Assignment

Objectives

Throughout this course, you will be developing the specifications for a web-based solution to a business need. As you do so, remember to incorporate the tools and techniques you learn in this class into your proposal. You won't actually be creating the proposed project in this class, so think big and imagine all the possibilities! The kind of project that you are proposing might require three or four programmers and many months of development and testing time.

You will complete parts of this project each week as you go through the course, starting in Week 1 with an overview of the business situation you are addressing. Your instructor will provide you feedback and you will need to incorporate this feedback into your project. After completing most of the required sections in class, you will then incorporate them into the final report, which will summarize your proposal and add a few additional sections. This project takes the place of the Final Exam in this course, so you are expected to work on the final version of your proposal during Week 8. Your instructor will provide you with the exact time the project is to be submitted.

The organization you are crafting a solution for can be real or imagined. If you'd like, you can look at an existing solution as a starting point, such as virtual supply chain management software. In this case, you'd want to think about what you could do to extend that application. Creating a solution from scratch is fine as well, as each approach has its advantages. Starting with an existing solution helps you to model data and system use, which isn't as straightforward for a complex system as it is for say, a shopping cart on a website. If you are interested in systems analysis or working with larger, complex, business-internal processes, this is the correct path to choose. On the other hand, if you are interested in creating a customer-facing entrepreneurial venture, then chances are you'll need to envision the basic business processes involved from the ground up, and they might even be novel processes. You have a lot of flexibility to work with in this Course Project.

Guidelines

The Week 1 Assignment should consist of the following section:

Overview of Business and Web-Based Solution (1-2 pages)

Describe the business (real or imagined) involved thoroughly. What is the industry? What is the revenue model? What is the company's strategic vision and who are the stakeholders? Do they produce goods, services, or both? How are the products distributed and what operations strategy is involved? Who are their competitors and how does their business differ from the company you are describing?

Describe the web-based solution to the situation. In this section, only a general description is required, but some things to include would be how many visitors per month would be expected, how much downtime on the server could be acceptable, what are the data storage needs, and what general processing needs will be required.