CIS 5755 Fall 2022
Team Project Case
The Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) at Midwest State University handles various aspects of
programs and research projects funded through grants. OSP manages various types of grants such as
grants supporting student research and activities, grants supporting faculty activities and those targeted
to academic departments to meet special needs. The OSP receives grant applications, conducts an
internal review process and coordinates with the Finance department to handle the procurement for
approved grants.
Investing in the latest technology to support the grant management process has always been a priority
for the OSP and the University. The University’s IT department has played an important role in the
development or acquisition of the systems that support various processes.
However, in a recent meeting of the OSP representatives with the IT department, the OSP director
raised a concern about the paper-based system the office uses to handle technology grants. These
types of grants are new to University. They are intended to assist academic departments to meet the
equipment, training, and miscellaneous technology needs not covered by or funded through the student
technology fee, department or college funds. Since their introduction a few years ago, the number of
applications has increased significantly which has necessitated a new system that would support
handling of these types of grants.
Following discussions on this issue, it was decided that the IT department should consider developing
of a web-based system to automate the procedure to handle the technology grants. Below is a
description of the current procedures related to these grants.
Each year OSP creates a request for applications and announces it to all academic departments across
campus. Department chairs consult with their faculty and, making use of the standard application form,
submit their grant applications.
OSP creates a committee composed of faculty members to evaluate the applications, rank them and
approve/deny the applications based on various factors such as the total number of applications
received, total amount of funding available, nature of technology or need to be supported by the grant,
relevance of the technology to student learning, clarity of project objectives etc.
After the evaluation process is complete, OSP staff that oversees these grants, notifies the department
of the grants awarded to them and sends the corresponding paperwork to the Finance department.
In addition to generating a significant amount of paperwork, one issue with the current process is the
difficulty of generating reports about grants approved for various departments over the years or
checking the status of a specific application.
In a preliminary meeting of representatives from the OSP, the grant committee, department chairs and
IT department, it was decided that the new system should include the following functionalities:
OSP staff should be able to post a request for applications on the OSP web site. Departments should
be able to fill and submit applications online for a given request for applications. Once an application is
submitted, the department should be able to view the status of their application.
The system should also be used by the committee members to view the applications. In addition, the
committee chair should be able to modify the status of an application (deny or approve) based on the
committee decisions.
The OSP staff should be able to view the applications and their status. Finally, Finance department
should be able to view the approved applications only.
The web-based system should also allow authorized users (such as OSP staff) to:
- Generate reports for grants applications submitted by a specific department.
- Generate reports for grants applications approved for a specific department.
- Generate reports about applications by status.
- Notify committee chair when an application await for their approval.
Project Deliverables:
1. Create a set of user stories related to the new technology grants web-based system.
2. Create a requirements specification document, including both functional and non-functional
requirements.
3. Create one or more use case diagrams and use cases specifications for the new system. For use
case specifications, use the template specified in this course.
4. Create CRC cards and work through the review process discussed in class. Document any changes
you make to your class model based upon your review.
5. Create a class diagram that includes class names, list of attributes, and relationships.
6. Create prototypes of user interfaces, screens and reports, to reflect functionalities modelled and
described in the above deliverables. User interface prototypes should reflect the interaction
described in the use cases.
General
Provide sufficient introduction and narrative with your documents, especially to support traceability.
List all assumptions that influence your documentation.
I would prefer you use a tool to draw diagrams or create UI prototypes. However, inserting pictures of
hand-drawn diagrams is fine, as long as they are legible and neat.
Submission format:
Submit a single document containing all deliverables, Word or pdf format, in the link in Blackboard
Include a cover page with the course number, year, project title, and full team member names. Do NOT
include the 700 number.
Grading rubric
Deliverable Points Grade
1. User stories 20
2. Requirements specs 20
3. Use case diagram 20
4. Use case specifications 25
5. CRC cards 15
6. Class diagram 20
7. Prototypes 20
8. Formatting/ presentation 10
Total points 150
