Worldwide Translations Agency is a company that undertakes translations to and from the major languages of the world. All sorts of documents including letters, reports, operating instructions and technical manuals are handled, for a variety of corporate clients. Worldwide Translations Agency requires a new computer information system to help it manage its business more efficiently. The Manager has provided the following description of how the company currently operates:
‘When a request for a translation is received, the secretary first checks whether the request has come from an existing client and if not, the client is allocated a unique number. Their name, address and telephone number are added to our records. If the customer exists his record is updated if there is any change in their contact details. Then the translation request is logged and a unique code is allocated to it. Next the original language and the language or languages into which it is to be translated (often there is a requirement to translate from the original into several different destination languages) are noted., At the same time the number of pages, the type of document (for example, a letter, a report, a set of instructions) and whether it requires any special vocabulary (for example, domain: medical or domain: computing terms), all this is recorded. If a request requires a new special vocabulary then this is added to the list of special vocabulary
‘The translation is then allocated to a translator capable of carrying out the work. Records of all the translators who work for us are updated regularly. Many of these are part-time staffs who work from home. As well as their name, address, telephone number(s) and email address, the translators' records list the languages they know and which kinds of specialized vocabulary they are familiar with. Some translators can translate to and from several different languages and for some languages we have more than one translator. Some (but not all) translators are familiar with one or more specialized vocabularies.
‘The translator to which the translation has been allocated is noted.This information is then sent to them. The translator tells us the estimated time the work will take, which is recorded. At this point the client is contacted with an estimate of the cost and time. A different rate for different languages is charged.
‘When the translator returns a completed translation to the office they tell us how many hours they have spent on it.
The date the completed translation was received by us and how many hours it actually took is noted. An invoice based on the actual hours spent and the language rate is prepared and sent to the client with the completed translation.
Question 1:
a. Describe one advantage and one disadvantage of the technique of event list in requirements elicitation.
b. Draft and document a Business event list for the Worldwide Translations Agency Case Study.
c. Identify an actor and a system agent in the above case study.
Question 2:
a. What are the main requirements of an effective data model?
b. State ONE advantage and ONE disadvantage of redundancy in a data model.
c. Draw an Entity Relationship Diagram for the given case study. Show entities, relationships, cardinalities and optionalities on the diagram (attributes should not be shown).
Question 3:
a) Draw a context diagram and a Top Level (Level 1)logical current Data Flow Diagram of the above scenario( Worldwide Translations Agency Case Study).
b) Draw an Entity Access Matrix for the given case study.
Question 4:
a. Draw an Effect Correspondence Diagram for the event " New Request for Translation". Initial ECDs.
b. What are the main steps to draw an ECD?.
c. Comment on the atomicity of the event "New Request for Translation".
d. How could the atomicity of the event be improved?