EE616 Information Engineering Graduate Project – Your IEM Legacy

Spring 2010

2010 Results!

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Original Class Plan

Class Time: 1-5 PM on selected dates Class Room: BEC 157

The final project presentations will be April 23/24th at 1PM in BEC 157.  We will NOT meet every weekend – only on selected dates as shown below. Since this project is largely self driven, you REALLY need to pay particular attention and to the instructions provided on this page!

Course Purpose:

The IEM graduate project provides IEM Clients with an opportunity to pursue an area of study that is

(a) related to information engineering and management,
(b) consistent with their professional development goals, and
(c) approved by the IEM Program Director and leadership team.

The end result of the course activity must be a deliverable (see guidelines below). IEM clients/teams will present their project results to a review board at the end of the term.

Guidelines:

  1. Projects may be done individually or in teams. I discourage the teams – since I doubt that any two people have the same long term objectives.
  2. Each client/team will have a technical advisor (see below) to assist in the setting and tracking of deliverables.
  3. The IEM client or team will present the project results at the end of the term.
  4. The project will be evaluated by the review board and assessed as satisfactory or unsatisfactory.  If a project is assessed as unsatisfactory, a select committee will be assigned to work with the client/team to remedy any deficiencies.
  5. Decisions regarding the nature of your final deliverable, its scope, content, format, or other specifications will be made at the beginning of the term in consultation with your technical advisor.  If changes are needed during the course of the term, they should be discussed with, and agreed upon by you and the technical advisor.
  6. You will be required to present the final results on the web via website, youtube videos, blogs etc. Links must be provided along the way showing work in progress.

Technical Advisor Role

The technical advisor can be any IEM faculty, UAB faculty, or industry experts having the knowledge to guide and evaluate your efforts, provide meaningful feedback, and work within the guidelines below:

  • Help the client/team set a solid set of deliverables for the project. (See below for set of deliverable dates.)
  • Attend the final presentation on April 23rd from 1PM to 5PM.
  • Report the final feedback including recommended grade to me by April 24th.
  • Meet with the client/team as needed to keep them on track and guide their progress.
  • You are NOT expected to be the expert in their area or to tell them what to do or how to do it. You may or may not offer such detailed direction, but your main role would be to keep them on track.
  • Provide the client/team honest feedback.
  • Notify me if your client or team is failing to keep you informed or meet you as you require.

Possible Approaches:

  • Think of positioning and branding YOU. What brand do you have and what expertise do you want to capitalize on in the future. Can you use web media (blogging, YouTube, websites, etc) to begin to market your brand? Can you start developing your brand within your current work situation?
  • Your project could be an extension to the work you have done in previous courses.  For example, if you are developing a business case for a possible technology start-up, your project might be a detailed research paper relating to the technology area in which you are interested or a working prototype, demonstration, or proof-of-concept related to your proposed start-up.
  • Your project could parallel the topics you are studying in EE615 IE Design.  For example, if you are studying “best practices” for enterprise-level service delivery processes, your project might involve a study of how such practices are (or could be) deployed in your own workplace, potential problems in their deployment and corresponding solutions, analysis of benefits achieved, underlying software architectures and infrastructure, etc.
  • You can work with the IEM leadership team to develop tools for marketing, managing, and implementing the IEM program. This could include development of realistic and detailed case studies (e.g., a data center consolidation), tutorials that explore specific topics in considerable depth (e.g., security, financial analysis, queuing theory), proposed team exercises and educational games, etc.
  • You could work on a problem under faculty direction and submit your results and work log as a deliverable.  This might involve assisting the IEM leadership team with the development or evaluation of tools, methods, textbooks, or IT technologies.
  • You could perform a traditional study and submit a manuscript for publication -  including e-books, papers, and traditional books. (The publication requirements must fit the ease of publication. For instance, a formal journal paper may not be accepted by the time you present, but and e-book would most likely need to be 100% complete and published with feedback from readers.)

Grading:

Grades will be based on (a) an evaluation of your project results/deliverables, (b) the quality of your final presentation, (c) input from your technical advisor, and (d) assessments from the IEM leadership team. Failure to meet target dates during the term will adversely affect grades.

Visibility of your work

The IEM program is about clients and alumni. Your work will be published on the IEM site(s) or linked to from the site. If you place your work on a site and the IEM program links to it, we expect you to keep it current. Note that we will put your work with your name in front of everyone – so you will be branded by what you do in this project. So for the sake of your brand and the alumni – make it good stuff!

Deliverables:

A. December 17th – MEETING DATE – We will have a meeting in BEC 157 for anyone who is interested. A Q&A session related to topics for EE616. Meeting at 11:30 with lunch provided.

B. December 30th – Technical advisor and initial topic decided and sent to me via email. At this time only need an email to me and the technical advisor telling me 1) who is your advisor, 2) the title of your topic, and your web space you plan to use to post. (Full URL is preferred at this time so we can link to it immediately.) I need this even if I am your technical advisor. Title the email “EE616 Dec 30th”.

C. January 8th – MEETING DATE – Final Proposal Due – Maximum two-page problem description emailed (title “EE616 Final Proposal”) to me with a copy to the technical advisor. (This work should already be approved by the technical advisor.) This description MUST include

  • Names of all team members (if any).
  • Technical advisor’s name and contact information. (We will contact them to make sure they understand their role.)
  • The statement of the problem with all needed background material.
  • Schedule of the project including a) objectives and b) specific criteria / deliverables. BE SPECIFIC AS TO WHAT YOU WILL DELIVER. If this is a team effort, you need to break out which part each person delivers to the overall outcome.

D. Feb 12th. A email me the initial set of deliverables. Your technical advisor and you should have some half-way done set of deliverable set to this date. Your email should be titled “EE616 Feb 12th” and should be copied to your technical advisor.

E. April 23rd – Email to me the final set of deliverables. This email should include the website URLs that will house the project results. At very least, the project should be housed on a blog page formatted as appropriate. Title the email “EE616 Final Deliverable”

F. April 23rd – MEETING DATE – The final results will be presented.

  • You will have a very limited time to present – which will be strictly enforced.
  • Since time will be key we will ask you work with the entire class to have all presentations preloaded onto a single machine.
  • We will strongly enforce time limits for these presentations!  You will need to submit a CD or DVD with the ENTIRE website contents so that the content can be moved to a permanent server space.

Intellectual Property Issues:

The IEM clients will retain the copyright for their work, but may be asked to sign a form allowing UAB full use of the work. In addition, since this is part of university coursework, the results can be seen by anyone who asks as part of the Freedom of Information Act. If you have concerns please contact the me.

Projects from 2008

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