In this section the requirements made with respect to functionality are specified. With refer-ence to [18] functional requirements specify “what data is to be used for, how it is recorded, computed, transformed, updated. . . ”.
Below is among other functional requirements described how the student should be able to manage his study plan criteria and elaborate a study plan from a study plan criterion.
4.2.1 Principal Requirement
The system must be web-based and users should therefore be able to operate the system by a web-browser.
4.2.2 Restricted Admission
Admission to the system must be restricted. When a person tries to access the system he should therefore be directed to a login page from which he can be authenticated and thereby get admission to the system.
Login Page
On the login page the user should be able to state his credentials – username and password – and request for admission. Upon request the system must validate the stated username and password.
4.2 Functional Requirements 49 If either the username or password is wrong the system must refuse the user’s request for admission and inform so to the user. The user may try to login again, however, the user only has got a limited number of attempts, confer the subsection “Prevention of Brute Force Attacks” below.
The user should be authenticated if both the username and password are correct. An authen-ticated user may use the system freely, however, the user may only obtain access to those parts of the system which he has been authorized access to. Confer [12], §12, and section 4.4.1.
Prevention of Brute Force Attacks
The system must prevent brute force attacks. In other words it must not be possible for unau-thorized persons to carry out an exhaustive test of usernames and passwords in combination.
Every refused request for admission must be registered. If a request for admission has been refused three times in succession within the last five minutes for a given username the system should obstruct further requests for that username in a time interval of 20 minutes.
Password Policy
Users should be forced to change their password every 90 days. If the user has not changed his password within this time frame at login he should be forced to change his password before he is given admission to the system.
It is required that passwords meet the following complexity requirements:
• A password must at a minimum be eight characters long.
• A password must contain characters from at least three of the following categories:
– English Lower Case Letters (a, b, c,. . . z) – English Upper Case Letters (A, B, C,. . . Z) – Westernized Arabic Numerals (0, 1, 2,. . . 9)
– Non-alphanumeric, “special characters” (!@#$%&() *-+={}[],.:/|)
Finally, a password must not be the same as any of the user’s previous four passwords. The system must therefore maintain a log of the user’s previous passwords.
4.2.3 Main Page
When a student has logged in, a main page shall be presented by the system from where it must be possible to get an overview of previously saved study plan criteria and study plans – where available.
From the main page it must be possible to enter the study plan criterion management (section 4.2.4) or the study plan management (section 4.2.5).
The system must allow deletion of study plan criteria or study plans either from the main page or from the respective management functions. The supplier shall provide a suggestion as to which of the two is the more appropriate solution.
4.2.4 Study Plan Criterion Management
Students must be able to manage a number of study plan criteria in the system. Partly, a student should be able to create a new study plan criterion and partly modify and delete existing study plan criteria. Moreover, it should be possible to elaborate a study plan from a study plan criterion.
Creation
The creation of a study plan criterion consists in the student specifying his interests, specific demands&c.
The student should be able to specify which technical package he wants to complete – if different from the one he is already signed up for. M.Sc. students should be able to select a technical line as well as a specialization. Only technical package and technical line relevant for the student’s study type should be selectable.
As regards the student’s interests it should be possible for the student to specify those as keywords.
Desiredworkloadby means of an amount of credit points should be specifiable both generally per period type and for specific periods.
A study plan should reflect the student’s language skills and the student should therefore be able to select one or morelanguages in which he wants to be taught. One or morelecturers should be deselectable as all lecturers are selected by default and the student may not wish to be taught by certain lecturers.
The student should be able to choose one or more study types in addition to the student’s own study type. The different study types should be selectable from a list.
It should be possible for the student to choose one or morespecific courseswhich the student would like to have scheduled at some time during the course of study. In the same way the student should be able to choose one or more courses which should never be scheduled.
Likewise, for specific periods the student should be able to select and deselect one or more courses – such a specification corresponds to traditional, manual study planning.
The student should be able to define whether thetechnical prerequisitesof the courses should be taken into account or not.
As far asprojects are concerned the student should be able to specify the amount of workload associated with a project in different parts of the project. The student should be able to make such a specification for each of the projects the student is going to prepare.
The student should be able to state anamefor the study plan criterion such that the student can identify it later on.
Finally, it should be possible tosavea study plan criterion.
Modification and Deletion
A student should be able to modify and delete existing study plan criteria. It should be possible to modify the same criteria which were possible to specify at the creation of a study plan criterion. If a student chooses to delete a study plan criterion he should confirm this choice before the actual deletion is executed.
4.2 Functional Requirements 51 Study Plan Elaboration
From a given study plan criterion the student should be able to request an elaboration of a study plan.
A study plan should be elaborated according to the guidelines described in section 4.2.6.
4.2.5 Study Plans
The system must allow the user to save any number of study plans and to assign a name to each individual study plan in order to facilitate identification of the study plan.
Presentation of a study plan should be as a list of courses (course number and course name) as well as projects grouped by study plan periods. The study plan period to which the courses or project belong must be clearly identified. Moreover, all courses shown must be linked to its associated description such that clicking a course will bring up the detailed description for the course.
The system should allow deletion of the study plans created by the user who is currently logged in. It should not be possible to edit study plans manually as this may violate the assumptions made for other study plan periods and thus introduce inconsistency in the study plan.
4.2.6 Study Plan Routine
The study plan routine should elaborate a study plan on the basis of a given study plan criterion. In the following is outlined the chief mode of operation of the study plan routine.
The routine should begin by generating a set of courses which matches the student’s interests i.e. the specified keywords. To this set must be added those courses explicitly desired by the student.
If any of the courses in the set are taught in a language or by a lecturer deselected by the student these courses should be removed from the set. Courses comprised by the student’s technical package (or the one selected) should be added to the set and if the student has desired to complete either a technical line or a specialization then the courses comprised hereby should be added to the set.
Those courses explicitly deselected by the student should be removed from the set. The same applies for those courses already finished by the student.
The set of courses should be distributed among the different periods in consideration of desired workload and possible parallel projects. The succession in which courses are arranged should be expedient by considering mandatory and possibly technical prerequisites.
If a course consists of multiple parts, the individual parts must be scheduled sequentially in ascending order in the first possible periods in which they are taught as mentioned in section 3.3.1.
The study plan should be elaborated such that it is primarily composed of courses from the technical package and from a possible specified technical line or specialization. The courses
explicitly selected are of secondary importance. Courses matching the student’s interests by means of keywords have of all lowest priority1.
The routine should – given a student’s identity – be able to compute how many credit points the student has achieved and has to achieve in order to complete his study. Having this information the routine has knowledge of how many credit points in the form of courses for which a study plan should be made.
The further particulars with regard to how the study plan routine should function is to be mapped out in close and current collaboration between the customer and the supplier.
4.2.7 Culture Versioning
The system shall support Danish and British cultures including the correct formatting of culture dependent fields such as dates, currencies, numbers, sort orders for strings&c.
For future use the system shall be able to cope with other European cultures.
4.2.8 Persistent Functionality
The system shall allow the user to perform the following functions anywhere in the system i.e. the functions must always be accessible:
• Switch to the home page.
• Log off the system.