One design document with three revisions

1. One design document with three revisions ECE 297 Dr. P. Weiss January 18, 2010

2. The Preliminary Design Specification is the working out of a plan You might be surprised at the thought of “discovery” being part of the drafting process, especially if you think of engineering communication as simply after-the-fact reporting or documentation. • Textbook, page 55 The purpose is to put your thinking on paper

3. Preliminary Design Specification that includes the following content: • Motivation/Background • Project Requirements • Clearly expressed design decisions, including trade-offs • An outline of the test plan • Anticipated Development Plan and Work Breakdown Structure with clearly defined tasks, responsibilities and deadlines.

4. Evaluation will be based on what we have covered in the textbook: • Understanding of genre of document • Clear purpose in each section • Content and tone appropriate to reader • Design decisions discussed persuasively and supported appropriately • Rhetorical structures utilized consciously • Effective introduction discussing project at a high level, in relation to possible uses and its own structure, as well as a clear indication of current level of team decisions and planning

5. Genre of document – early specification and/or plan • This is core document – additional design decisions or revisions to current design will be dealt with in new sections • For your Project Manager but may be consulted by TAs • Appropriate headings • Introduction (Motivation/Background)

6. Motivation/Background, which must include • At least one, well researched paragraph expanding on the motivation for the project given in these instructions • A description of your server's software architecture. • UML diagrams of the server's modules, and UML sequence diagrams for the protocol.

7. Research must support credible assertions • Six parts of a credible statement, as defined by Toulmin • Grounds • Claim • Justification • Evidence • Qualifier • Rebuttal

8. The requirement for evidence carries two constraints • You will lose marks if you fall prey to the Fallacy of Appeal to Popularity, Common Belief or Common Practice • Your evidence must be documented • You must utilize IEEE documentation correctly, with both in-text citations [#] and a correctly formatted Reference List • You will be penalized severely for any Academic Offence

9. Academic Offences pertaining to Intellectual Property • The use of someone else’s idea without acknowledgement • The use of someone else’s words, or their expression of an idea, without the correct acknowledgement of quotation marks, in text citation and complete bibliographic material in your reference list • The use of uncitable, made up or “concocted” information

10. A description of your server’s architecture • Must be both verbal and visual • UML diagrams are of two types • Static – components • Dynamic – behaviour or interactions between components

11. UML Component Diagram http://www.agilemodeling.com/artifacts/componentDiagram.htm

12. UML Sequence diagram http://www.agilemodeling.com/style/sequenceDiagram.htm

13. Project Requirements, including • Overall functional requirements, constraints and objectives. • Functional requirements and constraints must be introduced with the auxiliary shall and must be defined in verifiable terms.

14. Clearly expressed design decisions, including trade-offs, for • Initialization • Configuration file • Client/server communication protocol • Connection establishment and maintenance • Implementation of storage_get() and storage_set() functions • Datastructure for storing tables and records in memory

15. Claims about design decisions must be • Supported by justification and evidence • Qualified, when appropriate • Able to withstand argument (rebuttal must be included in support)

16. Effective project management requires: • An outline of the test plan. • Anticipated Development Plan and Work Breakdown Structure with clearly defined tasks, responsibilities and deadlines.

17. By now, you should have a team, a cd_#, a project manager and a weekly meeting time • If you are missing any of the above, please see me after class • The weekly meeting with the Project Manager is mandatory for ALL team members • Good luck!