[PROJECT TITLE]

(The project title should be addressing a national, community or organisation

problem)

[Candidate’s Name]
[Registration Number]

[LEVEL eg BIS 4.2]

 [Project Title]

By

[Candidate Name]

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the

BCom Honours Information Sciences]

Department of Information Sciences and Marketing in the

Faculty of Business Sciences at the

Midlands State University

P. Bag 9055

Gweru

Zimbabwe

[Month and Year of Submission]

Supervisor: [Supervisor’s Name]

ABSTRACT
 Needs to be one paragraph answering the following questions:
 What was the aim of the project?
 Why was it developed?
 How was it developed (Methodology used)?
 What information was gathered and how was it gathered for use in the project?
 What technologies were employed eg programming language and tools used?
 How significant is the project to the organization in addressing the problem?
 How successful was the problem addressed?

It should cover ¾ of a page not less.

i
DECLARATION

I Firstname Surname, hereby declare that I am the sole author of this dissertation. I authorise
Trust Academy and Midlands State University to lend this dissertation to other institutions or
individuals for the purposes of scholarly research.

Signature: ………………………………………………

Date: ………………………………………………

ii
APPROVAL

This dissertation, entitled Project Title by Firstname Surname meets the regulations governing
the award of the BCom Honours Information Science degree of the Midlands State University,
and is approved for its contribution to knowledge and literal presentation.

Supervisor: ……………………………………………….

Date: ……………………………………………….

iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS

v
LIST OF TABLES

vi
LIST OF FIGURES

vii
LIST OF APPENDICES

viii
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION:

This chapter gives brief relevant background information about the project. It contains:
1.1 Overview/Introduction (Introduce title scope and content)
1.2 Background of the study (Talk about the motivation/passion/need for the system)
1.2.1 Background of organisation
1.2.2 Organisational Structure
1.2.3 Vision
1.2.4 Mission Statement
Put more flesh giving motivation of the study to link to 1.3 ahead ie according to the organisation
how is what is in the Problem Statement a challenge, how does it affect organisational operations
1.3 Problem Statement This should be just ONE statement spelling out clearly the major problem.
1.4 Project Aim The aim should be to develop a system to address the problem stated above in 1.3.
1.5 Objectives (* Note that objectives must be S M A R T. Avoid generic and compound objectives
like, CAPTURE, STORE, RETRIEVE, “IDENTIFY AND ASSIGN ….” etc. Base the objectives on
the DFD, a minimum of 5. These are objectives of what the system should be able to do to correct
the problem at hand)

A context diagram is a top level (also known as "Level 0") data flow diagram. It only
contains one process node ("Process 0") that generalizes the function of the entire system
in relationship to external entities.
The Level 1 DFD shows how the system is divided into sub-systems (processes), each of
which deals with one or more of the data flows to and from a source and an external
agent (ENTITY), and which together provide all the functionality of the system. Data
Flows should be labelled with the data it will be carrying avoid using verbs to label Data
Flows.

OBJECTIVES
These should be SMART
S - Specific to the problem
M - Measurable
A - Attainable
R - Result-oriented
T - Time-framed

Exclude generic objectives like capture, store, calculate etc

1.6 Methods and Instruments: Software tools, methodology used eg Agile, Waterfall Model,
Spiral Model etc, relevant data gathering techniques and summary of plan – Gantt Chart
1.7 Project Motivation/Justification
1.8 Summary of the remaining/coming chapters

1
CHAPTER TWO: FEASIBILITY REPORT AND PLANNING PHASE

2.1 Introduction (It introduces the content of this chapter

2.2 Stakeholder Analysis (it identifies internal and external stakeholders and their interests and needs
regarding this project)
2.3 Business Value (Discusses the system benefits to stakeholders both internal and external, value
addition and beneficiation to be brought about by the new system)
2.4 Feasibility study (Discuss the different feasibilities listed below in relation to the problem at hand
quoting sources)
2.3.1 Technical
2.3.2 Economic
2.3.3 Social
2.3.4 Operational
2.5 Risk Analysis (Identification and mitigation of potential risks at hand)
2.6 Work Plan (Based on the development model used)
2.7 Chapter Summary

2
CHAPTER THREE: ANALYSIS PHASE

3.1 Introduction of the chapter content

3.2 Analysis of existing system
3.2.1 General description (narrative) of the current system
3.2.2 inputs
3.2.3 processes
3.2.4 backup and security
3.2.5 output
3.3 Process Analysis of current system
3.3.1 Description of major processes
3.3.2 Activity diagram of current system
3.4 Data Analysis
3.4.1 Context Level DFD of current system
3.4.2 Level 1 DFD of the current system
(Context Level 0 and Level 1 DFD)
3.6 Weakness/Deficiency of current system
3.7 Evaluation of Alternatives (In relation to Feasibility Report presented)
3.7.1 Outsourcing (outline reasons why it is not best solution with proof quoting sources)
3.7.2 Improvement of current system (justify why it is not the best solution)
3.7.3 Development (Justify why it is the best option in terms of costs comparing with
others above and other benefits)
3.8 Requirements Analysis (Of the new system)
3.8.1 Functional Requirements (Use Case diagram)
3.8.2 Non-functional requirements (outline needs and justification)
3.9 Chapter Summary (summary of the chapter content)

3
CHAPTER FOUR: SYSTEM DESIGN PHASE

This should explain the design technique chosen (and justify why it is appropriate) from the various
ones available for the new system; it should use the following where appropriate:

4.1 Introduction of chapter content

4.2 System Design (How the new system works, include Context level 0 DFD & Level 1 DFDs, Use
Case Diagrams etc)
4.3 Architectural Design (Show the architectural design diagram of the system)
4.4 User Interface Design
4.4.1 Menu Design (Model the menu design)
4.4.2 Input Design (Design the Input forms to be used)
4.4.3 Output Design (Design the Output reports to be produced)
4.5 Process Design (Pseudocode for each process, flow charts etc)
4.6 Program Design (Class, Sequence, collaboration, and Package diagrams)
4.7 Data Modelling/Database Design (ERDs, EERDs diagrams and Normalised Data Dictionary)
4.8 Security Design (Include the data validation and verification designs, error handling designs etc)
4.9 Backup Design (How the backup is intended to be done, specify the backup strategy)
4.10 Test Data Design (Specify what areas to be tested and how they are going to be tested)
4.11 Deployment Design (Description and system deployment diagrams)
4.12 Chapter Summary

4
CHAPTER FIVE: IMPLEMENTATION AND TESTING
5.1 Introduction of chapter content
5.2 System Specifications (System customization to meet customer needs or general-purpose system)
5.2.1 Software Specifications (platforms, packages, libraries, etc.)
5.2.2 Hardware Specifications (CPU, RAM, camera, Routers, switches cables etc.)
5.3 Testing Plan
5.3.1 Evaluation of different testing strategies used (discuss the testing strategies used,
highlighting reason for choosing that particular strategy)
5.3.2 Validation and verification (include snapshots of validation and verification tests)
5.3.3 Test Data (include snapshots of test data to show input, processing, error handling
and output)
5.4 Installation and Conversion Plan
5.4.1 System training (identifying the training needs and who was trained and on what)
5.4.2 Training schedules/plans (draw up a training schedule)
5.4.3 System installation and User Acceptance (discuss what system installation and user
acceptance was used)
5.5 Maintenance (Quality testing and assurance. Different maintenance strategies employed)
5.6 Performance Analysis (analyze your system in terms of throughput, speed, services, security,
achievement of set objectives)
5.7 System Testing
5.7.1 Testing Techniques/Procedures (discuss the results from the different testing
techniques and procedures used)
5.7.2 Performance Comparisons (Compare with the existing system performance)
5.7.3 Quality Assessment (Discuss based on how the developed system has addressed the
problem stated in Chapter 1)
5.8 Chapter Summary

5
REFERENCES

List of reference material used in alphabetic order of author using APA Style

6
APPENDICES

1. Detailed User Manual

2. Interview and Questionnaire Questions
3. Code Snippets