College work help

[kerrymoralee9280]

Hey all,

I'm doing my college work on systems analysis. I have attached a word document that I need to complete and am a little stuck. If anyone recognises what it is from their college days could you give me a little pointer.

CHeers

[kerrymoralee9280]

Please guys!

[Jona]

What are you actually asking? Looks like a fairly standard (if fairly useless process analysis).....

[Ryan]

I think a little more contextual information about the problem would help

[kerrymoralee9280]

Ok, my bad.

I have a Systems Analysis assignment where I have to run through the Analysis stages of a library system. To be exact the 'Browne' system (old style library system).

This involves drawing Entity Relationship Diagrams (ERD's), Spray and Tree Diagrams, Document Flow Diagrams and Data Flow Diagrams - all of which I have had no trouble doing. The assignment also needs requirements of the new system, which I have done as requested in bulletpoint form.

One other thing that I have left to do is these 'process' boxes for each process of the old library system. That is the format I have been given by my lecturer but I just don't know what kind of details to fill them out with.

It requires one box for each process i.e. process 1 is 'Order books'. The main one is 'requirements' - WHAT REQUIREMENTS? Do I put 'the librarian needs a pen and paper for this stage' or what?!

Cheers for your help.

HT

[kerrymoralee9280]

Help??

[SYNACK]

It requires one box for each process i.e. process 1 is 'Order books'. The main one is 'requirements' - WHAT REQUIREMENTS? Do I put 'the librarian needs a pen and paper for this stage' or what?!

I think that it may be that simple, thinking about it from a software point of view. To do the work you require all of the necessary inputs, the tools and materials to do the job, a workspace to do the job on etc. Depending on the assumed level of skill/number of staff a requirement may also be pre-requisite training to do the task, two arms with fully functioning hands for manipulation of the pages.

It all depends on how deep you go into the requirement, hell you could probably easily write a set of requirements of a simple task that took up a whole page.

[kerrymoralee9280]

Thanks, so you're suggesting the inputs are (things like):

Retrieve data from data store
Student hands in library card

The outputs are (things like):

Card returned to student
Update record

The requirements are (things like):

Library card
Book

And the actions are (things like):

Create new record for loan
Update record for return of loan

Does that sound about right?

[SYNACK]

@kerrymoralee9280 - looks about right to me, but it has been ages since I did that kind of course at uni so I just hope that I am remembering right.

[kerrymoralee9280]

I'm sure if it was wrong the lecturer would point me in the right direction - I just didn't want to give up without having a good go at it.

Don't worry, I'm not wanting to be a systems analyst. It's just part of the course.... I wouldn't do it for all the money in the world!

Cheers for all your help Synack.

[torledo]

Library booking system, like the fictional travel agency, is the default example in the majority of systems analysis books i've read. Why don't you pop down to the library, or do an internet search for library system or library booking system requirements analysis. I'm sure it'll return a ton of examples you can use. After all there doesn't appear to be anything unique in the system you need to document. For instance the system doesn't require the ability to analyse lending patterns or do any data mining.

Bog standard stuff really

[kerrymoralee9280]

I know it should be bog standard stuff, but when I haven't been taught this it's kind of hard to get my head around.

I've had plenty of books - most of them 3 weeks overdue because I just can't get my head around.

I was in college last night and after seeing what the rest of the guys have done it's helped me out.