General Information

This case study document describes an application scenario. $-$ Some of the A$2$ questions will be based

on this application scenario.

The case study is partially taken from the application scenario described in Assignment $3,$ which can

be found from Canvas. $-$ Therefore, the application scenario can be viewed as a simplified version of

the application scenario described in Assignment $3($albeit with some minor difference$).$

This document is provisional until Week $8($i$.$e$.,$ the week we cover Module $8,$ approximately two

weeks before the A$2$ online test$).$ That is$,$ while the document may be available before Week $8,$ only

versions from Week $8$ or later will be considered final. Please remember to download the final

version of this document from Canvas between Week $8$ and $9.$

An application scenario

The Open University of Science and Technology $($OUST$)$ is interested in developing a simple Honors

Enrolment Pre$-$assessment System $($HEPaS$)$ that can be used by their graduates and$/$or third$-$year students

to self$-$assess if they are eligible for Honors studies.

Basically, students who have completed certain number of units in their bachelor's courses, and their unit

results meet the honors course selection criteria, are eligible to do an honors course.

As a practice, you are requested to do a preliminary design of the above system.

The system needs to access the OUST students' course learning records $($OSCLR$),$ which holds OUST

students' unit selection$/$learning history and related unit results, etc. This implies that the system needs

to be a distributed system $($DS$),$ with at least one client application, one server application$/$s and one

database server. The client allows a user $($e$.$g$.,$ OUST student$)$ to enter his$/$her information, performs

necessary data pre$-$processing, and then passes the data to the server for an honours enrolment pre$-$

assessment $($HEPa$).$ The server application accepts input data from the client. If the client's data contains

required authentication information such as Student ID $($or Person ID$)$ and email address, the server can

use the data to access OSCLR to obtain the user's course learning related data for the HEPa, otherwise

some error messages may be generated. The server then sends the assessment result $($or error messages$)$

back to the client application.

To simplify, let's assume that the distributed system has one client$-$side application $($e$.$g$.,$ client$\_$call$)$ and

one server$-$side application $($e$.$g$.,$ evaluator$),$ and one database server $($i$.$e$.,$ OSCLR$).$ Only server$-$side

application can access the OSCLR. The client makes remote method invocation $($RMI$)$ to the remote

applications$/$methods at server$-$side that perform HEPs based on the data received from the client$-$side

$($and$/$or data fetched from OSCLR$).$

A simplified set of requirements can be:Refer to the case study document for Assignment $2($see the document titled $"$ CSI$3344-$ A$2-$ a case study$-241.$pdf darr $".$ It can also be accessed through a link inside "Assignment $2-$ Short$-$

answer Questions" panel in Assignments section on Canvas$).$ It describes an application scenario about a possible Honors Enrolment Pre$-$assessment System $($HEPaS$)$ system.

Suppose that you are the project manager responsible for designing a distributed system $($DS$)$ to implement the HEPaS system. As part of the system design, complete the following:

Describe $($or draw diagram of$)$ the software architecture of the HEPaS system. List the key components you would create to implement the HEPaS system, and clearly show how do these

components communicate with each other.

Take two components you listed in above $(1)$ and provide detailed design to them by outlining algorithms for each or drawing flowcharts.

List at least three possible test cases that can be used to test your HEPaS system $($i$.$e$.,$ by providing some typical inputs$/$conditions$,$ and listing the expected outputs of your HEPaS system$).$