The way in which Information Technology (IT) has been viewed and used for over eleven years in a United Kingdom (UK) state primary school is told by the participants. This story reveals that the vision which lay behind the initial (funded) IT project has not been sustained. The reasons behind this loss of vision are analyzed both in terms of internal and external influences.

This paper describes a feasibility study to implement partial tool supportfor the graphical componentof the box structure methodology (BSM). By following the defined strategy and process, an existing computer-aided software engineering (CASE) environment has been extendedwith a customizer to provide support for the box definition graphics(BOG) componentof BSM. The critical functions required from a CASE environment are also described to provide the reader with a background for selecting one of the various implementations available today.T he creation of the box structure methodology (BSM) provides systems developers with a new powerful, yet straightforward, software engineering methodology.'After the inception of BSM, a course of study was developed to educate systems developers in the creation of requirements specifications' by employing BSM to solve problems involving the design of systems. The expectation was that as more developers became trained in its use, BSM could evolve into one of the mainstream methodologies used to describe and define systems.Since aSM is relatively new, it has had to compete against other, more established methodologies such as structured analysis and structured design. Sophisticated support environments were developed to provide functions for creating and analyzing the deliverables of these methodologies. When BSM was introduced, it lacked a support environment that would provide functions to enter and analyze BSM data.Without such functions, the strategy for incorporating BSM in the internal development process was weakened.This paper describes the study developed to create a support environment for BSM. The first section describes a strategy developed to implement computeraided tool support by using a computer-aided software engineering (CASE) tool customizer. The conceptual view of a CASE environment is introduced along with the view of an extended environment representing the new customized functions created. With a strategy identified, the next section defines a process that results in the successful integration of functions supporting the entry and analysis of box definition graphics (BDG). The process begins with learning the methodology from a user's point of view, and then describes the methodology with an entity-relationship diagram so that its components can be determined. A target CASE environment is chosen, learned, and implemented. Successful results are achieved by following the strategy and procedures explained in the section on BSM tool results. Finally, the validation process is presented.The major product of this study was the successful implementation oflimited BSM support. The support

The Advisory Unit for Computer Based Education was set up by Hertfordshire to coordinate the development of computer education throughout its maintained schools and colleges. In 1973 a major project was established at the Unit to develop a computer managed mathematics scheme for eleven-and twelve-year-olds in twelve local schools. Brief introduction to educational computing in HertfordshireHertfordshire is one of the few British local authorities which escaped major reorganization and boundary changes in the local government reorganization of April 1974. It has remained a county ofjust under a million inhabitants served by a single education authority which administers 600 primary schools, over a hundred secondary schools, about a dozen colleges and a polytechnic. There is no university in Hertfordshire. It has invested in an educational computer service to serve the needs of locally maintained teaching establishments, a service which includes hardware, software and educational support and which has engendered a great spirit of collaboration amongst the participants. The educational support and liaison are the responsibility of the Advisory Unit for Computer Based Education.Historically, computer education within the authority can be traced back to 1963 when the Hatfield College of Technology (as it then was) installed an Elliott 803 computer to support the needs of its own Department of Mathematics. These facilities were at this time far-sightedly made available to surrounding schools and colleges. In 1970 (after four years of detailed planning) a major educational computing service was established at Hatfield Polytechnic in the form of a Digital Equipment Corporation System 10. Now some seventy schools use the system by batch or on-line.Strict resource control of the computing facilities at the Polytechnic is practised with the understanding that about two-thirds of the facilities will be used by the Polytechnic itself and the other third by the rest of the county. The County Computer Advisory Panel which contains teacher representatives advises on how this one-third of the resources should be distributed. How a school or college then uses its share of resources is largely an internal responsibility. Teaching about computersThe computer was used initially in teaching to demonstrate its uses and how it works, to students of eleven years and upwards. Such courses are still very much in evidence, and in some cases lead to examinations organized at a local or national level. To support these courses, it has been traditional for students to write their own programs, but the computer system is used more broadly than this. Program writing is mainly undertaken to illustrate the computer and how it works, rather than as an end in itself.

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