The goal of the project in LIS 7008 is to design, or overhaul/re-design, a Website for a real entity. The project is designed to allow students to integrate and extend knowledge acquired throughout the course and to apply that knowledge to solve a problem of substantial scope. Students are required to work in groups. Groups of 3 are highly recommended; groups of 2 are allowed but not perferred; groups of 4 and working by oneself alone are not allowed. Teams should plan to devote approximately 125 hours outside of class to the project over the course of the semester (6 hours per person for 7 weeks). Experience suggests that successful teams require expertise in design, implementation, and project management. Please do not start late. Sometimes it takes time to figure out why your code does not work the way your expect. Getting feedback from your client and users also takes time.
Immediately following the midterm exam, project groups will meet on Moodle to discuss and nail down the details of their planned project. Each team will present their project plans to solicit feedback on their plans from other members of the class. Please briefly address at least the following aspects of your project:
The instructional staff will be available for consultation with project teams during office hours, by appointment, and by email or phone. Because project teams will be working with a diverse array of technologies and application environments, this assistance will necessarily focus more on strategies than details.
Projects are required to make substantial use of at least two of the key technologies introduced in the course, integrated in a manner that is appropriate for their intended application:
Projects are also required to include significant real content (such as 10-30 pages); mock-ups that contain only a limited quantity of content for demonstration purposes would not be acceptable. This means, very often, your project should meet the needs of a real entity, preferably a public, non-profit entity, such as a government agency, a library, an information center, a school, a museum, an archive, a hospital, an association. The reason we prefer public, non-profit entities is that we want to advocate service-learning, which "emphasizes hands-on experiences that address real world concerns as a venue for educational growth." You should consult the real entity for information needs, content, and feedback. Note that I can evaluate your Web site from the perspectives of information structure/organization, Website design, and information technology, but I cannot evaluate your Website in terms of content and how your Website is going to be used by its users. Ideally you should meet with both the users who will be using the Web site (such as tourists visiting Louisiana) and the entity which serves the users (such as the Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation & Tourism). However, if it is impossible to meet with the users, you should meet with the real entity at least three times - at the beginning of the project in which you collect their information needs and content, in the middle of the project in which you collect their feedback on your progress, and at the end of the project in which they evaluate your Web site. Please leave at least a week for user evaluation and a final round of Website revision.
Each team will produce a single written report, due on December 3rd. The sole role of the project report is to convey information that cannot be conveyed as effectively on your Website. The key here is the content, not the style of the report. So there are essentially no style guidelines except that I would like to be able to understand it (so it is helpful if it is well written), and I would like it to be reasonably concise (in my mind, about 5-6 pages, single spaced). The content of the report should address at least:
Of course, different groups will devote more or less space to each of these, and some groups will add other things. For example, some groups might talk about changes that they made to their vision of who their customer really was along the way as they learned more. Others might talk about suggestions for supportng project groups in future semesters that would extend their capabilities. Others might want to write about group dynamics (perhaps as a form of "group therapy":-)). So there is no cookbook recipe and no fixed format for a good project report. The key is to learn a lot, and to describe what you have learned.
Teams should discuss their project plans with the instructor no later than the planning session following the midterm exam. Submitting a one-page plan to solicit my feeback will be helpful. It is important that the chosen project be sufficiently substantial to represent a significant accomplishment, but that it not be so complex that completion within the available time would be unlikely. Teams may select any topic for their project, but they should be careful to select a project for which the required content can be obtained in the available time.
Your project will be evaluated with the following 4 aspects (with some subjectivity):
Please note that you are trying to meet two requirements: course requirements and your client's requirements. It is possible that these two requirements are not completely consistent with each other. If this happens, you should strive to meet the course requirement first, and then to meet your client's requirements later on; or you may negotiate with your client when your client's needs conflict with your technical capability and Website design principles. If a serious conflict occurs, please talk to me.
Some possibly useful information (recommended by students of previous semesters):