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

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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 Projects – Examples

Course website “Projects” page Spring 2009

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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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Team Project Website Example

Personality Assessment from Handwriting Project

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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

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Conclusions

Over five year’s experience in face-to-face mode

Three year’s experience in online mode Techniques for managing and

assessing distributed teams have been successful and they continue to evolve