Functional requirements

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Overview

Systems requirements have been organized into three main types:

1. Functional requirements:

• What things must the system be able to do?

2. Metadata requirements:

• What data must the system capture in order to be able do these things?

3. Usability requirements:

• What interface and design features must the system have in order to do these things well?

Functional requirements

Functional requirements state what the system must be able to do. The requirements provide:

• Parameters for designing the system.
• Criteria for testing the system (used in initial release and future iterations and upgrades).
• Planning guidelines for developing the system (improve existing or add new functionality).
• Documentation for standards compliance (link requirements to relevant international or national descriptive standards)
• A framework for structuring user-end documentation (step-by-step procedures for how to do things in the system).

Functional requirements have been organized around the core functions of repositories holding archival material. ICA-AtoM currently focuses on two functions:

• Intellectual and administrative control (allow repositories to describe archival holdings).
• Search and use (allow researchers to search and use descriptions).

A number of functions remain outside the scope of the current version or are only partially supported. Inclusion of these functions serves primarily as a placeholder for requirements for future development of the system.

• Acquisition (accession material, transfer / capture / ingest objects, track donors, appraise for acquisition, appraise for monetary evaluation).
• Physical control (store and retrieve of objects, manage storage space).
• Preservation (manage strategies for long-term preservation of objects).
• Access administration (provide reference service, deliver access to objects).
• Outreach (exhibit objects, promotion holdings and the repository).

Each functional requirement includes the following information:

• Requirement name.
• Requirement specification (system must do X).
• Requirement quotation (which section of which standard requires that the system do X?).
• Associated metadata requirements (what fields must the system have to do X?).
• Associated usability requirements (what features msut the system have to do X well from a user / interface point of view?).
• ICA-AtoM implementation (how does ICA-AtoM implement X?).
• Associated User Manual sections (links to step-by-step instructions for doing X).