Comp
377-001 (online)
COMP 477-001 (online)
Project Management
Spring, 2019 (Jterm)
Course #: |
COMP 377-001 1042
COMP 477-002 1043
|
Day/Time: |
Totally Online, Asychronous
|
Prerequisites: |
COMP 271 or COMP 251
|
Instructor: |
Dr. Channah Naiman |
email: |
cnaiman@luc.edu |
web page: |
http://cnaiman.com/PM/COMP377syllabusSP19.html |
TA |
Yeah that's not
happening. |
Course Description:
This course is an introduction to the philosophy and practice
of
project management. The course involves a student group project to
investigate and plan a “real world” project. The investigation requires
application of project-management tools covered in the class, including
a project proposal that specifies project objectives, schedules, work
breakdown structure, and responsibilities, an written interim report,
and a final oral and written report. The course will likely include
both business and computer science students working together on a
student team.
Outcome:
Students will learn time management, work-flow management,
and
team dynamics to design, implement and test large-scale software
projects.
Learning
Objectives:
Learning
Objectives:
- to
learn the fundamental concepts and techniques used in Project Management
- to
apply your knowledge to a sample business/IT project
- to
understand the role of Project Management and projects in the
organization
- to
enhance your presentation skills through project presentations
- to
gain experience working in a team environment
- to
support the project development process and management with MS Project
Textbook
and Lab Text:
- Textbook:
Project Management The Managerial Process, by Erik W. Larson
and Clifford Gray, Sixth Edition, McGraw-Hill Education, 2014.
isbn: 978-0-07-809659-4. There are several
different isbns for this book, depending on the format or package that
you get. There is a newer edition of this text, but it is
practically unchanged from the 2014 edition, yet costs significantly
more. I provide supplementary on Agile methodologies.
- Lab Text: Labs will be completed using Microsoft
Project, 2016. MS Project 2019 came out a few months ago, but the
text, which is the official Microsoft documentation, has not yet been
updated, nor have the LUC labs. Therefore, for this semester, we
are using MS 2016.
- Microsoft Project 2016, Step by Step,
by Carl Chatfield and Timoth Johnson, Microsoft Press, 2016, isbn:
978-0735698741.
However, there is a free pdf, which you may access here. Please note that page numbers of the
assginments are listed as the page
numbers of the pdf file.
Software:
We will be using MS Project 2016. The software
is free to LUC students. You may sign up for an account on
Microsoft Imagine and download and install the software, and/or
you may use a Virtual Machine that the department will set up for you.
Detailed
instructions, as well as set of screenshots of my installation, are
available on Sakai in the Orientation Module that you were sent before
the semester. If any student has a problem installing
MS Project, or if you cannot install it on your laptop, you may use the
Virtual Machine
(VM) with Project 2016 already installed.
Sakai:
As of this writing, Sakai will be used for course
announcements,
homework submissions, and grade postings. It is your home page for the
course. The raw
scores
posted on Sakai should be correct (although I have encountered some
problems with that). Grades are calculated as specified in this
syllabus. .
Course
Format:
This course is
totally online, asynchronous course. This means that there
are no in-person scheduled sessions, and you can work on your own time.
The only exception may be the final project presentation,
which may be presented over Zoom. This course is
also a J-term course, with about 12 days to cover the material for the
entire semester. While I have streamlined the readings and
assignments as much I could without compromising the curriculum, there
is nevertheless more than one week of work that needs to be completed
during every day of class.
If you cannot
commit to the time
that is required for this kind of intense workload, you may want to
consider taking the course another time. You are also
required to work with a team for many assignments and for a major
semeser project. This collaboration can also be done
completely online. Nevertheless, you must build into your
time management the time needed to collaborate on assignments and
Project Milestones with your team.
The course is
organized into an orientation module (which I recommend be completed before
the semester
begins), and six learning modules. Modules 1-56 each contain 3
chapters, and last for 2
days.
Module 6 is a wrap-up, feedback and project presentation module, and it
lasts for one day (although if I can extend it to Janaury 13, I will do
so). In each module, there is some combination of quizzes,
in-class
assignment, video assignment,
lab assignment and a Project Miletstone. Not every
module has every type of assignment. There are "module"
menu buttons on Sakai that help you navigate the module home
page, where you can find everything that you need for that module.
Homeworks/Assignments:
Reading
Assignments and Quizzes: There
are 3
chapters each for Modules 1 - 5; plus
supplementatry materials for Module 6 (Agile Methodologies).
The quizzes are from the textbook, and their purpose is to
keep you up to date with the reading and make sure that you
extract the important concepts. The quizzes are individual
assessments and may not be completed in collaboration with anyone else.
In-class Team
Assignments: These are team-based assignments
that are sometimes a text-based review of an important model, skill or
concept. You will generally collaborate wih your team to work
on the problem, or discuss the scenario being presented. Your
team will then submit the final answers.
Video Assignments:
There are two video assignments (aside from Orientation).
They are in Modules 1 and 5. Their purpose is to
provide a concrete application of the concepts in the chapter.
There are also several other vidoes, which are often reviews
of techniques and models that I found online. Occasionally a
video will also be part of your in-class team assignment. All
assignments are clearly listed in the Module page.
There are no "lecture videos" as there were in COMP 300/400 or
353/453, for
those students who have taken those classes with me; however, there are
some "helper" videos, especially for the Agile assignments.
For a J-term class, I felt that lecture videos would simply take
too
much of your very limited time. That time is better spent on the
assignments, and the text is very clear.
Labs: These
are hands-on exercises from the lab text in MS Project, and they are
very easy to complete: simply follow the step-by-step
instructions in the lab text and take the screenshots when instructed to do so.
Programming
Environment: Campus Network, Rights and
Responsibilities
As a user of the campus network, you should be aware of the technology expectations of Loyola University.
Much of your work will be done on your laptop, or, if you can't install
MS Project on your laptop, on a virtual machine that I will
provide for you. So I don't think there will be an
issue
with saving your work. However, if you use the University
computers, be sure to save your work, in the cloud, on a flash drive,
or wherever you can easily access it. If you use both computer lab
machines
and other machines, or just share with a partner, you will want to take
all of your files with you. You can use a flash drive, OneDrive, Google
Drive, Github, BitBucket, Box, DropBox, or, in a pinch, send an email
to yourself
or your partners wtih attachments.
Online Recording Policy: (official LUC policy. For our course, only the final presenation might be recorded)
In this class software may be used to record live class discussions. As a student in this class, your
participation in live class discussions will be recorded. These recordings will
be made available only to students enrolled in the class, to assist
those who cannot attend the live session or to serve as a resource for those
who would like to review content that was presented. All recordings will become
unavailable to students in the class when the Sakai course is unpublished (i.e.
shortly after the course ends, per the Sakai
administrative schedule). Students who prefer to participate via audio only will be
allowed to disable their video camera so only audio will be captured. Please
discuss this option with your instructor.
The use of all video
recordings will be in keeping with the University Privacy Statement shown
below:
Privacy Statement
Assuring privacy among faculty and
students engaged in online and face-to-face instructional activities helps
promote open and robust conversations and mitigates concerns that comments made
within the context of the class will be shared beyond the classroom. As such,
recordings of instructional activities occurring in online or face-to-face
classes may be used solely for internal class purposes by the faculty member
and students registered for the course, and only during the period in which the
course is offered. Students will be informed of such recordings by a statement
in the syllabus for the course in which they will be recorded. Instructors who
wish to make subsequent use of recordings that include student activity may do
so only with informed written consent of the students involved or if all
student activity is removed from the recording. Recordings including student
activity that have been initiated by the instructor may be retained by the
instructor only for individual use.
Academic
Honesty:
The penalty for cheating may be anywhere from a 0 on an assignment to a
grade of "F" in this course. The appropriate dean will be informed in
writing of any cheating incidents. No exceptions, for any reason. Please review Loyola's Academic Integrity policy.
Cheating consists of, but is not limited to:
- Using or copying an outside person's work on an exam or
assignment in any fashion. "Outside person" includes a person who put
something on a web page. It has become depressingly familiar for me,
most every semester, meting out penalties for using someone else's work
on the web. Do not do it.
- Anything that vaguely resembles something from any
Instructor's
Manual anywhere.
- Work includes outlines, pseudocode, code, and documentation.
- Allowing your own work to be copied or used by an outside
person.
- Submitting as your own work something that has been written
by an
outside person (or web site).
- Using any unauthorized reference on an exam or assignment
- Not acknowledging and describing in writing on an
assignment any
help you received or gave.
- If you are working on a pair or group project, an "outside
person" only refers to people other than your assigned partner or team.
- Note that cheating goes both ways: both giving and
receiving.
- Consultation is allowed with the TA (if we are fortunate
enough
to get one) and with me. If you
consult with the TA and/or with me, still make a comment at the top
of your work about the substance and depth of the help.
Help from any source is fine concerning
- The meaning of project or assignment specifications (not the
plan for
the
solution or the actual solution).
- The tools used to write programs.
- The restrictions of the current software packages.
Exams/Quizzes: There
are no exams. There are quizzes on Sakia for each chapter
that is covered in claass. Each quiz has 10 objective
questions on the chapter.
.
Religious
Holidays: Students with religious holiday conflicts: Please
let me know
within the first two days of class if you have a religious holiday
conflict with any exam or homework due date, so that we can plan on an
accommodation.
Students
with Disabilities: If you have a documented
disability
and wish to discuss academic accommodations, please contact the
Student Accessibility Center (773-508-3700 and sac@luc.edu) as soon as possible.
Students with documented disabilities who provide me with
a
letter from the SAC office will be fully accommodated as per the terms
of the letter. Students who are allowed to take their exams
in
the SAC office are encouraged to do so. If you choose not to
do
so, I cannot be responsible for the environment in which you will be
tested. For the purpose of our course, you are taking the
quizzes online, and you may choose any environment that is
suitable. If you are entitled to extra time, please let me
know so that I can set up the Sakai quiz accordingly.
Students
with Sponsorships and Scholarships:
If you require a certain
grade in order to satisfy a sponsor or a scholarship requirement,
please be sure to monitor your grade on Sakai. I will
consider
only your performance in this course in calculating grades, using the
grading rubric posted in this syllabus. If you cannot achieve
a
minimum grade that is required by a sponsor or a scholarship, I will
not change your grade to help you meet that requirement. This
would be unfair to other students, and not reflecive of your
performance in this course. You are reponsible to monitor
your
grade and to keep apprised of the withdrawal
dates
posted by the registrar.
Grading:
- Regarding the 90 points for the Final Project Presentation
and
Final Project Report in Module 5: A "very good" project that
fulfills the requirements and is
perfectly satisfactory can earn about 80 of those points.
"Very good" is a B or B+. If
you complete the
minimum requirements and do not earn 90 points, please don't ask me
what you did "wrong".
The answer will most likley be "nothing".
The full 90 points can be earned for a project that
is truly excellent, incorporating all components in a comprehensive
manner, being unusually complex or having some difficulty factor in its
requirements, or simply having a real "Wow" factor. A
grade of "A" means "excellent". There are many points in this
course that could be considered free points. Full points for
Homework and Labs can be earned if significant effort is demonstrated:
you are graded for completeness, not necessasrily for
correctness (although grossly incorrect answers will be marked off).
But for a project to get an A, it must be excellent.
- No extra credit opportunities will be
provided. It
is neither practical nor fair to the other students. There are 15 extra points built into the course, available to all.
- In a regular semester, late
assignments are worth only half credit. However, given the
condensed time frame, I have made the decision to post a due date for
each module at the end of that module. But the "hard"
deadline is
the end of the course. That means that you have until 1/12 at
11:55 p.m. to complete your quizzes and in-class assignments.
Do
NOT postpone your Project Milestones, as it will be nearly impossible
to "catch up" quickly, and I will also not be able to provide feedback
to your Milestones if I get them at the last minute. I would
suggest that you give priority to those assignments that must be
completed as a team. There is simply no way around the very
tight
time frame in a J-term class. You must apply good time
management
skills and also simply be willing to commit to the amount of time that
you would normally devote during an entire semester in a much shorter
period. And since you are working in a team for your project and many
other assignments, it would be unfair to your team mates to
procrastinate. My best advice is: do NOT fall
behind.
Do NOT
postpone your assignments and think that it will be easy to make up
later. While I can be very flexible during the semester, I
cannot
and will not be flexible at the end of the semester. If
something
isn't
turned in by the end of the semester, you get a zero, and there are no
acceptable excuses. There is no such thing as an emergency at
the
last minute--there is only poor planning.
Course grades are assigned as follows:
A
|
93
|
A-
|
90
|
B+
|
87
|
B
|
83
|
B-
|
80
|
C+
|
77
|
C
|
73
|
C-
|
70
|
D+
|
67
|
D
|
63
|
Course
Schedule: Assignments are to be
turned in on the date where they are
listed below as due, generally by 11:55PM.
Important
Dates: