Major Project / Internship

                                                              The IIS University

MANUAL FOR PREPARATION OF MCA Project

(Prescribed Format and Specification)

I          INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES

The Project work constitutes a major component in most professional programmes. It needs to be carried out with due care, and should be executed with seriousness by the students. The project work is not only a partial fulfillment of the MCA requirements, but also provide a mechanism to demonstrate your skills, abilities and specialization. The project work should compulsorily include the software development.

Learners are advised to attach with an organization to develop the software project for any problem of that organization.

OBJECTIVES

The objectives of the project is to help the student develop the ability to apply theoretical and practical tools/techniques to solve real life problems related to industry, academic institutions and research laboratories.

II         TYPE OF THE PROJECT

The majority of the students are expected to work on a real-life project preferably in some industry/ Research and Development Laboratories/Educational Institution/Software Company. Students are encouraged to work in the areas listed at the end. However, it is not mandatory for a student to work on a real-life project. The student can formulate a project problem with the help of her/his Guide.

3. POINTS TO REMEMBER WHILE PREPARING THE PROJECT REPORT

1.         Project Report Formulation:

The project report should contain the following:

1. Original copy of the Project Report (Hard Bound –Blue Color).

2. Certificate of Originality.

3. Project documentation.

4. A CD/DVD consisting of the executable file(s) of the complete project should be attached on the last page of the project report. In no case, it should be sent separately. The student needs to retain the identical copy of the CD that should be carried while appearing for the viva-voce along with the project report.

1. The project documentation may be about 80 to 100 pages (excluding coding). The project documentation details should not be too generic in nature.
2. Appropriate project report  documentation should be done, like, how you have done the analysis, design, coding,use of testing techniques/strategies, etc., in respect of your project. To be morespecific, whatever the theory in respect of these topics is available in the reference books should be avoided as far as possible. The project documentation should be in respectof your project only. The project documentation should include the topics given below.Each and every component shown below carries certain weightage in the project report evaluation.

Following should be included in the project report.

Title Page

Certificate from Company

Certificate from Guide

Acknowledgement

Index with printed Page Numbers

CHAPTER 1 : INTRODUCTION

1. Company/Educational Institute Profile

1. Existing System and Need for System

1. Scope of Work

1. Operating Environment – Hardware and Software

CHAPTER 2: PROPOSED SYSTEM

1. Proposed System

1. Objectives of System

1. User Requirements

CHAPTER 3: ANALYSIS & DESIGN

1. Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD)
2.   System Architecture
3.  Database Requirements & User Interfaces
4. Data Flow Diagram (DFD) 

1. Data Dictionary

1. Table Design
2. Code Design

1. Menu Screens

1.  Input Screens

1. Report Formats

1. Test Procedures and Implementation

CHAPTER 4: User Manual

1. User Manual

1. Operations Manual / Menu Explanation

1. Forms and Report Specifications

Drawbacks and Limitations

Proposed Enhancements

Conclusions

Bibliography

Annexures:

Annexure 1: Input Forms with data

Annexure 2: Output Reports with Data

Annexure 3: Sample Code

2. The project report should normally be printed with single line spacing on A4 paper (one side only). All the pages, tables and figures must be numbered. Tables and figures should contain titles.

3. Only one copy of the original project report in the bound form along with theCD/DVD (containing the executable file(s) of the project should be enclosed in the last page) is to be submitted to the Regional Director of the Regional Centre concerned through registered insured post by the date mentioned in the Calendar for the project. One photocopy of the same Project Report and the CD containing the executable file(s) must be retained by the student, which should be produced before the examiner at the time of viva-voce.

5. Student should be involved in each and every phase of Project Development. If it is found that student is not involved in any phase for example coding phase, it may lead to the rejection/disqualifying of the project at any stage.

6. Title of the project should be kept the same through out the project.

IV        Viva Voce

While appearing for the viva-voce, along with the project report the student should needs to carry the identical copy of the CD/DVD of the executable file(s) which s/he submitted at the time of project report.

V       ASSESSMENT GUIDELINES FOR PROJECT EVALUATION

Each and every component of the project work and the viva voce carries its own weightage, so the student needs to concentrate on all the sections given in the project report formulation.

In this section, we have given a few general parameters as checkpoints for the assessment of any software development project. You can note these points and emphasize them during the project report preparation and examination. Basically, assessment will be based on the quality of your report, the technical merit of the project and the project execution. Technical merit attempts to assess the quality and depth of the intellectual effort, you have put into the project. Project execution is concerned with assessing how much work you have put in.

Analysis

You may know that the software requirement specification (SRS) document is one of the important documents of your project. The indicators for SRS document is whether you have used some standardisation like IEEE standards or any other international standard, or whether your SRS has a proper structure based on sound software engineering . Project analysis for DBMS/Application development projects should contain the ER diagram, Data Flow Diagram and Data Dictionary, so you should include these with the following requirements. However, for other categories of project you should prepare class diagrams, behaviour model and/or state transition diagram and details of various data structures used.

• The Entity Relationship diagram (ER Diagram) should have:
  • Proper symbol of attributes, entities, relationships, cardinality mentioned, and
  • Relationship of ER diagram to SRS with strong association
  • Data Flow Diagram (DFD) should have:
    • All Data flow should be leveled and should have proper input and output.
    • Relationship of data flow to data dictionary Context Diagram, Level 1 and Level 2.

• Data Dictionary: It should explain each entity and relationship in ER diagram and data flow in DFD.

Design

Project design should include the desired features and operations in detail, including user interface design, program structure, schema design and normalized tables and data integrity and constraints. You should include them with the requirements given below:

• Program Structure: It should have the proper modularizations of software and specification of each module.
• Schema Design and Normalized Tables: Normalize the table to minimum 3NF. If any demand of Demoralizations clearly explain the reasons.          
• Data Integrity and Constraints: Explain the referential diagram. Define entity integrity,        which should include keys, alternate keys and other keys, value constraints and ranges.
• Procedural Design: Explain using Flowchart / Pseudo code / PDL.
• User Interface Design: Coherence with dataflow and processor; Consistency of interface and naming convention. Validation checks should be kept wherever necessary.
• Architecture: Program architecture and explanation on suitability of data structure used.

Coding

Coding phase of software development includes different activities like refining the algorithms for individual components, transferring the algorithms into a programming language (coding), translating the logical data model into a physical one and compiling and checking the syntactical correctness of the algorithm with these activities. You should include the comments and description in code, use the standardisation in coding, use the methodology for error handling and security implementation. These parameters ensure software quality and reliability. You should include them with the requirements given below:

• Comments and Description: Should have comments with functional description which include the input, output, total function calls to/from other functions, function parameters, description of main variables, Data type, logic description, etc.
• Standardization of Coding: Use of naming convention of variable and functions, nested depth, naming constant, use of data structure and style.
• Error Handling: Explain exceptions handling and conditional checking.
• Parameter passing and calling: Check the technique used for this purpose, how it optimizes the coding.
• Security Mechanisms: Maintain confidentiality, integrity and authorization according to the requirement and needs of the system. Also maintain database level security, use of Views, and use of revoke and grant, user and access rights and ensure steps taken against hacking of the system.

Testing

Testing is a process of devising a set of inputs to a given piece of software that will cause the software to exercise some portion of its code. The developer of the software can then check if the results produced by the software are in accordance with his or her expectations. It includes, number of activities such as correcting syntactically and semantically erroneous system components,

It ensures the quality, efficiency and reliability of the software, which is measured by the testing methodology and techniques used for unit, integrated, system testing etc.

The testing should not be too generic containing only definitions. You should give all the test case designs, reports and results of test cases for unit, integrated, system testing etc. How debugged your code is and what actions you have taken too improve the code, must, be explained. Good testing can be measured by criteria such as correctness, reliability, user friendliness, maintainability, efficiency and portability of software.

System Security Measures

The student should clearly emphasize the various levels of security measures implemented in the project.

Cost Estimation of the project

The student needs to incorporate the estimated cost of the project using the suitable mechanism/model given in the Software Engineering.

Screen Layouts/Screen Shots/Screen dumps

Screen dumps for various screens/user interfaces should also be placed in a proper order in the project report for ready reference.

Organization of the Project Report

Report organization improves the professional attitude of writing reports. You should emphasize on the proper binding of the project report, the cover page, page numbering, organization of content, and proper printout of text and images.

Viva Voce

Other than the questions related to the project related areas and the courses concerned, student may be requested to show the demo of the project. Also, you may be told to write the portions of the code for a problem to demonstrate her/his coding capabilities.

While appearing for the viva-voce, along with the project report the student should needs to carry the identical copy of the CD of the executable file(s) which s/he submitted at the time of project report.

Project Evaluation

The Project t is evaluated in certain categories

5.             Project Demo (15 marks)
5.             Project Presentation (10 marks)
5.             Project Report (10 marks)
5.             Viva-voce (10 marks)
6.             Adherence to Specifications (05 marks)
5.             System Knowledge and Understanding (15 marks)
5.             Innovation and Originality (05 marks)