University of Greenwich

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Introduction to Undergraduate

Projects

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What is a final year project?• A sustained piece of individual work of

between 150 and 200 hours • Planned by you with guidance from your

supervisor and the project lectures• Written up by you as a Project report of

around 12,000 words (min 10,000, max 15,000)

• Assessed on your Report (+ Product) and a Demonstration by your supervisor and a second-marker. The final grade is moderated and externally examined.

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What is a final year project?

• A project with outcome that can map onto the systems lifecyclewhere you are the consultant

• Doing work on behalf of a (virtual) clientshort timescale low budget

• DeliverablesProduct Report Presentation

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Why your project is important!

• It is your main opportunity to carry out an important, individual piece of work

• Your project counts for ¼ of your final year

• It will be used when writing references for you – for work or for further study

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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. This also involves some self

teach for the project

• Professional approach– applying all those personal and professional skills

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What are we looking for?

• 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 your work is good

• Demonstration of insight– show awareness of your strengths and weaknesses

• your project's strengths and weaknesses

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Deliverables

1. Project Proposal2. Initial Report3. Interim Report4. Completed Project

(Report + Implementation)

5. Demonstration

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What is assessed• Three final deliverables

Project Report • Research, • Design process, • Development process, • Evaluation

Product Demonstration of your product,

ideas and knowledge to your supervisor and second marker

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What should you do now?• Set objectives then tasks for your project. Three general

objectives :1. Research 2. Build (Analysis, Design, Implementation)

Or analysis, discuss outcomes, recommendations3. Evaluate

• Collect as much information as you can about your project

• Write a draft project proposal based on your plan so far and what you know

• Show it to your supervisor

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A Suitable Topic• Projects should be...

narrow; well defined scope; deep of academic interest; relevant to your degree; current with regard to techniques and

technologies; novel with no re-inventing of wheels; achievable within the limited timescale.

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Unsuitable Topic• Projects should not be...

– Broad with wide scope cf. impractical– Superficial and of no academic interest– Irrelevant to your degree– Developed with old techniques and

technologies– Conventional in that we have seen it all before– Impractical because it is overambitious and

attempting far too much cf. broad

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Web Applications• Your project should identify a specific

web application• Something that is

– Unusual eg built with emerging technology;

– Novel ie 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

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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 demonstrator

A web enabled pizza ordering system

Scheduling and load balancing for distributed JIT production using a web based pizza ordering system demonstrator

Record the process• Upload through the project website:

project proposal which must be agreed by supervisor before you can continue

initial report - literature study/data collection interim report - electronic diary (make sure you add to it regularly!)

• Keep notes and records of all your different ideas including what did and didn’t work

• Save versions of your work

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A project plan for you to follow

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Collect data and research

Evaluate and conclude

implement something specific

Come up with a good idea

Failing to plan is planning to fail!

What should a BIS project

be about?An IS project should be to build something

involving the design and implementation of a system. It can also be about producing something that maps onto the system life cycle. It should be concerned with:

understanding aspects about information systems applying principles from other courses (or

elsewhere) understanding and modelling problems reflecting and appraising how to build information

systems

Come up with a good idea

What would the final details look like?

• Requirements Capture/Analysis– user / client / peer / supervisor / employer

• Research – theory /concepts• Review – existing products

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Evaluate idea

Analysis Design, Develop, Build

Test based on req.

analysis Evaluate

product and process

What would the final details look like?

• Requirements Capture/Analysis– user / client / peer / supervisor / employer

• Research – theory /concepts• Review – existing products/cases

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Evaluate idea

• Analysis• Develop Recommenda-

tions that map onto lifecyle

Evaluate product and process

Some advice

• 10+ hours a week on your project

• Keep realistic – you may not be able to achieve all you want to do but a PLAN will help you sort this out.

• Don’t hide from your supervisor – they can’t help you if they don’t see any of your work.

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How to fail your project1. Don’t plan2. Don’t produce specifications, analysis or

designs3. Avoid your supervisor4. Start as late as possible5. Don’t prepare for any meeting or presentation6. Make sure anything you hand in is unreadable7. Don’t ask for support.

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Report Sections• Preamble: title, abstract, contents

• Beginning: approx 25%

• Middle: approx 55%

• End: approx 20%

• References:– only include references which

are cited in the report – others putin a Bibliography

• strict Harvard formatting

• Appendices– lengthy technical material, test

results, user guide, etc.

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Word count

Beginning• Introduction:

– aims, justification– why are you doing this project?– Outline the rest of the report

• 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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Middle• Methodology

– describe your chosen approach• remember: this is a short timescale project and you are a team

of one

• Requirements Analysis and Specification– preparation, gather requirements and analysis

• Technology– identify the technology you have chosen to use

• avoid regurgitating superficial technical material• justify your decisions

• 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– analyse and discuss your test results

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End• Reflection

– possibly the most important part of your report• Critical evaluation of the three ‘P’s

– 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 assessors25

Referenced Material• You must show that you have discovered information by reading

books, papers, articles, etc.– written by other people and published somewhere

• credible authors and publications

• Your text must contain references (citations) to these sources

• Text that is copied from your sources must be formatted in "full quotation marks and italic font" and clearly identified with a citation– copied text can be good but avoid using too much

• Borrowed material such as pictures, figures, tables etc., must be similarly identified– graphical content must not float– it must have a title and be referenced in the

body of the text

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References• A list of the source material cited in the report

– only include material that is cited in the text– must be credible sources

• not Wikipedia, no DIY books, no dummies guides– apart from when it is really needed

– 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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Bibliography

• This is where you list books, journals and websites that informed your work but was not directly cited in your work.

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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 D29

The role of the supervisor• They will approve your project proposal and

support you in your project but they are not there to do the work for you.

• They are your assessor, virtual client and critical friend.

• 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 minute

and include evidence of these meetings in your report

the University of Greenwich 30

What students may expect but it is not within the supervisor’s role to:

• Rewrite/finalise the project proposal.

• Tell them what to do.

• Edit/rewrite drafts, write the software or configure the hardware.

• Provide detailed feedback when it is submitted late without an agreed extension.

• Give detailed feedback on the summary, conclusions and evaluation.

• Negotiate on their behalf for an extension.

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How to fail your project1. Don’t plan2. Don’t produce specifications, analysis or

designs3. Avoid your supervisor4. Start as late as possible5. Don’t prepare for any meeting or presentation6. Make sure anything you hand in is unreadable7. Don’t ask for support.

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How to pass the project• Create a plan and keep it realistic. • Make contingency plans in case things go

wrong.

• Spend 10+ hours a week on your project

• Meet the deadlines

• Don’t hide from your supervisor – they can’t help you if they don’t see any of your work.

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Questions

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For next week…

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