FIT9131 Semester 2 2021 Assignment 2
18 September 2021 1
A Virtual Student Management System
Due Date: 10pm on Friday in Week 12 (22
nd Oct 2021)
Introduction
This assignment is worth 25% of the marks for your final assessment in this unit. Heavy penalties will apply
for late submission. This is an individual assignment and must be entirely your own work. You must
attribute the source of any part of your code which you have not written yourself. Please read the section on
plagiarism in this document. Your program will be checked with a code similarity detector. Please note the
section on plagiarism in this document.
The assignment must be done using the BlueJ environment. All user input to the system, and system output
to the user, must be done at the BlueJ terminal window. No other graphical interfaces are to be used (nor
assessed) in your program.
The Java source code for this assignment must be implemented according to the FIT9131 Java Coding
Standards.
Any points needing clarification should be discussed with your tutor in your lab classes. You should not
make any assumptions about the program without consulting your tutor.
Learning outcomes
1) Design, construct, test and document small computer programs using Java.
2) Interpret and demonstrate software engineering principles of maintainability, readability, and
modularisation.
3) Explain and apply the concepts of the “object-oriented” style of programming.
Specification
For this assignment you are required to write a program that implements a simple Virtual Student
Management System for a very small, fictional, school. This section specifies the required functionality of
the program. Only a simple text interface (using the BlueJ Terminal Window) is required for this
program; however, more marks will be gained for a program that is easy to follow with clear
information/error messages to the user.
The aim of the Virtual Student Management System is for an administrative user (the school’s enrolment
staff – NOT students) to maintain a database1 of the students enrolled in various subjects in this fictional
school. This school only offers 10 (ten) subjects, with various credit points allocated – see the list below for
details:
1 please note that in the context of this assignment, “database” refers to an in-memory data structure (e.g. a Java
Collection), and NOT a real database in the traditional sense (e.g. SQL).
FIT9131 Semester 2 2021 Assignment 2
18 September 2021 2
Subject Name Credit Point
Basket Weaving 3
Social Media 3
Rocket Science 3
English 4
Maths 4
Finance 4
Operating Systems 5
Cyber Security 5
Systems Design 5
Programming 6
Note: although only 10 subjects are offered now, the school would like to introduce more subjects in the
future – so you should not hardcode the above data into your program.
The aim of the system is to allow the staff to manage students, enrol them in subjects, and perform simple
reports.
Even though this program is functionally very different from the program you wrote in Assignment 1, you
should be able to re-use much of your previous code here – if you have designed the classes/logic in your
previous program properly. This is one of the major benefits of an object-oriented program – the ability to
re-use classes.
The Virtual Student Management System should provide the following features:
• maintains a list (using a Java Collection class) of Student objects
o each Student object represents a person who is allowed to enrol in the fictional school
• maintains a list of exactly 10 Subject objects (for now)
o each Subject object represents a subject (with a credit point allocated to it) which is
available in the fictional school
• enrols each student in multiple subjects (up to a maximum of 15 credit points)
• lists the details of an existing student
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• produces a report of students based on some criteria
• loads a list of students (with their enrolled subjects) from a text file
• saves the list of current students (with their enrolled subjects) to a text file
You are to demonstrate the following programming techniques in your program:
• reading/writing data from/to text files
• using appropriate Java Collection class or classes to store data (including embedded objects)
• manipulating the data in the collection(s)
• performing simple searches, filtered by some given criteria
• using program constructs such as repetitions & selections
• using appropriate classes to represent objects in the program
You are also required to produce a partial Test Strategy for your program.
FIT9131 Semester 2 2021 Assignment 2
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Program Logic
When the Virtual Student Management System starts, it should automatically load 2 text files:
• “students.txt” which contains details of all students currently stored in the system
• “subjects.txt” which contains details of all subjects currently stored in the system
The actual formats of these text files are described later in this document. The data loaded should be stored
in some appropriate data structures (the “databases” – stored in memory). No other reading from or writing
to file is required while the program is in operation, until the user chooses to exit, at which point the
program saves all the data in memory back to the same text file (students.txt) – the subjects data
does not need to be saved as it is not modified by this program (for now).
In other words, all the file I/O operations are performed automatically by the program, once at the start and
once at the end, and require no interactions with the user.
The system will also store the 10 Subjects in some appropriate data structures. Even though the school
currently only offers 10 subjects, you must design your program so that it is easy to add more subjects in the
future.
When the program is running, it should repeatedly display a main menu with these options:
(1) Add New Student
(2) Delete Student
(3) Suspend/Unsuspend Student
(4) Edit Student
(5) List Students by Subjects
(6) List Suspended Students
(7) List All Students
(8) Exit System
Option (1) allows the user to add a new student into the database. The user should be asked for the student’s
details, plus what subject(s) to “enrol” him/her in. Duplicate students (same name & ID) should be rejected.
• when entering subjects for the student, the subject names should be chosen from the list of known
subjects (as read in from the file)
Option (2) allows the user to remove an existing student from the database.
Option (3) allows the user to find an existing student in the database, and mark the student’s status as
appropriate.
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Option (4) allows the user to find an existing student in the database and edit his subject list (add or delete
subjects). The user should be asked to enter a name to search for. If there are more than one student with the
same name (but different IDs), the user should be asked to choose the correct one.
• when entering subjects for the student, the subject names should be chosen from the list of known
subjects (as read in from the file)
• only the subject list is editable in this option
Option (5) allows the user to display a list of students enrolled in a subject. The user should be asked for a
subject name; a list of all students (if any) enrolled in that subject should then be displayed. The user can
also specify multiple subject names, to list all students enrolled in all of the specified subjects (e.g. all
students enrolled in English AND Maths AND Programming). The output should not include suspended
students.
Option (6) allows the user to display a list of all students who have been suspended.
Option (7) allows the user to display a list of all students enrolled in the school.
Option (8) exits the program. All the students currently in memory are automatically saved to
“students.txt”.
Inputs other than 1-8 should be rejected, and an error message printed. The menu should be displayed
repeatedly, until the user chooses Option (8).
Additional Notes:
Both the main menu and the sub-menu must be displayed repeatedly after each menu operation, until the
user chooses the appropriate exit option. All invalid inputs (including non-numeric or other special
characters) should be rejected, and an error message printed.
If the user chooses Options (1) or (4) in the main menu, the subject name MUST be selected from a list
which came from the data read (at the start of the program) from subjects.txt.
Your program must deal in a sensible way with any invalid values entered by the user.
For all the user interactions, the inputs/outputs can be formatted in many different ways. Discuss with your
tutor regarding how you should implement these in your program.
Your user interface need not be exactly as shown in the examples shown above. However, you should
discuss with your tutor about what to include in your user interface. Keep it simple.
Important: see the Program Design section below for a description of what classes you need to
implement in your program. Failure to implement those required classes will cause loss of marks.
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Important Requirements
You should satisfy the following requirements when implementing your program:
• a Student object remembers the following data:
o name: String
▪must not be a blank string
▪must be only alphabetic
▪may contain multiple words
o ID: int
▪a 3-digit number between 111-999 (inclusive)
o suspended status: boolean
o subjects: a “database” of unique subjects
▪total number of credit points of the subjects must be <= 15
• a Subject object remembers the following data:
o name: a String
▪must not be a blank string
▪can be numeric/alphabetic
o credit points: int
▪a number between 1-6 (inclusive)
o Note: for this program, the “subjects” are read from a text file (“subjects.txt”), and are
not editable while the program is running.
• you may assume that the input data files are always in the correct formats (see below) – ie. there is
no need to validate the actual data when reading them in.
• all program operations must be applied to the in-memory data structures – there must not be
constant reading/writing to/from the data file, except once at the start (when the program loads all
data from the files) and once at the end (when the program saves all data back to the file, when it
exits).
• the program must not crash when accepting user inputs, regardless of what the user enters.
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• all student IDs are unique – if a student is already in the database, trying to add another with the
same ID again should generate an error.
• there is no limit to how many students can be enrolled.
• each student can enrol in multiple subjects – as long as the subjects’ total credit points do not exceed
15.
• all searches use exact matches (eg. “andy” will not match “andy cheng”); however, the search
strings are not case-sensitive (eg. “Sue Smith” is considered to be the same as “SUE smith”).
Input File Format
The first input data file (students.txt) has the following format for each line (note that there is no
empty space in between a word and a comma). Note that the number of fields on each line can be different –
the 4th field (shown in green below) onwards represent the multiple subjects the student can be enrolled in.
studentName,ID,suspendedStatus,subjectName1,subjectName2,…
(the fields are separated by commas)
A sample students.txt:
David Smith,111,true,Maths,Programming
Andy Cheng,333,true,Maths,Finance,Social Media
Susan Dally,123,false,English
Zak Whatever,199,true,Programming
Russell Crowe,222,true,Maths,Finance,Social Media,English
The second input data file (subjects.txt) has the following format for each line (note that there is no
empty space in between a word and a comma).
subjectName,creditPoints
(the fields are separated by commas)
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A sample subjects.txt:
Basket Weaving,3
Social Media,3
Rocket Science,3
English,4
Maths,4
Finance,4
Operating Systems,5
Cyber Security,5
Systems Design,5
Programming,6
You may assume:
• the strings which represent the various fields (studentName/subjectName/etc) do not contain
commas.
• this program does not provide the functionality to edit the subject list (i.e. use a text editor to edit
“subjects.txt” if you wish to modify the list). However, keep in mind that the school may want
to do this in future – so design your program so that this functionality can be easily added later.
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Program Design
Your program must demonstrate your understanding of the object-oriented concepts and general
programming constructs presented in FIT9131. Consider carefully your choice of classes, how they interact
with each other, and the implementations of the fields and methods of each class.
You must use appropriate data structures to store the various objects (see below) in the program. If you do
not understand what this means, ask your tutor now.
You must be able to justify the choice of the data structures during your interview. You must document any
additional assumptions you made.
Appropriate validations of values for fields and local variables should also be implemented. You should not
allow an object of a class to be initialized/set to an invalid state (ie. put some simple validations in your
mutator methods).
Discuss with your tutor what classes are appropriate, and how they interact with each other. The main
requirements are:
(1) the students must be implemented as objects, and they must be stored in some appropriate Java
Collections (e.g. an ArrayList of Student). The list of enrolled subjects for each student must also
be stored in a Java Collection.
(2) the subjects must be implemented as objects, and they must be stored in some appropriate Java
Collections (e.g. an ArrayList of Subject)
Your program must deal with invalid values entered by the user in a sensible manner. For instance, if a user
enters “abc” instead of a number for the menu options, your program should not crash.
Exception handling should be used where appropriate.
Your program must consist of at least these classes:
• School – main class, which contains the program’s main logic
• Student – represents a single student
• Subject – represents a single subject
• StudentDatabase – represents a list of students
• SubjectDatabase – represents a list of subjects
Any other appropriate classes (e.g. a Menu class) are to be discussed with your own tutor
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All on-screen input/output should be formatted in a user-friendly manner. Sensible error messages should be
displayed whenever appropriate (eg. when searching for a student who is not in the database, trying to enrol
student in a subject which does not exist, etc).
Test Strategy
For this assignment, you are required to produce a partial Test Strategy for the program.
There is no need to produce Test Strategy for any other classes you have used in your program.
You must provide a Test Plan, plus detailed sets of Test Data, Expected Results and Actual Results for the
Student class.
Assessment
Assessment for this assignment will be done via an interview with your tutor. The marks will be allocated as
follows:
• 10% – Test Strategy for the Student class.
• 35% – Java Code & Object-Oriented design quality. This will be assessed on appropriate
implementation of classes, fields, constructors, methods, and validations of the objects’ states.
• 55% – Program Functionality in accordance with the requirements.
You must submit your work by the submission deadline (a late penalty of 10% per day, inclusive of
weekends, of the possible marks will apply – up to a maximum of 100%). There will be no extensions – so
start working on it early.
Marks will be deducted for incomplete/untidy submissions, and non-conformances to the FIT9131 Java
Coding Standards.
All submitted source code must compile. Any submission that does not compile, as submitted, will receive a
grade of‘N’.
Your Test Strategy will be only for one class – the Student class.
Note: The description of the program’s logic/design is purposely left vague, to give you some room to
exercise your own design and creativity. For instance, you need to decide how to accept the users’
inputs for Options (2), (3), (4) & (5) – an intuitive and easy-to-use user interface will score more marks
than a difficult-to-use one. Discuss with your tutor about what/how to implement.
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Interview
You will be asked to demonstrate your program at an “interview” following the submission date. At the
interview you can also expect to be asked to explain your code/design, modify your code, and discuss your
design decisions and alternatives. Marks will not be awarded for any section of code or functionality that a
student cannot explain satisfactorily (the marker may also delete excessive in-code comments before you are
asked to explain that code).
In other words, you will be assessed on your understanding of the code, and not on the actual code itself.
The interviews will be arranged during week 12 and will take place online via Zoom or other video facility
after that week. You must have audio and video available and operating during the interview. It is your
responsibility to make yourself available for an interview time and ensure that you have the audio and video
capabilities. Any student who does not attend an interview will receive a mark of 0 for the assignment.
The actual interviews will take place in Week 13.
Submission Requirements
The assignment must be uploaded to Moodle on or before the due date. The link to upload the assignment
will be made available in the Assignments section of the unit’s Moodle site before the submission deadline.
The submission requirements are as follows:
A ZIP file uploaded to Moodle containing the following components:
• the BlueJ project you created to implement your assignment. The ZIP file should be named with your
Student ID Number. For example, if your id is 12345678, then the file should be named
12345678_A2.zip. Do not name your file any other way.
• it is your responsibility to check that your ZIP file contains all the correct files, and is not corrupted,
before you submit it. If you tutor cannot open your zip file, or if it does not contain the correct files,
you will not be assessed.
• an MS Word document containing your Test Strategy for the Student class. (Note: The JUnit facility in
BlueJ is NOT to be used for this assignment)
• there is no need to submit a physical Assignment Cover Sheet – you will be asked to accept an online
submission statement when you submit the assignment.
Marks will be deducted for failure to comply with any of these requirements.
Warning: there will be no extensions to the due date. Any late submission will incur the 10% per day
penalty. It is strongly suggested that you submit the assignment well before the deadline, in case there
are some unexpected complications on the day (e.g. interruptions to your home internet connection).
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Plagiarism
Cheating and plagiarism are viewed as serious offences. In cases where cheating has been confirmed,
students have been severely penalised, from losing all marks for an assignment, to facing disciplinary action
at the Faculty level. Monash has several policies in relation to these offences and it is your responsibility to
acquaint yourself with these.
Monash Plagiarism Policy: (https://www.monash.edu/studen…).