Swinburne University of Technology
Semester 1 2018
INF60010 Requirement Analysis and Modelling Assignments 1 & 2 CASE
© Swinburne University XXXXXXXXXXPage 1
Virtual Child International Case Description
Virtual Child International (VCI) is a virtual world for children at home after school. They call it VCI Park.
The VCI employees who support the park behind the scenes and provide guidance to the members are
called Park Rangers. Guardians are customers 21 years of age or older who enrol their children, nieces or
nephews, grandchildren, etc. to VCI Park System.
VCI has outsourced a Credit Agency to perform credit checks on prospective guardians. Obviously, VCI will
not perform credit checks on VCI employees that are also signing up as guardians. VCI will contact this
credit agency once they have collected the Guardian’s general information and payment information and
the member’s information. Upon receiving the credit report from the agency, the Park Ranger will update
the guardian and member’s VCI Park status from pending to active.
A child whose guardian enrols them in VCI is called a member and receives an entrance pass (user id and
password) upon credit approval of the guardian. The entrance pass is validated every time the member
enters the VCI premises through VCI’s web page. Once inside the premises, the member can visit any or
all park services for which their guardian has signed them up.
The following is a complete list of park services within VCI Park:
• Theme park contains games.
• Li
arian function assists the member in searching the internet for school research.
• Tutorial function provides the member with practice drills and homework assistance.
• University function provides the member with a distance learning classes and receive certificates
or credits.
Guardian Services
There are several online services for the guardian such as:
• View their cu
ent charges for each member - provides the up to date total time spent in each
park service during the cu
ent month, credit time the member received for each park (if
applicable for this guardian) and total dollar amount invoiced to date.
• View member activities - describes on a daily basis the answers to the guardian’s questions and
the order of park services the member has entered during the cu
ent month.
• View communications between the member and park rangers – documents all online
“conversations” that were held during the month.
• Enter new or change existing criteria for member admittance to VCI Park or individual park
services.
Since VCI is a relevant new company, they are planning to expand their park services within one to two
years depending upon guardian membership. The VCI Marketing staff is also planning to have special park
Swinburne University of Technology
Semester 1 2018
INF60010 Requirement Analysis and Modelling Assignments 1 & 2 CASE
© Swinburne University XXXXXXXXXXPage 2
deals throughout the year. These special deals include special park service pricing for a specific period of
time. Also some other features, such as customerized one to one online training programs which allocate
online tutors (math, English….) to special needs students; space for customer’s to share ideas and provide
feedback; Monthly members performance and program changing suggestion reports shared with
guardians; more advanced user interface design, and privacy and security settings as cu
ently the system
is not really user friendly, sometimes customer information is easily to accessible by third parties.
Member Entrance Criteria
Guardians control the children’s entrance into VCI Park and individual park services by setting general
criteria and by adding or subtracting time allowed based upon questions asked of the member when the
member attempts to enter the park system or access a park service. The criteria may be changed at any
time by the guardian (and the change will take effect upon the next entrance attempt by the member).
As with the enrolment process, the criteria may be entered directly by the guardian online or may be
entered on behalf of the guardian by a Park Ranger. VCI provides sample questions that the guardian may
choose or customize. Sample questions include:
• Did you finish your homework for today? (yes/no)
• Did you study for all tests and quizzes that you have tomo
ow? (yes/no)
• Did you do your chores for today? (yes/no)
• What grade did you receive on your science test? (the guardian may customize this question by
entering any subject for the test).
As part of each question, the guardian needs to supply:
• The text of the question.
• The minimum response for which the guardian will allocate bonus time in a park service.
• The maximum response under which the guardian will either deduct time in a park service or
assign the member to spend time with a tutorial park service for remediation before spending
any time in any other park service.
• The number of minutes the guardian will allocate as bonus time (if good response received) or
deduct from a park service (if a poor response received).
• The park in which bonus time is allocated or from which time is deducted.
• The park the member should enter if they submit a poor response and a tutorial service is
desired by the guardian.
Note: A guardian may enter a park from which time will be deducted for a poor response and/or a tutorial
service that the member must complete before moving to any other park services.
Swinburne University of Technology
Semester 1 2018
INF60010 Requirement Analysis and Modelling Assignments 1 & 2 CASE
© Swinburne University XXXXXXXXXXPage 3
Guardians may set different criteria for each day of the week. They may also provide VCI with the number
of maximum hours the member can spend in the VCI system and within each park service for each week,
egardless of how much bonus time is allocated based upon responses to entrance criteria.
The responses to the entrance criteria questions are provided to the guardian in one of three ways, as
selected by the guardian: via email each time a member enters the park system or a park service, via mail
upon each entrance, or on demand as a service provided to guardians on the VCI home page.
Membership Terms and Conditions
Guardians can only sign up children as members between the ages of 10 and 15 years old. There is a
monthly fee for the VCI service per child/member. In addition, there is an hourly fee for each park service.
The park fee is charged in minimum blocks of 15 minutes. There is a 15% discount for each additional
member a guardian signs up for membership. This discount is given on the charges for each member other
than the one with the highest charge for the month.
VCI identifies a volume discount threshold for each park service. Cu
ently, the volume discount
thresholds are 40 minutes for the theme park, 20 minutes for the Li
arian Facility and 15 minutes for the
Tutorial Facility. VCI also provides an employee discount to park rangers for their own children signed up
as members.
At times, members communicate, via typed messages, with park rangers for assistance with the park
services. All electronic conversations between members and park rangers are monitored by the VCI
Security Office for inappropriate language or messages. VCI does not provide an electronic conversation
service between park members.
Invoice and Payment Information
The Guardians are invoiced on the first business day of the month, and invoices are due on the 25th of that
month. Each guardian receives one invoice with a separate section for each member. The member section
includes: the default time allowed for the month, the amount of bonus time received, the amount of time
deducted, the actual time used, the base fee, itemized discounts (volume, employee, additional child),
and the grand total for the member. The last page of the invoice includes the grand total for each member
and the combined total for the guardian. Any late fees are applied at the end of the invoice. Remember,
the employee discount and the additional child discount are only applied to the guardian’s members who
are truly their child (it does not apply to nieces, nephews, grandchildren, friends, etc.).
There are several payment methods the guardian can choose to pay their account. They can provide VCI
with credit card information or checking account information in order for VCI to charge their desired
account for the invoice amount automatically each month. Another payment option is for the guardian to
pre-pay, which means that the guardian sends in funds which are depleted as the members use the park
Swinburne University of Technology
Semester 1 2018
INF60010 Requirement Analysis and Modelling Assignments 1 & 2 CASE
© Swinburne University XXXXXXXXXXPage 4
services, and if it becomes completely depleted, the members are not allowed to continue using the park
system. The guardian may set a threshold at which he/she would like to be notified so that he/she can
eplenish the account. If the pre-payment option was chosen, VCI will notify the member via an online
message when they near the depletion of the account (15 minutes left??). Another payment option is to
send in a check, money order, or individual credit card authorization each month upon receipt of the VCI
invoice.
Guardians with poor credit ratings and guardians whose accounts have an open balance for three months
will be required by VCI to pre-pay.
VCI maintains a record of all payment problems (e.g. bounced check, declined credit card) by invoice.
When the Guardian sends in a cheque, they are required to identify the invoice number at the bottom of
the cheque. When a cheque is received without the invoice number on the check, a park ranger must
manually go through the guardian’s outstanding invoices to credit the right invoice. If the check amount
does not directly match the guardian’s outstanding invoice amounts, the park ranger manually rectifies
the outstanding invoices by crediting the oldest invoice to the most recent invoice.
If the guardian sends in a partial payment, the park ranger contacts the guardian to identify the reason
why a partial payment was sent in and documents the reason as a payment problem