COMP1424 Mobile Application Development

Unit Code : COMP1424
Unit Title : Mobile Application Development
Assessment Type : Practical coursework
Contribution : 80% of course
Weight : This coursework should take an average student who is up-to-date with tutorial work approximately 40 hours Feedback and grades are normally made available within 15 working days of the coursework deadline
Learning Outcomes:A, B, C
Plagiarism:Plagiarism is presenting somebody else's work as your own. It includes: copying information directly from the Web or books without referencing the material; submitting joint coursework as an individual effort; copying another student's coursework; stealing coursework from another student and submitting it as your own work. Suspected plagiarism will be investigated and if found to have occurred will be dealt with according to the procedures set down by the University. Please see your student handbook for further details of what is / isn't plagiarism. All material copied or amended from any source (e.g. internet, books) must be referenced correctly according to the reference style you are using. Your work will be submitted for plagiarism checking. Any attempt to bypass our plagiarism detection systems will be treated as a severe Assessment Offence.
Coursework Submission Requirements An electronic copy of your work for this coursework must be fully uploaded using the link on the coursework Moodle page for COMP1424. For this coursework you must submit a single PDF document. In general, any text in the document must not be an image (i.e. must not be scanned) and would normally be generated from other documents (e.g. MS Office using "Save As .. PDF"). An exception to this is hand written mathematical notation, but when scanning do ensure the file size is not excessive. For this coursework you must also upload a single ZIP file containing supporting evidence. There are limits on the file size (see the relevant course Moodle page). Make sure that any files you upload are virus-free and not protected by a password or corrupted otherwise they will be treated as null submissions. Your work will not be printed in colour. Please ensure that any pages with colour are acceptable when printed in Black and White. You must NOT submit a paper copy of this coursework. All courseworks must be submitted as above. Under no circumstances can they be accepted by academic staff

The University website has details of the current Coursework Regulations, including details of penalties for late submission, procedures for Extenuating Circumstances, and penalties for Assessment Offences. See www2.gre.ac.uk

Detailed Specification

Please read the entire coursework specification before starting work.

You are to implement a mobile app which is a prototype of a mobile app for use by people reporting on sporting events such as football matches. It is called the Mobile Sports Event Reporter (MOBSER). It should support the features listed below : Features a) to e) are to be implemented as a native Android app coded in Java. Feature f) is to be implemented as a hybrid app coded using PhoneGap/Cordova. Feature g) can be implemented as either or both additions to the native android app or PhoneGap app.

Your final app is the culmination of all your hard work on this course, which should become a strong addition to your programming portfolio. You should produce an app that is well-designed, robust and useful. The GUI design should be clean, simple to navigate, and operate smoothly without sluggishness or crashes. The app should not require instructions or a manual to use.

1. Description of the application

a) Enter details of events being reviewed (10%):

Note that users must be able to enter all of the following fields. Required fields mean that the user must enter something in this field; otherwise they will be prompted with an error message. Optional fields mean that the user can enter something if they wish, but they will not get an error message if nothing is entered.

The user/critic should be able to enter:

Date of the event - required field. Start time of the event - required field. The name of the sport. This should be selectable from a list of at least three sports. You decide what sports you will allow (e.g. “football”, “ice hockey”, and “basketball”). Required field. The names of the participants (e.g for a football match this would be the names of the teams). - Required field. Location of the event. Optional field (i.e. the user may or may not enter it) Email address of the person reporting the event. Optional field. Two or more other fields of your own invention – be creative!

The app will check the input and if the user doesn’t enter anything in one of the required fields, the app should display an error message.

Once the details have been accepted by the app (e.g.. no required fields were missing), it should display the details back to the user for confirmation and allow them to go back and change any details that they wish.

b) Store, view and delete event details or reset the database (10%)

All the details entered by the user should initially be stored on the device in an SQLite database. The user should be able to list all the details of all events that have been entered into the app, edit or delete individual events, and delete all the details from the database.

c) Enter the score as the sporting event progresses (10%)

The user should be able to enter details of the score as the event is in progress. How this works will depend to some extent on the sports you choose. For instance, if the event is a football match then the user should be able to make an entry whenever a team scores a goal.The score should be stored on the device in the SQLite database

d) Search (10%)

The user should be able to search for an event in the database by name. At its simplest, this could mean entering the name and displaying the first event that matches. Ideally the user should be able to enter the first few letters of the name and display all matching events.

Advanced search options will allow searching for all events with the following criteria: a particular area, event type or date range. It should be possible for a user to select an item from the resulting search list and to display its full details.

e) Upload details to a cloud-based web service (10%)

The user should be able to upload all the basic details of events stored on the mobile device to a cloud-based web service. It should be possible for all events to be uploaded at once. YOU DO NOT NEED TO WRITE the web application as it will be made available to you. See the Moodle site for this course in week 7 for the URL of the web service and further information about how to use it gillwindallapp1.appspot.com.

The web service will accept the data and reply with a message which your app should display. Ideally your app should format the message so that is easy for the user to read.

The format in which the data must be uploaded

The data you upload to the web service should be sent in an HTTP POST message. The HTTP POST message will contain one field called jsonpayload. The value of jsonpayload is a string in JSON format.You have some flexibility over how you design the JSON however the following are essential:

The JSON must be valid. See http://www.w3schools.com/js/js_json_syntax.asp for details on JSON syntax. You must include a field with the name "userId" which has a value of your university user id eg. "userId":"wg999" The event details must be represented as an array with the name "detailList" Each element in the array "detailList" represents an event about which details are being uploaded. Each event in "detailList" must at a minimum have a field called "name" whose value is the actual event’s name or the brief description of the event. Below is an incomplete example of what the JSON might look like{"userId":"wg999","detailList":[{"name":"Arsenal Manchester match", other fields for event},{"name":"European Basketball final", other fields for event}]}

The format of the response

The web service will respond with an HTTP response containing JSON which represents a reply to your upload. The JSON reply will contain the following fields:

An example response is given below. Note that the order of the fields may vary

{"uploadResponseCode":"SUCCESS",
"userid":"wg999",
"number":2,
"names":"Arsenal Machester match, European Basketball final",
"message":"successful upload – all done!"}

Your app should display the data sent in the response. You could just display the raw JSON message, but it would be better to format the output to make it more readable for the user.

f) Create a cross-platform prototype of the app using PhoneGap (10%)

Implement as much as you can of features a) and b) using PhoneGap

g) Add additional features to either or both the Android or PhoneGap version of the app (10%)

Features a) to e) are the core requirements for the app. If you have implemented these and want to add some additional features, then you may. Any enhancements should be implemented in addition to NOT instead of the core requirements. The idea is that these features stretch your skills, so be prepared to do your own research and feel free to show off! You can think of your own enhancements. Here are some possible examples:

Allow photos taken by the camera to be added to the data stored Pick up the location automatically from the user's location Show the location of an event on a map Make use of an external web service other than the one provided for the coursework. Anything you can think of – again be creative!

2. Report (30%)

Write a report consisting of all the following sections:

Section 1. (5%) A concise table containing a checklist of the features you have been able to implement. Please refer to the features list given above in the specification. For example, you might write:

Section 2. (5%) A concise list of any bugs and/or weaknesses in your app(s). It is unlikely that there are no bugs or weaknesses but if you don’t think there are any then say so. Bugs that are declared in this list will lose you fewer marks than ones that you don't declare!
Section 3. (5%) A brief (less than half a page) description of any special strengths of your app(s) that you think should be taken into account in awarding a mark. Please be very specific and realistic in this: vague statements such as "it is easy to use" or "it is well designed" will not gain you marks.
Section 4. (5%) Screen shots demonstrating each of the features that you have implemented. Give captions or annotations to explain which features are being demonstrated.
Section 5. (10%) An evaluation of your app(s). Write between 700 to 1000 words evaluating the app(s) that you have produced. Be specific and justify any statements you make. Just saying things like "my app is well designed" without justifying the statement will not gain you any marks. Also, explain how your app could be improved. Again, you need to try to be specific e.g. saying something like "It needs to be made more secure by adding security features" will not gain marks. Your evaluation should include, but need not be limited to, the following aspects of your app: Human computer interaction (you will have a lecture about this) Security (you will need to research this yourself) Ability of the app to run on a range of screen sizes and how this could be improved (we will touch on this in the course but you will need to do additional research) Changes that would need to be made in order for the app(s) to be deployed for live use

This sort of discussion will form an important part of your MSc project report so use this opportunity as a way of practicing your skills in writing an evaluation.

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