Event Organiser Database
CSE1IS – Information Systems
Assignment 1, Semester 2 2020
IS Planning and Analysis
Due Date: 10.00 am - Wednesday, 2nd September 2020
Objective
To apply theoretical concepts of IS Planning and IS Analysis in a case study
This is an INDIVIDUAL assignment. You are not permitted to work in a group when writing this assignment.
Copying, Plagiarism:
This is an individual assignment. Students are not permitted to work in a group when writing this assignment. Plagiarism is the submission of another person’s work in a manner that gives the impression that the work is your own. La Trobe University treats plagiarism seriously. When detected, penalties are strictly imposed.
Further information can be found on http:
www.latrobe.edu.au/plagiarism/plagiarism.html
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CSE1IS – Assignment 1
1
Problem Description
Bundooraville is a small, private school in Victoria, Australia. For the past 10 years, it has offered a cu
iculum for preschool through grade 3. It also offers after-school care, usually refe
ed to as after-care, on premises. Last year the school added a new classroom to allow the cu
iculum to expand to provide a grade 4-6 program. Bundooraville is experiencing significant increases in enrolment applications for all programs from pre-school through the Grade 4-6 program. Increases in applications coupled with the expanded program and increased demand for after-care have led to a very high workload for the administrative staff. Bundooraville is a non- profit, and is not in a position to hire another full-time administrative position, which is what the principal and administrator think would be needed to handle the increased workload.
You are an IT consultant, specialising in developing IT solutions for small business needs. You have been contacted by the parent of one of the students to speak to the school principal, administrator and teaching staff about the possibility of setting up an information system to handle some of the school’s administrative and financial tasks. While there is not money in the budget to add a full-time position, the school does have a very active board of directors and parent committees that are experienced and enthusiastic about fund-raising for projects that do not fit into the budget. It is the hope of the school that it might be feasible to use a combination of grants and fund-raising to cover the initial cost of purchasing and setting up and information system, and the ongoing cost of a part-time support position for the system.
After an initial conversation between yourself and the school staff, you summarise the organisational and functional information (see Appendix 1).
System Planning Phase [10 Marks]
After talking to you, the staff has decided that pursuing the possibility of an information system is a good idea. The system that the school has been using, of spreadsheets and word processing documents worked well when enrolments were smaller, but now the amount of time spent copying information from one place to another is daunting, and the possibility of e
ors is increasing.
The staff members are initially interested in a system that could track tuition and after-care invoicing and payments. While there are other administrative tasks that could easily be added, right now these are what they believe to be the priorities.
Your tasks:
1. What information will you need to begin the preliminary investigation? Which techniques will you use to gather this information [10 Marks].
System Analysis Phase – Data and Process Modelling [55 Marks]
After finalising the system planning phase, you conduct series of preliminary investigation and summarise the findings (see Appendix 2). You are ready to start the system analysis phase.
Your tasks:
1. Prepare a context diagram for the new system with these following external entities:(i) PARENT, (ii) ACCOUNTING SYSTEM, (iii) FINANCE COMMITTEE, and (iv) ACADEMIC AND AFTER-CARE PROGRAMS [10 Marks].
2. Prepare a diagram 0 DFD for the new system. You should have AT LEAST these processes: (i) register students, (ii) generate drop-in report, (iii) generate bills, (iv) record payments, (v) generate receipts, and (vi) generate monthly reports [30 Marks].
3. Create a decision table and its associated decision tree that describes how the Bundooraville determines which discounts, if any, are to be applied to the fixed fees for a child. [15 Marks].
System Analysis Phase – Development Strategies [35 marks]
Conduct cost-benefit analysis to determine if the information system development project described below should proceed.
Simon is considering building an information system for his business - Simon’s Pizza and Pasta Take-Away to manage its daily operation. The information system takes 12 months and $34K to develop and install. It also requires a network upgrade which costs $15K. Staff training can be conducted during the system’s development and the cost is $3K. After installation, the system can start its normal operation immediately. The cost to maintain its normal operation is $2K annually. The system can be used for 7 years, and it generates $9K of salary saving and $2K intangible benefit in the first year of its operation. The salary saving increases each year by 10%. The intangible benefit remains the same in the following years.
(1) Conduct the Payback Analysis to find the payback period for the project
(2) Calculate the Return of Investment (ROI) for the project
(3) Assume the annual interest/discount rate is 5%, calculate the present value of a future dollar and fill the form below.
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1.0
1
2
3
4
5
6
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(4) What is the project’s net present value at the end of the 7th year?
(5) Based on your analysis, should the project proceed? Why?
Appendix 1 - Organisational and Functional Information
Kathy Gilliard is the principal of Bundooraville. She handles the academic and cu
icular issues that arise, and ensures that the school meets all educational standards. She also deals with issues related to the school’s non-profit status. Kathy and the teachers who report to her make decisions jointly about admissions and assignments to classrooms. Kathy handles payroll for teachers and teacher aides. Kathy also substitutes in any of the school classrooms when a teacher is out.
Susan Brown is the vice-principal. She has traditionally handled or been responsible for all administrative tasks related to tuition and after-care fees. Susan sends out monthly invoices for tuition and after-care, records payments and handles bank deposits. Susan handles all requests for drop-in care in consultation with the after-care teachers, and adjusts monthly invoices accordingly. She maintains all student records, and ensures that contact and pick-up lists for all classrooms and after-care programs are up-to-date. She also handles payroll for the after-care teachers and part-time assistants in the after-care programs. Cu
ently Susan handles all her responsibilities using Microsoft Word and Excel. She is comfortable with the applications, but finds that maintaining records and producing reports, payroll, etc results in a lot of duplication of effort, as she has to copy a lot of information from one worksheet or document to another.
There are six full-time teachers at Bundooraville and five teachers aides. Teachers aides report to their respective teachers. Each teacher is responsible for keeping attendance records and recording them in the student files.
There are two full-time after-care teachers, one for the pre-school and kindergarten group, and one for the primary grades. After-care teachers report to Susan Brown. Each after-care teacher has part-time assistants assigned to the program. Assistants report to the after-care teacher. The after-care teachers are responsible for keeping time sheets for their part-time assistants and submitting them every two weeks to Susan Brown. In addition, the after-care teachers are responsible for submitting weekly summary sheets to Susan Brown detailing any hours above those pre-registered for that students spent in the after-care program, so that parents are invoiced for the additional time.
Like many other non-profit schools, Bundooraville relies on volunteer time from parents to accomplish many of the tasks essential to the running of the school. A financial committee examines monthly financial reports, a fund-raising committee evaluates possible fund-raising projects and handles approved fund-raising. In addition, individual parents step in as needed to do rote office tasks, after care assistants when needed, and qualified parents step into the classroom as teachers aides whenever possible to reduce the reliance on substitute teachers.
Appendix 2 - Fact Finding Results
Invoicing and payments for Bundooraville have two components, tuition and after care. Tuition is a fixed fee. After care fees have two components, a fixed fee based on the time-block of after- care the student is pre-registered for, and a variable fee based on any additional time that the student may have used on a “drop-in” basis. There are several time blocks that students can be registered for in after-care, dependent on whether the child is in pre-school, kindergarten or primary school.
There are two payment options for tuition and the fixed component of after care. Parents can pay the entire amount prior to the start of the school year; or the fixed fees can be spread out over a 10-month period. A discount of 5% is applied to fees for parents choosing the lump sum payment option. Parents who have more than one child enrolled at Bundooraville are eligible for a 5% discount on tuition for all enrolled children.
Payment for after care used on a “drop-in” basis is invoiced monthly, and is added to the invoices for parents who are paying in 10 monthly instalments. New invoices are generated for “drop-in” care for those who paid fees in a lump sum.
Monthly invoices for fees and “drop-in” care are due on the first of the month, and are distributed to parents one week prior to their being due. Parents who have more than one child enrolled in Bundooraville receive a separate invoice for each child.
The invoicing is done using Microsoft Excel. Susan sets up a new workbook for each academic year. Each month Susan creates a new worksheet in the workbook. The worksheet maintained contains one line per student. Each line contains the following invoicing and payment information for the student. This is the list of the required information: Name of student, Names of parents, Amount of discount on fixed fees, Monthly fixed tuition fee, Monthly fixed after care fee, Discounted fixed fees, Monthly “drop-in” fees, Total monthly fee (calculated field), Payment received, Amount paid to date (calculated field), Amount outstanding (calculated field)
The entry for each student is updated twice each month, once to prepare the invoices and once to