UNIVERSITY EXAMINATIONS: 2020/2021
EXAMINATION FOR THE DEGREES OF BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN
APPLIED COMPUTING/ BACHELOR OF INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY/BACHELOR OF SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT/BACHELOR
OF INFORMATION SECURITY AND FORENSICS
BAC/BSD 2103/ BIT 2106/ /BISF 1306: SOFTWARE ENGINEERING PRINCIPLES
FULLTIME/ PART TIME/DISTANCE LEARNING
DATE: DECEMBER, 2021 TIME: 2 HOURS
INSTRUCTIONS: QUESTION ONE IS COMPULSORY, CHOOSE TWO OTHER
QUESTIONS
QUESTION ONE (20 Marks) Compulsory
a) You are a systems engineer involved in the development of an inventory management
system. During installation you discover that this system will make a significant number
of people redundant. The people in the environment deny you access to essential
information to complete the system installation.
i) To what extent should you, as a system engineer, become involved in making a
decision on an implementation that will make the workers redundant?
(4 Marks)
ii) What is your professional responsibility as contracted software engineer?
(8 Marks)
iii) Should you simply abandon the work until the procuring organization has sorted out
the problem? Justify your answer.
(3 Marks)
b) Assuming that you are designing a Banking Information System. You and your team are
debating between two design approaches: Distributed System Vs Centralized System. Your
team is insisting on the centralized approach but you are favouring the Distributed System.
You need to convince them on the benefits of designing the system using the distributed
approach. Describe five points that you would put across.
(5 Marks)
QUESTION TWO (15 Marks)
a) Elegant Software Solutions has been employing the Build-And-Fix approach to software
development for the past 3 years. This has resulted several lawsuits for late delivery and
poor quality software. To address this issue, senior management has hired you as a quality
assessment consultant. Explain the source of the problem and document alternative
software development strategies. The proposed strategy must be fully explained, giving
any inherent advantages and disadvantages.
(8 Marks)
b) A well-conceived and executed safety case is a key element in bringing a safety critical
system into use. Using an appropriate example formulate a safety case for a safety critical
system
(7 Marks)
QUESTION THREE (15 Marks)
a) Define the following terms
i) Software (1 Mark)
ii) Software engineering (2 Marks)
iii) Software process (2 Marks)
b) Architectural design is the design process for identifying the sub-systems making up a
system and the framework for sub-system control and communication. Using examples
and diagrams describe the two styles of control in a distributed system.
(10 Marks)
QUESTION FOUR (15 Marks)
a) Using a clearly labelled diagram describe the Component-Based Software Engineering
process of developing software, stating two advantages and two disadvantages of the
process.
(9 Marks)
b) State and explain three types of interfaces that may be defined during the interface
specification activity. (6 Marks)
