Practice Makes Perfect: Success in Undergraduate Projects Dr Bing Wu BSc MSc PhD Head, Department of Computer Science School of Computing Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland Seminar in HIT, Harbin,

Seminar in HIT, Harbin212/01/2005 Outline of Today’s Seminar 1. Discussions on Undergraduate Projects 2. Information Technology Needs Hands-on : building-up abilities by doing minor projects 3. Getting Ready for Employment/Industries : the first ever major project -- final year project 4. Summary and Discussions

Seminar in HIT, Harbin312/01/2005 Outline of Today’s Seminar 1. Discussions on Undergraduate Projects 1.1Objectives of Undergraduate Projects 1.2Minor and Major Projects 1.3Life Cycle of a Project -- software engineering disciplines 1.4An Approach for a Undergraduate Project 1.5Student’s RoleS in Conducting a Project 1.6 Qualities of Good Projects -- student, supervising system (static, dynamic), supervisor, etc.

Seminar in HIT, Harbin412/01/2005 Outline of Today’s Seminar 2. Information Technology Needs Hands-on : building-up abilities by doing minor projects 2.1Design a Set of Assignments for a Subject 2.2 Case Studies of Minor Projects: UNIX System Programming 2.3 A Polo System as a UNIX assignment

Seminar in HIT, Harbin512/01/2005 Outline of Today’s Seminar 3. Getting Ready for Employment/Industries : the first ever major project -- final year project 3.1 Objectives of the Final Year Projects 3.2 Stages of Final Year Projects 3.3Playing Proper RoleS 3.4 Responsibilities of Supervisors and Students 3.5 Meeting Project Deadlines 3.6 Writing Up Project Documentation 3.7 Aiming at the Real World 3.8 Case Studies

Seminar in HIT, Harbin612/01/2005 Outline of Today’s Seminar 4. Summary and Discussions 4.1 Summary 4.2 Discussions

Seminar in HIT, Harbin712/01/ Discussions on Undergraduate Projects 1.1Objectives of Undergraduate Projects 1.2Minor and Major Projects 1.3Life Cycle of a Project -- software engineering disciplines 1.4An Approach for a Undergraduate Project 1.5Student’s RoleS in Conducting a Project 1.6 Qualities of Good Projects

Seminar in HIT, Harbin812/01/2005 To allow each undergraduate to conduct an (substantial) piece of technologic, academic, scientific or engineering work as an individual initiative, and to write it up and present it in a scholarly/professional fashion. This will further the students' analytical skills and their abilities in oral and written communication. 1.1Objectives of Undergraduate Projects

Seminar in HIT, Harbin912/01/2005 To train and enhance the creativity and to test the student’s ability to apply the knowledge learned from the relevant subject(s) and/or the course as a whole 1.1Objectives of Undergraduate Projects

Seminar in HIT, Harbin1012/01/2005 Minor Project may be known also as assignment of a subject may be conducted as a group project normally run for one or few weeks the tasks are normally specified clearly by lecturer(s) the main aim of such an assignment is to let students learn and practice some specific techniques and/or methodologies and so on. 1.2Minor and Major Projects

Seminar in HIT, Harbin1112/01/2005 Major Project final year project normally runs for one academic year normally is conducted by an individual student 1.2Minor and Major Projects

Seminar in HIT, Harbin1212/01/2005 Water Fall Model ( software engineering, Ian Sommerville, 5th Ed, page 9) 1.3Life Cycle of a Project -- software engineering disciplines Requirements Analysis System and Software Design Implementation and unit testing Integration and System testing Operation and maintenance

Seminar in HIT, Harbin1312/01/2005 Identify a project topic and main objectives of the project (mainly by students themselves if major) Submit a proposal articulating clearly the aims and objectives of the project Research and/or analyse the project area to gain an understanding of the work involved Design, implement and test a solution if appropriate Write a manual/report which clearly documents the project and how each of the above stages were carried out Present the project 1.4An Approach for a Undergraduate Project

Seminar in HIT, Harbin1412/01/ Technic Aspects requirements analyst, architects designer, system developer (programmer), system tester, etc. 2. Management and Administration Aspect: a project manager 3. Learning and Teaching Aspect: a student -- regularly meeting your supervisor is vital! 1.5Student’s RoleS in Conducting a Project

Seminar in HIT, Harbin1512/01/ Qualities of Supervising System : Static -- project guidelines, second supervisor, etc. Dynamic -- things can go wrong! 2. Qualities of Supervisors : Caring, Responsive, etc. 3. Qualities of students: open minded determined organised imaginative curious 1.6 Qualities of Good Projects critical careful good communicator creative positive

Seminar in HIT, Harbin1612/01/ Information Technology Needs Hands-on : building-up abilities by doing minor projects 2.1 Design a Set of Assignments for a Subject 2.2 Case Studies of Minor Projects: UNIX System Programming 2.3 A Polo System as a UNIX assignment

Seminar in HIT, Harbin1712/01/ Design a Set of Assignments for a Subject Software are produced through programming, not just thinking! Hands-on skills can only be gained by practising It is up to the lecturer to design a set of assignments for a subject However, it would always be good if students want to practise more

Seminar in HIT, Harbin1812/01/ Case Studies of Minor Projects: UNIX System Programming Lab-1 (4 hours) getting familiar with the Unix/Linux environment (.bashrc,.bash_profile and.bash_logout, etc.) Lab-2 (4 hours) Unix Quoting mechanism. Y2K problem Lab-3 (4 hours) developing Unix utilities on its own (cat, cp and ls) Lab-4 (6 hour) developing a mini Shell for Unix

Seminar in HIT, Harbin1912/01/ A Polo System as a UNIX assignments The Personal Links Book The main aim of the Personal Links Book (polo) program is to maintain a DATABASE/File (mybook), which holds records of your personal links. The Features : The main features of the polo program is to add, search, display, change and remove your personal links against your database file mybook. The Usage : polo can be executed without any arguments, which then asks inputs interactively polo can also be executed with string of words, which are used for search for records

Seminar in HIT, Harbin2012/01/2005 The Record Output Protocol/Format : __________________________ | Name : string | | Address1 : string | | Address2 : string | | Address3 : string | | Telephone : string | | Fax : string | | string | | WebSite : string | | | o o | |________________________ | _____________________________________ | Name : Dr Bing Wu | | Add : Computer Science Department | | D. I. T | | Kevin Street, Dublin 8 | | Tel : | | Fax : | | | | Web : | | | o o | |____________________________________| 2.3 A Polo System as a UNIX assignments

Seminar in HIT, Harbin2112/01/ Getting Ready for Employment/Industries : the first ever major project -- final year project 3.1 Objectives of the Final Year Projects 3.2 Stages of Final Year Projects 3.3Playing Proper RoleS 3.4 Responsibilities of Supervisors and Students 3.5 Meeting Project Deadlines 3.6 Writing Up Project Documentation: progress reports, final manual 3.7 Aiming at the Real World: list of projects 3.8 Case Studies : Failed, successful and award-winning Projects

Seminar in HIT, Harbin2212/01/ Objectives of the Final Year Projects A final year project will be a major piece of individual work, bringing together several strands of student’s study. Students should consider it as a preparation for work in industry, or (in some cases) preparation for a higher degree. The main aim is to draw together knowledge, skills and techniques learnt in the previous 3 years plus new material from the final year.

Seminar in HIT, Harbin2312/01/ Stages of Final Year Projects 1.Investigating ideas 2.Selecting and Proposing a direction & topics 3.Analysing requirements 4.Determining specifications 5.Designing architecture and components 6.Carrying out implementation 7.Reviewing and Adjusting the progress 8.Testing and Maintaining the system 9.Demonstrating the system 10.Writing the project manual and 11.Presenting the final results

Seminar in HIT, Harbin2412/01/ Playing Proper RoleS 1. Technic Aspects requirements analyst, architects designer, system developer, system tester, etc. 2. Management and Administration Aspect: a project manager 3. Learning and Teaching Aspect: a student -- regularly meeting your supervisor is vital!

Seminar in HIT, Harbin2512/01/ Responsibilities of Supervisors and Students Responsibilities of the Supervisor to give guidance about the nature of the project and the standard expected, about the planning of the project, about literature and sources, about techniques and methods and about any problems of plagiarism; to maintain contact via regular tutorial meetings; to be accessible within reason at other times for giving advice to the student; to give detailed advice on milestones;

Seminar in HIT, Harbin2612/01/2005 Responsibilities of the Supervisor to request written work as appropriate, and return such work with constructive criticism within a reasonable time; to ensure that a student is made aware of any inadequacy of progress, or of standards of work below those expected; to encourage the student to produce early draft chapters, to comment on them critically and return the comments promptly. If the student does not do so, this is the student's responsibility. 3.4 Responsibilities of Supervisors and Students

Seminar in HIT, Harbin2712/01/2005 Responsibilities of the Student to agree on a schedule of meetings with the supervisor, and to attend such meetings; to take the initiative in raising problems, however elementary they may seem; to maintain the progress of the work in accordance with the milestones and objectives agreed with the supervisor; to contribute to planning the project, and monitoring progress against the plan; 3.4 Responsibilities of Supervisors and Students

Seminar in HIT, Harbin2812/01/2005 Responsibilities of the Student to keep a project log for recording results, ideas, references etc. acquired as the project progresses; to determine the contents of the report and of oral presentations; to present draft chapters to the supervisor before the Easter vacation. There is no obligation on supervisors to read drafts during the vacation. In summary, the management of the project, and the course that it takes, are ultimately the responsibility of the student. 3.4 Responsibilities of Supervisors and Students

Seminar in HIT, Harbin2912/01/ Meeting Project Deadlines Project schedule must be planned at the beginning of the project Milestones must be clearly identified Deliverables of each stage must be specified Deadlines must be met! However, project schedule is subject to adjustment

Seminar in HIT, Harbin3012/01/ Writing Up Project Documentation Project proposal Research reports Design report(s) Coding & Commenting Final project manual

Seminar in HIT, Harbin3112/01/ Writing Up Project Documentation Report Format -- A typical report will require the following: 1. a title page, containing the title, author's name and date 2. the second page must contain an abstract of words, summarising the project objectives, approach and achievement; 3. subsequent pages should show a list of contents (chapter headings plus major section headings with page numbers; also titles of Appendices and a list of figures, each of which must be numbered); 4.the body of the report. Each chapter should start on a new page.

Seminar in HIT, Harbin3212/01/ Writing Up Project Documentation Final Project Format : The following is an attempt to illustrate the "typical" structure: 1.Chapter 1 Introduction 2.Chapter 2 My Theory, Solution, Program, Problem, etc. 3.Chapter 3 Description of Design, Formalism etc. 4.Chapter 4 Implementation 5.Chapter 5 Results and Evaluation 6.Chapter 6 Conclusions 7.References 8.Appendices

Seminar in HIT, Harbin3312/01/ Summary and Discussions 4.1 Summary 4.2 Discussions

Seminar in HIT, Harbin3412/01/ Summary 1. Discussions on Undergraduate Projects 2. Information Technology Needs Hands-on : building-up abilities by doing minor projects 3. Getting Ready for Employment/Industries : the first ever major project -- final year project 4. Some Case Studies

Seminar in HIT, Harbin3512/01/2005 The project is the one area where the student must work completely independently Student has considerable flexibility in the choice of project topic Student gets the opportunity to demonstrate knowledge gained across the whole course A successful project calls for considerable creativity and independent thought The project has value beyond the marks awarded – employers view it as an important measure of ability The project process is vital in creating and maintaining links with industry 4.2 Discussions

Practice Makes Perfect: Success in Undergraduate Projects Any Questions? Seminar in HIT, Harbin

Seminar in HIT, Harbin3712/01/2005 Thanks for Your Attention Practice Makes Perfect Success in Undergraduate Projects Success in Undergraduate Projects Dr Bing Wu BSc MSc PhD Head, Department of Computer Science School of Computing Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland Go Raibh Maith Agat 谢