succeed ug projects
TRANSCRIPT
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Undergraduate Projects
2007 the University ofGreenwich
Undergraduate Projects
How to Succeed
Kevin McManus
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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...
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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?
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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
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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
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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
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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!
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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!
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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
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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
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Summary
Learn the rules of the game
Choose a suitable project
Contact supervisor
Gather sources
Blog
Deliver Product
Report