Lost student needs direction on assignment!

**jsteudl** · 08-05-2010

This is going to sound stupid but my wonderful online university AIU has thrown me into an advanced programming course as my introduction to programming. I have no prior experience and need some help. The following assignment was written for the course when it was a Java course, Data Structures and Implementation. Our course materials, text-book, and live chats with the professor offer us nothing to solve the following problem. The text book we were given is Data Structures and Algorithms in C#. I cannot find anything in there to help me solve the problem. I have recently purchase the Microsoft book Visual C# 2010 and have 2010 Express installed on my computer. If someone would be as nice to look at the problem and point me in the right direction as far as which data structure I should, what abstract data type if any and methodologies I should or could use it would be greatly appreciates as I am struggling to stay on the Dean’s list.
Your group has been hired as a contract developer group by the Saginaw Research Group (SRG) to design a software application to help work with the group's research data. SRG collects the results of marketing surveys and produces a variety of reports for its clients.
•The surveys consist of a series of multiple choice questions.
•The surveys are presented on the SRG Web site.
•The survey application must be able to store the survey questions and results in memory on the Web server.
•The surveys are grouped into a collection of survey groups that include client information and a variety of statistical results for the survey (each statistical result is represented by a title and single floating point number).
•SRG needs to track the status of surveys.
•The surveys are provided on the SRG Web site one at a time, in first-come, first-served order, and the status includes position in the waiting line and identification of the survey.
Group Portion (70% of grade):
Your group needs to create an 8−10-page project design document that includes the following:
•Title page including course name, project name, student names, and date
•Analysis:
•Design of the data structures and algorithms to support the situation
•Description of the design of the data structures mapped against the requirements of the application
•Rationale for the choice of data structures with attention to efficient use of system resources
•Justification of your choices based on effective use of system resources and suitability to the task
•Review of the functions or methods included to support the manipulation of the data through the data structures provided in the design
•Source code:
•Your group does not have to write a complete application, but sufficient code should be provided to demonstrate the implementation as described.
•Include Java implementation of the data structures and functions/methods to support the necessary functionality:
•Structures must all have variable declarations to support at least 1 instance of the structure.
•Structures must all be initialized with sample data using appropriate methods (e.g., insert()).
•Structures must all be used by at least 2 methods or functions in the application. If the structure is implemented as a class, then the class must include at least 2 methods for manipulating the structure.
•Note: Your code does not have to have any user interaction. It must only demonstrate code that would achieve the implementation requirements listed above.
•Include in-code comments describing the major parts of the implementation, specifically pointing out the required implementation points above.
Any advice or suggestions as how to tackle this problem would be most greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance.
John S.

**thefeedinghand** · 08-05-2010

I think it's all pretty clear in the specs...

**jsteudl** · 08-05-2010

The problem is no one in my class has previous programming experience and I have no clue what data structure to use to store the survey. This is the part that has me perplexed.

This might explain the situation as to how this situation happened.

Dear Students,

I am Dr. Ike Okonkwo. I am one of the two lead faculties in the School of Information Technology. The purpose of this email is let you know that we are currently working to rectify all identified ITCO321 issues. We were informed by your instructor that some ITCO321 assignment calls for coding with Java Programming Language but the textbook that was provided for the course is a Microsoft C# Programming Language textbook.

Contrary to what some of the students might think, Data Structure actually involves coding or programming. In computing, data structure deals with the organization of information, usually in memory, for better algorithmic efficiency using techniques such as queue, stack, linked list, heap, dictionary, and tree, etc. For the preceding explanation, it is clear that some coding is required in a Data Structures course.
Your instructor devised a temporary measure that will allow the students to complete their assignments. He changed the assignment and provided links to C# codes that students only need to copy, paste, and execute. The instructor actually informed the Program Chair and the Lead Faculties about this. We agree with these temporary measures because that was the way to move forward.

Going forward, we must ensure that the textbook used for the course is the right textbook before a session starts. We will work with the admissions to ensure that all the students who are registering for ITCO321 have the right pre-requisite for the course and have knowledge of basic computer programming. We will continue to ensure that our instructors will continue to provide the best services that they can to all our students.

What I stated above can be summarized as follows:

1) Yes, this is a programming class;
2) No, there are no prerequisites at this point;
3) The assignment changes were sanctioned by the department;
4) We are working to ensure text and assignments match for future courses;
5) You should continue to work with the instructor

Accept my sincere apologies for all inconveniences that you may have experienced so far.

Thanks.

Sincerely,

Dr. Ike Okonkwo - IT Lead Faculty

The only things we have covered in class are Arrays and ArrayLists, Basic Searching and Sorting Algorithims, Stacks and Queues, The BitArray, Strings, the String Class and StringBuilder Class, Trees, and Graphs. We have been given a book that expalins what they are but now how to use them.

If you could point me to the right data structure that meets this requirement I think I can figure out the insert and sort.

Thanks!
John S.

**C_ntua** · 08-08-2010

Use classes. Have some sub-classes and have a main class as well.
For example, if you want to design a multiple choice question as a data structure using a class you could do

Code:

public enum Choice { A, B, C, D, NA};       //declare a type which has one of the 4 values
class MultipleChoice
{
    public string question;                   //store here the questions
    public string answers[];                 //store here the answers
    public Choice choice;                      //this can have one of the values A,B,C,D   
    public MultipleChoice()
    {
        answers = new string[4];
        choice = Choice.NA;
    }     
}
//Use like this
MultipleChoice m = new MultipleChoice();
m.question = "What's your name";
m.answer[0] = "It is John";
m.answer[1] = "It is Tom";
....
m.choice = Choice.B; //so it is Tom

So you use an array of string to store 4 answers. One string to store the question. And a variable of type "Choice" to store the answer. All this can be included as a single class, called MultipleChoice (you can also use just a string for "choice" as well if enumeration seems coplicated).

Now, you would have in your main class multiple muliple-choice questions. So in your main class you would use a dynamic array. For Java you could use something like ArrayList.
For example this creates a an ArrayList and adds a multiple-choice question

Code:

ArrayList questions = new ArrayList();
MultipleChoice m = new MultipleChoice();
//fill m's data
questions.add(m);

For anything else you want you can use an appropriate class or just an array or a type.
Your main class will have the appropriate functions to manipulate the data.

For example, if you interpret storing the class in memory as making the class a file, you could have a function that creates a file with all the necessary information. Which would
be to write a text (a string or StringBuilder) with all the information and write it on a file.

A survey class could be then:

Code:

class Survey
{
   ArrayList multipleChoice;      //An array with multiple choice questions
   string serverUrl;                   //the URL where the server is
   string name;                        //the name of the client
   ..
}

Again, If you would want multiple surveys

Code:

ArrayList surveys = new ArrayList();
Survey s = new Survey();
//fill s's data
surveys.add(s);

you get the idea

Thread: Lost student needs direction on assignment!

Thread Tools

Search Thread

Display

Lost student needs direction on assignment!

Similar Threads

Trouble with two two dimensional arrays

new problem with class

3x syntax errors :S, Help a student finalise an assignment

linked student list need help

Lost on Assignment