ITSU2004
Systems Analysis & Design
Case Study
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ITSU2004 Case Study
Note: The case study below may not provide all the information necessary to complete
the assignment. Students will have to use their personal experiences to complete some
aspects of the assignment. Students may also seek clarification from their Instructor
during tutorials or office hours.
E-Learning Platform:
VIT is planning to build a e-learning platform that must include the following
functionalities. A key requirement for the e-learning platform is that it should contain
modules for:
• System administration.
• Course management.
• Collaboration and videoconferencing.
• Electronic register.
• Anti-plagiarism.
Platform Requirements:
The e-learning platform shall include the following modules and functionalities (it is not
necessary to use the same names for the modules or to present them in the same order,
provided that all of them are present in the e-learning platform, as described).
Module 1: System Administration
The administration of the system shall include a full range of functions for the
management and configuration of system parameters and attributes, data, users and
courses. The following basic functions shall be included, which cover: authentication,
management of rights and roles, user management, import and export of users and
resources, customizable view, management of language packs and log and report
management.
Required Functionalities for System Administration
1. The system should support a number of standard roles (e.g. Administrator,
Lecturer, Student, Guest, and Evaluator/Reviewer) and have the potential to
create an unlimited number of additional roles.
2. The system should also be able to create user groups to collaborate, communicate
and share content.
3. The platform should enable users to access resources from external websites.
4. It should be possible to access all administrative tools and functionalities from a
single interface.
5. System Administrators should be able to set quotas on the disk space for
individual users, courses and organizations.
6. The administrator should be able to set specific settings for the rights of users
based on user roles, including settings for bandwidth on e-resource access.
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ITSU2004 Case Study
7. The possibility to monitor visits and other statistics of the platform (i.e. number
of users, time period, etc.).
8. Event log storage and log analysis functionality for the needs of system
administrators.
Recommended Functionalities for System Administration
1. System administrator should be allowed to move and distribute content, users,
other administrators, tools and other items from one campus to another, or to
another course within the hierarchy by using a graphical user interface without
the need to use the back-end system or have knowledge of Web programming.
2. Administrator ca select the design and layout of the websites of different
campuses and to choose from catalogues with various graphical user interfaces
without the need to use the back-end system or have Web programming
experience.
3. Administrator can update and edit the structure of the individual campus
websites, using graphical user interface without the need to use the back-end
system or have Web programming experience.
Module 2: Course Management
This module should provide tools for synchronous and asynchronous e-learning, creating,
editing, saving, and deleting e-learning courses, encouraging student participation in the
learning process and ensuring better interactivity within the teaching process. The
platform should provide an opportunity to post news and announcements. It should also
provide an opportunity to test, assess and oversee the student and lecturer performance.
Required Functionalities for Course management
1. The system should dispose of available tools for communication and interaction
such as a calendar, messages and announcements, email service, tasks, and chat.
2. The system should allow the upload of syllabuses that are accessible through
students’ specific access rights. The objective is to provide students with a source
of reference and basic information on specific topics that will enable them to
efficiently participate in the course by undertaking home assignments, exams and
other components of the e-learning process.
3. The possibility to create course catalogues and to search and view training courses
according to specific rights and roles of individual users in the system.
4. Support for common file formats and the possibility to embed the content of such
files, (including: aam, aiff, asf, au, avi, doc, gif, html, htm, jpg, jpeg, jif, mpe, mpg,
mpeg, moov, mov, pdf, pps, qt, ra, ram, swa, swf, tiff, txt, wav, wpd, xls, xlsx, docx,
ppt, pptx, wma, wmf and wmv).
5. The possibility to create different sections within a course.
6. The possibility for the lecturer to archive a portion of the course or the entire
course.
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ITSU2004 Case Study
7. The possibility of automatic notification to users about new activities,
publications, assignments, examinations, quizzes, or changes in the course.
8. The possibility to publish publicly available information related to the lecturer and
the course.
9. The possibility for online submission of assignments and quiz.
10. The platform should have the following functionalities for evaluating users:
a. It should be possible for assessment questions to be defined with
additional descriptive information (metadata) that allows rapid sorting by
subject or other indicators, in order to reuse questions in subsequent
quizzes.
b. The assessment should allow testing the knowledge of students via online
quizzes. The possibility of multiple submission of assessments and
examinations.
c. The possibility of evaluation by the lecturer.
d. The possibility to import and export assessments and questionnaires.
e. The possibility to create a repository of questions, allowing repeated use
of the questions in different courses and assessments without the need for
recreation.
f. The possibility to set different weights for the automatic evaluation of
questions the possibility to generate reports on quizzes, final exams and
continuous assessments.
11. Automatic addition of the assessments and posts by students in the electronic
register module described in the documentation.
12. The possibility to use different types of questions in quizzes, surveys and polls.
13. The possibility to create a bank of questions that can be used by the system in any
combination of questions to test different students.
Recommended Functionalities for Course Management
1. Functionality allowing lecturers to customize individual design, colors, layout and
appearance of the object (the course) without affecting the content and structure.
This functionality should be enabled or disabled individually by the administrator.
2. Functionality allowing lecturers to customize the individual structure of the object
(the course) without affecting the graphic content. This functionality should be
enabled or disabled by the administrator.
3. User-friendly interactive wizard to help lecturers create objects, i.e. they should
be able to choose a ready-made structure for the course and a graphic design in
accordance with the course topic, and the teaching method (for this function,
there should be at least 5 course templates).
Module 3: Collaboration and Videoconferencing
This module should provide a virtual environment resembling the actual learning
environment and containing the required functionality for online learning, such as
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ITSU2004 Case Study
videoconferencing, in addition to facilitating the work on group projects within the class
and encouraging interaction between students.
Required Functionalities for Collaboration and Videoconferencing
1. Videoconferencing.
2. Text messaging.
3. The possibility to raise your hand in an online class, give the floor to someone and
allow online discussions between the students.
4. Recording and playback of audio and/or video messages during certain activities
in the learning process.
5. Sharing desktop applications. Sharing presentations.
6. Adding an existing sound recording to the current session.
7. An ‘Interactive Whiteboard’ space, to support interaction of all participants
simultaneously or separately (the rules for such interaction should be set by the
lecturer who acts as moderator). Screen sharing (or sharing parts of the screen).
8. Sharing Web content and management of students’ browsers in order to focus on
the content imposed by the moderator.
9. The possibility for audio and/or video recording of the session for streaming
purposes and for reusing the learning material integrated into the platform.
10. Management of the classroom by the lecturer, including granting and revoking
rights for voice and video participation, rights for writing on the whiteboard,
assignment and withdrawal of rights for writing and receiving text messages, for
screen sharing and for individual desktop applications.
Recommended Features for Collaboration and Videoconferencing
1. The module for videoconferencing and virtual classroom should allow real-time
posting of questions and inquiries, which students can respond to in real time.
2. The videoconferencing and virtual classroom module should offer an option to use
a timer for certain activities with automatic submission of the task after the time
limit.
3. The videoconferencing and virtual classroom module should allow for splitting the
session into individual subgroups or chat rooms to be managed inside the session
Module 4: Electronic Register
It stores the results and marks from various examinations, quizzes, assignments and
group projects. The system should be able to generate various reports on student
performance in order to help analyze their performance and attendance.
Required Functionalities for Electronic Register
1. The possibility to create multi-component evaluation schemes.
2. The possibility of anonymous assessment.
3. The possibility to automatically assess a student’s activity in forums, blogs,
journals, wikis and student portfolios.
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ITSU2004 Case Study
4. The possibility to make a weighted evaluation of several different types of
performance and the opportunity to individually set different weights for different
users.
5. Automatically adding marks for homework, examinations, quizzes and other
student assignments in the electronic register.
6. The possibility of manual editing by the lecturer of the automatically generated
assessments.
7. The possibility to track changes in the assessments.
8. The possibility for lecturers to directly send messages to students and parents
from the electronic register.
9. The possibility to write notes and information to accompany marks that can be
seen only by the lecturer and/or authorized users.
10. The possibility to generate reports on student progress and analyze the level of
acquisition of various elements from the learning material.
11. The performance of students can be monitored by the lecturer through
automated reports that reflect student participation in courses and other e-
learning activities.
12. An early warning system functionality, if students fail to meet specific
performance criteria set by the lecturer.
13. The possibility to create and save filters for the results achieved by students at
the level of course, campus and unit.
14. Functionality allowing import and export of the electronic register in xls and csv
format.
Recommended Features for Electronic Register
1. In order to compare achieved results to predefined standards and objectives in
the educational process, the system should allow for assessment of the elements
using multi-component evaluations that can be retained, copied and processed.
2. Functionality that enables lecturers to identify all components that are to be
assessed from a single location and to visualize all components for assessment in
a single screen, regardless of where the elements are located in the structure and
content of subjects.
Module 5: Anti-Plagiarism
This module should be part of the learning platform and check for plagiarism the work of
individual users and compare their work to Internet sources.
Required Functionalities for Anti-Plagiarism
1. The system should function with Cyrillic encoding of the text.
2. The system should display a link to the source from which content has been
plagiarized as well as an overlap percentage.
3. The system should highlight the plagiarized content.
4. The system should allow access to information databases that can be used to
compare and evaluate the content submitted by students. The module should
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ITSU2004 Case Study
provide for the accumulation of content which can subsequently be compared
with and used to investigate plagiarism in the content imported from students
into the platform.
5. The system should allow plagiarism checks of content submitted to the platform
in a variety of formats such as Microsoft Word (doc, docx, odt), text (txt), and Rich
Text Format (rtf). For comparison, one should also be able to use the specified
formats, except for plain text format.
6. The module should be able to compare content available on the platform to a
source outside the system specified by the lecturer.
Quality Requirements
The system should also meet the following quality requirements:
1. Productivity – the system should have the capacity to serve a minimum of 100 000
simultaneous (concurrent) sessions.
2. Compatibility – the system should be compatible with current Web standards
(HTML, XHTML).
3. Accessibility – the system should be installed centrally on one or more servers,
and should be accessible via http or https over the Internet. It should have a Web-
based user and administrative interface for public and protected sections and, as
a minimum, it should be compatible with the most popular Internet browsers,
such as Internet Explorer v.8 and higher, Mozilla Firefox v.3.6 and higher, Safari
v.3 and higher and Chrome v.10 and higher.
4. Functionality and easy access – the system should be adapted for people with
visual impairments to allow for ease of access and use.
Other Requirements and Remarks
It is important that the system should be able to be integrated with other existing
systems.
This will provide greater potential for:
1. The ability to convert data from the built-in e-register into table format (xls, csv,
etc.) in order to develop an interface for automated incorporation of data from
existing systems.
2. Information integration from the existing SCORM-compatible elements and
interactive lessons.
References
1. Yoshinova, R., Hadjitodorov, S., Kousov, O. and Ivanov, P., 2014. Requirements
For The E-Learning Platform For Bulgarian Education. [online] BREN-led working
group on Networking. Available at:
https://services.geant.net/sites/cbp/Knowledge_Base/Physical_Infrastructure/D
ocuments/CBP-09_e-learning-for-bulgarian-education.pdf [Accessed 01
December 2020].
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