Project Evaluation Guidelines

Evaluation of Project

Projects will be graded based on the design, functionality, and completeness of the system[1] that is represented and the supporting documentation. Some factors to consider include:

• Address Stated Project Objectives: An important question to ask yourself is, "How well does our system address the stated problem?" 
• Ease of Use: You should also make certain that your system is easy for a user to utilize.  This implies that you should have helpful documentation, clearly labeled headings and titles (e.g., on reports or prompts), and file and field names that correspond to the terminology used in the target organization.
• System Functionality: The system should work.  You should test your system to make sure that all components are present and function as they should be expected to function. 
• Proper Database Design:
• Are your tables normalized?  Have you normalized your tables to at least 3NF or explained why they are not normalized to this level (You don't need to show the normalization process)?
• Integrity constraints: Have you defined primary and foreign keys to insure entity and relational integrity and to reduce inter-table inconsistencies?
• Scope of Data: Does the data present in your system pertain to the scope and requirements of the project?  Have you captured data that is pertinent to the problem and which can be used to demonstrate how your systems addresses the objectives of the system?
• Usefulness of Reports: Do your reports present useful information that fulfills the end users' requirements?
• Final Report Components and Presentation: How are the printed components of your report presented, organized, and displayed?
• Additional Components: Have you attempted to incorporate new and innovative components into the project?  New and innovative components would include capabilities and functions that were not presented to the class by the instructor.  This requires that you do some research on Oracle and databases to identify capabilities of and procedures in Oracle that go beyond the basics. (it is also useful to document the components that you consider to be "extra").
• Project Completeness: Have you been thorough and complete in your completion of the project requirements?
• Comprehensive System Sophistication: Factors we will look for related to judging sophistication include the total number of tables; the complexity represented in the design and functionality of the system; and the difficulty of the original problem (e.g., did you tackle a trivial or complex problem to begin with?). Part of the grading of this project will be based on my judgment of and perceptions about the overall sophistication of the system; therefore there is clearly a subjective component.  This means that you should strive to present your work clearly, neatly, and with no blatant errors (e.g., spelling errors).  You are encouraged to add additional features beyond those specified in the written description of the problem.