2015

LAB RECORD
MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

REQUIREMENT ANALYSIS ELICITATION

Group - 5

Table of Contents
Table of Contents ................................................................................... 1
Abstract .................................................................................................. 3
1. Overview ........................................................................................... 4
2. Methods, principles and research methodologies used.................... 5
3. Identifying the Stakeholders of the Project....................................... 6
3.1 Students ........................................................................................................ 6
3.2 Subject Coordinators .................................................................................... 7
3.3 Lab Administrators ........................................................................................ 7
3.4 Developer Team............................................................................................ 8

4. Interaction with the Stakeholders..................................................... 9

4.1 Student Questionnaire .................................................................................. 9
4.2 Questionnaire for teachers ......................................................................... 13

5. Current Problems Faced by the Stakeholders ................................. 18

5.1 Improper lab management of labs .............................................................. 18
5.2 Inefficient assignment evaluation and updation ......................................... 18
5.3 Inefficient and obsolete method for attendance management and updation19
5.4 No proper channel for communication between students and subject
coordinators regarding the subject information ............................................... 19
5.5 No proper facility for the students to gain access to subject notes and important
updates ............................................................................................................. 20
5.6 No proper way for students to know deadlines in the subjects .................. 20

6.Techniques & Tools to Counter the Problems Faced by Stakeholders21

6.1 Online Assignment Submission Portal ......................................................... 21
6.2 Online Quizzes ............................................................................................ 22
1

6.3 Attendance Issue ........................................................................................ 23

6.4 Online Surveys ............................................................................................ 24
6.5 Online Forums............................................................................................. 24
6.6 Online Notes ............................................................................................... 25
6.7 Notifications ............................................................................................... 25

7. Comparative Study of available softwares ...................................... 27

8. Limitations of Current Model .......................................................... 29
9. Conclusion ...................................................................................... 30
10. References ...................................................................................... 31
11. Contribution .................................................................................... 32

Abstract
Requirement elicitation is the process of finding and elaborating the requirements for
any project. The need for the requirement elicitation arrives from the fact that the
elicitation is the foundation of any work. The process of requirement elicitation requires
the active participation of stakeholders.
The requirements and specifications cannot be just collected, they need to be perfectly
elicited. This implies that there are discoveries, emergence and uncovering of the defects
of the present technologies used for addressing the problem. Requirement elicitation is
a complex process involving many activities with a variety of available techniques,
approaches, and tools for performing them. The relative strengths and weaknesses of
these determine when each is appropriate depending on the context and situation.
This study presents an initial set of findings from an empirical study of lab management
techniques used in todays scenario in most of the laboratories around the country,
Technical system configurations, Organizational contexts, and Interrelationships that
give rise to more advanced lab management techniques .
The focus is directed at understanding the requirements for lab management software
development efforts, and how the development of these requirements differs from
those traditional to software engineering and requirements engineering to better
account for the requirements for developing lab management software systems.

1. Overview
The focus in this document is directed at understanding the requirements for more
advanced software technologies for managing laboratories.
It is not about hypothesis testing or testing the viabilities of current methodologies
used, instead it is about description and Implementation of more advanced
methods and practices that can be implemented to achieve and exploit our
capabilities to a best.
It is about expanding our notions of what requirements engineering processes and
process models need to address to account for advanced lab management
software development. But to set the stage for such an analysis, we first need to
characterize the research methods and principles employed in this study. This is
followed by the model of the processes and artifacts that give rise to the
requirements for developing advanced software systems.
The model and artifacts are the focus of the analysis and basis of the concluding
discussion.
This includes a discussion of what is new or different in the findings presented in
this report, as well as some of their implications for what can or should be
formalized when developing different kinds of lab management software systems.

2. Methods, principles and research methodologies used

The type of the system and the purpose of the Project significantly affects the way in
which requirements elicitation is conducted, for e.g. for a website, the elicitation can be
conducted online just through an online survey or feedback form.
The specific requirement elicitation techniques can also vary depending upon the time
and resources available to us. In this document the elicitation is done through direct and
extensive review of the current scenario.
The report is based on the ongoing practices used in labs in the institutions for the
management of student records. The data has been collected by using direct
methods i.e. Interaction with the stakeholders and listening to their problems and
then having a deep research on it to justify if there is such a case or not.
As the whole elicitation process cannot just rely on the demands of the
stakeholders, we also conducted interviews, feedback and personal questionnaire,
and checking the success percentage of the current available steps taken in this
direction.
The purpose of this investigation is to arrive at best results that can be
implemented in the software to be developed such that it can be made user
friendly and very competitive as compared to the traditional methods and current
alternatives used. Also the project aims at an open source management system so
that it is a lot easier to add functionalities (if required at a later stage).

The model presents a contrasting account of how the needs are addressed in
present scenario, the requirement differences between current system and the
new approach to address the problem.

The model tries to address all the logical problems and the challenges that the
stakeholders are facing in the present.

3. Identifying the Stakeholders of the Project

The stakeholders for the project are identified by considering the following important
points
The teaching methodologies used by the modern institutes include extensive
laboratory assignments in addition to theoretical lectures.
The coursework may easily include 50% time allotted to practical and thus the
advancement in this field is self-evident.
The modern approaches can be applied to facilitate better communication and
protocols within the Laboratories making them more efficient and effective.

3.1 Students
The students are the front end of the project, the project aims at making some
better tool for the management of laboratories as the quality of laboratories and
their functional efficiency directly affects the students attending the laboratories.
The assignments performed in the labs provide practical knowledge and
implementation provides more intensive understanding of otherwise purely
conceptual subjects.
Thus, information regarding assignments, their timely completion and assessment
prove to be crucial aspects, and may ultimately become the decisive factors for
what and how much is learnt and absorbed by the students.

3.2 Subject Coordinators

The implementation of a centralized server based database management system
makes it possible for subject coordinators to easily keep a track of overall student
performances, and provides a channel for passing on important information easily
and effectively.
It reduces ambiguity caused by word-of-mouth transmission of information and
can be used as a portal for posting official updates.

3.3 Lab Administrators

Administrating the laboratory sessions can be made much easier if systematic
approaches are used, and students are well informed and prepared for them.
By use of this management system, the work of laboratory administrators is
reduced at large.
The administrators can focus more on solving problems faced by students, rather
than trying to figure out what assignments to give and how to perform
comparative assessment of such a large number of assignments.

3.4 Developer Team

An obvious stakeholder group is the group responsible for development of the
product, the entire development of the software provides direct implications on
the developing team, and the outcomes are shared by the entire team.
For the development of any project or accomplishment of any action there is
always a group that carries out all the pre-processing and development of the
model or the project that is to be used by the other stakeholders hence,
identification of Development team as the stakeholders.
From the beginning of the project development to the very existence of the
software in use, the developers play and important role as after development the
software requires to be up to date, bugs in the program need to be fixed and
advancements and up gradation of the software due to advancement in the
technical platforms.

4. Interaction with the Stakeholders

4.1 Student Questionnaire
1. What is the mode of submission in your labs for submitting programming
questions?
a. Written
b. Printed
c. Online Submission
Mode of Submission for
Programming Questions
10%
30%

60%

Written

Printed

Online Submission

2. What is the mode of submission in your labs for submitting Theoretical

questions?
a) Written
b) Printed
c) Online Submission
Mode of Submission for Theoretical
Questions
0%
10%

90%
Written

Printed

Online Submission

3. How much you are satisfied with current procedure?

a) < 25%
b) 25 50%
c) 50 75%
d) 75%
Current Procedure Satisfaction - 1
20%

20%

20%
40%

< 25%

25 - 50%

50-75%

> 75%

4. If you are satisfied for less than 75% then what is the reason (tick one or more
as you like)?
a) The evaluation process is not transparent
b) It takes lot of time to first write code on computer then write it down
c) Work remains scattered
d) All the above
Current Procedure Satisfaction - 2
20%
50%
20%
10%
Option a

Option b

Option c

Option d

10

5. Do you get Notes and Notifications Timely?

a. Sometimes
b. Never
c. Always
d. Most of the time
Notes & Notifications - 1
10%
20%

40%

30%
Sometimes

Never

Always

Most of the time

6. How you get information about Notes and Notifications provided by teachers?
a. Social Media
b. By the other students
c. Notices and Circulars
d. By the Lab coordinators
Notes & Notifications - 2
25%
35%
10%
30%
Social Media

By other students

Notices

Lab Coordinatos

11

7. Do you want any change in the present system?

a. Surely
b. 75%
c. 50%
d. < 25%
Change in System
10%
10%
50%
30%

Surely

75%

50%

< 25%

8. If Online Assignment Portal be an alternative then what is your opinion regarding

it?
a. It is a good idea and will succeed
b. It is a good idea but cannot be implemented
c. It is a good idea and should be done
d. The idea is not very logical and it needs some improvement
Notion About Online Assignment Portal
5%
30%

45%

20%
Option a

Option b

Option c

Option d

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4.2 Questionnaire for teachers

1. What is the mode to manage student lab record as used by you?
a. Managing Records on Paper
b. Using some software Tool< 25%
Mode of Management
20%

80%

On Paper

Using Software

2. How frequently you need to update the record?

a. On a daily Basis
b. Only once a week
c. Twice a week
d. Rarely
Updation Frequency
10%

20%

40%
30%

Daily

Once a week

Twice a week

Rarely

13

3. How much time does it take to update the lab records of students of one lab?
a. 5-10 min
b. 1 hour
c. 2 hours
d. > 2 hours
Time to update record
10% 10%

40%

5 - 10 min

40%

1 hour

2 hours

> 2 hours

4. Is there any method through which you can access all the data of various labs at
once?
a. Yes
b. No
c. Sometimes it is difficult
Existence of Method to Access all Data
10%
30%

60%

Yes

No

Sometimes difficult

14

5. Does the present system provides a way to work optimally or not?

a. No, the lab management techniques are obsolete
b. Yes, they are good and friendly
c. No, these are cumbersome
d. No, there is no proper means to carry out the Task
Does system provide to work optimally
10%
30%
30%

30%
No, obsolete techniques

Yes

No, Cumbersome

No, absence of proper means

6. Are you satisfied with the current methods and methodologies used or you think
there can be improvement?
a. Yes, very satisfied
b. Partially, and it needs some improvement
c. Partially but it needs much improvement
d. Not at all, and the system needs to be rewired

Satisfaction with Current Methods

10%
20%

40%

30%
Option a

Option b

Option c

Option d

15

7. Is there some place where you can keep all the records compiled if No, then do
you want?
a. Yes
b. No, no
c. No, yes
Does system provide to work optimally

30%
50%
20%

Yes

No, no

No, yes

8. Do you need any tool to check the accuracy of the Programming Assignments in
the current system?
a. No, we check it manually
b. Yes
Software Requirement for
Programming Assignments

30%

70%

Yes

No

16

9. If there is some Software tool that helps you to manage records, will that be
useful?
a. No, not at all
b. Yes, to a great extent
c. I think it will not be feasible
d. Yes, It is really needed
Usefulness of Software
20%
30%

10%
40%

No, not at all

Yes, to a great extent

I think it will not be useful

Yes, it is rarely needed

10. If Software tool provides you with all the need facilities will you use it?
a. Yes
b. No, we do need

Want Software Use

30%

70%

Yes

No

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5. Current Problems Faced by the Stakeholders

5.1 Improper lab management of labs
The main cause for this problem is that there is no central regulatory facility which
can be used by the main subject coordinators to brief students about assignments
to be performed beforehand and thus provide them with an insight into which
practical will be performed when.
Without prior knowledge about what is to be done in future labs, students may
not be able to grasp technically challenging concepts within the laboratory's
allotted time period, and may require to work even more on their own, which
beats the purpose of having labs.
This hugely decreases productivity in the lab periods. In addition to this, students
may be accommodated in multiple labs, which makes communicating the
assignment topics even more problematic, and further, increases the possibility of
ambiguity.
Clear instructions are missing, and largely required for proper management of the
labs, which can only be achieved by a better, more effective way for notification.

5.2 Inefficient assignment evaluation and updation

Assignment evaluation is a major aspect of laboratories, manual assessment of
large number of assignments proves to be a challenge.
Organizing and storing files seems to be an obsolete method, and can easily be
replaced with electronic storage. Such assignment collection would be a time
consuming and ambiguity inducing method, chances of misplacing files are always
present, and accessing them would be a slow and cumbersome process.
Further, assessment can be done by multiple teachers, this provides a potential
loophole where assessment of students' work is not fair.
18

 There is no comparative scale or way to access already assessed assignments with

ease for comparison purposes.
Unfair assessment due to such rudimentary methods leads to discouragement
among students, and also should be treated as an unacceptable practice in today's
day and age.

5.3 Inefficient and obsolete method for attendance management

and updation
Attendance is taken manually by the lab administrators and is required to be reentered by the subject coordinators upon receipt.
The method is obsolete to say the least, especially for computer science
laboratories, where better and more optimal approaches can be used in place of
redundant practices.

5.4 No proper channel for communication between students and

subject coordinators regarding the subject information
Teachers do not have a centralized and easy method to share important news with
the students. Word of mouth transmission is one of the usual ways to
communicate, but has obvious problems associated with it.
A better channel of communication with permanent records and easy access is
required. Improvement in the quality of this medium will provide students the
opportunity to learn more in a better and systematic way.

19

5.5 No proper facility for the students to gain access to subject

notes and important updates
As a common practice, information is provided to a few students and they are
required to circulate the information to other students, and many a times this
leads to confusion and everyone isn't informed timely.
There is no official source for getting course material and notes, this deems it
possible to consider all sources to be unofficial.
Without a proper portal for providing students with notes and important updates,
many a times Xerox are provided to few students and they don't get circulated
properly.
Also there is no proper medium to which all the students have access so that a
teacher can upload all the notes there. Without any alternatives, teachers are thus
forced to use the same methods repeatedly.

5.6 No proper way for students to know deadlines in the subjects

The deadlines for a particular assignment and question vary so the students do not
get to know the hard deadline for a particular assignment submission, hence many
times students may miss the deadline, further causing disorganization for the
teachers and wastage of time.
There is no official source for concrete information regarding the deadlines.

20

6. Techniques and Tools to Counter the Problems Faced by

Stakeholders
We discuss key features that can be implemented during later stages of software
development to address the problems faced by the stakeholders.
All the features are have been taken upon response by the stakeholders (i.e. Students
and Lab-Admins) during the interviews and personal questionnaires

6.1 Online Assignment Submission Portal

Most of the students have complained that there is no facility for them to submit
their assignments and also keep a record of their submissions.

Whereas the lab-admins have suggested that there is a need for some place
where they can have an organized, and compiled version of all the submitted
assignment of the students in a particular lab.

We propose the facility Online Assignment Submission Portal where both labadmins and the students can function alike.
Online submission of assignments can be the key feature of this product. It will
allow the students to directly submit any assignment for any lab remotely.
Also the lab-admins would be at much ease now in making the assignments live to
the whole class and this will decrease their problems.
This will increase the efficiency of the labs much more than current scenario as
this particular functionality will help them in various ways:
It will allow the lab-admins and the subject coordinator to have compiled
submissions for each lab.
This in turn will allow for better evaluation of assignments as now different labadmins can easily do a comparative evaluation for each assignment.
21

 Marking system will also be upgraded as now lab-admins would able to mark

the submissions on the go and this will lead to less problems at the semester
end as they will get automatically generated result for every lab that they take.
Hence this feature will be very useful to address the severity of assignment
submission in present scenario.

6.2 Online Quizzes

Most of the lab-admins have complained of lack any conclusive tool to test the
students after each lab and also lack of innovation in learning methodology used
currently.
In order to improve the learning process during the lab we propose the facility of
spontaneous quizzes after each lab to the lab-admin.
We intend to provide the lab-admin the choice to add quizzes for each lab in the
subject.
The quizzes will make the lab more engaging and interesting and the learning curve
will surely improve.
The quizzes can also be used to automatically mark the attendance of the class
based on the participation in the quiz.
Also the lab-admin will not be needed to grade any students response as his/her
response will be automatically graded according the initial key provided by the labadmin at the time of the creation of any particular quiz.

22

6.3 Attendance Issue

As pointed out by the students and the lab-admins alike, there is a dire need for
some good method to automatically mark the attendance of the students during
each lab.
We propose a method to save the time and energy of both students and the labadmins alike by bringing forward the concept of attendance on the basis of
participation in the daily quizzes and survey after/before the lab.
The idea is to implement some database that will keep record of students
participation in each of the quiz in a particular lab and automatically mark the
corresponding students attendance.
This feature can drastically increase the performance of both student and labadmins.
Since each students attendance now depends on the response made by him,
it will lead to an increased attention in the lab.
Now the lab-admins can be free from the chores of the attendance and save
much more time spent in the attendance.
This will ensure mutual participation of both students and the lab-admins alike.
Such quizzes can also be used to divide gradation in each lab and hence can be
made more important.
Automatic gradation in the quiz section will make life much easier of the labadmin.
This type of gradation system can be easily developed by keeping a base
database of students responses and correct answers for each of the quizzes,
using the currently available techniques.
Automatic gradation will also lead to less clutter and more organized data
which the lab-admins can access anytime.
Moreover it will help both the student and lab-admins alike to analyze any
students growth and performance in real-time.

23

6.4 Online Surveys

Most of the lab-admins have also requested for a feature that would allow them
to get the general consensus of the class regarding various issues at hand, for
example, survey regarding the course work, or regarding the teaching
methodology used.

We propose the feature of Online Surveys to tackle this problem and justify its
need in the following points:
It will help in checking the effectiveness of the working management and
keeping a check on the capabilities of the lab faculties.
It will also help to remove and loop holes and redundancies from the system
with the help of conducting surveys at a regular time period.
These surveys can also be helpful in knowing what improvement should be
incorporated for improving the department.

These surveys can also be used as a measure for automatic attendance marking
system.

6.5 Online Forums

Most of the students have also demanded for some feature where they can discuss
their daily issues regarding the subject/lab that they attend.

Most of the online submission portals for students at different universities have a
kind of Online Forum for each subject where they could discuss things of
importance and discuss with everybody else at the same time.

We also have suggested the feature of Online Forums for each of the lab.

We justify the need of this feature with following points:

It would provide a healthy interaction between students and teachers.
Teachers would be a part of the forum and hence will part of the community.
Their involvement will be crucial to the functionality of the forums.
24

Hence the need of the forums is justified.

6.6 Online Notes

Most of the students and the lab-admins have called for the need of Online
Notes.

Lab-Admins would like to be able to add notes online to student portal from where
every student would be able to get the notes and benefit.

This will surely help both the student community and the lab-admins.

Students will now be saved from the problems of getting the correct notes at the
required time.

Lab-Admins will be able to save their time and hence give more time to the
working of the lab

So we also propose the feature of Online Notes in our product to tackle the
current problem.

This feature will reduce the dependency of the students on the classroom notes
distribution, hence, it will increase the overall quality of the class or the lab alike.

6.7 Notifications

Most of the students and lab-admins have complained of lack of any facility to
properly issue a notice.

Students have complained that most of the time they do not get to know of any
particular notice issued by the lab-admins.

They also complained of too much dependence on the word of mouth method of
propagation of information.
25

Lab-Admins have complained that they need many a times they are not able to
convey any change of plans efficiently to the whole class.

Hence we propose the feature of Online Notifications.

This feature will help the lab-admin to convey any information or notice at a
moments notice to the whole class very efficiently and quickly.
Also this feature will save the students from depending on the word of mouth
method of propagation of information.

Any information regarding the labs will be very easily conveyed to whole class and
this will lead to a drastic reduction in the ambiguity that happens to lack of
information spread among the students and the lab-admins alike.

26

7. Comparative Study of available softwares

Here we present the comparative study of available software like Edmodo and Black
Board
Feature

Assignments

Edmodo

Blackboard

Allows to post with a

due date and a task
sheet

Admin can manage

Can easily see

submission details

The tasks tool allow to

mark when they've
started and
completed task

Grade assessment and

immediate feedback

the progress of tracks

& tasks

Quiz

Allows to create quick

and simple quizzes
It shows statistics
about the students
answers

Grades

Supports via Custom

Badges

Self-assessment tool is
used and updated through
notification

Discussion Board

Has forms with comments

Open discussion form with

upload option

Polls

It has an immediate
response feature

Feedback / Note

Creates an exit slip for

students with comment
and view options

Allows to conduct an
immediate exam and also
pre planned exam, with
test availability options

Test result, feedback,

presentation can be
viewed
27

Team work done using

roaster

Group Management

Used as small groups

Chat

Has private talk with

student option

Notes

Folders, sub-folders, and

sharing options are
provided.

Has helix media library for

streaming and view option

Notifications

Used as class
announcements

Push notification option

and course message
notification

Figure 1. Market model of different Lab Management Systems

28

8. Limitations of Current Model

We have left out some features provided by other softwares in the market
LAN School by Intel Corporation (http://www.lanschool.com/) provides
advanced features of lab management like screen sharing, blanking student
screens, and remote control. But it can cost upto 800$.
NetOP School from CrossTec Corporation (http://www.netop.com/classroommanagement-software/products/netop-school.htm) has the ability to
broadcast MPEG, videos or Flash animations on to student computers for
demonstration done by teacher. This has not been included in this model
We do not have chat ability as it is not required in the current scenario.
We do not have any concrete plagiarism detector. We plan to use MOSS (Measure
of Software Similarity) which can measure amount of similarity but it cannot check
whether a piece of code copied is intended like Hello World program done by all
persons is same. So somebody has to go and analyze the submissions.

29

9. Conclusion
The Aim of this project is to build a user friendly online portal that manages and helps
the lab administrators to asses and handle the assignments. The project tries to address
the problems faced by the stakeholders. Thus a careful implementation of the project
can help the stakeholders a lot.
The design requires minimal software and available hardware resources and hence it can
be successfully used on both present and future software machines.
The project considers all the important points that need the improvement and it has
addressed them in a perfect way. A future study after the implementation of this model
will help to overcome the shortcomings and will help to address future requirements.
The elicitation perfectly covers all the useful features and limitations of the project.
Hence by just going through the document one can easily figure out the areas which need
further assistance and improvement and thus the report can be considered while
developing the additional features at a later time.

30

10. References
Websites
WWW.WIKIPEDIA.COM
THEORY.STANFORD.EDU/~AIKEN/MOSS
WWW.LANSCHOOL.COM
WWW.NETOP.COM/CLASSROOM-MANAGEMENT-SOFTWARE/PRODUCTS/NETOP-SCHOOL.HTM

31

11. Contribution
The contribution of the Team members in carrying out the Systematic Elicitation for the
project is as follows:
Name

Scholar Number

Contribution

Bhavya Budania

131112089

Supervised all domains of the

elicitation report as the Team
Leader

Shobha Barupal

131112079

Techniques and tools to counter the

problems faced by stakeholders

Madhur Mishra

131112072

Designing Questionnaires for

evaluation of existing system
and checking the feasibility of
our product
Methods principles and
research methodologies
used.
Abstract

Umesh Bhoj

131112073

Solutions to the current problems

Amit Parihar

131112074

Solutions to the current problems

32

Mayur Mesharam

131112075

Solutions to the current Problems

131112076

Identification of stakeholders
Discussion and expansion of
problems faced
Solutions to those issues

Deepak Verma

131112077

Limitations of the current

model
Total design of the elicitation
document
Generating pie charts from
the data collected from
Questionnaires

Ankur Ranjan

131112078

Plagiarism detection and

implementation of Moss

Gaveesh Gupta

131112080

Plagiarism detection and

implementation of Moss

Sarath Chandra

131112081

Comparative study of the models

V. R. G. Aditya Sharma

131112082

Comparative study of the models

Deepak Kumar Meena

131112083

Limitations of current model and

Conclusion

Aditya Gaur

33

Akshay Aryan

131112084

Current problems faced by

stakeholders

Balram Kirar

131112085

Online quizzing and its advantages

and disadvantages

Rahul Parmar

131112088

Limitation of the current problem

34