Succeed Ug Projects

8/22/2019 Succeed Ug Projects

1/24

Undergraduate Projects

2007 the University ofGreenwich


How to Succeed

Kevin McManus


2/24


2007 the University ofGreenwich 2

What is a Project?

A software development project

where you are the consultant

Doing work on behalf of a (virtual) client

short timescale low budget

Deliverables

product

report

presentation


3/24



Rules of the Game

Clearly stated in the project handbook Make sure that you know the rules of the game

"Learn the rules well so that you know how to breakthem properly"Dalai Lama

Think about how you are going to be assessed what are your assessors looking for?

make sure that your assessor can tick all of the boxes


4/24



What are we looking for? Discovery of information

read, research, investigate, gather

Application of what you have learned to do something useful

using the skills that you have learned over the past 2 years plus some new tricks you self teach for the project

Professional approach

applying all those personal and professional skills Documentation of your achievements documentation is an important part of software

your (virtual) client has paid you lots of money to do this project for them you need to convince them that you did a good job

you need to be assessed

you need to convince your assessors that you did good Demonstration of insight

show awareness of your strengths and weaknesses your project's strengths and weaknesses

reflective practice avoid metacognitive miscalibration


5/24



Report Sections

Preamble title, abstract, contents

Beginning approx 25%

Middle approx 55%

End approx 20%

Bibliography

only include references which are cited in the report strict Harvard formatting

Appendices lengthy technical material, test results, user guide, etc.

Word count


6/24



Beginning

Introduction aims, justification

why are you doing this project?

Research

discovering information your approach to finding information

credible sources

documenting your discoveries discussion of your source material

clear referencing

conclusions summary of what you have discovered


7/24



Referenced Material

You must show that you have discovered information by readingbooks, papers, articles, etc. written by other people and published somewhere

credible authors

credible publications

Your text must contain references (citations) to these sources either numeric [17], alphanumeric [KM07] or Harvard style (McManus, K.

2007)

Text that is copied from your sources must be formatted in "fullquotation marks and italic font" and clearly identified [PXR94] copied text is good

but not too much of it

Borrowed material such as pictures, figures, tables etc., must besimilarly identified graphical content must not float

it must have a title and be referenced in the body of the text ... as can be seen in Figure 3.7 the upper stage of the reactor is...


8/24



Middle Requirements specification

Technology

identify the technology you have chosen to use avoid regurgitating superficial technical material justify your decisions

Methodology describe your chosen approach

remember: this is a short timescale project and you are a team of one

Design plan what you intend to implement

schemas, architectures, UML, and so on

Implementation describe what you have done

Testing

discuss your approach to testing provide evidence of testing

test schedules include test results in an appendix

a good test finds errors, a bad test finds none

analyse/discuss your test results


9/24



End Reflection

possibly the most important part of your report Critical evaluation of the three Ps

Process the project what went well/wrong?

would you do it differently next time?

Product the thing you made what is good/bad about it?

would you do it differently next time?

what is the next step in the development?

Person - you how have you changed during the project?

what skills did you bring? what skills did you develop?

All projects are open to some criticism this should come from you

as opposed to from your assessors


10/24



Bibliography

The first thing I read after reading the abstract

A list of the source material cited in the report should not include material that is not cited

this may be included in a list of associated reading

must be credible sources not Wikipedia, no DIY books, no dummies guides

must be accurate

must be correctly formatted If you have no credible sources then find some

and find a way of including them


11/24



Appendices

The word count of your report is limited if you exceed the word count push some content into an

appendix

Appendices are good for... lengthy technical material

boring detail that would not fit in the report body

all that UML

source code - if you really need to include it

data sheets from third parties

minutes of meetings

installation / user guide for your product

all those screen shots test results

Appendices should not float they should be mentioned / described in the body of the report

...further discussion of this can be found in Appendix D


12/24



If it all goes wrong

Then you will have a lot to reflect on which is good

Few software projects run according to plan

in a student project a well documented disaster could

gain more marks than a poorly documented success

Good software projects

include contingency

have a flexible design deliver value at an early stage

divide et impera


13/24



A Suitable Topic

Projects should be... narrow

well defined scope

deep of academic interest

relevant to your degree

current techniques and technologies

novel no re-inventing of wheels

achievable within the limited timescale

U d d t P j t


14/24



Unsuitable Topic

Projects should not be... broad

wide scope cf. impractical

superficial of no academic interest

irrelevant to your degree

old hat techniques and technologies

conventional seen it all before

impractical overambitious

attempting far too much cf. broad

U d d t P j t


15/24



Web Application

Many good projects will be a web application

some sort of web enabled database If your project is to simply 'do a web application' or 'do a

web enabled database' it is most unlikely to achieve agood grade

If you are going to attempt a web application then you

really should be studying... COMP1037 Web Application Technologies

COMP1207 e-Technology

COMP1295 Programming Distributed Components

"Every time a student says to me that they want to 'do aweb application' a small part of me dies"

Kevin McManus

U d d t P j t


16/24



Web Applications

Your project should identify a specific webapplication

Something that is unusual

rarely seen application

built with emerging technology

novel totally new application

Focus on what makes your web application

different Are you attempting something that is less

ambitious than a coursework?

U d d t P j t


17/24



Web Project Titles

Bad title Better title

Building a web enabled library

system database

Investigation of role based access in

a web enabled database using a

library system as an example

Creating a web enabled hair dresser

booking system

Use of software design patterns in the

creation of a web application using a

hair dresser booking exemplar

A web enabled pizza ordering

system

An investigation into suggestive

product composition using a web

based pizza ordering system

demonstratorA web enabled pizza ordering

system

Scheduling and load balancing for

distributed JIT production using a web

based pizza ordering system

demonstrator



18/24



Finding a Good Project Rather late to be doing this now

better late than never

List of projects suggested by staffhttps://cms1.gre.ac.uk/student/projects/StaffProjectTitles.asp

Thinking of a good project is not easy best ideas come from real world problems

occur when you are least expecting them

May not need to throw any babies out

talk to your supervisor talk to staff talk to mates

talk to anyone who will listen

listen to what they have to say



19/24



Less is More Programmer productivity metrics are low

it is not easy to create lots of high quality code

Better to create a small quantity of good code than rafts of bad code write less

achieve more

Stand on the shoulders of giants

use existing software to do something new those new environments

Rails, Python, Eclipse, Beans, Netbeans, Komodo

API's AWS, Google Maps, Flickr, 43 Things

SOA's

web services rise again AJAX

still good, libs for VS, integration with API's, SOA's

Web2 whatever it may be



20/24



Case StudyContent Syndication

Student declares an interest in contentsyndication but is worried that it wouldinvolve lots of difficult coding

Student is not wrong this is an ambitious undertaking

Student reveals that they are not a goodcoder

Oh dear!



21/24



Case StudyContent Syndication

A quick Google reveals several open source contentsyndication projects

The Plan... investigate current OS CS packages

select and install 2 different packages

2 different servers

create content driven sites on both servers

syndicate the content across both servers

Success! with almost no coding

time left to quickly write a Perl screen scraper

and syndicate the scapings

First Class - Hurrah!



22/24



Your Supervisor

Your supervisor is not there to advise you in howto implement your project they do not need to be an expert in your chosen field

other school staff can advise on technical matters if you ask nicely

database surgery

Your supervisor is your assessor your virtual client

You must talk to your supervisor

you need to be proactive in arranging meetings you should take an agenda to each meeting

you must record the meeting - take minutes

include evidence of these meetings in your report



23/24



Blogging

Keep a record of everything that you do on yourproject no matter how small

It is very easy to forget important stuff when

preparing your report failed experiments can be as important as successful

ones

Blogging is more than just an aide-mmoire

the 21st century laboratory notebook blog text can be copied into your report

incredibly helpful in reflecting



24/24



Summary

Learn the rules of the game

Choose a suitable project

Contact supervisor

Gather sources

Blog

Deliver Product

Report

Succeed Ug Projects

Documents

Transcript of Succeed Ug Projects