CS 301J Term Project
(Spring 2006)
Goals
CSUSM has a 2500-word writing requirement for each course. To meet this requirement, each student in CS301 is required to complete a programming-oriented project.
The project is your opportunity to apply the computer skills you've learned in this course to your own major or area of interest. In this project, you will develop a dynamic and professional looking webpage using JavaScript and HTML. The Web Page should be interactive, i.e. it should get some input from the user, do some processing, and display appropriate output to the user. The program should utilize the features of JavaScript covered in the class, e.g. it should contain conditional statements and loop statements.
The Web Page and associated JavaScript program should assist you in your daily life, work, or study. For example you can write a program to help you teach your child basic math/colors/shapes/spelling. If you can't come up with an idea for your project, think about the projects, reports or papers you've done this year and how the computer might be applied to one of them. Pick something that interests you and that you will enjoy doing!
Many times, projects involving computers in business or research are done by teams. The project will give you a chance to learn about team work. Therefore, you are encouraged to work in groups (no more than 3 students in a group). If you choose to work alone, you will need to do more work yourself.
Project Specifications
Each group is required to turn in one project proposal, progress report, and final report, and demonstrate the final project in class. The following is the break down on the portions of the term project:
· Project proposal – 15 points.
· Progress report – 25 points.
· Final report and demonstration – 60 points.
All submissions must be typed using Microsoft Word.
Proposal: The purpose of submitting a project proposal is to ensure the difficulty of the proposed project is manageable and reasonable. As for any other assignment, no credit will be given to late proposal. The proposal should be about one-two page long and contain at least the following sections with the proper subtitles:
· The objective: What is the purpose of this webpage? Who will benefit from this webpage and program?
· The input: What will the user enter or how will the user interact with the program? Examples?
· The output: What will be displayed on screen based on user input or interaction? Examples?
· The algorithm: Describe your algorithm for the program, i.e. the steps that are necessary to compute the output from the input.
Progress Report: The progress report serves as the evidence that students are working and moving toward the completion of their projects. More importantly, they provide early warnings on students who may need additional helps. In other words, students should faithfully report their efforts and progress in their progress reports so that the instructor can identify those individuals who do need additional assistances. Since progress reports are also used to show students’ progress on their project, students are required to turn in their progress reports on time with significant progress. Both the progress report and final report must be written in the following required report format.
Final Report: The final report is due on the last day of the class. Your final report should demonstrate that you have accomplished the objectives in your proposal.
Required Report Format
Both final report and progress report should follow the following format, except that final report should be complete while progress report shows the work in progress.
Cover page:
Print the title of your project, purpose of the report (e.g., progress report or final report) and your personal information on a separate page. The instructor will write his comments and suggestions on your cover page. Cover pages for previous submissions with instructor's comments should not be removed for subsequent submissions.
Your progress and final report should at least have following sections.
Sections of the reports:
In this section, you state what you plan to accomplish (as oppose to how you plan to do it) with your term project. You should also describe your motivation of choosing this project and justify the usefulness of your project. Your project objective should be consistent with your project proposal approved by your instructor. In other words, students who wish to change their project objectives are required to get an approval from the instructor. Changing project objective without a prior approval will cause the entire project to be rejected.
In this section, you should clearly state the steps and algorithm of your project in plain English. This should help you lay out an overall structure of your program and avoid costly bugs in your program. This section must be updated every time you modify your algorithm and implementation.
This is the most important section overall. You are required to document in detail all the efforts you have put together for your project including but not limited to the dates, and the amount of time you have spent on the project, detailed notes on activities, notes on the mistakes you have made in your programs, notes on discussions you have had with your instructor and/or classmates, and any print out related to your project,. Under no circumstance a completed term project will be given any credit without a well-documented journal that details all your efforts and the entire history of the term project.
Using this section, you can communicate with your instructor about what you have experienced through out the development of your project. What are the possible future improvements to your webpage and program? You can also state in this section of any suggestions and comments that you may have related to the project requirement.
Submission and Grading
The project will be graded based on the overall quality of the Web Page, sophistication and correctness of the JavaScript program, and the writing and format of the reports. I expect a group of three students to finish a Web Page of higher-standard than a group of one student.
The project proposal, progress report, and final report must be typed using Microsoft Word and should follow the required format, which helps organizing your idea and reporting your efforts.
You need to submit hard copies of the proposal, the progress report, and the final report. All printouts including cover page, report, and program must be nicely organized and formatted in an attractive way.
Everything related to the project must be organized and submitted each time. Your submission of the progress report must include the graded project proposal with instructor's comments. The final project submission must include the progress report and the approved project proposal attached. For the final report, you also need to submit a floppy disk containing MS Word files of the final report and all files related to your webpage.
Each group only needs to submit one copy of the proposal, progress report, and final report. Every member of the group will get the same grade for the project. It is your responsibility to divide the workload among the group members.
Each group will demonstrate their project in the last day of class. You should briefly describe the objective of your project and show the class how to use your Web Page. The demo counts for 10 points of the project grade.
Start your project early! Save your project frequently and be sure to have a backup copy on another disk.
Help: The tutors at CCC (Computer Consulting Center) and I will be happy to help you. If you are really stuck on a problem, see the tutors or me for help.
Important Dates
Mar 22: Project proposal due
Apr 19: Progress report due
May 3: Final report due and project demo
Academic Honesty