Subject to revision to correct errors and omissions and/or in the interest of fairness. GMU policies and procedures take precedence should there be a discrepancy between any of them and this syllabus.
Students should read the syllabus and confirm the dates shown.
Deliverables and processes will be discussed in class.
Please notify the instructor of any errors, omissions, or contradictions.
Sections 002 & 632
CRN 74515 & 76152
Please do not send attachments.
Please virus check your PC before sending emails or creating softcopy of files. Thanks.
Other contact information will be given in class.
Office: TBD - best to see me before or after class
Tuesdays
(but see the GMU schedule of classes for recess, holiday closings, one time exceptions, etc. ) Check the GMU phone number for late breaking snow cancellation information.
Time: 16h30 – 19h10 J **
Bldg.- Room -- IN 131 & NSWC Bldg 216 Room 116
[JD's Training and Conference Center
(Also see the Detailed schedule with planned lectures and assignments below). Some generic assignment dates will be instantiated in class eg which specific date(s) you/your team is assigned.
We must get a running start or risk not being able to complete the project on time without a lot of effort concentrated near the end of the semester.
Students should come to the first class with a possible topic, a general outline of a technical report, and a moderately detailed list of steps that need to be performed.
We will discuss these and tailor them as appropriate.
No Tuesday class is held at GMU on
NB: The fall schedule of classes has Columbus day as the 13th (sic) (Wednesday), my calendar says it is the 11th (Monday).
Students should continue to be working diligently this week; and be prepared to present/submit deliverables due the next class as shown on the schedule below.
Many classes will start with group discussions and or presentations, followed by team working sessions/faculty consultation, and followed by optionally individual consultation as desired. Lectures will be minimal and primarily address administrative items, unless specific topics are requested by the students.
If we do not need all the class time then the groups should use the rest of session to coordinate their work and continue working on their TR (Technical Report). I will stay to answer questions and consult as needed.
We will not meet every week. Students are expected to continue to work diligently and use the class time for their project. Status reports are due every week whether we meet or not. They can be emailed as text in the email on those days.
If a team needs additional consultation about their project they may schedule it for an off week but the rest of the class will not be required to attend that session.
Most communications will be by email or in class.
Students must provide contact information that is functional. Students are responsible for all group/team broadcasts sent to the email(s) provided.
Please provide work, home, and any alternate emails and phone numbers that may be necessary to ensure that you get course information without delay. Phone calls will be limited to emergency situation such as snow preventing class from being held.
Teams may choose to communicate amongst themselves by any method they prefer. Many teams make heavy use of email, and/or web based bulletin boards, wikis, etc.
This course is the capstone course for the MS program in SE and/or OR, for those who choose the project option instead of the thesis option.
Either Syst798 (fall) or OR680 (spring) may be taken as the required project course.
As is common with the capstone course at many universities, this course uses a team oriented approach
This course will use many of the systems engineering and related skills normally developed through previous classes and as would be used in a business teamwork environment. Soft skills as well as technical ones will be exercised.
Students will select a research project, which will be completed under the guidance of the graduate faculty member assigned to the class. A condensed version of the report will be presented orally to the SEOR faculty which must approve the work done. A hard copy of the complete report will also be turned in and graded separately.
See details below of all deliverables that are required.
The project must reflect a real life problem or application and ideally will have a sponsor. Note: GMU policy does not allow for anyone to have a project that they are also being paid for doing.
Projects must also involve analytical components such as a decision and or risk analysis, cost benefit and tradeoff analysis, mathematical modeling, simulation, etc. Projects should also include a data gathering element.
The project will be done by teams of 3-5 persons.
Teams will be self selected and formed by the students at the first class.
Each person must have
explicit responsibilities that they do on their own.
Each team member must provide part of the final briefing at
1300J in the
Participation is important. All teams should review and comment on other teams work during in-class reviews.
Create a technical report (TR) using the KSAs gained through previous coursework or experience. The report must be acceptable to the SEOR faculty.
Students will demonstrate what they have learned by gathering data and analysing it by applying an appropriate SE process.
The report should be comparable to one given at a conference or printed in professional publications.
Ideally the TR will be accepted by a conference, or journal, or published internally by the student's employer.
“Best Practices” of SE Processes are to be used. The processes should be tailored to facilitate the technical report project.
Each student will succeed in helping their team achieve an acceptable TR by working diligently and cooperatively by using the SE skills and techniques from their previous courses.
Text: None.
Some useful references:
· Technical Report Writing
NASA Technical Memorandum 105419
Was recently available at
http://grcpublishing.grc.nasa.gov/editing/vidcover.cfm
http://grcpublishing.grc.nasa.gov/editing/vidoli.CFM
Highly Recommended !!
· How To Write And Publish Engineering Papers And Reports 3E
Michaelson, Herbert B.
Oryx Press 1990
T11.M418 1990
· How To Write And Present Technical Informaton 3E
Sides, Charles H.
Oryx Press 1999
T11.M418 1990
· Writing And Speaking In The Technology Professions: A Practical Guide
Beer, David F.
IEEE Press c1992
T11.W75 1992
· The Craft Of Research
Booth Colomb and Williams
Q180.55.M4 B66 1995
· Practical Research Planning and Design 6E
Leedy, Paul D.
Q180.55.M4 L43 1997
Prentice Hall (Simon & Schuster) 1997
· IEEE
http://standards.ieee.org/guides/style/
· Textbooks from previous courses.
For help with writing, the GMU writing center may be useful. There are many web sites that provide writing and grammar assistance. Many universities have on line writing centers (OWL = online writing lab) for assistance. The GMU center is at
http://writingcenter.gmu.edu/owl/
Some OWLS are listed at
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/internet/owls/writing-labs.html
Whilst grammar and style are important, quality content is the first priority. Do not get sidetracked with mechanics before the content has been instantiated. But allow time to create a quality document.
See details below under deliverables and schedule.
Students will tailor and use a process to be followed. Metrics will be captured and progress tracked versus the schedule based on the planned tasks.
Interim status presentations will be made periodically as if to a corporate director.
A final presentation will be presented as well as a final hard and soft copy of the report being turned in. This would be comparable to one given to a corporate VP or at a technical conference. Faculty and advisors will be invited to the final presentations.
A project plan with sufficiently detailed list of tasks, schedules, persons assigned, milestones, etc., to execute and control the project, will be turned in.
At the end of the semester, the plan with any modifications made, and indicating actual results will be turned in including metrics captured that can help future planning .
An earned value report for the team will be due weekly.
Team and individual status reports will be due weekly.
Each person must turn in an AALL (After Action /Lessons Learned) report with suggested process improvements for the course, team, and individuals.
This AALL should cover everything that can be improved, including the strategy, processes, instructor, syllabus, room, A/V equipment, project plan, teamwork, research, analysis, writing, etc..
Each person will turn in an evaluation of themselves as well as all teammates contributions. This will be used as a guide to adjust the team scores for each individual.
Each team should turn in all artifacts they used or located that they used and/or could help future teams. This should include a list of bookmarks for web resources.
The key deliverable is the technical report and a formal presentation to the faculty.
Interim presentations and status reports will be given in class.
There are no formal exams.
Grades will be per GMU policy.
This course uses required grading scheme GT for graduate courses.
Students will be required to turn in a self assessment as well as one for their team. Students will assess the other presentations.
Faculty will be invited to the final presentation and to review the final TR. Their feedback will be given considerable weight.
The final grade will be determined by myself with consideration given to inputs from student and faculty evaluations.
Grades will be based on the following items - with the noted relative weighting factors.
· 30% - Final written Technical Report - teams self allocate distribution of total awarded points.
v Emphasis is on content, but presentation and mechanics will count
v NOTE: allocation is based on a par of 100% of the team grade. Awards may be smaller for those who do not contribute and may be larger for someone who carried the team by doing more than their share.
· 40% - Final oral Presentation - teams self allocate distribution of total awarded by the faculty
v Emphasis is on content, but presentation and mechanics will count
v NOTE: allocation is based on a par of 100% of the team grade. Awards may be smaller for those who do not contribute and may be larger for someone who carried the team by doing more than their share.
· 20% - AALL and other required team/individual submissions.
· 10% - Status reports – Team and individual
· Additional bonus points may be awarded for
éDraft presentions or other work of exceptional quality
éClass participation - PAL contributions
éMiscellaneous - TBD
Late work is accepted but the grade is reduced by 10% a week unless an acceptable reason is provided.
If you anticipate any religious holidays, employer mandated travel, health appointments, or critical personal issues (tax audits, court appearances, funerals, weddings, etc.), that will require you to miss class or be late with work please notify the instructor as early as possible. And coordinate with your team so they are not impacted too. Confirming documentation is required.
Even if you have an excused absence, you must still meet all of your team commitments!
If your team does not consider your excuse acceptable they may lower their assessment of your contributions which will lower your final grade.
Conversely, any superstars that do more than expected may have their grade increased based on the team’s assessment of that effort.
A+ 98-100+
A 93-97
A- 90-92
B+ 87-89
B 83-86
B- 76-82
C 63-75
F £ 62
Other grades are theoretically
possible in accordance with GMU policy:
IN incomplete
- missing work - shows as F
AB -
absent last day with acceptable excuse - ten day limit to finish
S -
no grade required
NC -
no grade required
IP in
process - will require department
approval
A Sample TR will be provided as a guide.
Details of specific presentation and TR grading criteria will be provided in class.
Attention should be paid to the honor code provisions.
All work is open book, open notes, and done collaboratively, as would occur in an industrial team oriented project environment.
For academic purposes though, acknowledgement must be made of all sources used. This includes all team and classmates, colleagues at work, text books, web references, etc.
Work is intended to be done collaboratively with their team, and/or the class. Teams may help each other but acknowledgement is to be given to such help.
Proper credit is to be given to any other information sources used by citing them in the TR.
Use the GPO or Chicago style manuals for citation format.
Use the
Harbrace College Handbook or Hacker are good guides for grammar usage.
The Chicago Manual of Style 13E (or later)
U of
Style Manual rev.
GPO 1973 (or later)
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/stylemanual/browse.html
Rules for Writer 3E (or later)
Diana Hacker
The
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/cgos/idx_basic.html
All applicable laws and GMU policies are hereby included by reference.
Students are responsible for knowing the school policies as documented in the Catalog including the honor code provisions.
Smoking is not allowed in the classroom.
All notes as well as class submissions should be annotated with a timestamp and the source.
Acknowledgement of all sources is expected if material from a textbook, website, intra/inter-team collaboration, or class discussions is used.
Students are expected to
· attend all sessions on time.
· You may synchronise your watches by telephone at 202 762 1401.
· be prepared
· participate actively
· be alert, having had adequate sleep and rest
· manage their time effectively
F plan their work and budget their time
F keep a log of all resources expended
F do not get behind
· coordinate and work with their team effectively and collegially
· first attempt to do all the work by themselves
F ask for help when necessary
Teamwork is an integral factor of this course. All students are expected to work in a collaborative and cooperative manner both on their project team and in the class as a whole. Planning and coordination are expected to minimise duplication of efforts.
Communication is vital to success and will be emphasised through in‑class briefings concerning the team projects and written status reports.
Any student needing accommodation for a handicap will be given whatever course modifications they need as determined appropriate by the DRC staff. The DRC form is required.
The main product is a technical report.
A final oral presentation will also be given.
Interim status reports and drafts will be due.
Each student is to log all resources used by category for the entire course.
This will be used to create the metrics turned in as part of the other course deliverables.
Frequently, status reports will be presented by teams as well as being turned in for evaluation.
Additional items will be assigned in class.
Please provide hardcopy of all assignments.
Softcopy is also required for the final report and presentation as well as the AALL and PAL contributions.
When sending emails, please put 798 as the first item in the subject line, followed by your name, team number, and a sequence number, then a few keywords of the subject.
Please include the actual time and date at the top of the message.
Please do not send attachments.
To prevent my having eyestrain or other visual problems:
Please use a font that is 12-14 points, with 2-3 points of leading for text.
Do not justify, ie use ragged right margins.
Use 1.5" left margin and all other margins set at 1".
If headers/footers are used and/or page numbers, then they should be spaced 1/2" from the text body.
Preferred fonts are American Typewriter aka Editor, or Dark Courier. Other large x-height fonts with uniform stroke weight may be used; but, please confirm readability with the professor first. Thanks!
Trebuchet and Antiqua are other MS fonts that may be used.
Do not use Garamond or (new) times roman or similar fonts with small x‑height or tight tracking.
If you prefer that style of font then please use
Fonts can be provided to those who do not have them and are unable to download them from Microsoft, HP, or public domain sites.
Spreadsheets and similar items should use Arial Narrow 8-10 point.
TIPS:
Note: Most of these are small routine items that you need to do your work anyway.
1) Due date
2) Criteria for acceptability
1) Presenter will be selected at random
14 AALL – Individuals -- hard and softcopy
15 PAL (Process Asset Library) Artifacts - TEAM – hard and softcopy
a) Reference documents
b) Sample of all team generated artifacts for reuse
c) Web Favorites/Bookmark list (softcopy)
16 Team and self evaluations and grade allocation recommendations.
-------------------------------------------------
** J = local time. We change from DST to EST in October.
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activity |
Class
agenda |
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Items Due |
Individual
Items Due |
Notes
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1 |
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-
possible topic -
high level tasks to be done -
high level outline of a TR |
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Teams
– Storm & Norm Document
Team processes; set up meetings, communications, initial task assignments,
etc. WBS Draft Plan Investigate
topics Focus topics Select Prepare proposal
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6 |
2 |
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Team
Proposals Discussion
optional
team working session Will
meet with teams or individuals if requested at the end of any class |
4 10 13J 5 8 |
3 6 |
3&6;5&8
due every scheduled class whether we meet or not – fax or email as text |
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7 |
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Teams
Form (Gel) Finalise
Plan and Sked Continue
working tasks |
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8 |
3 |
3 |
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Present
status – plans emphasis but also sked problems etc briefly optional
team work sessions I
will be available for consultation during the rest of the class while any students remain |
7 12 5 8 |
3 6 |
I
will give you comments on any item turned in if you request. I
may comment on them anyway. |
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9 |
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Teams
Perform Work
Your Plan!! |
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10 |
4 |
4 |
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Project
status - progress including outlines
but briefly problems etc working
sessions consultation
as requested |
11 12 13A 5 8 |
3 6 |
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11 |
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optional
appointment for consultation Keep
Working! |
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12 |
5 |
5 |
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Keep
Working your plan! |
Formal
Class Not Planned Will
meet with any team that requests it
by previous Friday |
12 5 8 |
3 6 |
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13 |
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Keep
Working your plan! |
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14 |
6 |
6 |
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Keep
Working your plan! |
Present
status – data emphasis but also
progress and problems briefly working
sessions consultation
as requested |
13B 5 8 |
3 6 |
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15 |
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Keep
Working your plan! |
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16 |
7 |
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Keep
Working your plan! |
NO
CLASS – GMU |
-- |
-- |
No
Class |
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17 |
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Keep
Working your plan! |
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18 |
8 |
7 |
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Present
Status – emphasis analysis but briefly progress and problems working
sessions consultation
as requested |
12 13D 5 8 |
3 6 |
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19 |
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optional
appointment for consultation Keep
Working your plan! |
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20 |
9 |
8 |
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Keep
Working your plan! |
Formal
Class Not Planned Will
meet with any team that requests it
by previous Friday |
5 8 |
3 6 |
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21 |
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Keep
Working your plan! |
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22 |
10 |
9 |
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Status
– progress and problems working
sessions consultation
as requested |
12 5 8 |
3 6 |
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23 |
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Keep
Working your plan! |
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24 |
11 |
10 |
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Present
status emphasis recent results but briefly progress and problems working
sessions consultation
as requested |
13C 13E 13F 5 8 |
3 6 |
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25 |
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Keep
Working your plan! |
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26 |
12 |
11 |
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Project
status - emphasis rough draft paper
and briefly describe rough draft of
presentation working
sessions consultation
as requested |
13I 13G 5 8 |
3 6 |
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Keep
Working your plan! |
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28 |
13 |
12 |
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Present
rough draft version of final presentation discussion,
comments, feedback |
13K 13L 5 8 |
3 6 |
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29 |
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Keep
Working your plan! |
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30 |
14 |
13 |
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Final
Comments on papers returned |
5 8 |
3 6 |
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31 |
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·
Produce Final TR
·
Produce Final
Presentation PPT ·
Rehearse
presentation for dry run |
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32 |
15 |
14 |
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2 9 15 13H 5 8 |
14 16 3 6 |
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33 |
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· Rehearse Presentation · Make 30 Hard Copies · Make softcopy for team use |
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34 |
16 |
15 |
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1 |
1 |
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35 |
16A |
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Rain/Snow/Ice Alternate Date
- TBD |
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36 |
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Line
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Week
nr. |
Class
nr. |
Date
|
Student
activity |
Class
agenda |
Team
Items Due |
Individual
Items Due |
Notes
|