Running head: Lab 1 - Team Project Organizational Tool Prototype Product Description
Lab 1 - Team Project Organizational Tool Prototype Product Description
Team Black
Josh Ward
CS 411W
Janet Brunelle, Hill Price
March 17, 2014
Version 2
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Lab 1 - Team Project Organizational Tool Prototype Product Description
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Table of Contents
1. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................3
2. PRODUCT DESCRIPTION ........................................................................................................4
2.1. Key Product Features and Capabilities .........................................................................4
2.2. Major Components (Hardware / Software) ..................................................................6
3. IDENTIFICATION OF CASE STUDY ......................................................................................8
4. PRODUCT PROTOTYPE DESCRIPTION ..............................................................................13
4.1. Prototype Architecture (Hardware / Software) ..........................................................15
4.2. Prototype Features and Capabilities............................................................................16
4.3. Prototype Development Challenges ............................................................................16
GLOSSARY ..................................................................................................................................19
REFERENCES ..............................................................................................................................22
List of Figures
Figure 1. TPOT Major Functional Components .............................................................................6
Figure 2. Current Process Flow: Deliverable Assessment .............................................................9
Figure 3. Current Process Flow: Status Determination ................................................................10
Figure 4. Improved Process Flow: Deliverable Assessment and Feedback .................................11
Figure 5. Improved Process Flow: Status Determination .............................................................12
Figure 6. TPOT Prototype Major Components ............................................................................15
List of Tables
Table 1. Feature Comparison Between Real World Product and Prototype .................................13
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1. INTRODUCTION
Managing courses with multiple, simultaneous, asynchronous projects is becoming a
more common task for university instructors. According to a report by Allen & Seaman, 2013,
“more than 6.7 million, or roughly a third, of all students enrolled in postsecondary education
took an online course for credit.” In another report by Soloman, 2010, it is estimated that 72% of
employees' work is at least partially virtual. As the number of courses, projects per course, and
students per project increase, demands on the instructor's time increase dramatically. Existing
project management software has elements that are capable of reducing these burdens, but their
solutions are insufficient (P. Pazos, personal communication, October, 2013).
The existing model is an entirely ad-hoc system of software that allows an instructor to
monitor projects, but does not cohesively combine functionality. It also lacks automation, forcing
the instructor to conduct all operations manually. Many of the systems used by instructors
(Blackboard, for example) have been criticized as being clumsily-designed or difficult to use.
Finally, it is problematic to track user activity with several of the existing solutions now in use.
The proposed solution is TPOT – Team Project Organizational Tool. This is a project
management tool designed specifically with the purpose of minimizing the indicated problem
characteristics. The principal module in TPOT's solution is an Instructor Dashboard that will
allow instructors to assess projects from a single site rather than navigating through multiple
sites. The proposed model is a simplified version of the existing model; an instructor may visit
the Dashboard, and then access any element of any project in a hierarchical manner. All major
categories will be listed on the Dashboard by tabs; when the instructor selects a tab, a detailed
page is displayed showing the desired information. Filters may then be applied to enhance the
search and present more refined results.
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2. PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
The proposed solution is web-based software using Google Sites and PHP-enhanced web
pages to access team projects and oversee their management. Its primary method of
accomplishing this task is a centralized Dashboard from which the deliverables of each team may
be evaluated. Its goals are automation, accountability, ease of use, cohesion of functionality, and
disambiguation of tasks. When TPOT's goals are realized, the instructor is expected to see an
appreciable decrease in time and effort.
TPOT will accomplish its goals by providing a main page, arranged as a tabbed
document interface, that governs all aspects of team project management as requested by the
customer. These tabs will provide an overall summary of all desired team information, as well as
functionality to appraise the information and give feedback to students. The desired categories
are task assignment, file organization, monitoring of activity, messaging, grade management, and
administrative functions; appropriate tabs will be developed for each category. This distribution
will allow the project manager and project members to more clearly understand the definition of
the project and all related tasks with reduced ambiguity, and will provide a means of instant and
precise communication of roles, responsibilities, deliverables, and job status.
2.1. Key Product Features and Capabilities
As described in Section 2, TPOT will make use of a tab-based architecture to accomplish
its goals. Features may be quickly assessed in the Overview tab or addressed in their respective
tabs. All Dashboard functionality is coordinated in the same system, on the same page.
The Overview tab briefly describes recent updates to the other tabs. It will not contain
any unique data, but will rather give the instructor or teacher's assistant an idea of the selected
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team's progress with its project. It is from here that users will determine appropriate action and
guidance.
The Tasks tab manages all tasks assigned to the team or individual students. An instructor
will be able to create a task with an embedded description and assign it appropriately. The
instructor will then receive or request updates, and remove the task upon completion. While
instructors will have the ability to view, insert, update, and delete tasks, teacher's assistants will
only be allowed to view existing tasks.
The Files tab is a repository for all deliverables. The filename, author, date of submission,
date of modification, a brief description, and grade assigned will appear here. The instructor or
teacher's assistant may assign these files an individual grade, a team grade, or no grade.
The Activity tab will be used for team and individual accountability. It may be used to
view a student's recent actions, such as logging in, uploading, editing, or messaging. Filters are
particularly important on this tab, as a significant amount of tracking will take place, and filters
will allow an instructor or teacher's assistant to view specific types of activity and the students
who are active.
The Messages tab coordinates communication up, down, and across the team. A user can
send messages to students or teams, and students can send messages to the instructor, the
teacher's assistant, other students, or the entire team. Concise communication will be critical to a
virtual team in order to unambiguously assign and complete tasks.
The Grades tab will list all gradable assignments, the team or student receiving the grade,
and the grade assigned, if it has been graded. The instructor or teacher's assistant will be able to
grade an assignment here, by team or individual student. This tab is connected to the Files tab in
that the Files tab may also be used to view and assign grades.
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The Admin tab may be used to perform all administrative functions on one tab. The
instructor may manipulate team composition, grade deliverables, or other such responsibilities.
Some responsibilities will be intentionally redundant with other tabs, such as the grading of
deliverables; each tab will permit its own relevant capabilities, but all capabilities will also be
available on a single tab. Teacher's assistants will not have access to this tab.
2.2. Major Components (Hardware / Software)
The entire system is composed of five major components (Figure 1); team sites, Google
Apps Scripts, the Instructor Dashboard, a third-party web server, and the TPOT database server.
Students and industry partners may access the TPOT database server through team sites, and
instructors and teacher's assistants may access the database through the Dashboard. The
Dashboard will also be capable of scraping team site data directly.
Figure 1. TPOT Major Functional Components
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The student side of the model will be handled on Google Sites. Templates for each team
will be generated by the instructor and may be modified by each team. It is through these sites
that all students will conduct their tasks and upload files. Each team member may access the
team site through a variety of media; in the process of aggregating files, students will develop a
hub for communication and build a project history. The team site scripts responsible for queries
to the TPOT database server will be written into the team template by TPOT developers. Any
further development will be implemented on individual sites.
Historically, the instructor would also conduct all operations through Google Sites, which
is the source of the problem described by Team Black's advisor. An instructor currently must
navigate each site and evaluate all deliverables and students sequentially, which can be an
unnecessarily time-intensive process. The Dashboard will collect all relevant information,
organize and filter it, and provide a single location to coordinate evaluation efforts.
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3. IDENTIFICATION OF CASE STUDY
Presently, TPOT is intended for the use of Dr. Pilar Pazos-Lago, an Engineering
Management & Systems Engineering Assistant Professor at Old Dominion University. She
earned her B.S. in 1994 at the University of Vigo, her M.S. in 2001 at Texas Tech University,
and her Ph.D. in 2005, also at Texas Tech University. Professor Pazos' interests include
organizational learning, collaborative learning, virtual teams, and team dynamics.
TPOT is motivated by the difficulties faced by professors responsible for multiple virtual
projects. Instructors do not have a single, easily-accessible location for communication, file
storage, and accountability evaluation, and must examine every email and file individually.
Figures 2 and 3 indicate deliverable assessment and status determination, respectively, in the
current process flow, a system that is slow to traverse and susceptible to error due to its
complexity (P. Pazos, personal communication, October, 2013). Figures 4 and 5 indicate
deliverable assessment and feedback, and status determination, respectively, in the improved
process flow. TPOT is being designed to provide instructors with a streamlined method of
accomplishing the tasks mentioned; in future semesters, TPOT is anticipated to provide
additional features as requested by customers. The tool is expected to be enhanced beyond the
current requirements and to be usable by instructors from any department at any university.
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The current deliverable assessment flow (Figure 2) has three distinct subdivisions; an
instructor must gather deliverables from email, Blackboard, and team sites. The instructor must
iterate through each deliverable found at each subdivision and assess it individually. As there are
multiple students in a group posting deliverables to multiple repositories, version control
concerns are introduced.
Figure 2. Current Process Flow: Deliverable Assessment
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In order to determine the current team status under the current model (Figure 3),
instructors must search email messages and review updates on team sites. Reviewing email
involves searching for messages relevant to status and determining the team responsible for the
message. Reviewing team sites involves reading each page for each site and determining what
information is relevant to updates. The instructor must then record the updates status for each site
after all information is collected.
Figure 3. Current Process Flow: Status Determination
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Figure 4 shows a simplified model for the process shown in Figure 2. In this model, the
instructor will be presented with a sortable and filterable interface that can select a particular
student or team from a particular course and task. After the task is reviewed, the instructor can
assign a grade and give feedback. This process may be repeated as necessary.
Figure 4. Improved Process Flow: Deliverable Assessment and Feedback
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Figure 5 shows the improved model for the process in Figure 3. In the improved process,
an instructor can visit the Dashboard and record the status updates for each team from a single
page. This process can be repeated as necessary.
Figure 5. Improved Process Flow: Status Determination
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4. PRODUCT PROTOTYPE DESCRIPTION
The motivation behind TPOT is to aggregate the potentially overwhelming amount of
data generated by virtual teams in a solitary and convenient site, in order to accomplish the goals
stated in Section 2. TPOT will scrape data from its database and present a filtered display,
allowing the instructor or teacher's assistant to evaluate deliverables, teams, and students. The
representation will be given in an intuitive and easy-to-use, tabbed GUI. By using this GUI, users
will be able to more efficiently direct the teams by assigning tasks and sending messages,
collecting and grading deliverables, and supplementing teams' understanding with critiques.
Table 1 indicates how the real world product compares to the prototype.
Table 1. Feature Comparison Between Real World Product and Prototype
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The first goal described in Section 2 is automation. This will be accomplished by
connecting all of the major components in a single closed system that updates all submissions
and modifications in a consolidated database. Whenever a team site or Dashboard change is
made, the change is reflected in a single location that can be accessed by anyone with the proper
permissions.
The second goal in Section 2 is accountability. When a student engages in any significant
activity, it is recorded and may be accessed from the instructor's Activity tab. Due to the large
amount of information collected, filters will be especially important here. With a simple
manipulation of the Activity tab's filters, the instructor will be able to identify who is
accomplishing what, and how frequently.
The third goal in Section 2 is ease of use. The tabbed GUI will present a concise and
intuitive display of aggregated data that may be formatted to be as broad or narrow as desired.
By using sorting and filtering scripts, an instructor can view the most relevant data, rather than
an overwhelming amount of data that may contain undesired information. When presented with
the minimum information required for assessment, the instructor may more effectively determine
the status of the project.
The fourth goal in Section 2 is cohesion of functionality. A large part of the problem in
the current model is that while all functionality exists, it exists in pieces throughout separate
systems that must be traversed individually. A cohesive model will attempt to provide
functionality in a single product.
The final goal in Section 2 is disambiguation of tasks. A major impediment in any team
project, especially for virtual teams, is communication. The Messages tab will provide a
centralized location between instructor, team, and student for explanation of tasks, questions and
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answers, dissemination of ideas, reporting progress, and feedback. With proper lines of constant
communication, any task or project should be completely and accurately accomplished.
4.1. Prototype Architecture (Hardware / Software)
TPOT's prototype is expected to have the same components as the final product, but with
several additional components used for testing purposes (Figure 6); when testing is complete,
these components will be removed. Testing components include methods that will generate real
and artificial data, and methods that will query the database. Virtual machines have been set up
to host the prototype. When the prototype is functional, beta testers will be selected to test the
software.
Figure 6. TPOT Prototype Major Components
The Google-based team sites will be augmented with Google Apps Scripts to record all
activity in the TPOT database. The GUI will also use scripts to provide the required interface
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between the sites and the database. The front-end of the Dashboard will be an HTML- and PHPbased tabbed interface capable of displaying information in the database. The back-end will use
SQL queries to insert, update, and delete team information in the database. The database itself
will store all information and contain triggers and procedures to respond to activity. During
testing, the database will contain artificially generated data processed with test queries.
4.2. Prototype Features and Capabilities
The features and capabilities displayed by the prototype will be activity, files, grades,
messages, and tasks; all of these will be established in their respective Dashboard tabs. The
Activity tab will be populated with a history gathered from team sites in the database. Uploaded
and modified files will populate the Files tab with information on deliverables. As deliverables
are graded by the instructor, the Instructor Dashboard scripts will insert those grades in the
database. Students, instructors, and teacher's assistants may send and receive messages to assist
in communication. Finally, instructors may assign tasks to students or entire teams.
The full implementation of these features will fulfill the requested functionality of TPOT
and demonstrate the prototype's success. There are some customer and technical risks which
have been identified with the proposed solution; these will be reduced or eliminated during
development of the TPOT prototype through proper mitigation. Techniques for risk mitigation
include intuitive interface design, beta testing, penetration testing, testing with real and artificial
deliverables, comprehensive documentation, and propagation of existing research.
4.3. Prototype Development Challenges
Several challenges are anticipated throughout the lifetime of the project, some of which
may be answered during analysis and design, and some that will persist beyond development.
They are accessibility, secure login, privacy, file storage, meta-information, Dashboard and team
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site coordination, changing API, and API limitations. Of these challenges, the changing API is
expected to remain an obstacle throughout the project's lifetime, as well as Instructor Dashboard
and team site coordination, if it is decided these two interfaces will be allowed to be modified.
Dr. Pazos has requested that TPOT must be accessible from as many devices and
platforms as possible. This presents a problem because not all devices and platforms operate in
the same way. TPOT's interfaces will have to be generalized so that they display in a similar
fashion, regardless of the manner in which they are delivered. Thorough testing will be required
to confirm this is accomplished.
When an acceptable level of accessibility is realized, TPOT will need to maintain a
database of courses, projects, teams, instructors, teacher's assistants, students, industry partners,
and master administrators in order to ensure secure login. A method of storing passwords
securely will be necessary to guarantee only authorized users log in, and a distinction must be
made between user types. Further, permissions must be established to grant these users access to
appropriate courses, projects, and teams. This is necessary to allow full Dashboard access to
instructors, limited access to teacher's assistants, and no access to students, industry partners, or
master administrators.
This leads to concerns of privacy. Some aspects, such as grades and intellectual property,
must be considered confidential, just as in a non-virtual project. Messages may be public or
private, and must also be protected. Finally, there is a concern of academic integrity; if individual
work is not secure, there is a risk of plagiarism.
The next challenge is uploading, accessing, and modifying files. On the team sites, files
are to be uploaded on Google Sites and may be accessed in the same way. They may be modified
and uploaded again, but currently there does not seem to be a way to directly modify the files in
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the Google Sites File Cabinet. Files in the Dashboard will be handled in the TPOT database. The
difficulty here will be granting the Dashboard access to files on the team sites and granting the
team sites access to files in the Dashboard.
In addition to deliverables, there is also related information such as grades, messages, and
tasks. These aspects must be maintained in parallel with their respective files. This may become
an issue if files are copied, moved, or deleted, as this may result in dangling pointers in the
database.
A possible design choice that has been suggested is the modifiability of Dashboard and
team site interfaces. In order to maintain coordination, it may be necessary to enforce permanent
interfaces; if these interfaces are allowed to be changed, they may not retain interactivity. If the
results of analysis suggest that modifications to each side will prevent interactivity, each side
will be required to have a fixed design.
Another concern is limitations to the API. It may become apparent in analysis and design
that some of the requested functionality cannot be accomplished by the methods provided. This
may be due to incompatibility between objects or simply that the API does not possess the
methods required to manipulate the objects. If research into the API shows that a requested
function cannot be accomplished, the function will have to be redesigned or omitted.
Finally, there is the possibility of change to the API. As the team sites reside on Google
Sites, a portion of TPOT depends on the stability of the API, and it may be necessary to use
Google Scripts to access those sites. If TPOT uses methods that are changed or deprecated, the
entire system may be adversely affected. This will potentially remain a problem throughout
TPOT's lifetime.
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GLOSSARY
Activity Tab: The tab on the TPOT Instructor Dashboard that tracks team member activity.
Admin Tab: The tab on the TPOT Instructor Dashboard that provides management of an
instructor's courses, teams, and teacher's assistants.
API: Application programming interface that specifies how some software components should
interact with each other.
Asynchronous Course: A course which does not hold regularly scheduled meetings.
Back-end: The portion of a computer program not visible to end-users.
Beta test: The final test of a software product, usually fully-featured, prior to commercial
release.
Blackboard: Extremely popular course management software.
Cloud: A type of computing involving data and computation distributed over large numbers of
dispersed machines which are connected via a network.
Collaboration Software: Software suites designed to organize the collaborative efforts of a
professional team.
Dangling Pointer: Pointers that do not point to a valid object of the expected type. These are
special cases of memory safety violations.
Deliverable: An item produced by a project team which is intended to be delivered to a person
outside of the team.
File Cabinet: A default template page of a Google Site which facilitates the management of
user-uploaded files.
Files Tab: The tab on the TPOT website that assembles all files uploaded by students to their
team sites.
Front-end: Portion of application with which end users interact with directly.
Google Apps Scripts: A scripting language, based on JavaScript, developed by Google which
runs exclusively on Google servers.
Google Sites: A tool offered by Google which allows users to create web pages and manage files
and collaboration through a GUI without requiring any programming language skills.
Grades Tab: The tab on the TPOT website that allows for viewing and assigning of grades for
individuals and teams.
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GUI: Graphical user interface. Allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical
icons and visual indicators instead of a textual command line.
HTML: Hypertext markup language. A language designed to create web pages.
Industry Partner: A business or government professional working with or mentoring a school
project team.
Instructor Dashboard: The module of the TPOT software suite which aggregates student data
for display to instructors and teacher's assistants.
JavaScript: A scripting language commonly used by web browsers to dynamically alter content.
Messages Tab: The tab on the TPOT website that allows an instructor or teacher's assistant to
send messages to the students they mentor.
Method: A function associated with a class of objects.
MySQL: An open-source relational database management system.
ODU: Old Dominion University, a public research university located in Norfolk, Virginia.
Overview Tab: The tab on the TPOT website that tracks recent activity and upcoming events.
Penetration Test: A deliberate attempt by a benign entity to find security flaws in a system.
PHP: PHP Hypertext Processor. A server-side scripting language designed to dynamically create
web pages.
Platform: A hardware architecture and a software framework (including application
frameworks), where the combination allows software to run.
PL/SQL: Procedural Language/Structured Query Language. A programming language which
combines the declarative SQL with an imperative language to achieve more traditional
functionality while retaining strong database support.
Pointer: A variable which contains a literal memory address.
Project Management Software: See Collaboration Software.
Scrape: A computer software technique of extracting information from websites.
SQL: Structured Query Language. A programming language designed to interact with relational
database systems.
Tab: A navigational widget for switching between sets of documents.
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Tasks Tab: The tab on the TPOT website that allows a user to view, create, assign, modify, and
delete tasks.
Team: A collection of students working on the same project coordinated through TPOT.
Team Activity: The various ways in which Google Sites can be used. This may include visiting
pages, creating and editing pages, uploading files, sending messages, or creating tasks.
TPOT: Team Project Organizational Tool. Software being developed in response to a team
management problem posed at ODU.
User: A student, instructor, teacher's assistant, industry partner, or master administrator.
Virtual: Forms of interaction, lacking physical manifestation, which are mediated through
electronic communication.
Virtual Machine: Software-based emulation of a computer system.
Virtual Team: A team dispersed through time and space which collaborates primarily
electronically.
Web-based: Software which may be accessed through a web browser and need not be
downloaded nor installed.
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REFERENCES
Allen, I. E., & Seaman, J. (2013). Changing course: Ten years of tracking online education in the
United States. Retrieved from
http://www.onlinelearningsurvey.com/reports/changingcourse.pdf
Soloman, C. (2010). The challenges of working in virtual teams. Retrieved from
http://rw-3.com/VTSReportv7.pdf