Help with my ICT Courework - Ideas Appreciated!

donny-gal

Remember p_f that the Access work is the fun end of this, and does not necessarily get you the most marks. You will have to show, the thought process for the need for the project, you are supposed to have someone you are doing it for who you will put your proposed design to and get approval, both before starting, during, and at the end, show full testing and trial of it. It may be the best Access piece around with hot and cold swing doors, BUT without the documentation around it it won't get you good marks.
Don't spend too much time on the programming, it is the evidence around it which is more important.
Sorry to spoil your fun.:D

TheFaqqer

superscaper wrote:

That's a very good point. Sometimes it's hard to estimate how long a project will take. When I wrote my program for my computing project it was very modular and was set up to easily be expanded by adding additional modules (in my case different teaching subjects etc) without having to alter the structure of the main program. It's worth thinking about a project where you could easily add features/content if you have time but still have what looks like a complete project if you don't have time.

If you come up with something that's looking to be overly complicated, then I would approach this by specifying everything that you "intend" to do with the system. Then highlight that the project will focus on "phase one" of the project - the core functionality - and provide some kind of plan as to what the subsequent phases of it will be.

Works OK for me in business, so why not in coursework!

Faqqer

DuncanMiller

jeez i had to do my computing a-level coursework by making a similar database but in Turbo Pascal!!

would have muched prefered to get an access based project!

merlinormartin

Do u have to demonstrate the finished project?
Remember to aim for a "basic" complete project rather than a "complicated" uncomplete.. and dont forget all the documents ...
project description, background reasearch, hardware/software requirments, gnatt charts, flow diagrams, testing to name a few.
Also try and keep a progress diary .. it helps when it comes to writing the report at the end.
A good book is
Christian W. Dawson, Projects in Computing and Information Systems: A Student's Guide, Addison Wesley, 2005
Good luck ! :T

nej

And please don't forget the rules of Normalisation (one of my bugbears!)

donny-gal

You have to show you have tested this as you go along, so keep a record of the mistakes, they ar expected, copy the reports/screens to show them and then you can include them.

wolfman

merlinormartin wrote:

Remember to aim for a "basic" complete project rather than a "complicated" uncomplete.

Sound advise.

nej wrote:

And please don't forget the rules of Normalisation (one of my bugbears!)

It's also worth talking about performance if you want extra marks. Normalising is worth doing, but in certain circumstances you de-normalise to help performance. And if not it's something worth noting down that you looked at.

nej

wolfman wrote:

It's also worth talking about performance if you want extra marks. Normalising is worth doing, but in certain circumstances you de-normalise to help performance. And if not it's something worth noting down that you looked at.

True, but in this instance a correctly designed and normalised DB would be appropriate, and possibly worthy of some extra marks if the OP could explain the process and why it is good for his design..

De-normalised is great for things like data mining but for data integrity and ease of updates/changes, normalised is the way to go.

wolfman

nej wrote:

De-normalised is great for things like data mining but for data integrity and ease of updates/changes, normalised is the way to go.

Usually de-normalise when an improvement in performance is needed. Basically to make the database statements a lot more simple (less table joins, counts, calculations etc...). Only rarely though. Usually in cases where the tables are/either very large, complexly related, or database hits are high etc...

Always something worth taking into consideration (but not necessarily implementing) when designing a system. Looks good if you mention such a thing.

albertross_2

Just in case the OP has no idea what you are talking about..

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=third+normal+form&btnG=Google+Search&meta=