CS3811 - Project 2003

Important notes

1. Your work will be done by a team of 2 or 3 and all members of each team will participate in all phases of the project. That is, each team member will contribute to the design, implementation and documentation. Each team member is expected to be familiar with mysql/php, and each team member must take part in writing the User Guide.
2. Normally, all team members will receive the same grade for the project. Therefore, you will contact the course instructor if you do not participate fully with your team in the completion of any of the three phases of the project.
3. The project forms a major part of the assessment in the course. Late submission of a part of the project will result in a penalty of .67 grade points per day for up to three days, after which that part of the project will be graded incomplete.
4. The grade for the project will be based about equally on the results of each of the three phases.
5. After carefully considering the project outline, your team will select one of the two application domains below and report this choice by email to the course instructor. A maximum of three teams may select each project: first come, first served.
6. You will have noted that this is a an HTML document. The visual presentation of your documents will be considered in grading. TeX or HTML are acceptable for achieving good presentation. Word-processing systems may also provide suitable formatting, but are deprecated.
7. A 25 minute presentation of your project will be done in class during the last week of classes, and we may have time for short (max 15 min) presentations on the designs after March 10.
8. You will spend about five hours each week outside of class on this project (but you must not exceed 6-8 hours in any week). This provides at least 50 hours for completion of your part of the project, more time than necessary.
9. The project completion date is April 8. On that date a final version of the Design document, the User Guide and a dump of your database will be handed in.

Project outline

First phase: Design.

You will consult with the client about what is expected from the database application. You will consider the attributes, entities, relationships, constraints and views which your system needs, and design an E/R (or sketch) model. This model will be translated into the design of a relational database. Your database design will include examples of the main elements of relational systems (primary keys, foreign keys, other constraints ...); normalization is expected. You will document the design, including normalization, and provide it to the client and course instructor in draft form on February 21, and in final form, after consultation with the course intructor, on March 7. The design document will not exceed 10 pages (single-spaced, minimum 12 pt type). In order to facilitate your work in the second phase of the project, we will examine features of mysql near the end of the design period.

Second phase: Implementation.

You will construct a mysql database and accompanying php forms using an assigned account on the Math/CS server. The implementation is required to follow your design document. Your forms will allow data entry, updating and access to the database. They will also enforce integrity. You will consult with the client and course instructor using a prototype during the implementation phase. At this time you will consider user views and security issues.

Third phase: User Guide.

Of course, this part of the project will be developed from the design document simultaneously with the second phase. It will include instructions on using mysql and/or your forms for naive users. You are not expected to give an instruction manual for mysql or SQL, but you should write clear explanations of how to get into and out of the program and access your forms, how to use the forms for entering/updating data and how to write simple SQL queries. The User Guide will not exceed 15 pages. A draft of the User Guide will be provided to the course instructor on March 28.

The applications

Application 1: The TGV System

Application 2: The IT Knowledge Base