General Guidelines for Final Year Projects
Introduction
As part requirement for the award of BSc (Hons) (diploma/degree) for the Computer
Science Department at the University of Mauritius, a project must normally be carried out
by students in their final year of study. The project is a module that provides the students
with the opportunity to design, undertake or conduct an independent piece of research or
study related to their Programme of Studies under the guidance of a supervisor, who is
normally a member of the academic staff (full-time or part-time).
The project will carry 9 credits and will normally lasts for two semesters. A project report
should be submitted as part of the module and this should be complemented with a
project presentation and software demonstration.
The following section consists of a report structure and a guidance to write a good report
for Software Engineering projects and ensuring that essential parts are not missed out.
Note however that some parts may not be applicable to your project. As far as possible,
this guideline tries to depict the main sections.
Report Guideline
Your report may be structured in the following way:

Title Page

Acknowledgements

Abstract

Table of Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

Introduction

Background Study
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
Analysis

Design

Implementation

Integration & Testing

Conclusion

References

Appendix
A short outline for each sub-part is described below:
Title Page
As per the university‟s regulations, the title page of the report shall give the following
information in the order listed:

Full title of the project as approved by the Department

The full name of the author

The qualification for which the report is submitted

The name of the institution to which the report is submitted

The Department in which the project is to be submitted

The month and year of submission.
A good title should be relevant, short & concise and catchy. A good title will attract
readers.
It should not:

Leave the reader guessing what it is about

Have spelling and grammatical errors
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Acknowledgements
This part is all about thanking those who have helped you directly or indirectly on the
completion of the project. For example, your supervisor, your team mate and/or anyone
who provided some funding etc. Remember to be courteous.
Abstract
This is one of the most important parts of your report. It should normally be written last
and should consist of one paragraph only.
It should be:

Short and concise (not longer than 250 words and rarely longer than one
paragraph)

State the objective

State the method used

State the results

State the conclusions
It should not:

Introduce anything new

Include references
If you have found anything interesting, it is important that you mention it here because
after reading the abstract, the reader might decide to quit reading the project and he might
miss your superb result which is only revealed at the end.
Table of Contents
The table of contents is essential in any report as it helps the reader to go directly to
where he wants. It is important not to mislead the reader by indicating wrong page
number. Remember that you can use a word processor‟s „Style‟ feature to be able to able
to generate TOC, LOF etc automatically
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List of Tables

Clear indication and labels to the list of tables.
List of Figures

Clear indication and labels to the list of figures.
Preface
This section gives a brief outline of the different chapters to be covered. The aim of this
part is that the reader should understand the structure of the report after reading this
Introduction
The introduction part is another trigger for the reader. If after reading this part, the user is
not bored yet, you have won him over.
It should:

Present the problem under investigation

Indicate the Aims & Objectives of the project

Scope of project

Indicate a timeline for the project

Include the distribution of task
This part might sound like the abstract but it is much longer. It will most likely be a few
pages long.
Background Study
The background study consists of the following:

Literature review

Critical appraisal of other people‟s work
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
Investigation on what is going on in your current field of interest and related
works carried out

Investigation of potential tools and technologies that can be used for project
implementation.
You should be able to prove to other people that you have done some
research/investigation before embarking on the project.
Analysis
This section documents the analysis of the system to be implemented. It consists of the
following:

Feasibility Study (optional)

Description of the system

Functional and Non Functional Requirements

Alternative ways of solving the problem (optional)

Proposed Solution with reasons

Evaluation of tools/approaches– Pros and Cons

Choice of Final Tool(s)/approached with justification

Functional Modeling of the system - Use Case, workflows
Design
The Design section documents the design decisions that have been taken. The structure of
the system and its components has to be established.
Explanation should be provided about how the following design issues will be tackled:

Software Design Approach

Performance

Robustness

Interactivity
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
Flexibility

Re-usability & portability

Quality of Service

Error, Exception Handling & Fault Tolerance

Security
The design should consist of the following:

Architectural Design - Interaction between components and/or modules

Interface Design

System Modeling- Object Modeling/UML diagrams, ERD

Database Design

Algorithms used

Logic used for calculations, processes, integration etc.
Implementation
The implementation section describes how the different components in the project have
been implemented. It should also consist of:

Developments tools and environment used

Implementation of different modules (including detail steps about how they
were developed)

Sample codes
of the main pieces of logic (including standards and
conventions)

Difficulties faced and how they were addressed.
Moreover, can include discussion about how the design issues that have been addressed:

Performance

Consistency

Scalability

Security issues

Real-Time issues
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
Concurrency Control

Flexibility

Adaptability

Fault-Tolerance
Integration and Testing
Testing starts alongside with the Implementation. The testing part will document the
testing carried out – the test data and the results obtained. When independent modules
have been implemented and tested, they can be integrated and tested as a whole.
Different types of testing Carried out:

Unit Test – testing a single component

Integration Testing – Combining different components

System test – Testing the system as a whole

User acceptance test – user perspective of the system to check if requirements
have been met.
Note that you should be able to provide details about how the above tests have been
carried out and not just list them. Test scripts/ test plans can be used to show the different
types of test carried out. It is wise to start documenting the tests carried out together with
their test results as you proceed with the Implementation stage.
Conclusion
This is usually the last chapter in the report which contains three main parts:

Achievements: It should critically assess the work done including the
strengths and weaknesses and try to explain the results obtained.

Difficulties: The difficulties can also be summarised. Keep in mind that the
conclusion should not be overcritical or sound depressing. Do not put your
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difficulties as just being lack of time. All students get the same amount of
time for project.

Future Works: No report is totally complete or has completely explored a
domain. You can give some indications where future work might be carried
out or what other domain you would have explored without the current
time/resource constraints.
References
It is a major offence to copy the work of others without properly referencing. This
practice is termed as “plagiarism”. It is the equivalent of theft in the academic world. It is
therefore very important that you add proper references at the end of your report and to
add proper links of those references to your report. References are important because
they acknowledge the work of others and prove that you have done enough investigation.
There are two types of copying:

Copying whole paragraphs

Using the idea of someone else
Different styles are needed depending on what you are referencing:

Books

Articles in journals

Web pages

Discussion groups
The reference system used at the university of Mauritius is the Harvard System. It is a
very popular referencing system and is widely utilized.
The Harvard System
The references section should include a list of references. The references for the
following items should be written as follows:
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1.
For books
Author‟s SURNAME, INITIALS., Year of publication. Title. Edition (if not the
first). Place of publication: Publisher.
e.g. MERCER, P.A. AND SMITH, G., 1993. Private viewdata in the UK. 2nd ed.
London: Longman.
2.
For journal/newspaper articles
Author‟s SURNAME, INITIALS., (or NEWSPAPER TITLE,) Year of
publication. Title of article. Title of newspaper, Day and month, Page number/s
and column number.
e.g INDEPENDENT, 1992. Picking up the bills. Independent, 4 June,
p.28a.
3.
For articles in a journal
Author‟s SURNAME, INITIALS., Year of publication. Title of article. Title of
journal, Volume number and (part number), Page numbers of contribution.
e.g. EVANS, W.A., 1994. Approaches to intelligent information retrieval.
Information processing and management, 7 (2), 147-168.
4.
Conference Paper
Contributing author‟s SURNAME, INITIALS., Year of publication. Title of
contribution. Followed by In: INITIALS. SURNAME, of editor of proceedings (if
applicable) followed by ed. Title of conference proceedings including date and
place of conference. Place of publication: Publisher, Page numbers of
contribution.
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e.g. SILVER, K., 1991. Electronic mail: the new way to communicate. In: D.I.
RAITT, ed. 9th international online information meeting, 3-5 December 1990
London. Oxford: Learned Information, 323-330.
5.
For a thesis
Author‟s SURNAME, INITIALS., Year of publication. Title of thesis.
Designation, (and type). Name of institution to which submitted.
e.g. AGUTTER, A.J., 1995. The linguistic significance of current British slang.
Thesis (PhD). Edinburgh University.
6.
For a film/video or broadcast
Title, Year. (For films the preferred date is the year of release in the country of
production.) Material designation. Subsidiary originator. (Optional but director is
preferred, SURNAME in capitals) Production details – place: organisation.
e.g. Macbeth, 1948. Film. Directed by Orson WELLES. USA: Republic Pictures.
e.g. Birds in the Garden, 1998. Video. London: Harper Videos.
7.
Web
Author's /Editor's SURNAME, INITIALS., Year. Title [online]. (Edition). Place
of publication, Publisher (if ascertainable). Available from: URL [Accessed
Date].
e.g. HOLLAND, M., 2004. Guide to citing Internet sources [online]. Poole,
Bournemouth
University.
Available
from:
http://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/library/using/guide_to_citing_internet_sourc.html
[Accessed 4 November 2004].
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8.
CD ROM/DVD
Author's SURNAME, INITIALS., Year. Title [type of medium CD-ROM].
(Edition). Place of publication, Publisher (if ascertainable). Available from:
Supplier/Database identifier or number (optional) [Accessed Date] (optional).
e.g. HAWKING, S.W., 1994. A brief history of time: an interactive adventure.
[CDROM]. Crunch Media.
Example of a reference list:
[His02] HISINGER, D., NEYRET, F. and CANI, M.P. 2002. Interactive
Animation of Ocean Waves. In Symposium on Computer Animation
[Jen 01] JENSEN, L. and GOLIAS, R. 2001. Deep-Water Animation and
Rendering.
In
Gamasutra
http://www.gamasutra.com/gdce/2001/jensen/jensen_01.htm
[Jes03] JESCHKE, S., BIRKHOLZ, H. and SCHUMANN, H. 2003. A Procedural
Model for Interactive Animation of Breaking Ocean Waves. In WSCG POSTERS
Proceedings
[Pea86] PEACHEY, D.R. 1986. Modelling Waves and Surf. In ACM
SIGGRAPH Proceedings, Vol. 20, No.4, pp. 65-74
You should use some consistent system of coding your references so you can refer to
them easily from the main report. This may take the form of a simple numbering system
where a superscripted number is appended to the actual point of reference in the body of
the text and a numerical listing of the detailed references is placed at the end of the
project (or at the end of each chapter).
For more details about the Harvard Referencing style, the following link might be
helpful:
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http://libweb.anglia.ac.uk/referencing/files/Harvard_referencing.pdf
http://www.imperial.ac.uk/Library/pdf/Harvard_referencing.pdf
Appendix
It contains things that could not be directly included in the report but which will
nevertheless help the reader gain a better understanding of the project if included.
It usually includes:

Part of the code

Data sets

Algorithms

Extra illustrations (charts, barcharts, photos)

Surveys

Forms and templates
Final Note
This objective of this guide is to help you write a better report for your project. It has
often been the case that students implement excellent software but due to poor quality of
their report, their grades are lowered. Moreover, it is important to note that this is just a
Guide. It should not be used word to word if certain parts do not apply for your project.
Feel free to add new elements which you feel should form part of your report. In case of
doubts, please contact your Project Supervisor.
Please check the Uom Website below for Regulations regarding Final Year Project.
http://www.uom.ac.mu/ABOUTUS/REGULATIONS/regulations.htm
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