Term Project: IST 220

Team-based Term Project
IST 220, Spring 2003

The purpose of this term project is to:

Develop students overall understanding of networking and web-based technology.
Provide students an opportunity to practice teamwork, leadership and project management principles.
Help organizations assess their network requirements, the potential of a network, and their use of web-based technologies.

Students will be divided into teams. Make sure you are a member of a team. To receive a grade for the term project, one must be on a team. Current teams are listed here.

Tasks:

The team will select an organization to study. For examples of past organizations, please talk to the instructor. Examples of past term project final reports are available here. Please note that last year's requirements and individual projects could be very different from this years and that some had extensive databases associated with them.

The term project has two elements:

Analysis of the organization's network configuration needs.
Development or enhancement of the organization's web site.

ANALYSIS OF THE NETWORK CONFIGURATION:

The team should identify the feasibility of networking and propose basic network configuration for their organization. The issues to be explored may include but are not limited to the following:

What types of hardware and software does the organization currently have? Are they sufficient for networking? Discuss.
What should the configuration of their networks be (LAN, WAN, wireless)? Why?
What should the topology of their network be? Why?
What type of applications have the organization implemented (web page, file/printer sharing, e-mail, e-commerce, etc.)? What else should the organization implement?

WEB SITE DEVELOPMENT:

The team should help their organization develop a web site (if they do not already have one) or enhance their existing web site. A structured approach (as outlined below) should be followed and documented.

Structured Approach for Web Site Development:

Similar to the traditional procedure for information systems analysis and development, a structured approach to web site development should be followed. This includes the following:

1. Determine the mission and goals of the web site.

Some common goals of the web site include selling products, advertising, information dissemination and announcements, providing access, offering services (customer support, etc.), generating discussion, providing training/education, developing communities, recruiting employees, etc.

2. Define the target user population.

The user profile should at least include the following items: What are the characteristics of the users, e.g. age, gender, and education background? What are the technological characteristics of the users? What browsers are they using? What connection speeds do users have?

3. Define the user requirements for the web site.

The team should discuss this among themselves to see if they will determine the user requirements or ascertain them by conducting interviews with existing users. The team needs to determine among themselves or through the interviews at least the following questions: What type of web site would users like to visit? What contents and information would the users be interested in? What qualities would cause users to keep coming back to the web site? What factors would keep users away from the site? Others?

The web site should contain a sample data query for a database.

4. Design of the conceptual framework of the web site.

Here, the team needs to decide how the web site should actually look. The following decisions need to be made: What interface will be used? What color schemes would be appropriate ? Will there be any graphics on the web site? What content will needs to be there? Others?

5. Physically design the web site.

Code the web site using whatever tools you feel appropriate.

6. Perform usability testing on the web site.

Test the website for performance and use.

7. Implement the web site.

Put the web site on-line (team leaders will contact the TA for access to a web directory at the class site when appropriate). Outline a marketing strategy.

8. Evaluate and improve the web site.

This should take place after the web site is in place and should be included in the final report.

Minimum Requirements for the Web Site:

The web site should have an appropriate esthetic design. If appropriate, it should contain the following interfaces: rolling banner, dynamic images, scrolling message, clickable images, pop-up windows, popular interfaces (such as button, check box, radio box, pull down menu, option list), table, etc. However, they should be done well; see for example Jacob Nielsen's discussion on these issues. The web site should also link to a prototype of searchable database using popular database management systems such as Microsoft Access, SQL Server, etc.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

To ensure the quality and progress of the team's effort, each team needs to do at least the following:

Elect a team leader and clearly define the role and responsibility of all team members. Each team must notify the TA of their team leader by January 24. The team leader will be denoted on the team list.
Create a schedule (Gantt chart) for the project using Excel, graphic or Project Management software.
A page proposal outlining the project needs to be submitted to the TA and instructor no later than January 27. The proposal should at least cover the following:

A brief description of the selected organization and contact information.
The team organization (responsibilities of various individuals).
A tentative milestone/schedule of the project.

Create a form to record all the meetings held (e.g., time, date, and place of meeting, member presented, agenda discussed, etc.). These forms will be included as the appendix of the final report.
All of the above needs to be discussed in your term project mid-semester review presentations which need to be professionally prepared in powerpoint.
A peer evaluation will be conducted at the end of the semester. The results from peer evaluation will be used to assess the contributions of each member.

DELIVERABLES - PRESENTATIONS AND DOCUMENTS

Presentations:

Two professionally prepared presentations using Powerpoint will be presented.

Review presentation: This presentation which should be for no more than 8 minutes gives a summary of the project is expected to be, what has and will be accomplished, and timetable and project assignments. Please bring your presentation on a floppy and put it online.

Final presentation: This presentation should be no more than 20 minutes and should discuss in detail what the project accomplished and how. Demos of the working parts of the projects should be presented.

Presentation Questions: Each team is assigned two other teams to question during that team’s presentation. A questioning team should ask 2 questions of EACH of the teams they are assigned. For example, Team 1 is to be questioned by teams 4 and 6. Team 4 should ask 2 questions about Team 1’s project, and Team 6 should ask 2 questions about Team 1’s project. Team 4 will also question Team 10 later in the week, and Team 6 will also question Team 9. For more clarity, see the Course Schedule. Team leaders should then e-mail the questions asked to the TA after class. Your questions will be evaluated and team members will be given up to 1 point of extra credit for each team they question.

Documents:

A professionally prepared hardcopy of the final report is due in class on May 2. Also email copies of the final report in Word and presentation slides in Powerpoint to the instructor and TA by May 2. Please check the final report requirements for more details.

A copy of the final report must be given to the organization studied.