Cores Element Of Rapid Application Development Information Technology Essay
University of East London is a global learning environment university which has large amounts of diverse student. From different countries, different backgrounds.UEL has a variety of service and support to the students to make them feel at home and help them to concentrate on there studies. One of the services is the Residential service which provides accommodations for students at the campus.
UEL accommodation is very popular hence many students prefer to stay at the campus; therefore they operate on a priority system to ensure places are allocated fairly to the students.UEL Direct provides details of Service Level Agreements within the Residential Services office and also these documents available on the Residential Services website www.uel.ac.uk/residential
According to the Housing Act 2004 introduced by (HMO) the licensing for Houses in Multiple Occupation in England and Wales. “Higher education institutions are exempted from licensing providing they sign up to a code of practice that has been approved by the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG)”. For further details of the code, please see:-www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/acop. More over the Residential Services team helps the students to settle in there halss, looks after there well being and accommodation, they also help the students in matters relating to cleaning, security and maintenance issues. Housing officers are responsible for the day to day management of the halls student allocation to the halls, general discipline.
The main purpose of this UEL Residential service is to provide simple and approachable method of communication between UEL and its users (Residential services team and the students) for renting the resident at UEL. This system helps to improve the services that are offered from UEL to its members. This service will include apartment’s rentals in groups or single rooms and the maintenance with the help of accommodation management. The main objective of this system is communicating with the students over rental those apartments and also the well being and cleanness in residential places through email, text messages and phone with the available services.
Keywords
RAD-Rapid Application Development
JAD- Joint application development
JAW- Joint application workshop
DBMS- database management system
CASE- computer aided software engineering
MIS- Management Information system
SAS- Student accommodation system
Introduction
Generally speaking there are many systems that are built for Student information system; there have been difficulties in building and maintaining the Student information system. One such subsystem is the Accommodation System for Students at the University Level. The present application uses Rapid Application Development methodologies and tools that help the students to use the System in faster way with advanced options. This saves time and reduces the risk of data management. There by taking direct control of the student data. The system provides a considerable range and volume of rental accommodation primarily for use by students. Student Accommodation System manages the applications, deposits, allocations, contracts, payments, damage reporting, and the like.The system also sets up secure payments method for the students where they can choose a payments option from the different options available. The system also reminds the student if a payment is missed by sending two reminders to indicate the payment dates as well.
The proposed UEL Residential Notification system will be developed as a service to the Existing UEL Direct System Services. This system provides a proper communication between the students and the Residential officers; it will be a secure system with no delays.
The system covers following functionalities:
Web based multiple accessible system
System will available at multiple kiosk in UEL premises
Generating automated emails and reminders
Generate invoices and produce the reports for every calendar month.
This system serves
The UEL Students
The Residential officers
Services to the UEL Students
Enrolment details
Vacant reminders
Alerts on hall allocation or apartment allocation
Rental reminding alerts
Emergency notifications
Confirmation rooms
Services to the Residential officer
Renting rooms
Allocating unique apartment number
Providing furnishing facilities
Proving rental agreements
Sending rental reminders
Emergency alerts
Auto updated database
LITERATURE REVIEW
Rapid Application Development
This section will review the importance of Rapid Application Development methodology with in domain of student information system. Such as providing accommodation to the Students for UEL by sending email and Text Messages to students which is a new trend rather than using the aged old methodology of using pen and paper which is time consuming and a tedious way.
Traditional lifecycle for software development was elaborate in 1970s, and still widely use today, was based on structured step by step sequential way to develop system. This unyielding sequence of step forces the user to complete the whole step before going to next one. The literature review defines what the RAD methodology is, its importance in application development, definition of RAD Methodology, objectives of RAD,cores of RAD, benefits and limitation of RAD.
James martin 1990 scratched the term RAD and distinguished between the previous approach of waterfall model and new iterative developmental approach for fast system development. Martin says “RAD refers to a development life cycle designed to give much faster development and higher quality results than the traditional life cycle. It is designed to take maximum advantage of powerful development software that has evolved recently.” (Martin, 1990, pg 01)
By the mid 1990s the RAD has start using as umbrella term which encompasses many set of methodologies. RAD compiles by rapid prototyping and was first originated by James Martin (1991).
Rapid application development interact project management techniques, development techniques, CASE tools and concern users to build quality application system in very short amount of time. Rapid development consist of five or seven persons of teams highly motivated and focused on creating specific prioritize set of application with high amount Quality work under set of fixed requirements. Rapid Application Development tools restructure the system Development. RAD uses Automated Tools for designing and building an Information System. Rapid Application Development is fast, capable and less prone to error methodology. RAD uses Planning, designing, developing and delivering the product. This Application provides users with secure, easy to handle & accurate system.
Rapid Application Development is a methodology that is designed for faster application development yet no compromise on the quality of the Application. But this was originally designed to describe a series of methods or process of development that involves application prototyping and iterative development through out the software development life cycle. The major advantages of Rapid Application Development are the Speed and quality. While on the other hand reduced features sets and Scalability are the potential disadvantages.
Definitions of Rapid Application Development
Martin (1991) described RAD as “a development life-cycle designed to give much faster development and higher-quality results than those achieved with the traditional life-cycle” (Martin, 1991, pg 73).
According to Whitten and Bentley (2007) RAD defined as “it is a merger of various structured techniques, especially data-driven information engineering with prototyping techniques to accelerate software systems development” (Whitten & Bentley, 2007, pg 26).
According to Whitten (2004).Rapid Application Development is a merger of various structured techniques, especially data-driven Information Engineering, with prototyping techniques to accelerate software systems development (Whitten, Bentley,Dittman (2004)).
Cores Element of Rapid Application Development
RAD has many core elements that make it unique methodology consisting of prototyping, iteration, time boxing and many others. In rapid business change comes with new requirements such as opportunities and competitions. Which make system developers to create new system in existing system; it is very critical for the system development. There by some of the important cores that help to make a Rapid Application Development for a system are
Prototyping
Iterative and incremental Development
Time Boxing
Team Members
Management Approach
Prototyping
Prototyping is a technique to gather information in a short period of time and making smaller version of the entire system. The main objective of making a prototype is to seek user reactions, innovations and suggestions. Rapid Application Development main feature is making prototypes.
Prototypes are used to collect requirements and they act as the receipts of the customer’s concepts and what exactly the customer requirements are, which help to refine the software requirements.
The prototypes are used for gathering customer requirements and converting them to data requirements. Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) tools help in making prototypes on gathering systems requirements making models and then coding those models
Iterative and incremental Development
Iterative and incremental development is a software development process which helps in initial planning of the system development. Iterative and incremental development methodology helps in making functional business versions at every development cycle. Each version is then reviewed by the client and suggestions are gathered and passed over which helps in making the next version. In the Agile Methodology the length of single iteration is just the same as in Rapid Application Development i.e. between one day and three weeks. The whole cycle is repeated until and unless all functionality has been developed in to the software.
Time Boxing
Time Boxing is a simple and important technique of Rapid Application Development. It is an effective technique for planning and tracking the progress of the system development. The entire development is divided into separate time periods, these time periods are called the time boxes. Often the boxes are two to six weeks long. It is one of the core concepts of rapid application development.
Time boxing helps on focusing the important aspects of system development, helps to do a check on the how much time is spend on each task, because of this it can be considered as a tool for procrastination.
Team Members
Rapid Application Development encourages having smaller teams for faster application development. These teams have motivated, experienced and versatile members. Team members meet the clients and give priority to the client requirements, through the help of Application Development sessions (JAD) which is done at every phase of the system development. The development teams are also known as SWAT (Skilled Workers with Advanced Tools) these workers are well versed with Computer Aided Software tools which are totally exposed to the Rapid Application Development.
Management Approach to System Development
For a better system development the management should be actively involve in very task of system development, this helps in system with very less error risks. And hence helps on decreasing the length of development cycles and completely the system on given deadlines.
In addition to enforcing a strict timelines, management should have a focus on team motivation, getting rid of political obstacles and the team member’s selection. Despite of that all the management must be willing and consistent in their attitude towards the use of Rapid Application Development methodologies.
The key objectives of RAD are:
The keystone goal of a RAD approach is to deliver effective solutions for volatile business environments. The key objective defined by Harris 1997
High Speed
As the name suggests rapid application development, it is the priority of RAD to deliver projects within concise time frame and with high developmental speed.
[Source: http://www.corepartners.com/pdf/rad.pdf]
High Quality
RAD uses the techniques and set methodologies in which group of people works together to deliver the high quality products. Those products meet the standards and set of requirements by users. Involvement of groups raises the quality of product in RAD.
[Source: http://www.corepartners.com/pdf/rad.pdf]
Low Cost
In RAD with the help of joint application development (JAD) and joint application workshop (jaw) in which groups works together for faster development of system with high quality deliverables with low maintenance cost.
[Source: http://www.corepartners.com/pdf/rad.pdf]
Low cost
High Speed
High Quality
Diagram 1: Objectives of RAD, Source: (Harris, 1997, pg 75)
Important aspect of RAD
Rapid application development has mainly four important aspects on which RAD built system, and those are:
RAD Aspects, Source: (Essential aspects, 2009, Available at http://www.casemaker.com/download/products/totem/rad_wp.pdf )
Methodology
Today’s software world is much advance as comparing with last decades. Peoples and organizations have less time to complete their projects. These day’s software industries got many issues in making software projects and those issues can be resolved with the help of RAD tools and techniques on much faster and quick way. It is very easy to develop system application with use of RAD tools.
Some organizations make information system based on requirements which uses the mythology of RAD, including faster development like prototyping, iteration. RAD usually includes object oriented programming methodology.
Rapid application development offers that products can be developed faster and of higher quality with the help of:
Using workshops for groups to gather requirements.
Prototyping user designs testing.
Re-developing software components.
Following requirements according to schedule and to next version of software.
Team feedback on projects
[Rapid Application Development (RAD) Methodology by Mario’s alexandrou, 2010, available at http://www.mariosalexandrou.com/methodologies/rapid-application-development.asp]
People
Management
Tools
Benefits and Limitations of Rapid Application Development model
Benefits
The benefits of the RAD model by Futrell & Shafer (2002)
Limitations
The benefits of the RAD model by Futrell & Shafer (2002)
INNOVATION
INTEROPERABILITY
USABILITY
ADVANTEGES OF PROPOSED SYSTEM
WEAKNESSES OF PROPOSED SYSTEM
System design and creation of prototype
Use case diagrams
Class diagrams
Sequential diagrams
Discussion
Benefit and weaknesses from your sub system prototype design as software developer point of view
Futrell & Shafer (2002)