International University of Management BIS Department Guidance Notes for Final Year Projects Contents 1.

What are the aims of the Final Year Project 2. Project Proposal 3. Final Project Report

1.

What are the aims of the final year project?

The final year project is the culmination of your degree programme. It allows you to demonstrate your competence as a BIS professional, and to apply all the skills and knowledge you have learnt in your degree course. Specifically, it allows you to show your ability To carry out a substantial task of your own choosing, in the areas of BIS. To work independently, and to prioritise different components of your project, as well as prioritising the project as a whole against other work (other modules that you may be taking). To take decisions, and to justify them convincingly. Usually the project will consist in designing and writing a substantial piece of software. Such a project will typically include: Considering user requirements Producing a specification Designing a software system to meet the specification Implementing and testing the software Evaluating the end product. During the project you will need to evaluate alternative approaches and solutions to problems. It is important that you document these decisions, as they should form a substantial part of your final Project Report. The first step is to come up with a clear and concise proposal that details what your project is all about, its requirements in terms of hardware and software and how you plan to complete it.

Final Year Project Guidelines Israel I Iwanga

2.

Project Proposal

Lets start by looking at possible sources of projects.

Lecturing staff

Lecturing staff may suggest a variety of project areas that they may wish to supervise. In such cases, go through the list of proposed projects and choose an area that is of interest to you. Subsequently, discuss the project with the concerned lecturer and make sure you understand precisely what the project entails. Two or three meetings with the lecturer might be needed before you are able to draw up a detailed proposal that gives a clear description of the project and how to go about it.

Students

Alternatively, you can propose your own project. If you choose this option, you should make sure that what you are proposing is imaginative, and substantial enough to justify two semesters worth of work. Once you have convinced yourself that you have a viable project idea, discuss it with one of the lecturers you feel might be interested in the project area, and take time to clarify your ideas and intended approach. Once you have identified a project, it is time to compose a detailed proposal.

Structure of a Project Proposal

The objective of a proposal is to introduce the work you are about to embark on. You should provide a clear description of the project, its background and its significance. In addition, you must also describe a methodology of solving the problems posed by the project. A good proposal generally forms an important reference guide for your project. Typically, a proposal may have the following sections:

2.1 Introduction

This section should have the following items: Your motivation for attempting the project its importance, practicality and usefulness. A clear and concise description of the project. This should be understandable to all, especially those who are not specialists in the proposed area. A review of background material that you found or were provided with for the stated problem. It should contain references to articles, magazines, papers, books, lecture notes, web sites etc

Final Year Project Guidelines Israel I Iwanga

2.2 Methodology

This section should address the following issues: What are the problems to be solved? You may need to be more technical here. What are the goals and deliverables of the project? What are the envisaged technical challenges and merits of the project? What are your proposed solutions to the problems? In this you may need to address the following phases of your project:

Design phase: Describe the proposed solution. Justify its choice

and generally compare it to other alternative solutions

Implementation phase: Describe the implementation scheme of

your proposed solution. Is it going to be hardware, software or a simulation?

Testing Phase: How do you plan to test the implementation of

your project? What aspects of the project should be tested? when and how. State

Evaluation Phase: How are you going to evaluate the results of

your project? Software demonstrations? Simulations? What specific aspects of the project are you going to evaluate? Functionality, performance, ease of use, security etc.

2.3 Proposed Schedule

You should provide a detailed schedule of how you intend to successfully complete the project. The time needed to complete the main tasks like background study, analysis, design, implementation, testing and documentation up to and including completing the final report should be outlined. Use a Gantt chart if possible.

2.4 Project Requirements

Provide a detailed list of all hardware and software needed for the successful completion of the project. To guard yourself against delays occasioned by procuring hardware or software not already available at the university, you are encouraged to seek solutions that make use of the available resources. This would call for you to carry out prior investigations to ascertain what is currently available.

2.5 References

Provide a list of all your reference material including journals, books, seminar proceedings, technical manuals, web sites, lecture notes etc.

Final Year Project Guidelines Israel I Iwanga

Once you have written your project proposal, seek approval from your supervisor. Note that although its acceptable that issues advanced in the proposal might change in the course of carrying out the project, significant deviation from the proposal requires a convincing justification.

3.

Final Project Report

The final report contributes a significant portion of the grade awarded. It is well-worth keeping a note-book or diary throughout the duration of the project, in which you note decisions you have taken (and their reasons), results, ideas, conclusions you reached, etc. This will be very useful when you come to write the final report

Structure

The appropriate structure of the final report varies according to the kind of project you are doing and the features you have chosen to emphasise. The following structure should therefore be seen as a guideline only

Title page

Include the project title, author, degree (e.g. Bachelor degree in BIS), name of supervisor, name of institution (e.g. International University of Management), date.

Preamble

Include Table of Contents, Abstract (suggested length: half a page) and acknowledgements.

Introduction.

In this section, you should describe the motivation for the project. Explain whatever background the reader will need in order to understand your contribution. Include a clear and detailed statement of the project aims. Describe the requirement that your software is fulfilling. Explain exactly what your software does; what input or data it requires, and what output or results it delivers, or how it interacts with the user. Concentrate on what your software does; the question of how it does it will be dealt with in later sections. The introduction is the most important section of the document; everyone who reads your report will read the introduction, and many will read only that section. You have to make it as inviting and compelling as you can. Think carefully about what you want to say, and in what order you should say it. As well as being the most important section, its also the most difficult one to

Final Year Project Guidelines Israel I Iwanga

write, because it is hard to balance the requirements of giving adequate explanation without entering into too much detail. For these reasons, you should write the introduction last. It is only when you've written the rest of the final report that you know what you have to introduce. Conventionally, the last part of the introduction outlines the remainder of the report, explaining what comes in each section.

Main Body

The next three or four sections form the main part of the report, and will normally cover the following topics. How much space you give to these topics is something you should judge carefully.

(i) Further background material

If your project is in a specialised area, it might be appropriate to provide more information than was given in your Introduction. Try to limit yourself just to what the reader needs to know to understand your contribution in the project. Put your work in the context of related existing work, commercial products, and research papers (if relevant).

(ii) Analysis and Specification

How you analysed the problem, including user requirements. Give an appropriate specification of the solution (note that you are not expected to produce a requirements specification to industrial standards).

(iii) Design

Give a high-level account of the structure of your software and how it works. What algorithms does it use? How do these compare with alternatives? What were the main design decisions you took, and their justifications?

(iv) Implementation and Testing

Give a detailed account of the implementation and testing of your software. Explain what data structures you used, and how the algorithms were implemented. What implementation decisions did you take, and why? There is no need to list every little function and procedure and explain its working in elaborate detail; use your judgement on what is appropriate to include.

(v) Results.

You may have produced experimental results or other kinds of results during the course of your project.

Final Year Project Guidelines Israel I Iwanga

(vi) Evaluation

You should assess the success of your software. How does it compare with the original specification? How reliable is it? How have you tested it? Comment on its robustness (e.g., to unexpected data), performance (e.g., response times or processing times in different situations), etc.

Conclusions.

Here you will summarise your achievements and also the deficiencies of your project. You can also say what you would or could have done, if you had had more time or if things had worked out differently. It is important to be completely honest about the deficiencies and inadequacies of your work, such as they are. Part of your aim is to demonstrate your ability to recognise problems that remain.

List any books, articles, lecture notes, conference proceedings, manuals or other documents that you refer to in the document and/or that were important in your work. Look in any published book for how to do this. Cite at least the authors, the title, the date and the publication details of each document.

References and/or bibliography

Appendices.

You may include other documents here, such as: the project proposal; a selection of experimental data; schedules; testing strategy; risk management plans; glossary; manual; etc.

Other points to Note:

Source code

You should have an appendix that details how to run your software You should also provide electronically the source code, the compiled code, and any relevant data to the department.

Length

The report should be a maximum of 80 pages, including appendices. An excellent report will often be less than this (its author will have said a lot in a small amount of space). There is no need to submit double-spaced. Singlespaced is much better.

Style

All parts of your report should be precise and clear. You should think carefully about each section; what do you want to say in it, and what is a good order to say it in? Make sure you use complete sentences.
Final Year Project Guidelines Israel I Iwanga

Final Year Project Guidelines Israel I Iwanga