A First Case Project in Visual Basic.Net: Preparing an Income Tax Return

Journal of Information Systems Education, Summer 2004 by Simkin, Mark G

3.2 Technical Documentation

Documentation is critical. Create both internal and external documentation that describe your program in sufficient detail to allow someone else to understand it and maintain your code. To do this, print exemplary copies of all form images (at run time) as well as the code for all forms in this assignment, including an About form (not shown). You may print more than one form image on a page, but all code should be clearly identified so that the reader knows what code corresponds to what form. Please omit any systemgenerated code. Collect this set of pages together and label it "Part B." (B points)

3.3 User Manual

The programmers who create a project are rarely the end users. Thus, you must also create a manual that helps nontechnical individuals use your application. This (small) manual should include a general introduction and a description of what each and every Button in each form does (sec pages 1-3 above). Collect this external documentation for your project together and label it "Part C." (C points).

3.4 Enhancements

This is your chance to be creative. Develop two enhancements for this project, each of which uses an additional form. Examples might be additional income tax schedules. Documentation for each enhancement is critical. For each enhancement, provide a screen capture of your form at run time, a listing of your code, and in addition, a description of your enhancement on one or more separate pages. Collect these pages together and label them "Part D." (D points).

3.5 Publication.

Use tabbed pages to separate each section of the project listed above, and combine the complete set of items in a 3-ring binder. The title page should contain the title of this project and the name(s) of the developers. Each subsequent page should be numbered, and the first page following your title page should be a table of contents that indicates the starting page of each major section. (E points)

4. CONCLUSION

This case requires students to create an integrated Visual Basic application that replicates simplified versions of selected U.S. income tax forms. The skills required of the developer(s) are those typically learned in the first few weeks of a VB programming class, thereby permitting instructors to assign the case as an interim project. The students who finish this case uniformly say two things: (1) it required a lot of work, and (2) it taught them how to use a number of formerly-isolated programming skills in a comprehensive application. The students who survive also say that their experiences with the project were positive, and often suggest that the instructor use more such cases when teaching the class in the future.

Mark G. Simkin

College of Business Administration

University of Nevada

Reno, Nevada 89557

Simkin@unr.edu

AUTHOR'S BIOGRAPHY

Mark G. Simkin is a professor of Information Systems at the University of Nevada. He earned his BA degree in mathematics from Brandeis University and his MBA and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author or coauthor of 15 textbooks, including 3 on Visual Basic and 8 in Accounting Information Systems. He is also the author or coauthor of over 100 research articles, some of which have been published in Decision Sciences, JASA, the Communications of the ACM, the International Journal of Information Management, the Journal of Accountancy, the Journal of Computer Information Systems, Interfaces, and the Journal of Systems Management.