Research Day 2009 Assessment of Student Work on Geographically Distributed Information Technology Project Teams Charles Tappert and Allen Stix Pace 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

Research Day 2009 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

Research Day 2009 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

Research Day 2009 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

Research Day 2009 Team Projects – Categories

Research Day 2009 Team Projects – Examples Course website “Projects” page Spring 2009

Research Day 2009 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

Research Day 2009 Team Project Website Example Personality Assessment from Handwriting Project

Research Day 2009 Issues/Solutions Stemming from 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 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)

Research Day 2009 Issues/Solutions Stemming from 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 Forum for student introductions Forum for textbook and other course material Forum for each team project

Research Day 2009 Issues/Solutions Stemming from Scattered Teams (cont) Provide some face-to-face interaction Issue – no weekly classroom meetings Solution – three classroom meetings for local students/customers 1. Near beginning of course 1. Face-to-face introductions, nature of course, specifics of course, student team project meetings 2. Midterm 1. Project status presentations 3. End of semester 1. Final project presentations

Research Day 2009 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)

Research Day 2009 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

Research Day 2009 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

Research Day 2009 Example Team Peer Evaluation and Grade Chart (4 member team) Team Member Eval 1Eval 2Eval 3Eval 4SummaryGrade 1+= ==–– – – –79 3–=+––83 4==–+=85 Average=====85 +/- 2% for each summary +/- sign, showing only peer evaluations.

Research Day 2009 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

Research Day 2009 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?

Research Day 2009 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

Research Day 2009 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