MASTER'S FINAL PROJECT See also: Instructions for submitting project deliverables Poster guidelines & templates What is the purpose of the Final Project? The final project should be a challenging piece of work that integrates the skills and concepts you have learned during your tenure as an I School Master's Student and helps prepare you to compete in the job market of your choice. It should give you experience: in formulating and carrying out a sustained, coherent, and significant course of work resulting in a tangible work product; in project management; in presenting your work in both written and oral form; and in working in a multidisciplinary team. What kinds of projects qualify? The interdisciplinary diversity of the MIMS program makes many kinds of projects suitable. Many projects involve the design of an information-intensive application and creation of a software artifact of some kind. Other projects include a significant research component, making a written report the most important artifact. Previous projects are a useful source of inspiration but your project doesn't have to be like any of them. It is useful but not necessary to have a "customer" or "sponsor" for your project; doing so usually helps to provide more focus as well as a more real-world experience of dealing with people, organizations, constraints, and deadlines. Many people have done projects with campus organizations or with the firm where they had a summer internship or previous job. Are there categories of projects? Yes. MIMS final projects generally fall into one of two main areas. Type A: Research papers. Research papers on topics relevant to the I School curriculum, which would follow the conventions of and are evaluated by the criteria appropriate to published papers or theses in the relevant domain. These are more academic and less professionally-oriented than the Type B projects. These projects will be organized around a research or policy question and will typically include a literature review, empirical research, and development of conclusions or recommendations. This category includes the following: Policy Analysis: Investigation of legal, economic, or other policy issues involving some aspect of information technology in society, with recommendations. Empirical research: A traditional research project that seeks to answer a well-defined research question and thereby advance knowledge in a particular field relevant to the I School. Should include a research design and use qualitative and/or quantitative methods for data collection and analysis. Analytical investigation: Publishable-quality paper on a topic related to the I School curriculum that involves original research, analysis, and/or synthesis that advances knowledge in a field and goes well beyond the expectations of the final paper for a course. Type B: Professionally-oriented applied work. This category includes projects that build something, plus those that perform investigations similar to those that would be performed in a professional work setting. A successful project of this type is likely to span two or more of the areas listed below with a dominant focus in one of them. These projects will normally be completed by groups. These categories can guide you in assembling a project team whose members have the appropriate expertise for the kind of project you're proposing. User requirements, needs analysis, and usability assessment. System design: information architecture / modeling / document engineering / metadata framework. Representing information and process requirements in a formal and computer-executable way, perhaps as XML or database schemas. User Interface Design: including user-centered design, iterative prototyping. Implementation: Design and implementation of a software artifact of engineered quality and some potential to be deployed and actually used. Test and evaluation: Experimental and quantitative assessment of a design or deployed application, including performance evaluation. The choice and formulation of a topic and the decision about which kind of project it will be is made in conjunction with the students' project advisor. Do we have to write software? No. Some students do research projects, e.g., in IT policy. Others do needs assessments or other ethnographic work. A software artifact is not required, but the majority of student projects involve creating and/or integrating software. If we write software as part of our project, what are the expectations surrounding it? Most projects create some kind of software artifact, and the nature and quality of the software should be consistent with the overall goals of your project. If your project is primarily a user interface design effort it would be appropriate for your software to be "demoware" without much concern for robustness or completeness of implementation. If your project is more oriented toward information architecture or document engineering, your software would likely be more model-based and of sufficient quality to demonstrate the functionality enabled by your information models. If the essence of your project is to build a deployable system, then obviously you'd be much more focused on architecture, testing, and other software engineering concerns. The most important issue about any software that you develop is that you are clear in your final report and presentation about the kind of software effort that you've undertaken and what you have actually achieved. Should projects be done by one student, or by a team? You are expected to do a project as part of a team. Most projects involve 2 to 4 people. Three is probably the optimal size. Some projects involve other students who are not part of the final project team, either as part of a related course project or as part of a research group. This can sometimes be highly beneficial to first-year MIMS students, but it can also cause problems if it puts people on your critical path who do not have the same goals and priorities. If first-year students are involved, all group members must agree in advance about expectations about time commitments, work commitments, and the project goals. How much work should a project involve? Most students spend 10 to 20 hours a week during their final semester on their project. Some of this effort might take place as part of a spring semester course that has a project component, because most courses with project requirements let you adapt them to accommodate your final project. Most students should not take more than 2 courses in the spring semester that do not involve their project. When should a project start? By the end of the fall semester of your second year you should have a well-defined proposal that outlines the proposed project; a rationale for it as a capstone and integrative experience; and the participants and their roles. This must be approved by your final project advisor. How and when are final projects approved? Who supervises them? By early November, students must turn in a project proposal signed by an I School faculty member. By signing the proposal, an I School faculty member has agreed to supervise and evaluate your final project. All final projects are to be supervised by an I School faculty member and the satisfactory completion of a final project is determined by the supervising faculty member. All project proposals are to be turned into 102 South Hall by the deadline and are subject to review by the MIMS Committee Eligible faculty supervisors include regular I School faculty (Assistant Professors, Associate Professors, Professors) and full-time permanent adjunct faculty. In addition, part-time and affiliated faculty may also serve as advisors on an exceptional basis with the approval of the Head Graduate Advisor. As part of the final project process, in late January or early February, a social event will be scheduled in which students present their proposals and plans to the I School community. Also, in mid-March, students are required to complete a mid-project approval form. This review is a critical review. Project progress will be rated as "acceptable" or "unacceptable" with the latter being an unequivocal warning that the project is not likely to meet graduation requirements given its current state and trajectory. This review takes place before the mid-semester break so that project members can allocate appropriate efforts to remedy problems identified by the review. How do I earn academic credit for my final project? In addition to any regular coursework related to the final project, the final project is the equivalent of 4 units of academic credit. Each student is required to sign up for 2 units of INFO 298A with their final project advisor and highly recommended to sign up for 2 units of INFO 209 for course credit. INFO 298A must be taken on a letter grade basis and can only be taken during the spring semester. Are there any specific grading criteria for IS298A? The following criteria are general guidelines agreed upon by the faculty: Grading for INFO 298A will be based on a Mid-Project grade and a Final Project grade. The Mid-Project grade will constitute 25% of the total grade and the Final Project grade will constitute 75% of the total grade. The Mid-Project grade and Final Project grade will be based on the advisor's evaluation of the agreed-upon deliverables (see below). It is expected students in a project group will provide assessments of their peers in terms of how much work each student contributed to the project. The exact format of the peer review will be determined jointly with the students and their advisor when in the process of completing the Final Project Proposal form. What role does INFO 209 play in the final project? INFO 209 is a Professional Skills course which covers essential aspects of professionalism, using the final project as the basis for lectures and exercises. Students learn theory and practice of important project skills including effective presentations, working with others, preparing high-quality deliverables, ethical conduct and managing relationships with project sponsors. This is a two unit course that meets weekly--one hour of lecture and one hour of skills practice. To maximize student opportunity for instructor and peer feedback, the class is divided into two sections for the practice sessions. How do I sign up for the INFO 298A units and for INFO 209? After an I School faculty member agrees to be your final project advisor (by signing your project proposal), ask for a CCN (course control number) and a CEC (class entry code). With these numbers, you will be able to sign up for 2 units of INFO 298A through the Tele-Bears system. You can sign up for INFO 209 directly through the TeleBears system. You need to enroll in all 4 units on or before the date in which the project proposal is due. What are the required project deliverables? Deliverables for All Projects: a paper. a presentation, with slides and, if applicable, a demo. Specific guidelines and deliverables for Type A Projects: A literature review and an outline of the final paper should be submitted to the advisor prior to the completion of the Mid-Project Approval form. The paper should be approximately 7,500 words (the equivalent of about 30 pages double-spaced) in length (plus references). It is expected that this will include an extensive literature review. The paper should be of a quality suitable for publication in an academic journal or high-quality conference. With the guidance of the advisor(s), one or more potential journals and/or conferences should be identified in advance. The paper should contain the appropriate sections that are conventional for the identified journal(s). Where appropriate, this may include methodology, sampling and data, results, discussion, etc. (Given the expected length of the Final Project writeup, it may be the case that to qualify for publication the length of the paper would need to be reduced.) Specific guidelines and deliverables for Type B Projects: The paper should be at least 2,500 words in length, plus figures, tables, and references. The Final Project should have a website associated with it that has at the very minimum a link to the project paper, the project presentation, and the demo (if applicable). It is strongly recommended that this website be designed to act as a full project website. When should the specific deliverables be agreed upon? Project team members and their advisors should agree on the deliverables that will be submitted at the Mid-Project review when in the process of completing the Final Project Proposal form. Project team members and their advisors should agree on the deliverables that will be submitted at the completion of the project while in the process of completing the Mid-Project Approval form. For Type B projects, the specific software artifacts to be delivered, if any, should be agreed in advance with the project advisor and should be identified on both the Final Project Proposal and Mid-Project Approval forms. When are the deliverables turned in? The paper component of the Final Project grade must be submitted to the advisor and the Student Affairs Office no later than one week prior to the date posted for Presentations. Students who do not meet this requirement are not eligible for the Chen Awards. Prior to the date posted for Presentations the following deliverables must be posted to the I School Final Project website: A copy of the paper. An abstract of the paper (with a link to the paper). Presentation slides and/or demonstration software, if available. A link to the project website (required for Type B projects, strongly encouraged for Type A projects) Instructions for submitting project deliverables What are the key dates for projects? September 19, 2012: Students meet to discuss final project ideas and to solicit project partners. November 13, 2012: Project proposal form, approved by a faculty advisor, is due. January 23, 2013: Team-building exercise for final project groups January 30, 2013, 4-6 pm: Presentation of final project proposals to the I School community. March 8, 2013: Mid-project approval form due, signed by the faculty advisor. May 10, 2013: Final project report and any software artifacts turned in. May 13, 2013: Optional poster due or information for staff to make a poster due. May 16, 2013: Final Project Showcase May 18, 2013 (tentative): Commencement Failure to meet final project deadlines and requirements will result in a review of student's record by the Head Graduate Advisor and may result in an academic warning or ultimately probationary status. In particular, students who do not turn in the Project Proposal form and/or the Mid-Project Approval form by the dates posted will be recommended for academic probation. The final project is required for the MIMS degrees. Failure to complete the final project via the 298A course will result in academic probation; a student will not be awarded a MIMS degree until a project is delivered and accepted by the supervising faculty member.