Research Day 2009 Assessment of Student Work on Geographically Distributed Information Technology...
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Research Day 2009
Assessment of Student Workon Geographically Distributed
Information Technology Project Teams
Charles Tappert and Allen StixPace University, New York
Research Day 2009
Real-World Student Projects
Conducted in capstone courses for over 8 years
Student teams build real-world computer information systems for actual customers
Project systems serve the community internal university community at Pace greater university community external non-profit local community
Research Day 2009
Real-World Student Projects (cont)
Real-world projects are a stellar learning experience for students
Win-win situation for all Students Customers Instructors and other involved faculty School of CSIS University
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Migrate to Online Format
Migrated from traditional face-to-face format to online format in Fall 2006
To be progressive Technology for online courses adequate Online preferred by employed students –
no scheduling conflicts & no commuting To expand the population of students
beyond the greater NYC area
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Challenges of Online Format
Uncertainties of how traditional course methods port to the online environment and what new methods might be required
Teams lacking co-presence require higher level of organizational and process skills
No weekly classroom meetings as safety net for teams’ interaction and functioning
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Team Projects – Categories
Project CategoryNumberProjects
ProjectSemesters
ProjectRelated
Pubs
OffshootPubs
Web Applications 8 12 8
Pervasive Systems 14 24 18
PC Applications 10 17 11
Artificial Intelligence 6 8 8
Pattern Recognition 8 11 27 19
Biometric Systems 12 15 17 19
Quality Assurance 5 9 5
Totals 63 96 94 38
Table 1. Summary of projects and publications,from Tappert, Stix, & Cha (2007)
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Team Project Websites
Project title and description Project members and customers All deliverables posted
Weekly status reports Midterm & final presentation slides User manual Technical paper
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Issues/Solutions Stemmingfrom Scattered Teams
Project stakeholder communication Issue – communication gets difficult
For example, scattered team members more likely to feel isolated and want to communicate directly with instructor or customer
Solution Communication between team and instructor/customer
must be through team leader Email distribution lists for whole class and for each team Project team leaders must be local to facilitate
communication/meetings with instructor and customers Course website provides central source of course
information Blackboard discussion forum for each project (see below)
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Issues/Solutions Stemmingfrom Scattered Teams (cont)
How to handle quizzes, deliverables, etc. Issue – classroom meetings not available Solution – use Blackboard educational
software Quizzes Collecting digital deliverables Discussion forums
Forum for archiving instructor email Forum for student introductions Forum for textbook and other course material Forum for each team project
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Issues/Solutions Stemmingfrom Scattered Teams (cont)
Provide some face-to-face interaction Issue – no weekly classroom meetings Solution – three classroom meetings for
local students/customers1. Near beginning of course
1. Face-to-face introductions, nature of course, specifics of course, student team project meetings
2. Midterm1. Project status presentations
3. End of semester1. Final project presentations
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Current Assessment of Online Students
Individual quizzes (20%) Blackboard educational software system
Team initial assignment (10%) Students learn to function as a team
Team project midterm checkpoint (20%) Team project final checkpoint (20%) Team technical paper (30%) Strong emphasis on projects
No midterm/final exams (used in two-semester course)
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Team Member Self and Peer Evaluations
Issue – lack of classroom meetings makes it difficult to determine individual team members’ contribution to the project work
Peer evaluations critical for distributed teams
Some minimal team member/customer contact Some minimal team member/instructor contact
Literature indicates Various granularity levels in peer evaluations Some automated systems reported
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Team Member Self and Peer Evaluations
Three times during the semester After initial assignment to learn the process At the midterm checkpoint At the final end-of-semester checkpoint
Process for a graded team event First assign a team grade Adjust individual grades up/down based on
self/peer, customer, and instructor evaluations
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Example Team Peer Evaluationand Grade Chart (4 member
team)
Team Member
Eval 1 Eval 2 Eval 3 Eval 4 Summary
Grade
1 + = + ++ + + + + 93
2 = = – – – – – – 79
3 – = + – – 83
4 = = – + = 85
Average = = = = = 85
+/- 2% for each summary +/- sign, showing only peer evaluations.
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Pedagogical Course Evaluations
Issue – lack of classroom meetings makes it difficult for instructor to determine relative value of the course methodologies
Solution – semester-end survey (Survey Monkey)
Procedures/methods that worked well, or did not work well, and why
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Pedagogical Customer Evaluations
Issue – instructor is often not aware of the quality of team-customers interactions
Solution – semester-end survey Obtain student feedback on customer
interaction Were customer requirements clear? Was amount of contact/interaction adequate? Was help on the project work appropriate?
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Case Study - Agile Methodology Extreme Programming (XP)
First rigorous test of XP method Instructor posted deliverables on that project’s
page on the course website Deliverables intended as ~2-week duration
Results Unfortunately, first deliverable caused team
frustration Re-running experiment of previous team Not possible because not documented properly
Providing pseudo code increased deliverable speed Velocity increased second half of semester