The final taught module. This ones about, as the title suggests, collecting requirements. In my experience its something that is really tricky.

Users (or more correctly stakeholders) are great at saying what they DONT want but naff at explaining what they do. And everyone wants to “get started” and “see progress” without being clear where they are going or why. So hopefully this course will offer some techniques and methods to control this early and critical phase of development.

Its got a group component, collaborating via a wiki which I’m not terribly happy about. My past experience of group work is that you get marked at the weakest member, so I’ll have to make sure my contributions are important and noticed.

15-jun-09 TMA01has come back at 71% which is a tad disappointing. I’d disagree with some of the tutors markings, but in the end it’s their opinion that counts. Mostly it’s stuff where I think I covered the required points wanted, or something trivial and picky.

24-aug-09 TMA02 came back at the slightly better 79% . I’d had to grab an extension of a few days (first time ever) because the amount of work needed for the assignment was more than I’d allowed myself. The portions involving group work on the wiki came back well which was nice as it was hard to extract any meaningful commentry out of the work. Must try and start the next TMA a lot earlier.

5-oct-09 So starting the final TMA earlier has made some difference, it’s just come back at 86% which is nice. Still think some of my answers have covered the wanted points judging by the model answers supplied, but that’s the nature of marking. You don’t make the call :( Still it means overall marks will go up nicely (not all TMAs are evenly weighted) and I’m happy enough. Onwards with revision for the exam on the 19th oct.

19-oct-09 Well the exam went OK(ish). A bit out of time by the end and got a bit scribbly so some marks lost there. As usual I felt that I understood far more about the topic than the questions allowed, but that you get the marks not for demonstrating understanding but for the pat little sentence answer from the course materials. A pass but not expecting too much as I’m not great at pat answers! Exam results due around 19th December.

Overall the course has been frustrating on several counts. The course seems to boil down to memorizing the set answers to set questions on a set book rather than really understanding.

14-dec-09 Results back, final exam score very much as I’d guessed. Just glad to get the thing out the way really :)