Applied Coursework Guidance

Unit 2c&d – How ICT systems are designed and implemented

You must learn how to design and implement an ICT system. To do this you must:

• Identify the user requirements
• produce a design specification, including specifying information sources, input, process and output requirements, and the types of application software needed
• Implement the system
• Test the system under a range of conditions
•  Produce user documentation for the system
• Evaluate the design and implementation of the system, by checking against user requirements, and making any necessary modifications and improvements.

The flow of information in an organisation can be represented using dataflow diagrams. These diagrams are often used when considering how an ICT system could solve an information processing problem in an organisation.

You must learn how to produce simple dataflow diagrams to give an overview of an ICT system.

Having investigated and understood the use of ICT in a range of organisations, you must be able to design and produce an ICT system for a given situation. The system might replace and update an existing ICT system, or it might replace an overloaded manual system.