CS 471 Fall 2024 > Assignment 3 (White Paper Draft)
CS 471 Fall 2024
Assignment 3 (White Paper Draft)
Assignment 3 is due at 5 pm Tuesday, September 17. It is worth 75 points.
Procedures
This assignment is to be done individually.
Turn in your answer to the exercise below on the UA Canvas site, under Assignment 3 for this class.
- Your answer must consist of your white paper, in PDF format.
- Your homework submission may not be examined immediately. If you have questions, e-mail me.
Exercise (75 pts): Write a Draft White Paper
Purpose
In this exercise you will write a white paper of the kind a working professional might be asked to write.
Instructions
You are an employee of a small software development company that is considering the development of a web store for a customer. While your company has expertise in web applications, it has never created a software system that needed to process credit card payments. Your boss needs the following information.
- For a web store, what are the options to process credit card payments? What are the pros and cons of each one? (Focus on the top 3–5 most realistic options.)
- What is PCI compliance?
- For an Alaska-based business with approximately $100,000 in sales per year, which payment method should the store use? (State any assumptions you make and justify your recommendation.)
- If the business grows to $1,000,000 in yearly sales, does this change your answer? (Again, state assumptions and justify your recommendation.)
Write a white paper aimed at your boss that answers the above questions with actionable information. Turn in your white paper as a single document in PDF format.
This is a draft. I will return it to you with comments, and you will revise and turn in a final version in a later assignment.
Other requirements:
- Your document must have a separate cover page with your name on it.
- Write as if you really are an employee as described above. For example, you do not want to give your boss a white paper that says, “CS 471 Assignment” on it. You may use a made-up company name if you wish—or not, your choice.
- While this is a draft, do not create a document that looks unfinished, or that is marked as being a draft.
- You must document your sources—both sources of information and sources of images. In the body of your white paper, it must be clear what you have personally written based on information from another source and what you are including verbatim.
Notes
- Be concise, yet comprehensive.
- Write with a limited vocabulary. As necessary, you may use technical terms that may be unfamiliar to your readers, but be sure to define them first.
- Make your document organized, scannable, and visually stimulating. Use pictures, drawings, and/or tables as appropriate, both to convey information and to make your document visually appealing.
- Compare/contrast multiple options in an easy-to-read format.
- You are not selling anything; you are presenting accurate information.
- Remember that this document is aimed at people who want to take action based on it. So, for example, when describing PCI compliance, make sure you tell the reader what the company needs to do. When making a recommendation, you need to recommend a particular service (probably by naming the company), not merely a kind of service.
Please review both the Communicating as a Software Professional slides [Google Slides] and the Sample White Paper [PDF].