Section 3.1 System Performance

All operations executed while taking a test or answering a student question happen instantaneously. This is because a test that a student is taking may be timed. If operations such as hitting next question, submitting answer have a delay, then it will decrease the amount of time a student has to take the test. In addition, if a student has a question that they need answered, the question and the answer the professor provides must happen instantaneously so the student will not be blocked on the question. Additionally, when a student asks a question, the professor needs to see the question immediately on his computer.

In general, all other operations can happen with a small delay, granted it will not make the user wait forever. Operations such as creating a test, saving a test, generating a test, etc, use complex algorithms which require many computation cycles and thus produces a small delay to the user. These operations are not as important as taking a test or proctoring a test because there is no time critical events that are happening (such as taking a test). Operations that query the database will be given a maximum of 5 seconds to run.

The maximum expected sizes of the Test Tool databases are the following:

• user database -- up to tens of thousands of records
• questions database - up to tens of thousands of records
• student database -
• teacher database -

Section 3.2 Generic Characteristics

3.2.1. Security and Privacy

The Test Tool program needs to be extremely secure. A user needs to have a login and a password before performing any actions. This is to ensure a student can not take a test for another student by mistake or access the professors test bank.

As of now, when a student is taking a test, we are relying on an honor system for the student to not use outside resources during the test. Currently, the software has no possible way of locking the computer so that the user can not access external software.

3.2.2. Simplicity versus Power

On a spectrum of simple-to-use versus powerful, the Test Tool is heavily on the side of simplicity. We are assuming users are not very computer literate prior to using this tool. This tool is designed for all students in all grade levels in mind. A student shouldn’t need to know all the intricacies of a computer to take a test.