Your CIS3750 semester is set up to closely follow the software design process described here, and in particular, to focus on its first three stages: planning, analysis, and design (although, as mentioned previously, we will also touch on implementation and testing).

The Course Timeline

Each of the stages of development will last approximately four weeks. During each stage of the course, we will focus our efforts on mastering very specific major learning outcomes (as indicated in the following pages).

Weeks 1-4: Problem Identification & Planning

In weeks one through four, we will learn about our project and use this time to build a full set of requirements that will tell us what needs to be built. This will require us to do a significant amount of research to ensure we fully understand the problem we are attempting to solve. We will also need to develop excellent communication skills to ensure we can identify and fully understand what our clients and users need.

Weeks 5-8: Finalize Planning & Prototyping

Over the next four weeks of the course, we will begin prototyping our project. This will include learning how to develop prototypes for the user interface, as well as the controller, and database. We will use some of these prototypes to communicate directly with our clients and users to ensure that the solution we’ve envisioned is intuitive, useful, and meets their needs.

Weeks 9-12: Finalize Implementation & Testing

Finally, in the last four weeks of the course, we will begin implementing our solution. This will also include a final presentation with our client and users – where we can gather even more information and feedback about our design.

It is important to note that by the end of the semester, you will have developed many of the components of a traditional design document. You will also have worked directly with and learned from, your client and users. And you will have developed a functioning prototype of the solution we’ve been working on the entire semester.

However, given the constraints of the course and the time available to us, it is highly unlikely that we will be able to completely implement a functional solution for our client and users. But we’ll chat more about this in a later section.

Course Deliverables

Unless otherwise stated on the course outline, students in CIS3750 are expected to submit several course deliverables throughout the semester. These typically include:

• 2 Assignments
• 2 or 3 Lab Demos
• Several Labs
• A Final Video Report & Reflection

The assignments will typically cover learning outcomes 1 and 2 while learning outcomes 3, 4, and 5 will be covered with the lab demos and the final video.