Berkeley Elementary School is a small private school that has retained your services as a systems analyst to assist in the development of a new information system for the schools administrative needs.

Background

Berkeley Elementary School is a small, private school in the Northeast United States. For the past 20 years, it has offered a curriculum for preschool through 5th grade. Five years ago it expanded to offer after-school care, usually referred to as after care, on premises. After care is not only offered to Berkeleys students, but also for students of other schools in the area.

As an independent systems analyst, you work as an IT consultant, specializing in developing IT solutions for small businesses. You have been contacted by the director, Victoria Owens, to discuss the possibility of setting up a computer system to handle some of the schools administrative and financial tasks. She explains to you that Berkeley is experiencing significant increases in enrollment applications for all programs. Increases in applications, coupled with increased demand for after-school care, have led to a very high workload for the administrative personnel and staff. The principal and teachers have stepped in where possible, but the demand is becoming too great. Berkeley Elementary School is a non-profit, and is not in a position to hire another full-time administrative position, which is what the principal and director think would be needed to handle the increased workload. You agree to meet with Victoria and the principal, Kathy Gilliard to discuss the school and its need for an information system.

You sit down with Victoria and Kathy to ask them some questions to help you determine what type of information system they need. You explain to them that information systems bring computer hardware and software together with people, processes, and data to produce specific results. They are excited to tell you about their situation and what they have in mind for a computer system to help with some of the work load. To help you with planning for the information system, you ask them about what personnel they have, as well as some questions to determine what types of information each person needs to do their job.

Victoria explains her role as the executive director of the school. She administers the activities of the school in accordance with the mission, vision, and policies established by the Board of Directors. She supports the educational staff and oversees the financial, payroll, and human resources functions for the school. She also prepares all necessary reports and evaluations for the state and local school boards. Kathy says that as the principal of Berkeley she handles the academic and curricular issues that arise, and ensures that the school meets all federal and state educational standards. Kathy and the teachers who report to her make decisions jointly about admissions and assignments to classrooms. The two kitchen staff personnel, a head cook and an assistant, also report to the principal. She also coordinates students bus transportation schedule. The school contracts with a local bussing company to provide transportation for some students in the area. Some after care students are dropped off by the local public school districts busses, and she coordinates with the districts transportation department. Kathy also substitutes in any of the school classrooms when a teacher is out.

Susan Brown is the vice principal. She is responsible for the after-care program. While students must be pre-registered for after-care required on a daily basis, the school does offer drop-in care on an as space allows basis. Susan handles all requests for drop-in care in consultation with the after-care teachers. She also maintains the school calendar, prepares handouts and reminders for parents, keeps track of special dietary needs of the students, and administers the camps that run during the two weeks that the school is not in session during the spring, and the summer programs that run through July and August.

Michelle Madrid is the administrative assistant. She sends out monthly bills for tuition and after-care, records payments, and handles bank deposits. She has traditionally handled or been responsible for all administrative tasks related to tuition and after-care fees. She maintains all student records, and ensures that contact and pick-up lists for all classrooms and after-care programs are up-to-date. Currently, Michelle 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 eleven full-time teachers at Berkeley Elementary, three for the pre-school program, two for the kindergarten program, and one for each grades 1-6. There are five teachers aides, for the pre-school-kindergarten and the grades 13 programs. Teachers aides report to their respective teachers. Each teacher is responsible for keeping attendance records and recording them in the student files.

There are six part-time after-care teachers, three for the pre-school/kindergarten group, and three 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 number of students pre-registered in the after-care program determines the number of assistants. 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 billed for the additional time. Like many other non-profit schools, Berkeley 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 routine office tasks, such as copying and distributing handouts, to free up Michelle Madrid for other tasks. Parents also fill in as assistants in the after-care programs when needed, and qualified parents step into the classroom as teachers aides whenever possible to reduce the reliance on substitute teachers.

You explain to Victoria and Kathy that this meeting has given you enough background information to get started and you will prepare some material for the next meeting.

After an initial conversation with Victoria and Kathy, the schools administrators, they have decided that pursuing the possibility of an information system is a good idea. Michelle, the administrative assistant, in particular is feeling the strain of the increased workload associated with the rapid growth in the student population. The system that she has been using, of spreadsheets and word processing documents, worked well when enrollments were smaller, but now the amount of time spent copying information from one place to another is daunting, and the possibility of errors is increasing. An information system is necessary to cope with the growing administrative workload. After your meeting you developed a business profile, organization model, business process model, and began to identify information and processes for Berkeley Schools new information system.

Based on your initial conversation and the work that you prepared, you begin planning to conduct a preliminary investigation. You call Victoria and discuss with her the strategic plan for the school including its mission and vision. You explain to her that planning IT systems and projects requires a similar approach to strategic planning as the school likely took when it initially created its mission, vision, and strategic plan. She begins to ask you questions about the next steps for developing the information system. You tell Victoria that you will put together a memo for detailing the need for strategic planning and describing the stages of preliminary systems investigations.

You tell Victoria that project management involves managing the cost of the project, staying on its time schedule, and keeping it within the scope that is defined for the project. The first step begins with listing all of the tasks that are required to complete a project. You explain to her that in the case of Berkeley School:

The first thing to do is develop a plan, part of which we are doing right now.

In the next step, we will spend a few weeks on the analysis phase of development.

In the first part of this phase we will determine the requirements for the new system, which involves conducting interviews, documentation reviews, surveys, and other research.

The next step is to model the data and processes of the new system based on our research.

After the data and processes are modeled, we will decide if we are going to purchase or build the new system in-house.

After the analysis phase is completed, we will begin the system design phase.

This phase of the project includes the user interface; screens that users will work with and reports that are generated from the system.

The next step in this phase is data design where we will work with components of the data that is flowing through the system.

The final step of this phase is designing the system architecture. This will largely be based on whether we decide to purchase a system from a third party, outsource the system to a cloud service, or build the new system ourselves.

You go on to explain to Victoria that for project management, all of these major tasks and more specific, detailed tasks go into a chart that is used to create a work breakdown structure (WBS). You describe to her the main types of WBS Gantt charts and PERT charts and how they are used. You offer to show her the WBS charts you will create for Berkeley Elementary's project.

At the end of your discussion, Victoria tells you that it is clear that project management techniques will be needed for Berkeleys new system and she tells you she is excited to see the Gantt and PERT charts for the project.

After your meeting you sit down to set up the project management for Berkeley Elementarys new information system by organizing the tasks to be done, creating a WBS, and identifying the critical path for the project.

* * *

Berkeley Elementary School has decided to proceed to the systems analysis phase, based on the findings and proposal you presented after the preliminary investigation. A summary of your fact-finding is as follows:

Fact-Finding Summary

Registration for Berkeley Elementary School has two components, regular daily students and children in after-care. Regular daily students are divided into groups, dependent on whether the child is in pre-school, kindergarten, or primary school. Children in after-care are divided into two groups, those students who are pre-registered and those who use the service on a drop-in basis. Most of the students who are pre-registered for after-care attend the school during the day but some are bussed in from other schools. For a student to be registered, tuition payments must be in good standing.

There are two payment options for tuition and the pre-registered component of after-care, monthly or weekly. Regular daily tuition is based on the academic program in which the student is enrolled. A discount of 5 percent is applied to fees for parents choosing the monthly payment option. Parents who have more than one child enrolled at Berkeley are eligible for an additional 5 percent multi-child discount on tuition for all enrolled children. Discounts are lost for any payment that is overdue by more than seven days.

Charges for after-care used on a drop-in basis are based on an hourly rate, billed in fifteen minute increments. Parents are billed monthly for regular students, and charges are added to the monthly and weekly bills. New bills are generated weekly for drop-in care for children who are not pre-registered for after-care or regular daily students. For parents who pay monthly, tuition bills and after-care fees are due on the first of the month, and are distributed to parents one week prior to their being due. For parents who pay weekly, payments are due on Mondays with bills generated on Fridays. Parents who have more than one child enrolled in Berkeley receive a separate bill for each child. The students account must be in good standing for a student to be registered. For the account to be considered to be in good standing, the tuition payment must not be over seven days late. Tuition payments that are over seven days late may be overridden by the director; these cases are handled on a case-by-case basis.

The current registration system is done using Microsoft Excel. Michelle Madrid, the administrative assistant, sets up a new workbook for each academic year. Each month Michelle creates a new worksheet in the workbook. The worksheet contains one line per student, and each line contains the following registration and billing information for the student:

Student Name

Parent Name

Address

Academic program (pre-school, kindergarten, primary school grade 1-6)

After-Care (Yes/No)

Weekly tuition fee

Billing cycle (Monthly or Weekly)

Tuition discount

Multi-child discount

Amount of discount (calculated field)

Additional care, after-care 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 monthly when bills are prepared, each time a payment is made, and when Michelle enters the data from the after-care reports detailing all drop-in hours for each student. Michelle manually calculates the time and the spreadsheet calculates the charges. Monthly statements are generated from the spreadsheets using the mail merge tool in Microsoft Word.

A summary monthly report is generated for the Board of Directors from this spreadsheet summarizing fee collections for tuition and after care. The finance committee, who provides regular oversight for the Board, also receives separate monthly reports detailing payroll expenses for all employees. Reports need to be ready for distribution at the finance committee meeting that is scheduled for the second Tuesday of every month.

Michelle has indicated that the most useful new feature that could be added to the system would be the ability to generate one bill per family, listing each students charges separately, and an overall total. Also useful would be the ability to generate a receipt at the time payments are recorded. This receipt should contain information required for reimbursement requests from different types of dependent care and tuition accounts, including name, location, and federal tax ID number of the school. In addition, parents have asked for a separate statement accompanying their bill itemizing all drop-in after-care hours for that statement.

After your preliminary investigation and fact-finding tasks are complete you join Victoria Owens, Berkeleys director, for a status update meeting to discuss the progress you have made with the requirements documents you put together. You discuss the system requirements and she is in agreement with you on what you have identified as necessary components of the new system. The new information system will contain components that will register students, generate drop-in reports, generate bills, record payments, generate receipts, and generate monthly reports.

The next step is to develop a logical model of the proposed billing system. You explain to her how you will develop data flow diagrams (DFDs) that will be used to graphically show how data input will move through a system and be turned into useful information.

* * *

You have developed a logical model of the proposed billing system. Now you will continue the systems analysis phase by creating an object-oriented model of the billing system. Use the logical model that you prepared as a reference.

* * *

Based on your earlier recommendations, Berkeley Elementary decided to continue the systems development process for a new information system that would improve operations, decrease costs, and reduce some of the administrative workload.

Now, at the end of the systems analysis phase, you are ready to prepare a system requirements document and give a presentation to the Berkeley Schools management and board of directors. Many of the proposed systems advantages were described during the fact-finding process. Those include smoother operation, better efficiency, and more user-friendly procedures for staff and parents.

Currently, Michelle Madrid is logging 10 hours of overtime a week due to the increased workload associated with increased enrollment and school expansion. She is being compensated for overtime at a cost of $22.50 per hour including overhead expenses. Based on current enrollment projections, the overtime will need to be expanded to 15 hours a week in the next school year. The overtime requirement would be eliminated if Berkeley Elementary implements the new system. The current system now causes an average of six errors per week, and each error takes about 20 minutes to correct. The new system should eliminate those errors.

After presenting the system requirements document to Berkeley Elementary, the staff has approved your recommendations for a new computer system. Your next step is to begin the design phase of the SDLC and design a user interface including screens and forms for inputs, and reports for outputs. To design the user interface for Berkeley, you should review the documentation you prepared during the systems analysis phase.

Now that you have designed a user interface, you are ready to focus on the data design of the Berkeley Schools information system. To perform the following tasks, refer back to the DFDs you created previously, and the documentation you prepared from the systems analysis phase.

Assume that the Berkeley Elementary School staff accepted your interface, output, input, and data designs. Now you will determine the system architecture, which translates the logical design of an information system into a physical blueprint.

Specific Tasks and Deliverables:

Use the background information you have gathered to develop a business profile for Berkeley School. If you need additional information post your questions in the Q&A forum.

Create an organization model of Berkeley Schools paid staff. Make sure you include not only the title/position, but the persons name if known. You must create the chart using Microsoft Visio.

Generate a simple business process model to represent a process of Berkeley Elementary School. The model should include events, processes, and results.

Based on the organization chart that you created, give examples of information or reports that each person or position will need from a business support system. Place this information in a two-column table for easy identification and viewing.

Create a list of tasks that need to be completed for the new information system based on the information given in the case. Organize your list by estimating how long it will take to complete each task, and list each tasks predecessor task or tasks

Using the task list you developed, create a Gantt chart using Microsoft Project.

Create a PERT chart (called a network diagram in Microsoft Project) based on your task list.

Identify the critical path for the project.

List the system requirements with examples for each category. Review the information that you gathered, and assume that you will add your own ideas to achieve more effective outputs, inputs, processes, performance, and controls.

Draw an FDD that shows the main operations described in the fact-finding summary.

Prepare a context diagram for the new system.

Prepare a diagram 0 DFD for the new system.

Prepare a list of data stores and data flows needed for the system. Under each data store, list the data elements required.

Design all the necessary class objects for Berkeleys new system including attributes and methods

Create an object relationship diagram for the system classes that you identified in Task 14 (above).

Design a use case model for a method in the new system.

Design a Web portal with control buttons that lead to system components of your choosing. The design can be done using a Web development tool or Microsoft Visio. Components may include students, staff, classrooms, after-care, payments and any other area you think should be in a working system of your own design.

Design your own (do not use an existing form) a source document that parents would use to register their children for classes.

Suggest at least six types of data validation rules for data entry screens, explain how Berkeley Elementary should use each rule.

Create an ERD for the Berkeley Schools information system with relationship or cardinality notation.

Use realistic, sample data to populate the fields for at least three records in each table.

Design a system architecture for Berkeley Elementary School. Draw the design with Microsoft Visio.

Now that you have developed a systems architecture and physical topology for the network, make a list of the hardware that will be required for Berkeley

Write a system design specification document for Berkeleys new information system.

Compile all your documents and drawings in a single report and submit the report. Make sure to justify all your design decisions with the material you reviewed to produce your annotated bibliographies.

Add a paragraph explaining the ethical implications of your project.