- Develop a web-based
system to assist in the process of teaching software development
concepts, with the incorporation of workflow concepts into the system
design.
- Provide the ability
to be available for use disregarding temporal and locality aspects.
- Automate tracking
of software development processes in group projects.
- From the two above
objectives, the name “OnTAP”, with its meaning as “Available
for Use” & “Ready for Consideration/Action” is
derived.
- Provide just-in-time
responses to students with difficulties in their projects.
Introduction
- Software development
is one of the key interest in Information Technology (IT).
- Essential skills
(eg: management and collaborative skills) are incorporated in team
experiences while developing software. Management skills include
planning, organising, and coordination of resources. Collaborative
skills encompasses aspects such as communication skills (verbal
and written), cooperation, problem-solving skills, and the ability
to perform tasks independently as well as part of a team.
- Equally as important
is the acquirement of knowledge in regards of software development
processes and planning, which drives the completion of a successful
project in a timely manner.
- These practical
skills are predominantly practiced in tertiary education for preparation
in the workforce.
Motivation
- Two foundational
first year undergraduate courses introduces the essence of computer
programming and management of software development processes through
Problem-Based Learning (PBL).
- Group projects
are supported by assessable submissions of weekly project plans
(similar to minutes), acting as one of the doorways between students
and their supervisor.
- Each tutor is
involved in the supervision of not only one team, but rather, several
teams.
- Supervision of
student groups via project plans outside of laboratory time can
compound to a heavy workload on the tutors.
- There is a perceived
problem with this procedure where in some cases, the progress of
projects have not been accurately monitored or even neglected.
- Hypothetically,
this could be due to a time constraint as additional time and effort
is required to track the progress of each project and provide feedback
or advice to groups of any potential project issues are usually
derived through constant referral to past submissions and the project
template (time-line).
- Consequently,
tutors merely check for existence of submission without taking into
thorough consideration of the content of plans. Lack of feedback
gives rise to inconsistent and insufficient project plans and submissions.
*click image to enlarge
Figure 1: OnTAP’s Elementary Flowchart
Analysis of Past Plans
- Ten sets of past project
plans from groups with various characteristics were collated for
analysis.
- Plans were electronically
submitted by filling in fields in a form on a web page. The required
fields include: Student login, tutorial group and student group
(through selection), problem statement (current understanding of
overall goals), current sub-goals, and actions/tasks (such as coding
or research) to take to achieve the sub-goals and associate it with
the member who will responsible for it.
RESULTS (Common Issues
Found):
Individual Plans Analysis:
Illogical breakdown of tasks. Misunderstanding of the required content
of a plan.
Cross Plans Analysis:
Repetitiveness of tasks and sub-goals. Missed tasks/phases. Lack
of members contribution. Lack of plan submissions. Reduction in
the quality and detail of plans.
Infrastructure of Plan
Submission:
Majority of input required by students are in free-form format.
No capability in performing automated cross validation and checking
with project time line. Incapable of checking whether students submitted
under the right group id.
Policy of Plan Submission
Once Submitted:
Tutor checks submitted plans for noticeable internal group problems,
thoroughness and relevancy. Cross-examination is made to the submitted
plan with past plans from the group and with assessment schedule.
Any raised issues are brought to the group’s attention during
laboratory session.
Sesign Criteria for
OnTAP
NOTE:
The flow of the system is depicted in Figure 1.
Automated Tracking:
The ability to track emergence of issues such as a delayed project,
omission of project phases, lack of member’s participation,
lack of or late submissions, unsatisfactory planning of future tasks
and incompleteness of planned tasks. On a positive note, the ability
to track for consistent steady progress of project planning and
good distribution of tasks to members. Automated tracking is executed
by comparative analysis of syntactical representation in the submitted
plan with the predefined project template (Figure 2) and past plans
of the group.
Just-in-Time Responses:
The ability to compose (with the aid of response templates) responses
for raised issues after the automated tracking. Compiled responses
are validated by tutors before being forwarded to students via e-mail
and/or on the web page.
Personalised:
Retrieval of information and varying level of permission based on
the role (Course Coordinator, Lecturer, Tutor, Student) of the user.
Figure 2 display a personalised page for a staff member with three
different roles, course coordinator, lecturer and tutor.
Web-based
Flexible:
Allow adaptation to projects beyond the software development domain,
and of varying magnitude. Able to be used on individual projects
and collaborative projects.
*click image to enlarge
Figure
2: Screen shot of a personalised staff interface, as well as an example of a project
template
