Undergraduate Projects

Undergraduate Projects
How to Succeed
Kevin McManus

2007

the University of Greenwich

Undergraduate Projects

What is a Project?
A software development project
where you are the consultant

Doing work on behalf of a (virtual) client

short timescale low budget

Deliverables
product report presentation

2007

the University of Greenwich

Undergraduate Projects

Rules of the Game

Clearly stated in the project handbook Make sure that you know the rules of the game
"Learn the rules well so that you know how to break them properly"
Dalai Lama

Think about how you are going to be assessed

what are your assessors looking for? make sure that your assessor can tick all of the boxes
2007 the University of Greenwich 3

Undergraduate Projects

What are we looking for?

Discovery of information
read, research, investigate, gather

Application of what you have learned

to do something useful using the skills that you have learned over the past 2 years
plus some new tricks you self teach for the project

Professional approach
applying all those personal and professional skills

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 that you did good

Demonstration of insight
show awareness of your strengths and weaknesses
your project's strengths and weaknesses

reflective practice
avoid metacognitive miscalibration
2007 the University of Greenwich 4

Undergraduate Projects

Report Sections
Preamble
title, abstract, contents

Beginning
approx 25%

Middle
approx 55%

Word count

End
approx 20%

Bibliography
only include references which are cited in the report
strict Harvard formatting

Appendices
lengthy technical material, test results, user guide, etc.
2007 the University of Greenwich 5

Undergraduate Projects

Beginning
Introduction
aims, justification
why are you doing this project?

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
2007 the University of Greenwich 6

Undergraduate Projects

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 credible publications

Your text must contain references (citations) to these sources

either numeric [17], alphanumeric [KM07] or Harvard style (McManus, K. 2007)

Text that is copied from your sources must be formatted in "full quotation marks and italic font" and clearly identified [PXR94]
copied text is good
but not too much of it

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
... as can be seen in Figure 3.7 the upper stage of the reactor is...

2007

the University of Greenwich

Middle
Requirements specification Technology
identify the technology you have chosen to use
avoid regurgitating superficial technical material justify your decisions

Undergraduate Projects

Methodology
describe your chosen approach
remember: this is a short timescale project and you are a team of one

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
test schedules
include test results in an appendix a good test finds errors, a bad test finds none

analyse/discuss your test results

2007 the University of Greenwich 8

Undergraduate Projects

Reflection
Process the project

End

possibly the most important part of your report

Critical evaluation of the three Ps

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 assessors
2007 the University of Greenwich 9

Undergraduate Projects

Bibliography
The first thing I read
after reading the abstract

A list of the source material cited in the report

should not include material that is not cited
this may be included in a list of associated reading

must be credible sources

not Wikipedia, no DIY books, no dummies guides

must be accurate must be correctly formatted

If you have no credible sources then find some

and find a way of including them
2007 the University of Greenwich 10

Undergraduate Projects

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 D
2007 the University of Greenwich 11

Undergraduate Projects

If it all goes wrong

Then you will have a lot to reflect on
which is good

Few software projects run according to plan

in a student project a well documented disaster could gain more marks than a poorly documented success

Good software projects

2007

include contingency have a flexible design deliver value at an early stage divide et impera
the University of Greenwich 12

Undergraduate Projects

A Suitable Topic
Projects should be...
narrow
well defined scope

deep
of academic interest

relevant
to your degree

current
techniques and technologies

novel
no re-inventing of wheels

achievable
within the limited timescale

2007

the University of Greenwich

13

Undergraduate Projects

Unsuitable Topic
Projects should not be...
broad
wide scope cf. impractical

superficial
of no academic interest

irrelevant
to your degree

old hat
techniques and technologies

conventional
seen it all before

impractical
overambitious attempting far too much cf. broad
2007 the University of Greenwich 14

Undergraduate Projects

Web Application
"Every time a student says to me that they want to 'do a web application' a small part of me dies"
Kevin McManus

Many good projects will be a web application

some sort of web enabled database

If your project is to simply 'do a web application' or 'do a web enabled database' it is most unlikely to achieve a good grade If you are going to attempt a web application then you really should be studying...
COMP1037 Web Application Technologies COMP1207 e-Technology COMP1295 Programming Distributed Components
2007 the University of Greenwich 15

Undergraduate Projects

Web Applications
Your project should identify a specific web application Something that is
unusual
rarely seen application built with emerging technology

novel
totally new application

Focus on what makes your web application different Are you attempting something that is less ambitious than a coursework?
2007 the University of Greenwich 16

Undergraduate Projects

Web Project Titles

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 Use of software design patterns in the booking system 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 Scheduling and load balancing for distributed JIT production using a web based pizza ordering system demonstrator
17

A web enabled pizza ordering system

2007

the University of Greenwich

Undergraduate Projects

Finding a Good Project

Rather late to be doing this now
better late than never

List of projects suggested by staff

https://cms1.gre.ac.uk/student/projects/StaffProjectTitles.asp

Thinking of a good project is not easy

best ideas come from real world problems
occur when you are least expecting them

May not need to throw any babies out

talk to your supervisor
talk to staff
talk to mates talk to anyone who will listen

listen to what they have to say

2007 the University of Greenwich 18

Undergraduate Projects

Less is More
Programmer productivity metrics are low
it is not easy to create lots of high quality code

Better to create a small quantity of good code than rafts of bad code
write less achieve more

Stand on the shoulders of giants

use existing software to do something new those new environments
Rails, Python, Eclipse, Beans, Netbeans, Komodo

API's
AWS, Google Maps, Flickr, 43 Things

SOA's
web services rise again

AJAX
still good, libs for VS, integration with API's, SOA's

Web2
whatever it may be
2007 the University of Greenwich 19

Undergraduate Projects

Case Study
Content Syndication
Student declares an interest in content syndication but is worried that it would involve lots of difficult coding Student is not wrong
this is an ambitious undertaking

Student reveals that they are not a good coder

Oh dear!
2007 the University of Greenwich 20

Undergraduate Projects

Case Study
Content Syndication
A quick Google reveals several open source content syndication projects The Plan...
investigate current OS CS packages select and install 2 different packages
2 different servers

create content driven sites on both servers syndicate the content across both servers

Success!
with almost no coding time left to quickly write a Perl screen scraper
and syndicate the scapings

First Class - Hurrah!

2007 the University of Greenwich 21

Undergraduate Projects

Your Supervisor
Your supervisor is not there to advise you in how to implement your project
they do not need to be an expert in your chosen field
other school staff can advise on technical matters
if you ask nicely database surgery

Your supervisor is your assessor

your virtual client

You must talk to your supervisor

2007

you need to be proactive in arranging meetings you should take an agenda to each meeting you must record the meeting - take minutes include evidence of these meetings in your report
the University of Greenwich 22

Undergraduate Projects

Blogging
Keep a record of everything that you do on your project
no matter how small

It is very easy to forget important stuff when preparing your report

failed experiments can be as important as successful ones

Blogging is more than just an aide-mmoire

the 21st century laboratory notebook blog text can be copied into your report incredibly helpful in reflecting
2007 the University of Greenwich 23

Undergraduate Projects

Summary
Learn the rules of the game Choose a suitable project Contact supervisor Gather sources Blog Deliver
Product Report
2007 the University of Greenwich 24