Applied ICT A Level Unit 3 - Database Design
Part 7 - Evaluating
The final things to do are to evaluate your work and to check that you've got everything evidenced (not just done it, but evidenced it!)
I'd suggest getting a copy of the markscheme and going through it section by section. Use the checklist page to help you do this. You can get a markscheme from the AQA Applied ICT area
or from school in shared documents (or, what the heck, e-mail me and I'll send you a copy!).
You should already have a set of evaluation criteria which you've tested. Don't forget to include the evidence of the tests as a set of screenshots. You may want to think about a screenshot library.
Overall Evaluation - AO4 row 4:
You need to start by evaluating your solution:
- does it work?
- does it meet all of the client needs?
- does it do these things effectively and professionally?
- has the client seen the system and it's outputs - what do they think?
- is the system easy to use?
Once you've done this, you can identify strengths, weaknesses and areas for improvements (I'd strongly suggest clear sub-headings for this).
Be realistic in these. I doubt your work is fantastic and I doubt it's awful either. There are probably things that worked well and things that you might have done better. Here are some examples:
- files were backed up regularly and so no work was lost (S)
- reports were produced which include all the right information on them (S)
- all the calculations which were tested were right the first time (S)
- the client wasn't very clear about what they wanted and when you showed it to them they made lots of other suggestions (W)
- you weren't sure what sorts of queries were needed to produce the reports so you might have had to kept on deleting and recreating queries (W)
- the wrong data type was originally used for some fields and then needed to be changed (W)
Make you you deal with the strengths and weaknesses in clearly seperate sections!
You then need to develop a set of areas for improvement. Hopefully these come out of the evaluation, the testing and showing your database and it's outputs to the client. This is a really important aspect. Ideally you want your client to "sign off" your work and make some comments on print outs of the reports and forms.
For the final mark you need to have acted on some of the areas for improvement - this means you need to have made some improvements based on the feedback from your client and your evaluations.
Here's the markgrid for AO4 row 4:
Time Management - AO4 row 2:
Make sure you go back to your timeplan and check you have it all filled in with plenty of detail. In particular I want to know whether you've met deadlines or not and have fully explained any deadlines which weren't hit.
These are easy marks to get if you put the detail in.
Managing your work - AO1 row 6:
These are easy marks as well. You need to show things like:
- sensible names for tables, queries, reports, forms and so on
- sensible filenames - including for the documentation (i.e. word processed files)
- saving multiple versions of your database with version numbers
- making backups regularly
- using appropriate storage - so keeping a backup on a memory stick, using a sensible folder structure etc...
One of the key points is actually having backed up using suitable file names - e.g. dBPainters version 1 etc...
For the third mark (check the markgrid back on the planning page) you need to have explained why you've done all this - showing, for example, that you understand about things like the importance of using standardised naming conventions in case someone else has to try to use your database at any point in the future.
Odds and Ends:
Make sure you've told the story of the work - AO4 row 1. This should be covered by your implementation section, but it would be worth reading it through and checking that you've done that. Note that for the third mark you need to be clear about what you have done and why you've done it.
There are two marks for using technical terms and structuring your work with half decent spelling, punctuation and so on (these are AO4 row 6). Technical terms being used effectively are the key to getting these.