LBSC 690 (Fall, 2007): Final Project Information

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The final project is designed to provide you an opportunity to integrate and extend knowledge acquired throughout the course and to apply that knowledge to solve a problem of substantial scope. You are required to work in groups of three, and teams should plan to devote time approximately equal to two homework assignments (multiplied by three people). Experience suggests that successful teams require expertise in design, implementation, and project management.

Accompanying each project will be a presentation during Monday, 12/10. Each group will get ten minutes to present their work, followed by five minutes for questions and hands-on exploration by the instructor and GA. A sign-up sheet for time slots will be posted later in the semester.

Projects are required to make substantial use of at least two of the following technologies introduced in the course, integrated in a manner that is appropriate for the intended application:

• Web-based content delivery (HTML with CSS)
• XML
• Relational databases
• Synchronized multimedia content
• Programming (e.g., JavaScript)

Projects are also required to include significant real content; mock-ups that contain only a limited quantity of content for demonstration purposes would not be acceptable.

It is recommended that you structure your ten-minute presentation into two separate parts, a PowerPoint presentation and a demo of your project (although how long you devote to each would depend on the actual project). Your presentation should answer at least the following questions:

• What did you do?
• How did you do it? This has two aspects: (1) how did you learn what was really needed (did you just make it up, or do you have a real customer?), and (2) how did you organize your efforts (i.e., who did what?)
• What did you learn about the nature of your problem?
• What did you learn about the capabilities and limitations of the technologies that you chose to work with?
• How well does the project deliver on what it was designed to accomplish?

Of course, different groups will devote more or less time to each of these, and some groups will add other things. There is no cookbook recipe for a good project. The key is to learn a lot, and to describe what you have learned.

Grading

The final project will be worth 35% of your total grade. The breakdown of the grade will be as follows:

Examples

For examples of project from previous semesters, see my LBSC 690 gallery of final projects.

Last updated: $Date: 2007/05/01 01:02:23 $