​Unit 4 Software development

Area of Study 1: Software development: development and evaluation

Outcome 1

Develop and evaluate a software solution that meets requirements, evaluate the effectiveness of the development model and assess the effectiveness of the project plan.

Examples of learning activities

• Discuss student file management strategies, highlighting both positive and negative approaches for the handling and management of files.
• Research different backup techniques and prepare a presentation highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of each technique. Provide students with a number of different scenarios. Students then recommend an appropriate backup strategy for each scenario.
• Provide examples of data and file disposal strategies used by government departments and private organisations.
• Compare how different data structures, storage media (hard disk/SSD/USB) and transmission media (wired/wireless) affect access to data (logic, speed/transfer time).
• Using a range of exercises and resources, students practise programming, incorporating a range of processing features of a programming language and a range of appropriate data structures.
• Create a range of mini-case studies that describe how software solutions can be efficient or inefficient and effective or ineffective.
• Discuss the importance of informal testing (debugging) and formal testing techniques for finding errors within software solutions.
• 
  Examine software solutions that have already been created. Discuss where examples of validation techniques could be used.
  
• Demonstrate how to construct appropriate and reasonable test data for the purpose of identifying issues with algorithms and software solutions.
• Demonstrate how to effectively document functionality testing of solutions, where the test data and expected results are planned first, and then testing is conducted.
  
• Provide students with a framework or suggested areas of focus to use when planning, conducting and documenting usability testing. Students research best practice in relation to planning, conducting and documenting usability tests, using resources from: usability.gov
• Students select a school information system, such as the website or Learning Management System (LMS) and plan a usability test. In groups of four, they conduct each other’s usability tests and capture results to be analysed and discussed.
  
• Create a Gantt chart for a class that includes a range of tasks, time allocations, dependencies and milestones. Create a scenario where tasks will not be completed on time, time allocations will be altered and milestones will be later than planned. Students annotate these changes on the Gantt chart and document why the changes have been made and their impact on the overall project.
  
• Students research the factors that can impact the effectiveness of the selected development model and propose a framework or strategy for evaluating the effectiveness of the model.
  
• Students recommend strategies for evaluating the efficiency and effectiveness of software solutions that have already been created.

 

Detailed example

Data validation

Online services frequently request data from new users during the user registration process. Most students and teachers will have experienced and used these registration processes that incorporate a range of validation techniques.

Discussion of good and bad validation experiences

Teachers identify and provide examples of different validation techniques used across a range of software and websites. Students highlight their own experiences with both good and bad validation. For example: 

• Good validation techniques may include a list of states or countries, or the acceptable postcode format being updated after the user selects their country of residence.
• Poor validation techniques may include unspecific error messages being provided to the user when invalid data is entered, or unreasonable logic being applied to the field being validated.

In relation to identified poor validation techniques, students provide suggestions as to how the validation could be improved to enhance user interactions with the solution.

Analysing scenarios to suggest how validation can be incorporated

Teachers also provide scenarios where validation has not yet been applied. Examples include:

• web forms
• modules that calculate the result of a formula based on user input
• log-in screens with specific requirements that have not been applied.

These scenarios are practical examples of real-world problems. Students work individually or in groups to justify and discuss validation techniques that could be appropriately applied to these scenarios.