School of Engineering Web Site: Phase-I Action Plan

Prepared for SoE by:

Catherine Avril, Nish Sonwalkar, Mike Barker, Suzana Lisanti

Contents

  1. Overview
  2. Phase I Scope: Update and revitalization of existing site
  3. Deliverables
  4. Project Time Line
  5. Participating Teams
  6. Project Team
  7. Accountability and specifications
  8. Modes of Communication and Feedback
  9. Criteria for Acceptance
  10. Budget

Appendix I. SoE COMMUNICATIONS OBJECTIVES FOR PHASE I

I. Overview:

This document describes the project plan for the Phase-I of School of Engineering (SoE) Website. The document is a working paper which defines the scope of the work, deliverables, time-line, budget and the criteria for success for the project. It also describes the roles and responsibilities of the EMCC team involved in the implementation of the project and the work already accomplished in the last one month on this project. The document is based on discussions held in the meetings between SoE, EMCC and WCS.

II. Phase I Scope: Update and revitalization of existing site

The purpose of the project is to create a web-site that reflects the MIT School of Engineering thematic design and provides easy navigation to the content to meet the communication objectives of the School of Engineering (See Appendix I). The scope also includes developing a process for providing value-added information bits that give the audience for the web-site compelling reasons to visit the SoE web-site on a regular basis. The scope for phase I includes the following items:

  • Creation of the graphical and thematic identity for SoE website by an outside graphics design organization (Hecht Design) based on the design criteria set by the Dean of Engineering
  • Provision for the dissemination of value added information bits on the website
  • Advise on redesign of the site-map and navigation
  • Creation of active elements to make web-site information to be renewed on the weekly basis/or as specified by the SoE coordinators
  • Conduct of a formative evaluation/assessment of the website
  • Getting feedback from advisory group on the success of the website

III. Deliverables:

The SoE website project will involve following deliverables:

  • Project Plan and Regular Status Reporting
  • Research report on outside sources for news and content
  • Research report on discussion board feasibility
  • Design of the graphical elements representing SoE
  • Development of site map
  • Design of navigational elements and navigation map
  • Content, text, graphics, streaming audio and video prepared for use in new web site
  • Process for presenting current events and announcements
  • Form interface for interaction with the intended users (email form)
  • Process for spotlights
  • Site web pages
  • Search capability for the site
  • Search and display capability for the Engineering Information bits
  • CGI Script for Browsing Stories
  • Integration and testing of the site
  • Evaluation and assessments of the site

IV. Project Plan and Time-line

The implementation of the project will follow the Gantt chart below. This includes the responsible organization, estimated duration of work, and various milestones. Deliverables will be provided with the associated activities, with a draft available early wherever possible to allow comments before the final deliverable is provided.

V. Participating Teams

The project team has four participants:

  • School of Engineering
  • Education Media Creation Center
  • Campus Wide Information Systems
  • Hecht Design, Inc.

VI. Project Team

  1. SoE
  2. Catherine Avril (SoE-Content and design lead)
  3. EMCC
  • Nishikant Sonwalkar (HTF/EMCC design and implementation lead)
  • Mike Barker (EMCC-project management and development lead)
  • Katie Livingston-Vale (EMCC-instructional design)
  • Ben Brophy (EMCC-general graphics and web-design)
  • Brian Bermack (EMCC-Java programmer, database design)
  • Damon Burrus (EMCC-System Administrator)
  • Arjun Patel (HTF/EMCC-UROP web-pages and PERL)
  • David Lerman (EMCC UROP Java script)
  • Pawan Deshpande (EMCC UROP web-pages and PERL scripts)
  1. WCS
  • Suzana Lisanti (web-design, development, and assessment)
  1. Hecht Design, Inc.
  • Hecht (Graphic Design)

More summer UROPs will be added on as-needed basis during the development of the project.

VII. Modes of Communications and Feedback:

In order to make the project communications effective and efficient, the communication between client (SoE) and the service organization (EMCC/WCS) is established based on one-on-one basis. The first line of communication will be between Catherine Avril and Nish Sonwalkar, where Catherine will represent client and Nish will represent the service organization. Weekly meetings are setup on Thursday mornings 10 to 11 AM to facilitate reporting and discussion process. The project representatives can invite the team members on as-needed basis to facilitate the process. Nish will communicate the meeting minutes in writing to the rest of the team after every weekly meeting and work with Mike Barker and Suzana Lasantito set-up week-by week agenda.

Nish Sonwalkar will be the project manager for the EMCC on this project. That means he should be the SoE primary contact for questions, requests for changes or additions to the project, regular status reports, and the other communications necessary for the whole project. Suzana Lisanti is the primary EMCC/WCS contact for the interface design creation, selection of a graphic designer, and the graphic design process. Mike will be person responsible for the preparing and keeping project time-lines and budgets. Nish will also be in regular contact with Suzana Lisanti, Mike Barker, and other people working on this project. He will hold regular reviews (for EMCC group) either in meetings or by e-mail of materials such as the action plan before they are presented to SoE.

The feedback is received from the advisory group set-up for the project. The SoE advisory group represents various communities that are intended audience for the web-site. This includes undergraduate students, graduate, students, alumni, faculty, staff and administrators. The advisory group members have agreed to provide feedback on the ideas and implementations developed by the team on regular basis (three point feedback) . The presentation as well as feedback of the project progress and ideas will be done on-line. If necessary, a final presentation may be made to the advisory group to get quick feedback.

VIII. Accountability and specifications of deliverables:

In general terms, SoE will be responsible for the content part of the project, EMCC will be responsible for timely implementation and WCS will be responsible for graphics design and providing expert advise related to content, design, and MIT wide integration issues.

Following items describe the specification of the deliverables for EMCC:

  1. Project Plan and Status Reports

Prepare and deliver the current action plan plus regular status reports consisting of a short biweekly update in writing listing the deliverables and matching them against the timeline (completion or expected date of delivery). If delayed, the status report will explain why and what is being done to remedy the delay.

  1. Research Use of Outside Sources

Develop a 3 to 7 page report on the use of news, etc. which should

  • Identify possible online sources of news of interest to engineers and indicate how much they cost and if they provide a portal interface.
  • Describe what kind of processing is required to automatically or semiautomatically bring the news into the web site, specifically identifying how much human intervention is required.
  • Provide a recommended plan of action with implications.
  1. Research Discussion Boards

Develop a 3 to 7 page report on the use of discussion boards which should

  • Identify criteria for success -- not a report on technology but rather the human and our resources needed to build online communities
  • Survey what has been tried at MIT both successfully and unsuccessfully
  • Provide a recommended plan of action with implications
  1. Technical Design

Identify needed CGI scripts, Java servlets, templates etc. with respect to functionality and use. Plan for content input to the scripts and servlets. Design interfaces. Describe how they are invoked, and the processing that is involved, both automated and human.

  1. Operations and Maintenance Plan

Define day-to-day operations of web site once project is completed, and specifically identify procedures for entry and editing of content and other updating by SoE and procedures for maintenance by EMCC.

  1. Prepare Content

Take SoE's provided text and graphics and convert them to web-ready formats.

  1. Process for Spotlights

Develop programming to facilitate production of spotlights (through Web forms or templates). Programming will allow SoE to provide text, graphics, headline, and web references to be used in spotlight areas of main pages.

  1. Site Web Pages

Produce Web pages in Dreamweaver. This includes:

  • Main and subsidiary pages
  • 9-10 pages for Alphabetical listing and Departmental listing of faculty
  • Generic and some specific content help pages
  1. Process for Search and Filing of Info Bits

Develop programming to facilitate defined search on engineering keywords from defined MIT publications and the process for SoE selection and automatic placement of files (or selected text and URL) into appropriate Web pages on the site. Note that a selection may be used in more than one place on the site.

After performing the search, the process will display a scrolling window with headlines (and short beginning of text – three lines, where available) with selection windows. The user will review the list, clicking desired items, then press submit. The process will then show a window with the details of one of the selected items (e.g., the headline, additional text), options for use (e.g. faculty story, spotlight, etc.), and buttons for next or done. The reviewer will read the item, select the appropriate options for use, and select either next or done. Next will display the next selected item, while done will exit the review.

This process should retain information about the source of the info bit, to allow proper citation and possible "courtesy of" attribution.

  1. CGI Script for Browsing Stories

Develop programming to display a random selection from a large body of material. For example, there may be a large number of stories concerning faculty available. This script should randomly select one of the available stories and display it in a new browser window, allowing printing. When called again, the script would randomly select again from the available stories.

This function will be used several places within the site, so it should be designed to allow use with different collections. Also, there will be additions to the collections, and the function should support this growth.

From the user side, they would have a main window showing the most recent 10 (or some small number) of headlines, plus one button for a random walk through the stories and a button for reviewing the archives. When the button for a random walk is selected, the script would be invoked and randomly select one of the available stories. When the button for reviewing the archives is selected, a complete list would be presented and the user could select any one of the stories to view.

  1. Easy Maintenance Processes

Produce programming and documentation to facilitate SoE updates to site including Web forms, style guidelines, and a training session. Web forms and info bits include those needed for spotlight processes and those needed to perform updates.

  1. Integration and Test

Develop prototype site and conduct testing and rework as needed to assure functionality. Do thorough link checking and verify operation of maintenance processing.

  1. Community Review and Rework

Collect and prioritize input from advisory group and larger MIT community through online survey and EMCC/IS usability study. Produce a report on online survey and implement the SoE selected modifications.

IX. Criteria for Acceptance:

There are three major criteria for the acceptance for phase I:

  1. Successful implementation and delivery of web-site as described in the deliverables section.
  • Completion of graphical user interface
  • Implementation of active elements
  • Deployment and testing of web-site.
  • Sign-off from the SoE coordinator on the list of deliverables as complete
  1. Acceptance by the Dean of the School of Engineering
  2. Successful completion of evaluation and implementation rework suggested by evaluation and accepted team leaders

The project will be deemed successful if all three criteria are met.

Deliverables and Budgets — SoE Website
ITEM / EMCC / Hecht
Phase I: – update and revitalization of current site
Project Plan and Status Reports / $ 1,000
Research Use of Outside Sources / $ 1,000
Research Discussion Boards / $ 1,000
Collect Themes/Content / $ 3,000
Design Graphical Elements / $ 3,000
Develop Site Map / $ 3,000
Design Navigational Elements / $ 3,000
Technical Design / $ 1,000
Operations and Maintenance Plan / $ 1,000
Prepare Content / $ 1,000
Process for Spotlights / $ 1,000
Form Interface / $ 1,000
Site Web Pages / $ 1,000
Search Capability / $ 2,000
Process for Search and Filing of Info Bits / $ 1,000
CGI Script for Browsing Stories / $ 1,000
Easy Maintenance Processes / $ 1,000
Integration and Test / $ 1,000
Community Review and Rework / $ 3,000
Total Before Taxes / $ 15,000 / $ 15,000
Taxes Phase I
Transaction Fee / $ 1,500
Total Phase I / $ 16,500 / $ 15,000

Note: the budget for EMCC is separated from the graphics design work that will be done by Heche Design.

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Appendix I. SoE COMMUNICATIONS OBJECTIVES FOR PHASE I

Prepared by: Catherine Avril

  • effectively and creatively communicate the School’s identity, stature, and key messages, providing a positive view of the School
  • serves as a useful and engaging information center, returning real value to visitors and strong reasons to revisit
  • demonstrates the School’s breadth and depth in engineering
  • demonstrates the School’s unique influence in shaping and exemplifying MIT’s culture
  • responds to the information needs of diverse audiences:

current students, faculty, researchers, and staff; parents and prospective students; prospective faculty; industry; members of other academic institutions, of engineering organizations, or research centers; the media; of anyone interested in engineering

  • serves as a gateway to our departments, divisions, labs, centers, and programs
  • clear and easy to navigate
  • leverages information already available from our departments, labs, centers, and programs, as well as existing databases, such as ILP’s KnowledgeBase (perhaps N/A), and those of the Planning Office, Admissions, Career Services and Preprofessional Advising office (recruitment), the Libraries, Resource Development, the Alumni/ae Association, Technology Review, the Technology Licensing Office, and the MIT News Office

FOR FUTURE PHASES

  • meets the expectations for information and services of the many stakeholders: the departments, divisions, labs, centers, and programs that make up SoE; industry sponsors and partners in strategic alliances; partners in our major academic alliances; donors; engineering alumni; the City of Cambridge
  • incorporates additional capability for interaction such as discussion boards, aimed to build community
  • features new streams of information external to MIT, such as Reuters, etc.
  • creates a single entry point to many information streams; provides portalized views

provides links to other engineering schools, consortia, and research