FJK Home IS 301 Syllabus Schedule Lecture Notes Assignments Paper Project Teams
IS 301 Computers and Knowledge Fall 2009

IS 301-F09 Computers and Knowledge Project

Quick Links: Project
Milestone Week 2: Selection Milestone Week 4: Prototype (alpha)
Milestone Week 6: Prototype (beta) Milestone Week 8: Final Version
Project Presentations Mutual Team Member Evaluations

Project Overview

An important part of this course is the term project. Either as an individual or as a member of a team of students, you will apply the methods and skills learned in class (and hopefully elsewhere) to the exploration, design, prototypic implementation, and evaluation of an application that deals with knowledge in a domain selected by the team. Since this particular class is not a Computer Science course, the implementation aspects can consist of activities like the creation of a data base or Web page, the construction of a Wiki, the development of a mind map, or something similar.

The project is composed of several parts, which will be graded separately. Each team has to produce joint deliverables, which will be the basis for the grades of all team members. The team members will also be asked for feedback on the performance of the other team members. This subjective feedback may be used to adjust individual scores. Team members are encouraged to document their activities, e.g. in the form of work sheets.

Project Topic

Students can select their own project topic, subject to my approval. Ideally, the teams should have chosen a topic by the end of the first week; if necessary, you can postpone this decision into the second week, but this will leave you with less time for the requirements specification.

Follow this link for some suggestions for possible topics. You can also look at previous projects to get an idea for the topics other students worked on.

Project Organization

The first part of the task will be to select a project, and to establish the requirements that will serve as the basis for the later evaluation of the completed project. Then a sequence of prototypes of your selected application will be implemented. In many cases, due to time constraints, the initial prototype will not be fully functional, but it should have a core part that can be used for evaluation purposes. The prototypes will be evaluated by a different team. Finally, there will be a presentation on the project. This presentation will focus on the final version and the evaluation by the evaluation team. It must include information on the initial user requirements, design, and implementation provided by documentation made available through Web pages on the team accounts on the hornet system.

The following paragraphs provide you with more details on the different parts of the project. Included is information on the time frame, and the contribution of the part to the overall grade. An overview of the due dates is also contained in the class schedule.

Milestone Week 2: Requirements and Evaluation Criteria
Completion: Week 2 Points: 10
Class Schedule Back to Top

The first part of the project has these main objectives:

  1. Project description.
  2. Comparison with existing systems.
  3. Specification of the user requirements.
  4. Definition of the corresponding evaluation criteria.
  5. Determination of dates when the requirements will be realized in the system.

Your team needs to identify a domain or an application to be working on, and to clearly specify the task the system is supposed to solve. In many cases, it will be useful to look at existing systems for the selected or a similar application, and identify features that are missing or can be improved. To establish the required functionality as well as usability aspects is also known as requirements elicitation. For large systems, these requirements are sometimes translated into a formal system specification, which serves as blueprint for the actual implementation, and as the basis for the evaluation and testing of the system. Again, it is not practical here to perform a full requirements elicitation or a formal specification, but you need to put down the crucial functional features of your system together with important usability aspects.

The main aspects for your project should be described in the Milestone Week 2 document, and I will use the criteria below to evaluate your documents.

Project Description
purpose of the system, main tasks to be performed, domain and environment in which the system is used, intended users, goals
Existing Systems
short descriptions of at least three related systems or approaches, their advantages and needs, and how your system differs from them
Requirements
emphasis on functional requirements (what are the main tasks of your system), but also user- and performance-related aspects; possibly distinction between core and optional functionality,
Evaluation Criteria
criteria for checking satisfaction of the requirements, correlation between criteria and requirements, criteria should be observable and measurable
Schedule
milestones for the project (if possible, follow the schedule in this document) mapping of requirements and evaluation criteria to the milestones

Milestone Week 4: Prototype (alpha)
Completion: Week 4 Points: 10
Class Schedule Back to Top

The important aspects for this part are:

Revised Project Description
purpose of the system, main tasks to be performed, domain and environment in which the system is used, intended users, goals
User Feedback
reactions, criticism, suggestions from potential users concerning the initial design; possible design modifications or changes in the implementation
System Design
overview of the main functional components of the system, e.g. as a block diagram
Prototype and Implementation
discussion of implementation language, development tools, implementation strategies, main functionality of the alpha prototype instructions for installation and basic rules (README file)
Evaluation Plan
descriptions of the evaluation methods, instructions for the evaluation team, refinement of evaluation criteria (questions, metrics)

After clarifying the requirements for your system, you will implement prototype versions of it. The first prototype (alpha) should demonstrate the most important functions or features of the system. They should correspond to the requirements defined earlier.

In addition to the actual prototype of the system, you will work on a a plan for the testing and evaluation of the system. You should describe a collection of usage scenarios, ideally in combination with some test cases (benchmarks) that allow a well-founded evaluation of the system, and its comparison with other, similar ones. You should show the overall user interface and design to potential users as early as possible, even if the prototype is not finished, and get some feedback from them. Since we don't have the time and resources to use more formal approaches, you should show your prototype to some friends, ask them for feedback, and observe how they use the system. This will help you to incorporate changes early in the design stages, when they are relatively cheap to implement. Make sure to have a record of the user feedback, either as video, audio tape, or interview notes.

Milestone Week 6: Prototype (beta)
Completion: Week 6 Points: 10
Class Schedule Back to Top

This part concentrates on the following aspects:

Overview
current status of the system, major changes, implications of those changes, comparison of this version against the requirements
User Feedback
integration of suggestions based on user feedback for the alpha version, and collection of more feedback for the beta version
System Design Changes
modifications to the system design, elimination or addition of functionality, significant changes
Prototype and Implementation
additional features implemented in this version, bugs eliminated, update on changes in appearance, user interface, performance
Evaluation Issues
issues raised by the evaluation team, deviations from the evaluation plan

Due to time and resource constraints, most likely the alpha version will be quite restricted in functionality and appearance. The beta version should add additional functionality in accordance with the requirements specified in the beginning. In addition, there will probably be some usability and performance aspects that can be improved. Some of these improvements may be triggered by your own insights and experiences, while others may come from the feedback you receive from the users who took your system for a test drive.

Milestone Week 8: Final Version
Completion: Week 6 Points: 10
Class Schedule Back to Top

The aspects for this version are a further evolution of the ones identified previously:

Overview
current status of the system, major changes, implications of those changes, comparison of this version against the requirements
User Feedback
more feedback from users based on the alpha prototype
System Design Changes
modifications to the system design, elimination or addition of functionality, significant changes
Prototype and Implementation
additional features implemented in this version, bugs eliminated, update on changes in appearance, user interface, performance
Evaluation Issues
issues raised by the evaluation team, deviations from the evaluation plan

The final version should implement the full functionality of the system as initially specified in the requirements. The system should be free of major errors. Additional modifications can be made to increase performance and usability, but the overall design of the system should be stable.

Final Documentation and Team-Evaluations
Completion: Week 10 Points: 20
Class Schedule
Team Web Pages Back to Top

While the main emphasis for this milestone lies on the evaluation of the other team, the development team should continue its update of the documentation in order to guarantee a match between the implementation and the documentation. The following aspects need to be considered here:

Overview
final status of the system, major changes and their implications during the project, comparison of the final version against the requirements
User Feedback
a summary of feedback from users about all previous version
System Design Changes
a summary of the most significant modifications to the system design, elimination or addition of functionality, significant changes in data formats and interfaces
Prototype and Implementation
additional features implemented in this version, bugs eliminated, update on changes in appearance, user interface, performance

Project Presentations
Completion: Week 10 Points: 20
Class Schedule
Presentation Schedule Back to Top

The development team will present the task, purpose, design, and implementation of the system, together with a short demo of the main functionality of the system.

The final presentations will be given during the lecture and lab times of the last week in the quarter. There will be time limits based on the overall number of projects in each section of the class.

Mutual Team Member Evaluations
Completion: Week 10 Points: 20
Class Schedule
Mutual Team Member Evaluation (Excel file) Back to Top

Since it can be difficult for me to judge the contributions of individual team members to the overall effort, I will be asking for your feedback on the performance of your team mates. Follow this link to a template Mutual Team Member Evaluation Sheet as an Excel file. I reserve the right to change the allocation of points for extreme cases, however (e.g. if everybody agrees to give all the other team members the full points). I may also ask you for further documentation to support your contribution to the team, or your evaluation of a team member's contribution.

Grading

Project Grading Scheme
Milestone Week 2 15
Milestone Week 4 15
Milestone Week 6 15
Milestone Week 8 15
Presentations 20
Mutual Team Member Evaluation 20

The overall score for the project is 100 points. 80 out of these 100 points come out of my evaluation of the team project, and usually every team member gets the same score. Up to 20 points come from an evaluation of your team mates, calculated as the average of all your team mates' scores for your work. If you don't submit your evaluation of the team members, you may not receive any points for this part.

A Few Notes on Teamwork

A substantial degree of your grade in this class depends on the overall performance of your team. This can be good (you do nothing, and still get a good grade) or bad (you do all the work, but it is not enough). Ideally, every team member should contribute a roughly equal share. In reality, this is often not the case because team members have different backgrounds, experience, work habits, cultures, etc. Just like in a professional work environment, you have to find a balance between looking after your own interest, and contributing to the overall team effort. If at any point you feel that there are serious problems with your project team, feel free to talk to me, and we will try to find a solution.

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