| | Project 2: Plan and Design a Small System |
| | The focus of this assignment is to look at the various factors and considerations for developing a small system in a 1200-2400 word paper. It aligns with UMUC's program outcomes that incorporate the following into each ISFM course: SDLC, IT needs research and implementation, technology requirements, and project management. You should see some commonality in other IFSM courses with these outcomes in your projects and assignments. You should have a fair grasp of SDLC from IFSM 300 and IFSM 301. The high-level focus of the assignment was to illicit the business and technical requirements of an organization's information system needs through investigation while applying course and textbook concepts. Intended to be more technical than business and process-centric, this project (paper) requires analysis of these areas to fully capture the communication, security, hardware/software, project management, etc. The SDLC process should be followed pretty closely, but it's a framework to follow and there should be very little discussion of the SDLC itself beyond how and when we do things. If done, this will result in an effective overall system design and development. The critical element to this assignment is understanding the requirements - many of which were given in the assignment details, e.g., medical system, privacy needed, security, shared resources, etc. Generally speaking, a "better" paper will include a system designed and installed/managed on premises. Simply web-enabling a tool and calling it good isn't sufficient, nor would simply identifying a handful of connected PCs. You can go with a COTS solution, but that won't cover all of your data processing/information exchange needs. So, what I've laid out here is a very high level requirements discussion. In reality, it goes much deeper than this and takes months or years to fully go from an identified need to a fully fielded system. Many of these requirements can be answered in short sentences or even bullets. Consider aligning your paper to the SDLC and use bullets where appropriate, but don't go overboard - requirements are best formatted as bullets with less narrative. Your final word count doesn't include cover page or works cited/bibliography page. |
| | Attribute | Comments |
| | Preliminary investigation and Thoughts | The focus of this assignment is on building and delivering a system. Typically, most students spend too much time on the SDLC. You have the opposite challenge in your paper. This walks through a system development, but isn't entirely relevant to what we're doing for this paper. There was barely a mention of the word "medical" in your paper, much less requirements that were defined for a medical system solution. Provided are some additional thoughts and specifics, but you'll need to significantly revise this and tailor it towards a medical system and focus on information exchanges, and processes for a medical system. Otherwise, you'll build and deliver a standard IT stack that doesn't help the facility. I realize you were catching up, but the final paper needs some additional focus. Here, you need to ensure a thorough analysis of a small "medical" system is fully completed. Apply the SDLC to your project, but don't focus on it, or explain why it's necessary for each step. Take it from the perspective that I'm your CEO (generally, not an IT person, but well versed with the company and I have the strategic direction). If you really get to the heart of the system development using the SDLC, you'll quickly get to the target word count. Come up with your own requirements of what you think the system needs. There will be some generic requirements that all sytems needs, and some that are specific to a small office, whether they are hosting their own servers and data or they have a cloud provider do this for them. Even if it's a cloud provider, they still have networking and computing needs in the office, ISP for connectivity, etc. And if it's a cloud provider involved, there's one VERY BIG ITEM that I would expect to see that discusses service levels and responsibilities. Also, be aware of medical data needs and any relevant compliance with regulations and laws - generally speaking only (pick two primary legal compliance requirements - both could be medical, or one could be something else). The requirements are what you define them to be. All of the surveys and use-cases and the other things that we do for our standard system analysis and design is complete. We now need to focus on the design, build, delivery and maintenance of the system. How much RAM, what type of processor, what kind of networking, etc. Please look again at the rubric that breaks out the grading for each of the areas. |
| | Process and Approach | Recall from the explicitly stated requirements from the assignment (see below - and above): You are building the IT infrastructure for the EHCD System - I will accept a cloud provided solution; however, you'll still have local networking and data processing requirements/needs along with a reliable point of presence connection. Ensure you address privacy, security, shared resources (how are you able to map a "shared drive" within the office. What needs to be running? Common OS (for ease of management and complexity, e.g., you could have Enterprise Red Hat on some servers for FTP, NTP, SMTP, etc. and a Microsoft Windows NOS, Domain controller, and Exchange Server for your end user needs, and have VMWare ESXi for your virtualization, and Oracle 11g with Web Center (for example) for your Application Server/Portal and Database if you like - this is considered normal. Or, to make things easy, everything is some flavor of Microsoft), NAS, SAN. Would you have multiple ones like a VLAN where your access depends on your position, e.g., doctors, front desk, administrators, insurance liaisons, etc.). Where do you store files? Not everything is in the cloud. Don't forget your Layer 2 and 3 devices.
Requirements should be very specific or you'll ALWAYS have problems. Typically, the papers include key terms like "privacy" and "encryption." If so, what would "privacy" mean? Is it controlling acces to a whole record, certain fields within the file using attribute markings, etc. Will you implement some Rule-Based Access Control or Role-Based Access Control? Or something much more complex and powerful. What about sharing data from the "system" to another application, like MS Word - perhaps, for a birthday mailer. What about "encryption?" What does that mean? 3DES, AES-256? IPSec? I don't expect you to know these answers but this would be the "requirement." Realistically, you'll run into problems where some software is incompatible with higher levels of encryption. A lot of legacy systems are vulnerable because they can't support either the hardware or software component of the system.
What about a disaster recovery or continuity of operations plan, to include backup? What if your building catches fire, floods, etc. If you are hosting the infrastructure and data, your COOP/DR procedures and needs will be much different than if you had chosen a cloud environment. What about all of the networking gear, hardware, etc., that you have in place. How easily would you be able to move to an alternate location? What if your data was backed up and stored offsite (at least 50 miles away), but all of your infrastructure went up in flames or was wiped out due to a major natural disaster that destroyed your ability to operate? Would patients still come in during a disaster when your IT stopped working? Potentially, you would see lots of injuries/illnesses as a result of the major disaster that took your IT offline, turning your day into a case of the Mondays. Would you have backup generators? They can only power so much, what would they power? Do you need "offline procedures" in place that can quickly be uploaded into the "system" when it's back online.
What about peripheral devices? Are the print jobs configured to be secure from the system? Do you have peripherals? What about process change moving from manual paper-based to automated and web-enabled. Are you migrating legacy data? How would you do that? Scan .pdf images in? Are they searchable? Or are they images. Meta-data?
Ensure you've explored some technology solutions to meet your needs (this is a large portion of this exercise).
What about the general requirements of the interaction between the patients and staff?
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| | HW SW Design Components | Ensure you have all hardware and software requirements clearly laid out. Regardless of your technology solution, you'll have very specific hardware and software needs based on the requirements you lay out. Ensure these requirements meet what is addressed in the requirements section above and much more. I laid out "some" requirements, certainly not all of them. Even if you are procuring a commercial product, you'll need to have it designed (or configured) to meet your processes. You never purchase an IT solution and change your processes to make it fit the software - this is a sure recipe for failure. What about when the software changes or is no longer supported by the vendor. You need to be very specific in the system design. Cover the interfaces between your other systems and anything else exchanging or sharing data. Will you have wireless capabilities? What other requirements does that spawn? How do you handle securing it - need more specifics than just "secure WI-FI."
Additionally, I strongly encourage you to submit a network diagram to help explain and show the architecture of your system. |
| | You will use the information learned throughout the course to identify and document a full information system for a small company. You will apply the basic steps of the SDLC to building the IT infrastructure for an electronic health care data system for an urgent care facility* for a (mythical) UMUC Student Health Service clinic by addressing what actions are taken and what decisions are made in each phase. |
| | Make sure to address key technical issues from this course and to include and specify key elements and components of a computer system as covered in this course, including (but not limited to) the following (in no particular order): |
| | · CPU type, speed, etc |
| | · Memory type, size, speed, etc |
| | · Needed I/O devices |
| | · Networking |
| | · Operating system |
| | · Other required software |
| | · Shared resources |
| | · Data format |
| | · Storage |
| | · Common file format |
| | · Databases and DBMS |
| | · Security* |
| | · Privacy* |
| | · Etc. |
| | The paper should make clear how the functional requirements of the clinic result in the specific technical design specifications, above. |
| | The body of the paper should be no more than 12 point type, not less than 4 pages or 1200 words and not more than 10 pages or 2400 words, not including title page, table of contents, executive summary, and reference bibliography. The paper will require a title page, a hot-clickable MS Word generated table of contents, executive summary, 4-10 pages of content with incorporation of a minimum of 3 external resources from credible sources, and a Works Cited/Reference page. |
| | The paper should either detail each step in the SDLC (Systems Development Life Cycle) or should detail each step in the The Formal Systems Approach, whichever you determine fits your paper and approach better. Either way, there should be an emphasis on the technology outcome and how it flows from the functional requirements. |
| | Refer to both the document "SDLC Module 2 from IFSM 201" and other SDLC material in Course Content, and the material on the "The Formal Systems Approach" in Course Content and the Webliography or at http://polaris.umuc.edu/~kschank/Formal-Systems-Approach.htm. |
| | (Remember that there are many variants of the SDLC other than what is presented in the above module. You may use any variant of the SDLC that you wish provided that (a) it is logical and complete (and not pulled out of the air), (b) it is appropriate for the system you are designing in your paper, (c) you identify which variant you are using, and (d) you explain it.) |
| | Make sure your paper identifies which approach you will employ, but clearly articulate the steps used to: |
| | 1. Complete a preliminary investigation, requirements analysis, and system recommendation |
| | 2. Specify a detailed design based on your set of requirements. |
| | 3. Develop the system according to your design specification. |
| | 4. Outline how you would test the system and gain user acceptance. |
| | In your submission, be sure to include any references used in APA style (see the tutorial in the COURSE CONTENT menu) for your source information in a bibliography as well as cite them within the body of your paper. Be sure to check your work for spelling and grammatical errors before submission. Yes, spelling and grammar count. The intent of these topics is to provide you with an opportunity to hone your writing skills. |
| | The paper must be your original work, in your own words, and written for this class. Do not simply copy/paste information from the Web or textbook. Such submissions will not be accepted for credit. Research projects should be original work for IFSM 310; therefore, you may not re-use of a paper written you’ve written for a different class. |
| | All "General Paper and Writing Requirements" for all papers (above) must be adhered to for this assignment, except as specifically noted (e.g., table of contents is required, page limits are 4-10 pages, etc.). |
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| | * (Note that since this is a medical facility, your design should comply with Congressional regulations. Since 1996, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) details patient privacy and regulations for health care-related businesses. In addition to HIPAA, there were two acts passed by Congress in 2009 that specifically garnered support for migrating to electronic medical records (EMRs). The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act is specifically geared at providing financial incentives to health care organizations that migrate towards EMRs, with the intention of eventually replacing the incentives with penalties if providers do not institute electronic record keeping. The second is the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA), which institutes funding for comparative effectiveness research (CER). Analysis and aggregation of anonymized patient data in regards to conditions, treatment and progress can provide an invaluable source of CER to physicians and healthcare organizations in the treatment of patients. |
| | Therefore, privacy and security requirements should be addressed. However, computer architecture and system design are the primary subjects of this course and will be more important in the grading than the nuances of Federal law, privacy, and security. It would therefore be a mistake to take so much time researching and designing for health care privacy and security laws that your hardware and software infrastructure suffered as a consequence.) |
| | You may want to incorporate tables of technical specs, as that is often a more effective way than narrative paragraphs for presenting them. Also, if you can, please try to draw a diagram of the system, either of its internal architecture and/or of its external connectivity, as appropriate. |
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petgrave_rubric_project_2.xlsx
