Practice Module for Graduate Certificate in Designing Modern Software Systems

Objectives

The objective of this practice module is twofold:

• Firstly, to expose participants to real world problems where the skills learned during the individual course modules can be applied to arrive at a feasible solution. This will be done in a supervised manner, so that the students will be able to tap on expert advice and guidance when needed.
• Secondly, to enable participants to demonstrate their proficiency across all of the skills that they have learned in the course modules and hence obtain a grade at the graduate certificate level.

Intended Audience

This practice module is targeted at participants who wish to complete the certification process for the graduate certificate in Designing Modern Software Systems. They should generally have:

• Preferably two years relevant working experience as a software engineer (e.g. programmer, designer, technical team lead).
• Familiarity with object-oriented concepts and at least one object-oriented programming language

Prerequisites

Participants must have successfully completed (or in the progress of completing or have been exempted from) all the four course modules of the graduate certificate in Designing Modern Software Systems.

Components

There is one part to the practice Module.

1. Practice Project Participants will need to undertake one or more projects to gain practical experience and demonstrate their understanding and mastery of the skills taught in the four component courses. The practice project will require each participant to expend an estimated 10 man-days of effort. These days are not expected to be contiguous and may stretch over many weeks. These projects are conducted in teams.

The overall grade for the participant will be based on the practice project.

Typical Example of Projects to be Undertaken

1. Problem description:

YAFD, Yet Another Food Delivery, is a food delivery company aspiring to differentiate itself with innovative and equitable incentive schemes for the consumers, riders and merchants. The following are some initial ideas on the features for the software system:

• Management of consumers, riders and merchants.
• Ordering of food items for consumers.
• Preparation of food items for merchants.
• Picking up and delivery of food items for riders.
• Incentive schemes for consumers, riders and merchants.
• Ratings and feedbacks on consumers, riders and merchants.
• Recommendation of food items to consumers based on their individual preferences.

As the in-house software development team is not skilled in the latest technology trends like microservices, API and cloud native solutioning, the CTO of YAFD is conservative with the development strategy and is fine with the following technology and design choices:

• Client/server architecture without API.
• Web-based frontends.
• Monolithic backend with a relational database.
• Minimal application and infrastructural security.
• Emphasis on robustness, reusability, maintainability and extensibility of software design and implementation.
• Dispense with scalability consideration given the aim to use the system as a proof of concept.
• Automation of DevSecOps practices including unit testing, containerization, etc.

Deliverables and success criteria:

• Crisp and readable presentation slides with good flow.
• Agile process artifacts like product backlog, user stories, sprint plans, burndown charts, sprint reviews and sprint retrospectives.
• High-level design specification capturing the software architecture, in particular the transition strategies from analysis to design.
• Detailed analysis and design specifications for the user stories (or use cases) in scope.
• Detailed discussion on the design problems solved by applying design patterns.
• Well structured source code with unit test cases for classes with more complex behaviours.
• Design specification of the DevOps pipelines along with the use of appropriate tools with minimal security considerations.

Application (For Stackable Students)

• Participants are only allowed to take the practice module after completing all courses in the Grad Cert.
• Participants who wish to take the practice module concurrently in the same semester with the courses in the same Grad Cert must write to ask-iss@nus.edu.sg citing reasons by the application deadline. Email requests received after the deadline will not be considered. Requests will be reviewed after the deadline and approved on a case-by-case basis.
• Participants who miss the application window will have to apply for the practice module in the next semester.
• Participants who do not attend the briefing will be withdrawn from the practice module.