CSC 581 Computer Support for Knowledge Management Group Project

One activity in this course is a project conducted in a team of about five participants.

Project Topic

You can choose your own topic within the domain of knowledge management. The goal of the project is to explore the use of computers in order to help users deal with knowledge in a more efficient and effective way. While your project may or may not incorporate Artificial Intelligence methods (e.g. expert systems), the emphasis should not be on the representation and manipulation of knowledge by the computer. The topic should satisfy the following criteria:

the use of computers or computer-related technology to assist users with knowledge-intensive tasks is an important aspect;
the methods used enable users to perform such tasks in a way that is substantially better than without their use;
users should be relieved from tedious tasks, and be able to concentrate on aspects that utilize their capabilities.

Project Organization

Then a prototype of your selected application will be implemented. Due to time constraints, this prototype may have limited functionality. In the last part, the prototype will be evaluated. Since it is obviously difficult to evaluate your own product, the evaluation will be performed by a different team. Finally, there will be a presentation on the project. This presentation will focus on the last part, the evaluation, and must include information on the initial user requirements, design, and implementation performed by the original project team. Both for the evaluation and the presentation it is very important to provide the evaluators with good documentation. This will be done with the help of design notes

Project Milestones and Deliverables

The project will be conducted in several stages. Each stage is supposed to achieve a milestone, accompanied by a short presentation and a deliverable. Follow the links to templates for the milestone deliverables. The format of the presentations is up to the teams, but you should address the issues indicated in the template. The following milestones are imposed on your team by higher powers:

Week 2: Topic Selection and Requirements
The first part of the task will be to select an application, to establish the requirements that will serve as the basis for the later evaluation of the application, and to set up a schedule that identifies which requirements will be met in a particular phase.
Week 4: System Design
The way these requirements will be satisfied is outlined through use cases, story boards, design diagrams, or other suitable means.
Week 6: Prototype (alpha-version)
A first version of your system is due for this milestone. While this version may lack some functionality and have other restrictions, it should demonstrate the basic ideas and methods of your project.
Week 8: Prototype (beta-version)
This version should have the full functionality as specified in the project requirements. It may have minor flaws (e.g. user interface issues, bugs, performance), but all capabilies must be present.
Week 10: Final Version, Presentation and Report
The final version will be demonstrated and described in a presentation and report.

Grading Criteria

*Project Grading Scheme*
Selection and Requirements	15
Prototype	25
Project Evaluation	15
Presentations	25
Mutual Team Member Evaluation	20

The overall score for the project is 100 points, which contributes 30% to your overall grade. 80 out of these 100 points come out of my evaluation of the team project, and usually every team member gets the same core. 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. 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 20 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. Follow this link to a template Mutual Team Member Evaluation Sheet as an Excel file.

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 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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