Assignment 6 -Project Proposal

 Assignment #6 – Project Proposal

Objectives

Create a project proposal for the COP4834 class

Assignment

This assignment will be the proposal for the project. All upcoming assignments will require you to demonstrate the use of a technology or skill. In all of these cases you can use examples I come up with or demonstrate the concept in your project. At this stage you will need to first develop a proposal for the project. Here is an outline you should use for the proposal. You may use any client server environment for the project, however please note that some of the external clients I have lined up have specific environments. 

The project will be a collaboration project with an external entity. I have worked to develop people for you to work with and you can select from some of the project ideas outline below. 

You may work in groups of up to 3 students on the project. Students may be active in more than one group if they are interested in learning more than one technology or environment.

Project Name Introduction This should be a short executive summary of the project: What is the name of the project? What does the project do? What need does it fill? Who are the primary stakeholders? What need does this fill for the primary stakeholders? Also include team members and client information. This is an introduction and each question should be answered briefly. Environment Include details of the technology environment for the project. Some of these specifications are included in the project ideas below (along with client information). You will need details of final deployment and long term support and hosting. Data Models What data model do you propose (existing database, create new database) and what data fields will be used and tracked as part of the project. I recommend first including high level categories of data such as User Information and then create a simple data dictionary of all fields that you will include in that category; User Name, User Email, etc… You will need to include the full data model – any data that must be persistent (saved by the system) must be included here. An easy way to document this is with a spreadsheet, some simple fields such as data element name, data element type, description is usually sufficient, but good documentation here will make things much easier later when you are designing the system and actual data models.   The data models are extremely important to get correct at the beginning of the project. Your interfaces will change, but hopefully if you put thought into the project the data models will not. Use Case Scenarios or User Interface Elements There are many ways to define the functionality of the system. One is simple screen designs showing flow of the system. Another method is the use case scenario where you outline the user experience in a sub-system for a user (Actor). This is a very common and useful way to define your system and I highly recommend it as it defines the required functions prior to interface design – http://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/methods/use-cases.html . As you get better at MVC you will be redesigning interfaces anyway – but the use case scenarios typically do not change. Interface Forms A simple list of forms/screens/interfaces with the purpose of each page. You do not need full designs at this stage. You will also very likely have changes to these interfaces as you progress through the project.  Timeline You know the technology you will be using, you will need to create a timeline. This can be a simple timeline – but you must have a plan to keep you on task as you tackle the use case scenarios.

Information

Please ask questions or post your information to the discussion boards to get feedback.

Estimated Completion Time

This assignment will take 10-15 hours done correctly. It will give you a great working start on your project and all upcoming assignments.

Supporting Lectures 

You will need to select and watch the video and other materials necessary for you to complete the project.

Questions and Answers

All questions will be answered on the discussion boards. Also resources that you find and share on the discussion boards I will add to the list of external resources on this page.

External Resources

Use Case Scenarios – http://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/methods/use-cases.html

Grading Criteria

This is a 0/10 assignment. Once your project proposal is approved your grade should be 10. A grade of 10 means you are approved and can proceed with your project.

Spring 2018 Projects Available

Online Readiness Skills System

Client: Marek Juracek [email protected]

Environment: .NET Web forms or MVC

Description: This will be the development of an application that will allow students at DSC to evaluate their own online readiness. It will use real tasks and questions to determine if students are ready to perform the technical tasks necessary to be successful in online classes. An example would be the ability to create and upload a text file. Professors will be able to direct their students to this system at the beginning of the semester, and the completion of the readiness survey will count as attendance for attendance verification. The faculty members will get a report of aggregated and individual student readiness for online classes. Students will also learn what skills they need to re-mediate and be given links to training materials to help them do this. Marek is the head programmer for Daytona State College and is excellent to work with as a project client.

Race Director Race Setup System

Client: Manny Otero

Environment: PHP, MySQL, and WordPress back-end

Description: This is a developed set of front end forms to allow a race director of an adventure race to design a race course and enter all pertinent information. This will be incorporated into the existing site flxadventures.com. Manny Otero is the current developer (and head developer for Tupperware) and is a great resource for this project and also other projects in WP and full back-end development. There is a high demand for WordPress developers (these are not WP sitemasters, this is real development) and this project is a great way to break into this development.

Online Advisor System integration with Smart Catalog IQ

Client: Anne Valentine ([email protected])

Environment: 

Description: In COP4813 you developed a client side Smart Advisor system that used JSON and a simple drag/drop interface to allow students to advise themselves on programs. This project extends this project to the next level where we wish to create a full system to create advisor pages for all programs (you are developing the system, not all the programs) and have it work in a true academic setting. To do this we propose partnering with SmartCatalogIQ – which is the software back-end for the catalog in use at DSC. This project will have you working with the technical and programming staff at Smart Catalog to develop and deploy a smart advising system within Smart Catalog.