic data or real non-human data:
Make sure to check and explicitly confirm ethical sourcing of the data.
Discuss and fill in with your project 1st supervisor the
CS Department Ethical
Approval Form. If considered appropriate,
your 1st supervisor will make an application for the University
Ethical Approval on your behalf. (Actually, this should likely already
have happened before the project was proposed, if necessary, given
the timeframe of getting such approvals.)
or
Real human data:
Make sure to check and explicitly confirm ethical sourcing
of the data.
State the University Policy on ethical use of human data
will be followed: here
is the flow chart for the University Ethical approval.
Discuss and fill in with your project 1st supervisor the
CS Department Ethical
Approval Form. If considered appropriate,
your 1st supervisor will make an application for the University Ethical
Approval on your behalf. (Again, this should have likely already been
obtained by the first supervisor.)
Be aware that only the following types of data do not
require research ethics approval:
Information freely available in the public domain; (Note, following discussions
with university personnel, the use of Twitter data without ethical approval is
allowed, see the webpage on Ethical Use of Human Data.)
Anonymised records and data sets that exist in the public domain.
Ethical use of human participants. Explicitly state:
If human participants are necessary and will be involved in the project.
If human participants are to be involved in the project,
the University ethical review procedure will be followed.
Here
is the flow chart for the University Ethical approval,
and the required
human participants information sheet
and consent form
to be completed and used in due course.
Discuss and fill in with your project 1st supervisor the
CS Department Ethical
Approval Form. If considered appropriate,
your 1st supervisor will make an application for the University
Ethical Approval on your behalf.
PLAN: A description of the progress to date and an outline of
planned activities for the future (e.g. you could include a Gantt chart).
This should be at an appropriate level of detail
(discuss the level of detail with your supervisor).
The design presentation should follow the same structure as the design
documentation but focus on the most important elements of the design.
The presentation and document should clearly show a design method that
has been followed, and that the design has been carried out with sufficient
attention to detail to inspire confidence that it can be realised, tested, and
evaluated in the time remaining for the project.
Submission of work and arrangement of presentation
Submission of the specification and design document and a copy of the presentation
slides is done in electronic form (PDF format only)
via the Coursework Submission System.
A zipped version of the document is acceptable for the
electronic submission.
Do not use any
form of compression other than ZIP!!
The deadline for the submission of both the specification and
design document and the presentation
slides is Friday 9 July 2021 (5:00pm).
You should arrange (with the markers) a convenient time for the presentation.
The presentation is expected to take place during the week of
Week 6 (July 12-16)
(naturally, some variations might be expected due to the absence of assessors).
Assessment
The assessment will determine to what extent learning outcomes stated above
have been achieved and will cover both the specification and design documentation and
the presentation. The assessment will be conducted by two markers.
Each marker will produce separate feedback and grades (according to the
COMP702 project marking descriptors below)
that will be reported back to you as well as a combined mark (with a maximum
of 100 points).
This mark will count for 20% of the overall final grade for the project.
Failure in this task can be compensated by higher marks on the other assessments
of the project.
For your guidance, a copy of the feedback form that will be used to assess
your design and presentation is
available.
COMP702 project marking descriptors
Table 1: Project marking descriptors
Grade
Classification
Percentage
Qualitative Description
A*
Good Distinction
80+
Factually almost faultless;
perceptive and focused treatment of all issues. Clearly directed; logical;
comprehensive coverage of topic; strong evidence of reading/research outside the
material presented in the programme; substantial elements of originality and
independent thought; very well written. critical and scholarly presentation.
A
Distinction
70-79
Logical; enlightening; originality
of thought or approach; good coverage of topic; clear, in-depth understanding of
material; good focus; good evidence of outside reading/research; very well written
and directed.
B
Good Pass
60-69
Logical; thorough; factually sound
(no serious errors); good understanding of material; evidence of outside
reading/research; exercise of critical judgement; some originality of thought or
approach; well written and directed.
C
Pass
50-59
Worthy effort, but undistinguished
outcome. Essentially correct, but possibly missing important points or inadequate
treatment. Largely derived
from material delivered in the programme, but with some evidence of outside
reading/research; some evidence of critical judgement; some weaknesses in
expression/presentation.
D
Compensatable Fail
40-49
Incomplete coverage of
topic; evidence of poor understanding of material; Poor presentation; lack of
coherent argument. Very basic approach to a narrow or misguided selection of
material. Lacking in background and/or flawed in structure.
F
Fail
< 40
Serious omissions; significant
errors/misconceptions; poorly directed at targets; evidence of inadequate effort.
Shallow and poorly presented work showing failure in understanding.
Late submissions
The University's standard policy on lateness penalties will be applied
with respect to the latest electronic submission of the specification
and design document and/or design presentation slides.
See Section 6 of the
Code of Practice on Assessment for further details.
Other Penalties
For every 5 minutes (or part thereof) in excess of the 15 minutes reserved for your presentation
(excluding time spent on questions from the markers), 5 marks (out of 100
available for the assessment) will be subtracted.
If the electronic submission of the design document or the presentation slides
is not a PDF file, then 5 marks (out of 100 available for the assessment) will
be subtracted for each non-PDF file submission.
NOTE: The use of a compression format other than ZIP poses a serious risk
that your work may not be marked. If we can't decompress it, then we can't read it!
However, penalties will not reduce the mark below the pass mark for the
assessment. Work assessed below the pass mark will not be further penalized
for exceeding the presentation time limit or electronic submission in an
incorrect format.