ONLINE EXAM :- CASE STUDY FOR PROJECT MANAGEMENT

University decides to conduct online examination for all courses. You are told to write software for the same. Considering this as a project, answer the following. 1. Define scope of a project. 2. Conduct feasibility study. 3. Perform Cost-Benefit / Economic analysis. 4. What are the problems expected in the project? How they can be resolved? 5. Which Organizational Structure is to be followed and why? 6. What is risk factor in the project. ANSWER :1. Scope of a project :This application should provide facility to conduct online examination city wise. It saves time as it allows number of students to give the exam at a time and displays the results as the test gets over, so no need to wait for the result. It will be automatically generated by the server. Administrator has a privilege papers and its particular questions. to create, modify and delete the test

User can register, login and give the test with his specific id, and can see the results as well. To develop above software following work scope should be carried out. Identity the numbers of courses run by the university. Understand the Nature of Various courses like maximum credits gained by the course, duration, pattern of exam (annual or semester) etc. Different subjects and marks for them involved in these courses. The paper patterns of various exams. 2. Feasibility Study It is needed to check that whether such kind of project is viable or not? Is it possible to computerize the entire process of online exam? Or up to what extent it is possible? Is it possible to accommodate all types of examination patterns in this software or not? It is possible to check the answers immediately after submission of the exam? Is it possible to generate the result instantly? Is it possible to generate the certificate for the student immediately as soon as he/she passes the exam? Such type of feasibility study can be conducted to check the possibility of developing the software application. It is also needed to check for technical feasibility. This software will be web based but in order to develop this software which technology is to be used? What is the software platform required? What is the hardware required for this and what is operating system required? We need to check which softwares are free wares so that cost can be reduced. We need to analyze Which technology is beneficial and according to that we can take decision.

3. Cost Benefit analysis :If software is to be developed for online examination then we need a team of professional developers in the specific technology we have selected. We need to pay the remuneration to them as direct cost. Other indirect cost are also involved in the project development like Electricity bill, Security charges etc. This is one time cost. Once the software is developed it is possible for university to conduct online examination for all colleges at a time. It will reduce paperwork, communication time. Also it will bring the accuracy in the work. It is possible to declare the result immediately without wasting a much time. So it is beneficial to develop the software.
4. Problems Expected in the project.

As the software is to be developed for various courses, the user requirement gathering time will be more. And as the numbers of people are to be communicated, the communication time will be larger. The above problem can be resolved by conducting interview sessions for different people working at different levels. The questionnaire can be distributed to collect the information regarding the exam process. As the scope of the project is vast, it may take more time to complete. So longer duration is a problem. This problem can be resolved by appointing skilled and experience people in the educational area. So that development time will be reduced. As the online exam is conducted for various courses then the software complexity can be large. Because it involves number of different rules and regulations for various exams. This problem can be resolved by breaking the work in different modules and allocating separate teams to these modules. 5. Organizational structure needed:Here Matrix organizational Structure should be followed because this project requires information from people who are working in various departments of the university as well as in the exam department. The different people from different departments and the software development team will work together througut the development process. 6. Risk factors in the project :As the online examination is conducted using computers, it becomes mandatory for all the students to know how to handle computer and software. Another risk is cuts in power supply. This risk can be mitigated by providing a generator backup and UPS. Another risk is associated with web server where the database is present, can be hacked. Another risk is internet connection may get disconnected during the exam. This risk can be mitigated by providing an alternate internet connection. Or there must be some process (Predefined) which will recover the entire session for the student. *******