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ITECH1100 Understanding the Digital Revolution
Assignment 1 - Book Basement
Overview
For this individual assignment, you will use skills acquired through practical laboratory exercises to
automate a business process, and to visualize the impact of the automation.
You should use Microsoft Excel (or equivalent open-source software) for this assessment task.
Important: This assignment specification is generated just for you. Do not distribute this specification.
Timelines and Expectations
Percentage value of task: 20%
Due: Sunday, Week 6, 16:00 (See Course Description for date)
Learning Outcomes Assessed
The following course learning outcomes are assessed by completing this assessment:
A1. Prepare a basic solution to a business problem;
A2. Select appropriate IT solutions for business functions;
A3. Apply business information software for data visualization and analysis purposes.
S1. Write basic programming logic;
S3. Interpret and construct representations of business data flow and processes;
K8. Outline the basic principles of programming.
Assessment Details
Book Basement is a small second-hand book shop, run by a team of three staff members: April, Bertha, and
Celeste.
For this assignment, you will complete the following set of tasks using Excel, and build an ePortfolio page to
describe your work.
Task 0 - Setting up
Create an ePortfolio page for your assignment. You will submit this page to Moodle as per the lab tasks.
You may call it whatever you like, for example ITECH1100 Assignment 1 - 30350730.
Hours of operation
Most of the time, each team member works separate shifts:
April works 9:00 AM to 12:30 PM, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday;
Bertha works 9:00 AM to 12:30 PM, Thursday, Friday and Saturday; and
Celeste works 12:30 PM to 5:30 PM, Monday to Friday.
The shop runs from 9:00 AM to 5:30 PM each day, except Saturday when it closes at 12:30. It is closed
entirely on Sundays.
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Costs
April and Bertha are the semi-retired co-owners of the bookshop, and do not take a salary.
Celeste, however, is a part-time employee, with total employment costs of $22 per hour. Celeste is also
entitled to four weeks of paid annual leave, during which a casual replacement is required at a cost of $33
per hour.
Fixed costs such as rent and insurance are $2900 per year, and utilities costs are $140 per month.
Task 1 - Costs of operating the business
Using Excel, create a spreadsheet called operating_costs.xlsx that calculates the projected annual outgoing
costs of running Book Basement.
Your spreadsheet should be configured such that the working hours, hourly rates, and fixed and utility costs
can be varied easily.
Document your findings in your ePortfolio page (approximately 100 words).
Obtaining Books
Throughout the day, customers come to Book Basement to buy books, and occasionally to sell them.
When people bring in books to sell to Book Basement, the staff member on duty will review the books and
make an offer for each one individually.
Currently, the process for determining how much the book shop will pay for a book is entirely subjective.
Staff members offer an amount per book based on the quality of the book, and how popular they think it is,
and how they are feeling at the time.
The sale amount is always simply double the amount paid and is set at the same time - if Book Basement
pays $3.00 for a book, they will put it on sale with a marked price of $6.00.
(Book Basement does not deal in rare or antique books)
For several months, staff have been keeping track of the date and time, quality, publication year and
amount paid for each book in a spreadsheet. This spreadsheet is available for download on Moodle.
Task 2 - Sales team offers
Using Excel, process the history of purchases spreadsheet and use appropriate charts to visualize:
How the prices paid differed for each staff member; and
How the prices paid have changed over time
Describe your findings in your ePortfolio (approximately 250 words), and attach the Excel file to your page.
Process automation
April and Bertha want to improve the consistency of how they pay for and price books.
They'd like to standardize on three standard price offers, and have designed the following process to
determine how to allocate them, including the option of rejecting the book altogether.
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The staff have already agreed on how to determine whether a book is terrible, poor, or good.
Book purchase
Customer
Book offered Done
Evaluate offer
Book shop
Assess
quality Reject
Terrible
Assess
publication date
Offer
low price
Poor
Good
Older than
15 years
Offer medium
price
Check is
hardcover
15 years
or newer
Paperback
Offer high price
Hardcover
Task 3 - Automation
Using Excel, create a spreadsheet page that automates the above process, allowing a member of the team
to enter whether the book is hardcover, its publication year, and its condition, and receive a price to offer.
Ensure that you include enough text and formatting to make your spreadsheet usable by a member of the
Book Basement team, or by a University lecturer.
Your spreadsheet should be configured such that the Low, Medium and High prices can be varied easily.
Describe how you automated the process (approx 150 words), and attach your Excel file to your ePortfolio.
Task 4 - Price setting
Using Excel and the historical data you have available, determine sets of prices which meet the objectives
of the following scenarios:
Scenario one: Total offer prices are approximately the same as for the historical data
Scenario two: Assuming all books purchased are sold, allow all staff to draw the same wage as
Celeste.
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Describe the strategy you used to find appropriate prices for each scenario (approximately 150 words).
Ensure that the Low price is less than the Medium price, and both are less than the High price.
Bonus challenge task (optional!)
Disclaimer: This task is 100% optional, and you can receive full marks without attempting or completing it.
It is intended to be a challenge if you are interested in such things, and the marks available do not reflect
the significant research and effort required to implement it correctly. Tutors will not provide significant
assistance for this challenge task.
Optional task 5
Reimplement Task 1 and Task 3 using either Python or HTML+JavaScript.
Write a brief overview of how to run your solution, and attach a zip file containing your code to your
ePortfolio page.
There are no partial marks awarded for this bonus task - you must complete all features to attain the
bonus marks.
It is possible to attain full marks for this assignment without completing this challenge task.
Further details
Assignment support
This assignment is supported by the first 6 lectures and labs. Work on the assignment should be spread
over several weeks after the relevant lab has been mastered.
Submission
All files should be submitted to Moodle by the due date and time. Check with your tutor as to whether a
hard copy is required in addition to the electronic submission.
Marking Criteria/Rubric
Refer to the attached marking guide.
Feedback
Feedback will be supplied through Moodle. Authoritative marks will be published through fdlMarks
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is the presentation of the expressed thought or work of another person as though it is one's own
without properly acknowledging that person. You must not allow other students to copy your work and must
take care to safeguard against this happening. More information about the plagiarism policy and procedure
for the university can be found at
http://federation.edu.au/students/learning-and-study/online-help-with/plagiarism.
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Marking Guide: Assignment 1
Feature Criteria Maximum Obtained
Operating costs
Appropriate projection calculation 2
Configurable hours, rates, fixed annual and monthly
costs 2
Description of findings 1
Uses hand-calculated values (-1)
Sales team offers
Visualization of prices offered per staff member 2
Visualization of change in prices over time 2
Description of findings 1
Automation
Spreadsheet accurately models the BPMN process 4
Description of automation 1
Unclear instructions (-1)
Price setting
Appropriate Low, Medium and High prices for scenario
1 2
Appropriate Low, Medium and High prices for scenario
2 2
Description of strategy 1
Bonus optional
challenge task
Faithful reimplementation of tasks 1 and 3 using
Python or HTML+JavaScript (+2)
Total: 20