An Assignment on Use Cases Modeling and Rich Pictures

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Introduction

There is many skills training provider operating their functions throughout the country. Some are operating commercial basis, and some are operating as a social enterprise. For the easiness of course management system, each organization develops unique method according to the requirements. Use case model is used in many organizations for the effectiveness of organizational activities.  It identifies the relationship between users and the system under specific environment for a specific goal. Rich picture is used by an organization in case of the problem situation and pointed out the specific areas of problems pictorially. An organization is facilitated with both the approaches for better performance of the organization system. This report will discuss briefly use case model, and rich pictures, as well as a comparison, also present between these two approach.

Use case diagram in current ELO course management system

Use case diagram is a series of steps create interaction between an actor and a system to attain a goal (Cockburn, 2000). It is graphic depiction connecting elements of a system. A use case can be considered as an accumulation of conceivable situations to a particular goal. Through use case, possible sequences are linked between users and systems under a specific environment for a specific goal. Gibilisco (2015) mentioned four components contained by use case diagram.

• The boundary-identify the area of interest within the system in connection to the world around it.
• The actors- the roles of individuals about the system
• The use cases-roles played by the actors within the system and around the system.
• Relationships between use cases and actors.

Figure 1:  A sample of Use case diagram

For example; the actors of ELO are managing director, senior administrator, and assistant of a senior administrator, regional tutors, course tutors and clients. The boundary area of ELO is the six courses, receiving telephone from the clients and register their name for a course, the managing director designed the course outlined, senior administrator updated the course information and client’s details through spreadsheet, preparing certificate of complete courses, regional tutor communicate with head office and provide monthly details about course and tutor deliver training to the clients.

B2.1. Primary use case of NSSG and ELO

NSSG use case system: The boundary of use case for NSSG is skills training in wide range administration, IT and finance and accounting areas. The actors of NSSG are clients, managing director, IT manager, finance director, external IT consultant and board members. The process of use case of NSSG is client’s registration for courses through eBook system where the details information of client are received and provide courses details. The goal of NSSG is making more profit by providing training both in commercial and public sector.

ELO use case system: The actors of ELO are managing director, senior administrator, and assistant of senior administrator, regional tutors, course tutors and clients. The boundary areas of ELO is the six courses, receiving telephone from the clients and register their name for a course, the managing director designed the course outlined, senior administrator updated the course information and client’s details through spreadsheet, regional tutor communicate with head office and provide monthly details about course and tutor deliver training to the clients. The goal of ELO is to provide training to the client’s noncommercial purpose.

B2.2. The associated secondary scenario that is exist

NSSG was selected five partners for its ‘Looking Forward’ programme. For ‘Looking Forward’ programme the boundary of NSSG is adult literacy, numeracy skills courses and skills for construction industry course. And, the actors of this programme are small training companies acquired by NSSG, clients, government, staffs and tutors of each organization.

B3: Demonstration of Use Case Modeling

Use case diagrams express the necessary usage requirements for a system. Use cases are useful for presenting management process. Use cases are depicted the following issues:

• Use cases: It is a sequence of action that provides value to an actor and depict a horizontal ellipse
• Actors: An actor is a person, external system or organization that plays various roles within the system in one or more interactions.
• Associations: Association develops a connection by drawn solid lines between actors and use cases. Association takes place when an actor is engaged in any interaction in use case. Use cases and actors to one another are connecting by association modeled.
• System boundary: It describes the scope of use cases system. System boundary represents the functionality of the system.
• Packages: Packages are portrayed as file folder and it is used in any use case diagram.

The actors of current use case are student/clients, employers, managing director, government, IT manager, administration officer and tutors. The boundary areas of current system are schedules courses at the training centers takes a booking, take payments, register attendance, and produce certificates at the end of the courses. The current system requires investigating about grants from the government for Looking Forward programme and includes partners as actor in use cases model.

The use cases are workable in any commercial business organization and education related institution. The steps are applied for developing use case for training organizations are as follows:

Identifying actors:

Every use case must have actors that the system interacts. The actors of training organizations are employer, employees, general people, financial institution provide loans, government institution provides grants, administrator of the training organization.

Identifying the use cases:

The requirements of actor of the system are important to identify in use cases. The goal of the develop use case is creating connection between use case and actors. Actors primary tasks for training organization are payments for a course, register attendance, deliver schedules of course time and place, produce certificate at the end of the course and give remarks (if any).

Outlining Use Cases:

The clients (employer/employees or other people) visit in eBook system for booking a course, the system entry the name of the client and collect payments, send schedules, of course, time and place to the client, register attendance and provide certificate at the end of the course.

For developing use case model developer should avoid long and involved use case templates that wastes time (Rosenberg and Stephens, 2007). To develop a use case in real life, the issues includes are as follows:

Name of course

Use-Case Elements	Description
Use Case number	ID for example 001, 002, for representing use case
Use Case name	client register for a course
The, of course, use, that client is interested
Description	in details information of client and courses
Primary actor	the name of client
Precondition-	terms and conditions provides to clients before starting course
Result	shows the result of selected course
Comment (if any)	provide remarks about the course, tutors and interest of another course

Part C: Critique of Use Cases and Rich Pictures

Rich Picture

Rich picture is a process to define, acknowledge and explore a situation and demonstrate it through diagrams (Stevens, 2014). It also is known as mind map and it helps to open conversation and explain the understanding of a situation. The organization problem situations are demonstrated by pictorial caricature through rich picture. It helps in understanding problem situation of an organization or creating a work of art. Both the structure and process of arise situation should be concentrated by rich pictures. It is constructed through the help of interviewing situation related individuals and workplace is ideal for individual work close at hand in workplace.

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Figure 2: A sample of rich pictures

Rich pictures facilitate in reasoning and organizing all necessary information that user gives. Rich pictures pointed out the places where a contradiction happens. Rich pictures depict the interest of stakeholders, interrelationships and their concerns. Under different circumstance the analyst uses different techniques to develop rich pictures. The elements of rich pictures are structures, people, issues expressed by people, climate, process and conflict (Checkland (1990).

The strengths of rich pictures are as follows:

·         It can be used by anyone to represent their system.

·         Rich pictures do not contain much material and no special skill is required to develop.

·         Visual presentation provides facilities to organize problematic situation.

·         Stakeholder participation helps to develop understanding about the system.

·         It can be used to compare changes and progress from the primary situation.

The weaknesses of rich pictures are as follows:

·         Representing everything visually is very challenging.

·         It is time consuming, complex and multiple revisions require.

·          Portraying all elements, actors, perspective from all stakeholders and relationship can be difficult.

The strengths of use case modeling are as follows:

·         A comprehensive summary of the system provides through use case diagram in a single illustration.

·         It is easy to understand because it requires narrative text.

·         If anything might go wrong this system describes that issue and saves time at early.

·         This model can use in various aspects such as project planning, cost estimation, user documentation, test case preparation and so on.

The weaknesses of Use case model are as follows:

·         Capturing non-functional requirements cannot easy.

·         It is time consuming and difficult to describe geometric issues

·         Use cases require learning for developer and clients.

The common things of these approaches are as follows:

·         Both approaches are time consuming

·         Any organization can use both approaches according to the necessary.

·         Both systems are complex to develop.

The rich pictures depict problematic situation while use cases create relationship between actors and system to attain goal. Rich pictures helps to point out the area of conflict while use case identifies anything wrong at early in the system. Rich picture is easy to understand and no training requires but uses case requires learning for developer and clients.  For developing rich pictures require to interviewing people but uses cases requires IT specialist to develop the system.

Conclusion

Use cases and rich pictures help an organization to develop a unique system and resolving problem situations. These approaches are easy to understand but use case requires learning for develop the system. Use case model is used for project planning, cost estimation, user documentation, and test case preparation and so on. An organization can develop their use case according to the nature and purpose of the organization. Conflict is very natural for an organization but identify the problem area is very important at early stage. Rich pictures visually represent the problem situation that any person can easily understand. Though both approaches consists some weaknesses, both approaches facilitates to achieve the goals of an organization.

References

Checkland, P. (1990), Soft Systems Methodology in Action, New York: Wiley & Sons,

Cockburn, A. (2000) Writing Effective Use Cases, New Jersey: Addison-Wesley Professional

Gibilisco, S. (2015) use case diagram (UML use case diagram). [online] Whatls.com. Available at http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/use-case-diagram. [Accessed at April 6. 2015].

Rosenberg, D. and Stephens, M. (2007) Use Case Driven Object Modeling with UML, New York: Apress.

Stevens, K. (2014) Rich Pictures. [online] BetterEvaluation.org. Available at http://betterevaluation.org/evaluation-options/richpictures. [Accessed at 6 April. 2015].