UNIVERSITY EXAMINATIONS: 2011/2012
SECOND YEAR EXAMINATION FOR THE BACHELOR OF
SCIENCE IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
BIT 2106 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING PRINCIPLES
DATE: AUGUST, 2012 TIME: 2 HOURS
INSTRUCTIONS: Answer Question ONE and any other TWO
QUESTION ONE
a) Define the term software engineering methods stating what it constitutes. (4 Marks)
b) Describe the following software product requirements (4 Marks)
i. Security
ii. Safety
c) Software change is inevitable. Describe using example four sources of change in
software. (4 Marks)
d) Suppose that you are carrying out the software validation activity. Differentiate
between the following activities, explaining when each takes place and its
importance. Use examples where applicable.
i. Verification and Validation (4 Marks)
ii. Static verification and dynamic verification (4 Marks)
e) Read the following scenario and answer the questions that follow.
The University of Nairobi requires a new library system to be called UONLIBSYS.
You and assigned the responsibility to establish the systems requirements for
UONLIBSYS using the viewpoint technique.
Required:
i. What do you understand by the term “requirement engineering” (2 Marks)
ii. Giving examples, describe the various viewpoints that must be included in the
UONLIBSYS requirement.
(8 Marks)
QUESTION TWO
a) Describe four types of software maintenance. (8 Marks)
b) Assume that you are a system analyst and charged with the assignment of
requirements validation. Answer the following questions that follow:
i. Explain what you understand by the term requirements validation. (2 Marks)
ii. Why do you think that requirement validation is important? (2 Marks)
iii. Describe the various requirement checks that you would put in place to complete
your assignment. (4 Marks)
c) Poor user interface design is the reason why so many software systems are never
used. State and explain four human factors that you would take into consideration
when designing a user interface. (4 Marks)
QUESTION THREE
a) Define a critical systems (2 Marks)
b) Describe three types of critical systems (6 Marks)
c) Differentiate between product and process quality emphasising on the importance
of each. (4 Marks)
d) State and explain two products metrics as well as two process metrics. (4 Marks)
e) Software development process yield very many documents. Therefore there must
be some standards defined for these documents. E.g. ISO and IEEE. Discuss four
documents standards that are meant to improve on quality of software documents.
(4 Marks)
QUESTION FOUR
a) Define software productivity. (2 Marks)
b) Discuss three measures of productivity in software development stating their
advantages and disadvantages. (6 Marks)
c) Describe the software testing process phases stating who is responsible in each
phase. (6 Marks)
i. Component testing
ii. System testing
d) Differentiate between black box testing from white box testing (4 Marks)
QUESTION FIVE
a) 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. (12 Marks)
b) Describe what a distributed system is. (3 Marks)
c) Discuss five benefits that accrue from designing a system following the
distributed system approach. (5 Marks)
