RUNNING HEAD: LAB 1 – TRAIN DESCRIPTION
LAB 1- TRAIN Description
Green Team
Tyler Swayne
CS 411 W
Janet Brunelle
04/07/2013
Version 4
LAB 1 – TRAIN DESCRIPTION
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Table of Contents
Introduction ...................................................................................................................................3
TRAIN Product Description .........................................................................................................4
Key Features and Capabilities ..................................................................................................5
Major Components ....................................................................................................................6
Identification of Case Study ..........................................................................................................8
TRAIN Product Prototype Description .......................................................................................9
Prototype Architecture ............................................................................................................15
Prototype Features and Capabilities ......................................................................................16
Prototype Development Challenge .........................................................................................17
Glossary ........................................................................................................................................19
Works Cited ..................................................................................................................................21
List of Figures
Figure 1 – Train MFCD ......................................................................................................8
Figure 3 – Prototype MFCD .............................................................................................16
List of Tables
Table 1 – Real world Product vs. Prototype ......................................................................11
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INTRODUCTION
Training is a required element of every job and typically is not offered in a college
curriculum. Education emphasizes on principles and building the mind where training
emphasizes on application and building skills. The training that does exist in the workforce is in
need of innovation. There is difficulty in creating training modules and delivering materials
efficiently. Managing training material can add to this difficulty.
Some company's sole source of business is to provide training. These organizations have
extremely large amounts of data and traversing through this material and producing appropriate
training modules is timely and problematic. Finally, lack of feedback restricts training from
progressing and improving. Many organizations do not implement reliable feedback
mechanisms to improve their training and ultimately their business as well.
The solution to this problem is a data management system that allows users to quickly
build training modules. A data management system allows customers to upload resources with
keywords making all of their information easily searchable. This allows the customer to find,
update, upload, and download their immense amounts of data with ease. The alternative to this
would be manual database manipulation to insert, search, and download data. This process is
extremely time consuming and error prone. The functionality to build training packages easily
by modularizing data within the management system also drastically reduces the time of the
overall process. This cuts the cost of training and gives organizations extra resources for
focusing on the content of the training material. Structured feedback can automatically flag
poorly rated training materials within the system. This lets the training organization’s users
know what is not effective and needs to be updated or removed. Finally, a customer interface
that allows the customers to log on and request training could also help organizations save
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resources. Instead of having to sit with the customer and agree upon their training requirements,
the customer could use this interface to request training on specific topics. This will design
courses more accurately since the request is coming straight from the customer. This data
management system is what the workforce needs to restructure the current system of
training. TRAIN is a data management system that employs each of these characteristics to
solve this societal problem.
TRAIN PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
TRAIN is intended to drastically reduce the time it takes to create training modules. By
doing this, it allows the training organization’s users to focus more on delivering and creating the
material within the training modules. Another result of this will be more accurate training
material selection. In order to reduce the time it takes to create training modules, the data must
be in one searchable repository. This will allow easy management of the data within, resulting in
quick downloading and uploading functionality. Feedback from the customer will give them the
capability to identify poorly rated content and update it as needed. While TRAIN is primarily
intended to reduce the time it takes for the organizations to build training modules, it can also
increase the effectiveness of the training.
To accomplish these goals, TRAIN will provide a data management system. It will have
a centralized database and provide a GUI interface for easy data upload, download, and
updating. To increase the speed of creating courses, this system will provide an interface that
gives them the functionality to easily select training material to add to a course. The system will
also include a customer interface so that a customer representative can select low level training
objectives from the training organization. Based on this request, an initial course will be
generated which the training organization’s users can manipulate to add or remove any
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material. This is what will help them build courses more accurately geared towards the customer
request since the customer is essentially building their own course with their approval. A
feedback feature will also be included within the system within the customer interface. This will
allow students to rate training materials and overall courses. Poorly rated training materials can
be flagged so the training organization’s users can review and update ineffective data. Free text
feedback can also provide them with an explanation of a positive or negative assessment to help
when changing or creating new training material. The implementation of this solution will
accomplish the goals outlined for this system.
Key Product Features and Capabilities
TRAIN has several key functional components. The functionality to select training
material from the system and create courses is very significant. The customer will be able to
select specific subtopics in which they need training. These subtopics will be linked to the actual
training material. Once the customer selects all of their desired training subtopics and finalizes
their request, the training organization’s users are able to approve the course. When they
approves the course, they will be taken to the course creation interface where an initial course
will be generated based upon the customer request. When the customer selects their training
subtopics, all training material linked to these subtopics are pulled to generate the initial
course. This functionality shortens the training organization’s user’s time to develop training
modules drastically by removing most of the manual work required to create a course. It also
chooses training material more accurately because the customer is hand picking the subtopics in
which they need training.
To further manipulate the courses and manage data within the system, several search
algorithms must be implemented. The basis for the search capability is the tag system. Each
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data entry will be able to be described by tags within the system. This allows the training
organization’s users to search for data using keywords. This search will be used during the
course creation, data download and update, and customer course request. Within the course
creation interface, the user will be able to search for any specific type of data, however, only the
actual training material that contains that data will be displayed to the user. This will allow them
to search for subtopics of training material and find which material contains those
subtopics. Within the data download or update, the user will select what type of data they are
searching for and then use keywords to search for the data. Finally, within the customer course
request interface, they will only be searching through the training subtopics. The searching
functionality is the backbone of the system. Without search features, the rest of the system
would not function. This enables the automation within the data management system. This
removes the need to navigate manually through data through direct contact with the database.
The feedback functionality is another feature within TRAIN. During the actual training
sessions, the customers will be able to log in and provide feedback for each training topic. This
feedback will be a mix of a number rating and a free text evaluation. Over time, the training
material will develop a number rating that will be the average of all of the scores from the
students that have rated the material. Poorly rated topics will be flagged for upgrading or
updating the material.
Major Components (Hardware/Software)
Most of TRAIN's major components are software related. The only hardware needed
within this system is a development workspace which will be composed of a server and desktop
computers. The server will be running Windows and will also need Microsoft SQL Server
installed on it. It must also be accessible via remote desktop connection.
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The rest of TRAIN is composed of software components. TRAIN will have a database
to store all of the application data. The actual web application will consist of four separate
interfaces. Each separate user type will access its own specific interface. Figure 1 illustrates the
relationship and composition of the customer and training organization’s interface's and their
interaction with the server. The first interface is the administrator interface, which will represent
the super user that has all role capabilities within the system. This will contain the area where
the user can upload, download, and update data. This interface will also contain the screens to
review and approve customer course requests. Finally, this interface will allow the
administrators to have the ability to manage all user accounts and organization information.
The instructor interface will be used to deliver the training. This interface will contain
the functionality to access all other areas of the application. The Instructor interface will give
this user the capability to upload, download, and update data within the system. The instructor
will also be able to manage courses; however, this will be only for courses that they have been
assigned to instruct.
The Manager will represent the employee in charge of the customer organization. This
interface will allow managers to request training. It will include the functionality to assign
students to a course once approved. The manager interface will also include the feedback
mechanism.
The student interface will provide an area for individuals receiving training to keep track
of their courses and give feedback on courses taken. This interface will include a dashboard that
displays all courses the students are assigned to. From the dashboard, they will be able to
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navigate to the feedback mechanism. They will also be able to navigate to a course history page
where the student can view previous courses and ratings given to each course.
Figure 1: The Major Functional Component Diagram
IDENTIFICATION OF CASE STUDY
The organization requesting assistance is the National Center for Systems of Systems
Engineering (NCSOSE). Dr. Adams and his organization provide their expertise in Systems
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Engineering to interested customers. Their services include hands-on assistance to customers
that will benefit from NCSOSE’s expertise and extensive knowledge of engineering.
NCSOSE also provides training to organizations. That way, instead of having to
continue to rely on NCSOSE to problem solve, they can solve their issues related to systems
engineering independently and continue to profit from this knowledge. These training modules
are called courses, and are a group of PowerPoint presentations that are packaged together. Each
PowerPoint presentation is called a topic, and has a list of learning objectives that will be
covered throughout it. Dr. Adams manually extracts the topics from their database and puts
together the courses for the customers. Dr. Adams has a Ph.D. in Systems Engineering from Old
Dominion University. He also has two M.S. degrees in Naval Architecture and Marine
Engineering and Marine Engineering, and over twenty-five years of experience in the private and
public industry.
Because the course creation process is so lengthy and time consuming, Dr. Adams came
to ODU for a solution. TRAIN will provide a means for Dr. Adams’ customers to easily hand
pick desired learning objectives in which they need training. After this selection, a course will
be automatically generated based on the learning objectives they chose. Dr. Adams can then
view this generated course, easily search for topics, and add them to the pre-populated
course. This will dramatically reduce the time Dr. Adams spends on creating training modules.
TRAIN PRODUCT PROTOTYPE DESCRIPTION
To demonstrate TRAIN’s ability to solve training organizations shortfalls, a prototype
will be developed. The prototype will execute much of the functionality described within the
real world product and will still be composed of four separate interfaces. Table 1 shows each of
the TRAIN's features and the prototype’s implementation of the feature. The administrator will
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be able to create user accounts and organizations. Once a customer manager is created, they will
be able to create student user accounts within their organization. The manager will be able to
request a course by selecting desired learning objectives, and select which students will be
receiving the training. Once the customer has requested a course, the administrator will be able
to assign an instructor to it.
The administrator or assigned instructor will be able to view the initially generated
course, edit the topics within, and finalize this content. They will then receive a compressed
folder containing all files needed for the course. The instructor and administrator also are able to
manipulate data within the system. This includes data upload, download, and update. Each
student will be able to view a list of the courses, which they have been assigned to take. They
will be able to select a course and add free text feedback for each course. There will be no
numerical rating and topic weighting system. Because of this, poorly rated topics will not be
flagged and the administrator will not be notified. Prerequisites will also not be
implemented. The administrator will have to consider prerequisite topics when reviewing and
editing auto-generated courses, all of which is show within Table 1.
The prototype will demonstrate the ability to manage data. The administrator and
instructor interfaces will be able to upload, download, and update data. The prototype will also
demonstrate the functionality to create courses or edit auto-generated courses based off of a
customer request. It will also demonstrate the ability to create and edit user accounts and
organizations.
The prototype will also demonstrate the customer ability to request courses. These are
significant because they are the predominant functions of the system. This will still reduce
course creation time down drastically, which was the main objective of the software. It will also
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serve as a centralized data management system that allows easy manipulation of data. The
customer request and course generation will also expedite the course creation functionality and
select topics for customer requests more accurately.
Features
Real World Product
Prototype
User Authentication
Role logs in with
Implemented
Username/Password
Admin: Approve
View customer request and
Request
approve
Admin: Assign
Assign instructors that will
Instructor/s to
be teaching and creating
Organization
course. These instructors
Implemented
Implemented
will be able to edit only their
courses
Admin: add users
Create users and assign role Implemented
Admin: Add/Update
Add customer organization, Implemented
Organization
add users, change
information
Instructor: Add/Update Add or update topics,
data
references, learning
objectives
Implemented
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Features
Real World Product
Prototype
Instructor: Associate
Link learning objectives to
Implemented
Data
topics, topics to learning
objectives, learning objects to
references, references to
learning objects
Instructor: Feedback
Notify instructors/admin
Notification
when course is rated low
Instructor: Edit
Add or remove topics from
Generated Course
generated course
Instructor: Create
Create course from scratch
Implemented
Easily search for required
Implemented
Not Implemented
Implemented
Customized Course
Instructor: Search
material when
creating/editing course
Instructor: Add
Add customized feedback to Not Implemented, all topics will have a
Customized Feedback
learning objective, topic, and number rating. All students will be able to
Instructor: View
Feedback
course
only rate topics.
View all student feedback
Partially Implemented, all topics will have a
number rating. This will be searchable.
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Features
Real World Product
Instructor: Compile and Quickly compile all data
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Prototype
Implemented
Print Course
making up course and print
Manager: Request
Request course by selecting Implemented
Course
desired learning objective
Manager: View
After selecting learning
Requested Course
objectives, display course
Hours
duration
Manager: Add Students Give students username
Implemented
Implemented
Manager: Assign
Assign students to approved Implemented
Students
course
Manager: Update
Update organization name
Not Implemented, Admin can change
Organization
and email
information
Information
Manager: View Student See all students ratings for
Rating
particular course
Student: View Course
Admin upload course
Materials
material for student view
Implemented
Not Implemented
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Features
Real World Product
Prototype
Student: Course
Student gives text based
Partially Implemented, a single text box for
Feedback
feedback on course as a
course feedback
whole
Student: Topic
Rating based feedback per
Feedback
topic
Student: Learning
Take a quiz at the end of
Objective Quiz
each topic based off of
Not Implemented,
Not Implemented, only course feedback
learning objective
Student: Course History View previous courses taken Partially Implemented
and feedback given
Prerequisites
Topics will have
Not Implemented, admin will have to
prerequisites that will affect review generated course and add extra
course generation
topics accordingly
Table 1: The Real World Product versus the Prototype
Prototype Architecture (Hardware/Software)
The hardware components of the prototype will be limited to the server that the web
application will be hosted on and the physical computers on which the system will be
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developed. The server must contain enough memory to hold the application files and the
database. It must also have Windows SQL server installed on it. Lastly, it must be accessible
via remote desktop connection.
The software components of the prototype include the database and the web
application. The database schema must be structured to hold all components of the data needed
within the system. The web application must be composed of four interfaces. Figure 2
illustrates each interface, their composition, and their interaction with each other and the
server. The administrator interface must provide functionality to view and approve customer
requests. It must provide the functionality to edit generated courses and finalize the course once
complete. The administrator interface must provide the user with the functionality to download,
upload, and update data. Finally, the administer interface must provide the functionality to
create and edit user accounts and organizations.
The instructor interface must provide the functionality to view and edit generated courses
to the instructor user that has been assigned to the course. The instructor interface must also
allow the user to download, upload, and update data. The manager interface within the prototype
will allow the customer to request a course by selecting desired learning objectives. The
customer and student interface will allow the customer to view each course they have been
assigned to and provide open text feedback per course.
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Figure 2: The Prototype Functional Component Diagram
Prototype Features and Capabilities
The prototype demonstrates the main functionality described in the real world product. It
demonstrates the customer ability to request courses, the system’s ability to generate a course
based off of the customer request, and the user’s ability to confirm, edit, and finalize customer
requests. The prototype also demonstrates the functionality to upload, update, and download
data.
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Through those functional components, the searching functionality will be demonstrated
as well. The administrator interface will demonstrate the ability to create and edit user accounts
and organizations. This functionality is significant in showing how demonstrating the quickness
of course creation and the effectiveness of the course generation will solve the problem. It will
also demonstrate the usefulness of the data management system by the effective searching
feature and efficient download and update capabilities. Test cases will be applied to the
prototype to verify that the prototype fulfills the requirements. By successfully passing all test
cases and certifying that the requirement has been met, the prototype will demonstrate success.
The prototype will address the risks of security, extensibility, compatibility, accessibility,
and ease of use. The system will ensure data security. User authentication and validation will be
implemented within the system to guarantee security. Password encryption is also
implied. Extensibility is mitigated through database and user interface design. The database
must be flexible to be able to hold multiple file types. Thus, the user interface must allow the
user to upload various file types. The compatibility risk concerned product compatibility with
Microsoft products. This has been dealt with by using Microsoft SQL Server as the database
server. The prototype will be implemented as a web application to also address compatibility
issues. It has been designed ensure ease of use. Each user interface contains well-labeled fields
so that the functionality and purpose of each phase is easy to understand.
Prototype Development Challenges
Developing the prototype presents several challenges. The first encompasses incomplete
skills of the development team. The product will be developed in ASP.NET. A large portion of
the team has not developed in ASP.NET before, so a slight learning curve will cause the
development to start slowly. As the team learns ASP.NET, the progress will grow and advance
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more quickly. The team is not all familiar with C#, SQL, and LINQ as well. This will add to the
amount of information the team will need to learn as the prototype is being developed.
Some technological issues could present a challenge to development as well. The web
host is not accessible outside of the Computer Science domain. While developing outside of the
computer science domain, the team will have to rely on the local compilation created by
Microsoft Visual Studios to view the prototype. While this build is very accurate to the actual
product, it is possible to have differences between the local version and the actual web
application.
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Glossary
Student: A user role that takes the training course and can provide feedback after course
completion.
Manager: Also known as the customer, it is a user role that can request training and assign
Students to an approved course.
Instructor: A user role that manage courses and their materials.
Administrator: A user role that review and approve course requests.
Topic: General subject areas to cover containing slides, lectures, and learning objectives.
Learning Objective: Specific subjects to teach which contain references.
Course: Training class that covers various topics and other data types.
Data: Information content contained in a specialized type.
Data type: Different types of information used filter and create new course training material
(Learning Objectives, Topics, References, Courses).
Reference: Direction of where material for lectures can be found.
System of Systems: Multiple interrelated groups of components with a common goal.
TRAIN (Training Resource and Information Network): A web application software designed to
improve quality and precision of training material and decrease duration of course
creation.
National Center of Systems of Systems Engineering (NCSOSE): Organization that provides their
expertise and extensive knowledge of engineering through hands-on assistance and
training to interested customers.
LAB 1 – TRAIN DESCRIPTION
Works Cited
National Centers for Systems of Systems Engineering. 2013 ncsose Retrieved from:
http://www.ncsose.org/aboutus
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