BSc (Hons) Business Computing and Information Systems Information Systems Project

University of Central Lancashire BSc (Hons) in Business

Computing and Information Systems
Module name: Information Systems Project

Component: Initial Proposal

Level: Level 6

Semester: Spring 2018

Issue date: Week 1

Submission deadline: 20th April 2018, 11:59pm (UK time)

Module Weighting: 10%

Important Notes:

It is the students’ responsibility to familiarise themselves with the NCC Academic

Misconduct policy.
Any thoughts, ideas or quotations which don’t belong to you must be fully attributed to their
sources using the Harvard Referencing System. Authors’ work that is used in your assignment
and not referenced is plagiarism.
All students must sign the Student Declaration as detailed in the ‘Statement and Confirmation of
Own Work’ found at the back of every NCC Education assignment. You must attach the signed
and completed form to your assignment.
Students gaining an unfair advantage or colluding in any way whatsoever (other than on joint
assignments) are liable to be disqualified. Plagiarism is an offence.
You could lose marks if you exceed the recommended word count by more than 10%.
Students should submit via NCC Education CN as per instructions within the learning
materials.

Marker's comment:

Moderator's comment:

Mark: Moderated Final

Mark: Mark:

IS Project Page 1 of 5 © NCC Education Ltd. 2018

BSc (Hons) Business Computing and Information Systems Information Systems Project
Assignment Guidance – Initial Proposal

The learning outcomes assessed in this assignment are as follows:

1 Select and apply an appropriate approach to develop a small Information System

3 Identify ethical issues and propose appropriate solutions

• It is the student’s responsibility to familiarise themselves with the NCC Education

Academic Misconduct policy contained in the Programme Handbook.
• Any assignment submitted after the submission deadline, without prior approval, will be
given 0% and the student will be referred.
• The late assignment submission may be marked as a referral attempt, but only a
maximum mark of 40% can be awarded for that particular assessment.
• If a student requests an extension to the official submission date, this must be done in
writing to the Course Director at least five full UK working days before the official
submission date. This request must be accompanied by supporting evidence.
• This assignment is worth 10% of the overall final mark for the module.
• Students should write 500 words (+/-10%) for this assignment1 – the word count must
be shown on the front page. Material held in appendixes (see assignment specification) is
not included in this word count.
• At least 5 (five) relevant references will be expected, but no upper limit is imposed.
• A Reference list must be provided at the end of your work with appropriate In-Text
Citation using the Harvard Author Date system. Examples of Harvard referencing and
writing a bibliography can be found in the Programme Handbook and other supplied
documentation.
• The Statement and Confirmation of Own Work must be completed and submitted with the
assignment.
• This assignment must be submitted by the due date and time as given on the front of this
assignment.
• Please refer to the Assessment Criteria contained in the Programme Handbook which
shows how the level of marking relates to your standard of work.

Submission Requirements
All candidates must read and understand NCC Education’s policy on ‘Academic Dishonesty and
Plagiarism’ and complete the attached form ‘Statement and Confirmation of Own Work’. You
must attach the completed form to your assignment.

1
It is expected that the majority of Proposals will be marginally less than 2,000 words; the quality, not the
quantity of the report is important.
IS Project Page 2 of 5 © NCC Education Ltd. 2018
BSc (Hons) Business Computing and Information Systems Information Systems Project

BSc (Hons) in Business Computing & Information Systems

Information Systems Project – Initial Proposal
Background

The first six weeks of the project are used to produce your initial project proposal. This is to be
submitted during week 6, and is formally assessed.

This is a formal report, and should contain the following sections (marks, out of 100% for this
part of the assessment, are given in brackets for each section):

Title
This will not be too long, and will be used when referring to the proposed work. It may
(or may not) change during the course of the module; this depends on factors outside this
assessment specification.

Background to the Project (10%)

Explain the aims of your project and discuss any work completed so far. If an external
agency is involved (for example, you may be undertaking a project which has to do
with other work you are doing) you should include (as an appendix) a brief supporting
document to explain what the agency is, why the project is required and any other
relevant background. Do not include large amounts of company material as this is not
required.

Objectives (20%)
What does your small Information System hope to achieve? Some of your objectives
will be technical and some will be personal (for instance, to learn a new programming
language), and some academic (for instance, to learn different approaches to research
activities).

Justification (15%)
This should give the reasons for the choice of this project, how the project draws on
other modules of the course, what you hope (and expect) to gain from the project and
other, similar aspects.

Scope & Technical Challenges (15%)

This should describe what you expect to do, and what you expect not to do: the
boundaries within which you will work towards your project. Give examples and short
descriptions of such boundaries. A description of the technical challenges specific to
the project will include items such as problem solving, applying analytical techniques,
critically reviewing design decisions, or applying innovative thinking.

Deliverables (20%)
These are individual items which you expect will form part of the outcomes of the
project: specifications, design artefacts (or models), analysis artefacts (or models), test
plans and strategies, and so on.

Timing (20%)
This will describe the various milestones in your work, and when you expect to achieve
them. This part will form an outline to help you judge whether you are managing your
resources efficiently, and whether the plans you make are feasible. This should be
supported by a suitable charts or images, which may be produced using any suitable

IS Project Page 3 of 5 © NCC Education Ltd. 2018

BSc (Hons) Business Computing and Information Systems Information Systems Project
software package.

References (marks included as part of Background)

In various parts of the proposal you will need to refer to other people's work. This has
to be done properly and you are expected to use the Harvard referencing system. In
general, references that are not cited should not be included.

Additional Remarks

o The project proposal assignment should be submitted as a single self-contained MS Word

document which is compatible with Microsoft Word. Multiple files are NOT acceptable. Any
source material generated by other software packages should be incorporated directly into
your Word document.
o In order to make it easy to identify your work, the file name of your document MUST
include the submission component, your name and your student number as part of the file
name e.g. 307456_Jones_John_InitialProposal.doc
o You must complete and return the "Statement and Confirmation of Own Work" form
supplied.
o The expectation is that most submissions will have a length of 500 words. Anything
substantially less than this is unlikely to meet the requirements.
o You should read this assignment specification in conjunction with the module textbook,
which gives considerable background as to what will be expected.
o Failure to adhere to the structure outlined above will result in severe penalties being
imposed.

IS Project Page 4 of 5 © NCC Education Ltd. 2018

BSc (Hons) Business Computing and Information Systems Information Systems Project

Statement and Confirmation of Own Work

Programme/Qualification name:
All NCC Education assessed assignments submitted by students must have this statement as the
cover page or it will not be accepted for marking. Please ensure that this statement is either
firmly attached to the cover of the assignment or electronically inserted into the front of the
assignment.

Student declaration

I have read and understood NCC Education’s Policy on Academic Dishonesty

and Plagiarism.

I can confirm the following details:

Student ID/Registration number:

Name:

Centre Name:

Module Name:

Module Leader:

Number of words:

I confirm that this is my own work and that I have not plagiarised any part of it. I
have also noted the assessment criteria and pass mark for assignments.
Due Date:

Student Signature:

Submitted Date:

IS Project Page 5 of 5 © NCC Education Ltd. 2018