Time Table Generator Project Computer Science Essay

It is very important for the developer to measure/define a degree of success of the project. It is done to ensure projects boundaries, constrains, scope & other elements. Qualitative evaluation must be done rather than a quantitative evaluation. The qualitative criteria like whether the system being developed fulfilled the entire primary component and in accordance to the software requirement specification and even is it able to solve the problems that stated at the beginning of the documentation. All the functional and non functional requirement must be met to ensure that objective have been achieved. In other word, we can say that it is just like comparing between what we had done and what we had proposed to do. Although some of the features can not be implemented as mentioned in PSF because of time and resource constraints. Previously developer was unknown about the solution of the proposed problems but slowly able to cope up with the problems. System is successful in providing most of the solution of the problems.

For this system the main criteria for the user to ensure its success are:

Fulfilling all objectives and user requirements – All the objectives and uses requirements must be fulfilled for successful project development.

Functionality – analyzing and implementing functionality of the desired system to be developed.

Usability – Elements such as Learn ability, familiarity and recoverability will be evaluated here.

Level of Content – Detailed and well presented information and content available in the system is shown.

Project Management -Following the Gantt chart and managing the project in a professional manner throughout the project development from beginning to end within proper time & resource.

Research and Analysis – Research is very important for a good system.

Documentation – The documentation should be able to come up with proper formatting and according to the requirement specification.

8.1.1 Fulfilling all objectives and user requirements

Evaluation

Achieved

User is able to able to remember all the daily activities tasks

Yes

User is able to set the proper constraints based upon faculty load

Yes

User can easily view his/her time-table of the day

Yes

User can successfully add, delete and modify the feature of Faculty

Yes

User can easily view his/her load matrix of the day

Yes

User can manually edit the time-table generated

Yes

The design is according to the user specification

Yes

User can apply the various principles and practices of Software engineering

Yes

FUNCTIONALITY

Evaluation

Achieved

Most of the functionality can be reached from the main page

Yes

Report of the generated Time-table

Yes

Ability to measure the load accurately

Yes

Addition and deletion of the faculty information and the subject information

Yes

Constraints based upon the admin choice

Yes

Can copy the same schedule to other day

Yes

USABILITY

Evaluation

Achieved

Having a good and interactive interface

Yes

Allowing user to navigate anywhere anytime

Yes

Allowing user to recover from error

Yes

Allowing user to send update the information

Yes

Allowing the user to modify the password

Yes

Allowing user for manual editing

yes

Level of Content

It is a measure to indicate the level of depth in which the contents in the application is implemented. Developer has taken proper care to provide the in-depth level of the system. The user must understand the functionality of the system because until and unless he will not understand the system it will be a tedious task for him to operate a system. Setting right constraints will avoid the user to getting into a warning message. Correct evaluation of the load matrix will reduce the tension of the faculty.

Project Management

For the successful project development project management is necessary. For proper project management it is very important for the developer to manage proper time & resource throughout the project. At the very initial stages of planning & analysis the Gantt chart was prepared with the proper slack time. The milestone was putted so to as a measure of check on the project development. To manage the things, the developer followed PMBOK methodology of project management for planning this project. One of the major drawbacks in the project management is the time taken in defining the constraints of the system for which the time-table is to be generated. When integration testing was taking place, many problems started to arise and some of the problems took longer than expected. As a result, the developer falls short of time. One of the major drawbacks in the project management is the time taken in implementing the algorithm for producing the time-table.

RESEARCH & ANALYSIS

For the successful development of the project, devoting time on research and analysis is essential.

Evaluation

Achieved

Questionnaire

Yes

Analysis of questionnaire

Yes

Research on .NET architecture

Yes

Research on Algorithms

Yes

Research on Database

Yes

Research on programming languages

Yes

Research on development tool

Yes

Risk analysis

Yes

SRS

Yes

Research on UML.

Yes

Research on adopted methodology

Yes

Above is a table showing the list of research and analysis field which have been achieved during the development of the project.

DOCUMENTATION

Proper documentation is one of the major criteria judging the system. System documentation is necessary to explain about the system. The developer has tried it’s best to document most of the things. Each chapter defined here is easily understood as the language used is very much simple & clear for any kind of audience.

The format of whole documentation has been according to the standards of APIIT documentation. That includes the 3 major sections having several chapters in each. All the referenced materials are properly citied and their resources are also noted down in the bibliography page, and these are all done in standard Howard referencing style. For any existing spelling or grammar mistakes the documentation has been checked thoroughly. Specific information are also been converted into table format which provide better and easy reading.

8.2 Benefit of the System for the Targeted User

There are lots of advantages of the system for the targeted audience:-

Time Saving as now users can generate the time table automatically in no time.

The time-table generated can be published directly from the form itself.

Complete records for the faculty and the subject information can be easily maintained.

The load and performance matrix can be easily calculated.

Every faculty can see their time-table and whole time-table after login.

Effective time-table will lead to the optimized use of resources.

It will increase the efficiency of the staff and the personal dealing with the preparation of timetables.

Easy to create different views of the created timetable. i.e., faculty view and student view.

Saves the development time.

The intangible benefits are as under:

Productivity: Soft constraints include the choice of the lecture timing by lecturers will improve the productivity if implemented. But only admin can put the soft constraints.

Timesaving: it takes many days effort to create a suitable time-table manually but with the help of this software it can be created within few minutes depending on the familiarity with environment of the software.

LEARNING EXPERIENCE

The success of project heavily depends on the knowledge gain by the developer that will help him in future to make good project efficiently and effectively. The processes were frustrating at times with obstacles and difficulties faced along the way. Many things were learnt throughout each and every stage of the project, simple things like proper time management, and also the importance of primary research. The other learning outcomes from this project are:

Following are some of the knowledge gained by the developer which are.

Time management and proper scheduling

Ability to research extensively.

Use of technologies to write better application

About better project management

About basics & various aspects of time table creation.

Using designing tool

About Genetic Algorithm and other search techniques

About programming skills in VB .NET

Proper Analytical skills.

Ability to model the prototype using UML

Proper adoption of methodology according to project selection.

Effective testing strategies.

Limitations

As always Limitations are with everything whatever the work it may be. These limitations arise due to many factors such as lack of knowledge of the developer, time limitaions or the system limitations. The developed application has the limitation related to the application that is created and they are listed as follows:

The various limitations imposed within the System are:

It will run only on Windows platform.

The user can only provide input to the Computer by selecting the appropriate option as per choice.

The user can perform only one operation at a time.

The user can perform only limited task that are developed in the application.

User can not view the logs of the recent work.

The user can not regenerate the same schedule.

The interface can be made much more interactive.

It cannot be used online because it is a stand alone application.

There can be difference between design and implementation.

Developer took some features as challenge and mentioned it he might not implement.

FUTURE ENHANCEMENT

After research and analysis the developer found most of the things that were needed to implement in the system to make it more effective. The developer has realized that some more features can be added in the proposed system to make it better if more time is given on project.

Below is the list of future enhancements that could/would be carried out by the developer

The scheduling can be done based on the experience of lecturer. i.e., Final year student should not get any lectures from the inexperienced faculty or the new faculty.

The subjects can be allocated based upon the difficulty level. i.e., the programming language can be set to the first half of the period. As the students can grasp the things most easily in the first half of the lectures.

The constraints can be made more flexible. i.e., there will be faculty of modifying the constraints as per the choice of the faculty also.

Online Edition: The software can be made online so that all students & faculty can view time table from any where in spite of viewing from notice board only.

Make the application work on various platforms apart from Microsoft platform.

Search facility can be provided to search on the basis of the available faculty while manual editing.

If given second chance for Developments

If the developer was provided with a second chance to make the system then the developer would definitely plan the development of the system in a better way than it was currently done. The changes that the developer would bring into the System are as follows:

Conduct more efficient data gathering sessions.

More and more better utilization of features of the .Net.

Add up more features in the current application

Would have performed testing in a better manner

Would have done implementation in more effective manner.

CONCLUSION

The developer has concluded that the project “Time Table Generator “is completed successfully. All the features stated in the PSF are implemented and working properly. Apart from the consolidated report of time-table as it was special feature. Most of the things were new for the developer to code. Since the developer has built such a big application in .NET first time yet the developer has successfully implemented the features. The developer has gained very good knowledge in VB.NET that will help him a lot in industry. Most of the expected feature that the developer expected could not be able to implement because of time and knowledge constraints. So, by the help of critical evaluation and reflection of the system, the developer is able to judge its system in an appropriate manner. The proposed system has successfully targeted some of the needs and problems faced by individuals in the domain.