Failed SCEA- II, desparately need help

[Andrew Nicolai]

Hello all,

I was shocked to find my results yesterday where I found that I had failed SCEA - II .

I had a break up of 39 for class, 21 for component and 9 for sequence diagrams. I failed by 1 mark!!

I just cant figure it out. What could I have done so terribly wrong in my component diagrams to lose 23 marks! My component diagrams were exact Cade and Roberts style.

I have a hunch it was because I represented the "components" using 1.X UML style with the prongs in the side.

Please saloon mates, I need your expert advice.

[Bil Bob]

so i take it u did lots of component diagrams then? many went for just one.

did u include too much info maybe? or not enough?

My component diagram was rather large but just one doc...my class diagram was also pretty big.

did it all relate perfectly to the other sections/diagrams?

[Ajith Kallambella]

Too much details is unlikely the reason for taking away the marks. My guesses are too little detail or vague representations. Without seeing exactly what you submitted, it is impossible to point out the mistakes and without knowing the mistakes, it is very hard to give advice. But here are some things that can improve your chance of success.

Get your diagrams peer reviewed by a colleague or friend. Show them the problem description, your use cases and then have them look at your diagrams. This will help you assess the clarity of your design. Also ask them if the diagrams are cluttered with too much details. Incorporate their feedback.

Check your level of compliance with UML syntax. Focus on the basics first without getting carried away with all the cool things. Classes, messages, stereotypes, interfaces, singletons, actors, packages are some of the things that you ought to get right. Stay away from rarely used esoteric UML representations.

Ensure J2EE compliance. Stay away from third party tools such as Struts, Hibernate etc. At the design and architecture level, you can safely abstract these components using more general description such as MVC framework, Persistence layer etc.

Ask yourself if you have completely covered all the usecases.

Ask yourself if you have packaged your final submission exactly as described by Sun. If you deviated from the required format, it is likely to tick-off the evaluator and can have unpleasant side effects on the overall evaluation.

You have lost a lot of marks in Component diagrams. That is one area where you definitely need to improve your skills. Scout the web for more examples.

Good luck.

[Andrew Nicolai]

Originally posted by Ajith Kallambella:
[QB]Too much details is unlikely the reason for taking away the marks. My guesses are too little detail or vague representations. Without seeing exactly what you submitted, it is impossible to point out the mistakes and without knowing the mistakes, it is very hard to give advice. But here are some things that can improve your chance of success.

Thanks Ajith.

Some details...
I had just one component diagram, laying out all my jsps, the controllers, the service locator, the facade and the DAOs. I had no packages in my diagram. Could that be the reason? I am not very sure. The diagrams were UML 1.5 compliant.

Assuming a normal J2EE application using JSPs, controllers, facades and DAOS how would you go about organizing them into components? More specifically I am beggining to assume that I lost marks because I did not arrange them into packages.

[Andrew Nicolai]

Originally posted by Bil Bob:
so i take it u did lots of component diagrams then? many went for just one.

I went for just one, Bill.

did u include too much info maybe? or not enough?
I dunno, I put in all my JSPs, the facades, the service locators and the DAOs. You tell me.

My component diagram was rather large but just one doc...my class diagram was also pretty big.

did it all relate perfectly to the other sections/diagrams?

I think so!

[shanthi kumar]

Also, Make sure all the requirements are satisfied and if you made any assumptions clearley document them.

I really don't think you lose so much for marks just for arrangement of component daigram even though it helps to present better

Validate your class diagram and component diagram against the requirment and make sure it is complaint to UML standards

Good Luck

Shanthi
SCEA