Justification Report Part 2: Evaluation of Alternatives

In Part 1 of your Justification Report assignment, you built up the following sections: Problem Statement, Overview of Alternatives, Criteria, and Methods. In Part 2, you will revise Part 1 based on your instructor's suggestions and add to it the following sections: Evaluation of Alternatives, Findings and Analysis, and References.
Use the basic outline below to draft your paper. Organize your responses to each question under the following section headings:
•Evaluation of Alternatives (for Questions 1-3)
•Findings and Analysis (for Questions 4-5)
•References (for Question 6)
Using the provided template, write Part 2 of a single-spaced report in which you:
1.Include and revise the sections from Assignment 2.1 (Problem Statement, Overview of Alternatives, Criteria, and Methods) per instructor suggestions.
2.Research the two (2) alternatives (i.e. possible solutions) that you've identified in your Part 1 Evaluation of Alternatives section. Record bibliographic information during research. 
a.Example: You might research other organizations that have attempted similar solutions to the problem you have identified and explore the results of those experiments. 
3.Use what you discover in your research to evaluate each alternative by each of your five (5) criteria. 
a.Example: If your research revealed that four (4) companies similar to yours increased productivity after allowing their workers to telework from home three days per week, you might conclude that one of your suggested alternatives – in this case, the option to telework from home three days per week – satisfies one of your criterion of “Productivity” as a high-potential solution to a problem you’ve identified (of decreased worker morale and productivity at Doe’s Electronics). However, additional research might frustrate a recommendation of this alternative if it is found to fall short of other criteria while a second alternative fares better. For instance, a telework alternative might be found to be too costly to implement; too frustrating for consumers who prefer daily, in-person customer service; or too divergent from the company’s brand, “Always there for you!”
4.Organize the assignment by your criteria. Explain in narrative form how each of your two (2) alternatives stacks up against your first criterion. Next, explain how each alternative stacks up against your second criterion, etc. 
a.Example: An abbreviated outline of what this longer section might look like based on the above example is below (Note: Only the first two [2] of five [5] required criteria are included to give you a feel for the structure). Your researched findings, represented as circled bullets below, should be explained in two to five (2-5) sentences. Include in-text citations and follow up with References in APA style):
Evaluation of Alternatives
- Productivity
- Alternative A: Telework from home three (3) days per week 
- {narrate findings based on research article 1 here}
- Alternative B: Offer two (2) extra Floating Holidays to each employee per year 
- {narrate findings based on research article 2 here}
- Cost
- Alternative A: Telework from home three (3) days per week 
- {narrate findings based on research article 1 here}
- Alternative B: Offer two extra Floating Holidays to each employee per year
- {narrate findings based on research article 2 here}
5.Briefly summarize in narrative form the major discoveries that emerged from the Evaluation of Alternatives section.
6.Include a chart like the ones below to illustrate at a glance:
Figure 1: Alternatives Analyzed by Criteria
Criteria
Telework Option
Floating Holiday Option
Productivity
Very high
Negligible increase
Cost
Very high
Moderate
Company Image
Increased
Negligible increase
Worker Morale
Increased
Negligible increase
Practicality
Moderate
Low
TOTAL Feasibility* of Alternatives based on Criteria?
Moderate to High
Low to Moderate
*Feasability = Capability of an alternative being carried out with success
7.Include an APA style (6th edition) References page that documents the two (2) sources (minimum) that you used and cited in-text in your Evaluation of Alternatives section. You may use secondary resources, or you may include one primary source and one secondary source. Remember that both in-text citations and References must be included (to avoid plagiarism) whenever you are directly quoting, summarizing, or paraphrasing researched material.
Your assignment must:
•Be typed, single spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; citations and references must follow APA or school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.
•Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, your name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required assignment page length.
The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:
•Support ideas or claims in body paragraphs with clear details, examples, and explanations.
•Organize ideas logically by using transitional words, phrases, and sentences.
•Use sentence variety and effective word choice in written communication.
•Apply writing process strategies to develop formal business reports and / or proposals.
•Use technology and information resources to research issues related to selected topics.
•Write clearly and concisely using proper writing mechanics
copy of original paper
Justification Report – Part 1
Richard White
Professor Andy Plotkin, Ph.D.
Strayer University
May 10, 2016
 
Problem Statement
Working in a university library exposes one to a large number of students. As a rule, most students have problems carrying and giving out their identification cards while entering into the library. For international students, they have to carry their passports, and the school-provided card to access the services. The constant removal and keeping of the identification cards are tiresome as monitoring all the students getting in and out. Nobody knows whether people might use fake cards to get to the library. Everybody from the students to the library staff feels tired of this type of system. It is, therefore, reasonable to provide possible solutions to the problem. Fixing the problem will reduce time spent by the workers in justifying identification of users of the library and improve service delivery without time wastage.
Overview of Alternatives
The first solution is to introduce a biometric system of a register. Biometric systems use fingerprints to identify those entering an institution or leaving it. When people are identified by their fingerprints, there can be surety of accuracy (Lockie, 2002). The library has all students registered in their database. What they should do is to have their fingerprints collected and integrated against their names in the log (Nelson, 2011). When getting into a library, the only thing to do is to pass their hands through a scanner and upon confirmation as a student, they can be allowed in. The process will only take a maximum of two seconds. For the current system, it takes almost 10 seconds to go through the physical card per student. 
An alternative solution is to have students identification cards fitted with some number codes. The codes, as used in sectors of the economy, will contain the details of the students in the library. Students only need to scan the identification cards through some electromagnetic beam which transmit the information to a computer screen (Lockie, 2002). A staff member doing some monitoring on a computer will be able to see the transmitted information. If the student is not registered, the beam will not transfer to the computer any details. In such an instance, the computer, connected to a laboratory alarm will notify whoever is monitoring the process. 
Criteria
Evaluation criteria that will be useful for this service in the library will factor out subheadings: accuracy, reliability, time management, risks of errors and uniqueness. These are sections that when satisfied, then the problem will have been solved. The accuracy of the systems should provide the exact information without any confusions in the library. In most registers in the library and even on the identification cards, students might have similar names and to some extent be in the same class. For the modern human brains in the library staff to remember all these details, possibility of numerous errors cannot be ruled out. 
The reliability of the system should be on the time it will serve without breaking down. Some systems can work for parts of the day and then fail. For a whole day and week, all around the academic calendar, the systems should be able to work without problems. It means that the computer programs that complement these solutions should be simpler and easy to run. To achieve that, they should be simple programs that operating in machines will not crash. It is also essential to upgrade the computers to high functionality to accommodate the systems. When these are all implemented, time management will not be something to be debated. Most time is wasted on slow programs and machines. Finally, the risk of errors will cover the possibility of the program to be manipulated or hacked. These days, information technology and hacking are a crime that makes organizations information insecure. When such a system is hacked, some alterations might be made that will influence the use. That is where the uniqueness of the program will come in. It should be a program of its design that is not in use by most organizations. 
The time for implementation for these methods would not be long. Standby registers already exist in the libraries. It is only a matter of collecting the thumbprints and recording their details. A creation of a new database that will include this will be essential for a proper organization (Nelson, 2011). For the card identification codes, it will require new procedures like taking photos and generating codes for the different students. 
Methods
Finding out the best alternative solution for the system, the criteria above will be helpful. In doing research to find the best way, some members of staff will be involved in finding how this solution will work. Within a set period, they can test the systems by registering some students of a reasonable number. To achieve this, the departmental libraries can be helpful in doing the research. An example is a physics library, which has the least users in the university. 
Once students are registered in the system, evaluation of the risks of the two solutions will take place to find which method is best. Frequent changes to the fields like computer applications, the speed of use and vulnerability to troubled computing minds. In each step, the advantages and disadvantages of the two systems will be recorded to find which outweighs the other.  
References
Lockie, M. (2002). Biometric technology. Chicago, IL: Heinemann Library.
Nelson, L. S. (2011). America identified: biometric technology and society. Cambridge, NY: MIT Press.