This week we begin to formalize the requirements for KICS. Our starting points are the work that my cs615 class in user interface design did last semester and the material in Chapter 4 of Bruegge.

1. In this first part of the assignment you continue the simulated job search you stared last week with your CV and web page. Now you write a cover letter. That's a letter that you send along with your resume. The resume is a relatively formal, relatively static description of your experience and skills. It doesn't change (much) from one job application to another. The cover letter is different. It's where you explain why this particular job at this particular company is just the right one for you - and why you are just the person who's right for them. (I am currently reading about 80 applications for an assistant professorship in the Mathematics Department. I am shocked that hardly anyone has bothered to look up UMass on the web and write a cover letter that speaks what they found out.)

   1. Find a posting somewhere on the internet for a job that you are qualified for and that you would like to have. Write a cover letter applying for the job.

   2. Write a cover letter to the Director of Human Resources at KICS.com applying for a job at the company. Since there are no job postings you should imagine that part of the software development job you want to apply for, and write the cover letter accordingly.

2. Work on KICS use cases. Start by reading the Use Case entry in wikipedia.

   Then work with at least one (preferably two) classmates to create at least one new KICS use case, and post it on the KICS wiki. That may require editing work classmates have already done, if your way of dividing the tasks implicit in the short story doesn't match what's already there, and you think your way is better. (You might want to see my comments on the one Use Case already posted by a classmate.)

   Note that there are two stories posted, both with UI prototypes. We went over the first one in class, but not the one for CreateStudentList. You can use that along with the story to figure out more use cases, and to see which of the ones already written apply here too.

   The end product of your work will be visible in the KICS wiki. But you need to turn in more than that. Keep a development diary, in which you record rationales, changes in strategy, times when your first draft has been edited by someone else, how the group worked together, roughly how much time you spent on this assignment, whether it seems to you a good way to work, ... anything else that will help me teach and design the software engineering process we're learning about.