Support

Lectures

Lectures are scheduled but will not be given regularly. The purpose of scheduling them is to give the whole class or individual teams a place and a time to meet when necessary. However, everyone should attend the first class, on Friday, 11 September 2009.

Schedule

Poster Sessions

Capstone poster sessions, for all departments in ENCS, take place on March 24 and 25. All SOEN poster sessions are on Thursday, March 25, either in the afternoon or the evening, as shown in the ``Teams'' table below. This table shows the schedule for each session:

Teams

The teams in the table below are tentative, based on email that I have received from you. The team leader's name, if known is in bold. The last (unnumbered) group is not yet a team — it consists of students who do not yet appear to have a team.

Progress Reports

Each team should present a Progress Report on Friday, 4 December 2009 in H-620.

Schedule of Presentations

The table below suggests a schedule for presentations. Teams present in the order in which they appear in the table above. Please let me know if you wish to present earlier or later.

The times given are approximate. I have allocated 20 minutes for teams 1 – 4 but only 15 minutes for teams 5 and 6, because they are smaller. We will try to keep roughly to this schedule.

Requirements

• Each team will give a presentation.
• The presentation should last 15—20 minutes. (We have 110 minutes for 6 teams).
• Your attendance is required for all presentations. Get to the classroom by 6.25 p.m. and stay until the end. Do not just show up for your presentation and then go away.
• Your progress report should describe:
  • everything that you have done so far;
  • the work that remains to be done;
  • a comparison of your planned schedule and your actual progress;
  • any significant deviations from your proposal;
  • an estimate of how much you will actually accomplish.

Recommendations

It would be helpful to explain the methods your team uses to maintain control of the project while various members work on different things. For example, you could explain how you choose tasks and assign them, how you monitor progress and decide whether you are ahead or behind schedule, what documents and tools you use, and how you keep track of everything.

Thanks to Melanie Byford for suggesting this addition. Other suggestions, perhaps based on presentations for previous projects, are welcomed!

Suggestions

• You can demonstrate prototypes or just describe your progress with slides — or both.
• Several team members should participate in the presentation. Ideally, every team member should say something, but this may not be practical for large teams.
• Identify your role in the team when you speak. E.g., "I am in charge of testing".
• In addition to the required information described above, you may include less formal explanations. E.g., "The project is really going well and we are enjoying it" or "Courses were really heavy this terma and we haven't actually done anything but we'll catch up during the holidays".
• A written report is not required at this stage. However, if you provide a summary in a few pages, I will read it and, if appropriate, send comments.

Project Topics

SOEN 490 Design Projects are completed by teams of 6 to 10 students working for a "stakeholder". Teams with fewer than 6 students are discouraged because they do not provide sufficient experience of collaboration and cooperation. Teams with more than 10 students are discouraged because coordinating such a large number is difficult in an academic environment in which everyone has different schedules.

The "stakeholder" is a person or group who has an interest in the project. At the beginning of the year, the team negotiates informal requirements with the stakeholder. When the project is complete, the stakeholder provides an assessment and may suggest a grade.

Approval for projects must be obtained from the Coordinator on the basis of the informal requirements. The Coordinator holds a stake in all projects and will act as sole stakeholder for teams who have a good idea for a project but cannot find another stakeholder.

The people listed in the table below have agreed to be SOEN 490 stakeholders. The second column of the table gives the kind of project that they are interested in and the third column provides a description of their interests. If you are interested in any of these projects, please consult the Coordinator before approaching the stakeholder.

Projects are not limited to those listed in the table. If you have an idea and can find someone who is interesting in it ("someone" might be the coordinator), then submit a proposal. The main criteria for an acceptable project are:

• The project must be of appropriate size and complexity. (A credit corresponds to about 25 hours of work. A team of 6 taking a 4-credit course should do about 600 hours of work altogether.)
• The project must have significant software engineering content. It must involve planning, designing, multiple components, and some of: networking, database access, UI design, etc. To put it another way, implementing a complicated algorithm is good computer science but not enough for a project.
• There should be someone who is interested in the outcome of the project other than the team members (this is the "stakeholder"). If all else fails, you can try to convince the Coordinator to take an interest.