Advantage and Disadvantage of Data Collection

Keywords: advantages of data collection,

There are many techniques that can elicit the requirements for Macquarie Car Insurances problem. MCI could use any of the following techniques; Interviews, Joint Application Design (JAD) and Questionnaires or they could use unobtrusive techniques; Hard data and STROBE.

Each technique has certain advantages and disadvantages over the others, in most cases interviews can be seen as an important method for data collection, but a lot of preparation must be involve before it can be of any use. Interviews must establishing objectives, and have a prepared question and structure types. The questions can be phase in an open or closed state, open-ended questions allows the responder to answer how they wish and closed-ended questions give a precise answer. The structure of the questions is also important; it can be structured in a Pyramid, Funnel or Diamond arrangement. The pyramid structure commences with closed-ended questions, gradually expanding to a more open-ended question. This lets the interviewees open up to the topic that they might be reluctant to discuss. While the funnel structure commences in reverse to the pyramid. The funnel structure begins with open-ended questions then narrowing to closed-ended questions. This provides a causal nonthreatening environment, useful when the interviewee is emotionally attached to the topic. Whereas the diamond structure combines the strengths of both the pyramid and funnel structures. The diamond structure begins with closed-ended questions then gradually opening up to opened-ended questions, concluding with closed-ended questions.

A joint application design (JAD) offers quick insight to the problems by organising group sessions as an information gathering tool. During the JAD requirements are agreed upon, as a whole, improving the user’s sense of ownership. JAD can use for organisations with little time and resources to waste, that requiring a system in place quickly.

Questionnaires are the most common approach in gathering information about attitudes, beliefs, behaviours and characteristics from key members in an organisation. Questionnaires also use question and structure types and are designed to be simple, specific and free of bias but a poorly designed questionnaire can lead to Leniency, Central Tendency and Halo Effect. Leniency is when raters provide undeservedly high or neutral scores, naively marking the easy answers, this can be avoided by moving the “average” category to the left or right of center scale making the rater think about what to mark down. Central tendency occurs when the raters mark everything as average, adjusting the strength of descriptors, improving the differences smaller at each end and creating more points will avoid central tendency. Halo effect is when an impression is made in one question that carries through to the next question. This can be solved by placing one trait and several items on each page.

Hard data is the analysis of collected documents; this can be broken down into two groups, Quantitative document analysis and Qualitative document analysis. Quantitative document analysis uses reports such as; Sales, Production, Performance and Summary reports, Records, Data capture forms and ecommerce transactions or any other transactions. Qualitative document analysis uses Manuals, handbooks, websites, emails and memos. Both these methods collect organisation data to make decisions on.

STROBE (STRuctured OBservation of the Environment) is a techniques used for observing the decision- makers physical environment like; office location, desk placement, props, lighting etc… the advantage of STROBE is that you don’t have to ask questions you observing behaviour.

For Macquarie Car Insurance (MCI) since the main process is to handled customer requests I believe that having Interviews would be the best solution. Interviews would gather all the relevant information needed such as, processes, opinions and users vocabulary. Joint Application Design (JAD) requires a large block of time for both users and workers, and can be at times dominated by intimidating participants, Questionnaires can suffer from validity and reliability in the responses, hard data can gather the requirements of the problem but doesn’t give clear insights to the external user’s requirements, and STROBE doesn’t gather information of the user’s requirements as well.

Interviews would require research into background materials about the interviewees and the MCI organisation, and then interviewers would have to establish the interviewing objectives, decide upon whom to interview, prepare question types and structure. From the interviews the interviewer would be able to gather relevant information about insurances policies and customer views about the construction of an automated system. In closing the interview the interviewer would summaries the recordings, provide feedback and arrange any future appointments if necessary. A report would then be constructed to summaries the results and reviewed with the appropriate individuals.

Question Two

Prepare an SRS in IEEE format with the following sections below. Write one sentence under each subsection which includes the type of content that would be relevant in that section. Provide a full description for Sections 1.2 (scope) and Section 2.3 (user characteristics). Section 1.2 should include a context diagram. For Section 3.1 (functional requirements) provide 5 functional requirements; for Section 3.2 & 3.3, give two requirements for each; and for Section 3.4, give one design constraint. Students wishing to obtain a high mark

(> 70%) should provide more content throughout the document and demonstrate a good understanding of the proposed system and their ability to structure the requirements.

(4.25 mark)

Software Requirements Specification

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

1.1 Purpose

1.2 Scope

1.2.1 Context Diagram

1.2.1 Level 0 Diagram

1.3 Definitions, Acronyms, and Abbreviations

1.4 References

1.5 Overview

2. General Description

2.1 Product Perspective

2.2 Product Functions

2.3 User Characteristics

2.4 General Characteristics

3. Specific Requirements

3.1 Functional Requirements

3.1.1 Database

3.1.2 User Interfaces

3.1.3 Hardware

3.1.4 Software

3.1.5 System communication

3.2 Performance Requirements

3.3 Non-Functional Requirements

3.3.1 Security

3.3.2 Maintainability

3.3.3 Scalability

3.4 Design Constraints

1. Introduction

1.1 Purpose

Competitors have started adopting automated systems to handle customer’s requests; this has caused problems in Macquarie Car Insurance market share. The CIO of Macquarie Car Insurance (MCI) aims to overcome this by introducing an automated information system (AIS) to assist customers with their insurance policy enquires. The AIS would assist customers in ordering, quoting, modifying and/or cancelling insurance policies. The AIS would also allow customers to choose different payment methods, delivery methods and offers the option to be put in touch with a Human Insurance Agent (HIA). This would give MCI the advantage in the market place, increasing its competiveness in the market share.

1.2 Scope

The systems requirements specification (SRS) report will document the requirements for the automated information system (AIS), and clarifies the processes of what the AIS will do. The specification is written in a format conforming to IEEE standard 830-1984. Subject to approval, the specification will meet the Requirements phase and will be followed by detailed design, implementation, and testing of the system.

The product will be known as the Automated Information System (AIS). The AIS will handle customer inquiries about policies. Customers will be able to log in to system and gain information, quotes and account profiles. Customers can then purchase, change and cancel insurance policies. Two additional modules, Smart Detection Module (SDM) and Voice Recognition Module (VRM), are to be designed and implemented at a later date.

The goal of AIS is to accommodate both individual and business users in answering online inquiries, quoting, purchasing, changing and cancelling insurance policies and user profiles.

1.2.1 Context Diagram

1.2.1 Level 0 Diagram

1.3 Definitions, Acronyms, and Abbreviations

SRS

System Requirements Specification

MCI

Macquarie Car Insurance

AIS

Automated Information System

SDM

Smart Detection Module

VRM

Voice Recognition Module

GUI

Graphical User Interface

RTA NSW

Road Traffic Authority of NSW

HIA

Human Insurance Agents

FI

Financial Institutions

CIO

Chief Information Officer