THE DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF STUDENT ACCOMMODATION (BENCHMARK STUDENT PAD) APPLICATION

ABSTRACT

This project is aimed at developing a web application for student accommodation. It allows students to choose and book a room of their choice. Research was carried out through reviewing similar existing applications, observations, interviewing people who might want to use the application and project-related articles. The ideas obtained from reviewing other similar applications were used in building the application. Agile methodology was used to build the app. The project was implemented using the Visual Studio IDE. This project has gone smoothly and the major part of all its functionalities have been implemented.

Table of Contents

DECLARATIONIII

CERTIFICATIONIV

APPROVALV

DEDICATIONVI

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTVII

LIST OF TABLESVIII

LIST OF FIGURESIX

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONSX

ABSTRACTXI

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION1

1.1OVERVIEW1

1.2BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION1

1.3STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM1

1.4AIM AND OBJECTIVES2

1.5SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROJECT2

1.6PROJECT RISKS ASSESSMENT2

1.7 SCOPE/PROJECT ORGANIZATION5

CHAPTER 2:  LITERATURE REVIEW6

2.1 OVERVIEW6

2.2 ACCOMMODATION AND ITS ROLE FOR STUDENTS6

2.3 HISTORICAL OVERVIEW7

2.4 RELATED WORK8

2.4.1 Wracehall accommodation8

2.4.2 Baze University Hostel8

2.4.3 Uni-places8

2.5 SUMMARY9

CHAPTER 3: REQUIREMENTS, ANALYSIS AND DESIGN10

3.1OVERVIEW10

3.2PROPOSED MODEL10

3.3 METHODOLOGY10

3.4DATA GATHERING TECHNIQUES12

3.4.1 Interviews12

3.4.2 Observations12

3.5 REQUIREMENTS SPECIFICATIONS12

3.5.1Functional Requirement12

3.5.2Non-Functional Requirement Specifications13

3.5.3 Hardware requirements13

3.5.4 Software requirements13

3.6 SYSTEM DESIGN14

3.6.1 Application Architecture14

3.6.2Use Case15

3.6.3Activity Diagrams19

3.6.4 Sequence Diagram20

3.6.5Dataflow Diagram21

3.6.6Entity-Relationship Diagram (ERD)22

3.6.7User Interface Design23

3.7    SUMMARY26

CHAPTER 4: IMPLEMENTATION28

4.1 INTRODUCTION28

4.2 SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION28

4.3 TESTING29

4.3.1 Test Plans30

4.3.2 Unit and integration testing32

4.3.3 Test Case Procedures33

4.3.4 Traceability Matrix35

4.3.5 Test Report Summary36

4.4 ERROR REPORTS36

4.4.1 How the errors were corrected38

4.4.2 Unresolved errors39

4.5 USER GUIDES39

4.6 SUMMARY39

CHAPTER 5:  EVALUATION, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS40

5.1   INTRODUCTION40

5.2   EVALUATION OF THE SOFTWARE40

5.2.1 Objective viewpoint through testing40

5.2.2 Subjective viewpoint through an appraisal of what has been achieved40

5.2.3 Future Enhancements40

5.3CONCLUSION41

5.3.1 Project achievements41

5.3.2 Current situation regarding the project41

5.4RECOMMENDATIONS41

5.6SUMMARY41

REFERENCES43

APPENDICES45

APPENDIX A: WORK PLAN45

APPENDIX B: GANTT CHART47

APPENDIX C: PROCEEDINGS OF INTERVIEW48

APPENDIX D: OBSERVATIONS CONDUCTED49

APPENDIX E: USER GUIDE50

APPENDIX F: CODES52