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IT 4983 Capstone Project Report 2012 to 2017

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IT 4983 Capstone Project Report
Spring 2017
Jack G. Zheng
May 9, 2017
http://itcapstone.blogspot.com
http://jackzheng.net/teaching/it4983/
IT 4983 Course Overview
• Students work in teams to develop or implement a real-world IT solution
– Address a typical business and organizational need such as data
management, application development, system deployment, or security
analysis.
– Apply information technologies, applications, best practices, and standards
in technical design, development, and implementation.
– Practice soft skills in a real world IT project, including project planning and
management, research and learning, communication, writing, presentation,
and team work.

• Create value-added deliverables in three categories:

– Business-Value: to assist in analyzing and developing IT solutions to meet
business needs.
– Personal-Value: to assess what a student have learned and produce a
career portfolio to demonstrate competences that will add value to a
student’s career.
– Degree-Value: to assess the key knowledge and skills throughout the BSIT
degree program and the ability to articulate their relevance to career goals
General Project Features

Involve IT related design, development, implementation, analysis and research.

Have real-world contexts, requirements, communications, and challenges.

Are completed in about 3 months, by a team of 3 to 5 people (about 120

hours of project time per person, and about 400 to 500 man hours total).

Include both technical components and soft skill components such as

communication, teamwork, research, project management, presentation, etc.

Require students to learn and practice new knowledge and skills.

Basic Types of Projects
• Focusing on the design and • Focusing on the system • Focusing on the analysis and
development of applications implementation and documentation of business
to address particular administration aspect. This and IT problems and
business needs. The may include the evaluation, requirements, or research on
development does not installation, configuration, technologies, products,
necessarily just rely on deployment, migration, and users, and markets. The
programming. testing of IT systems (both process involves various
• Development of database hardware and software) to methods of data collection,
driven web applications meet business needs. analysis, and reporting. An
• Database design and • Install and configure virtual analysis and research report
development systems and applications is produced.
• Mobile website/app • System or data migration • System or network analysis
development • Network design for performance
• Dashboard development • Data gathering and • Security analysis
processing • Market or product research

Analysis /
Development Implementation
Research

• A mixture of the two or three above.

Hybrid
2012-2017 Quick Stats
Projects by Type
• 11 semesters 17
16
15
• 243 students 14
13
12
• 58 teams 11
10
9
8
• 54 (different) projects 7
6
5
• 30 clients 4
3
2
– 17 external clients 1
0
Project Clients
• Project clients (owners) include
– Individuals, including faculty, private investor, personal start-up
– University department and units
– Companies, including local small companies to national
– Non-profits ranging from small to large
– Government departments, public school systems
• Values
– Assist clients with their IT needs
– Analyze and research (evaluate and assess) new technologies,
tools, systems, and approaches
– Build proof-of-concept solution/product to demonstrate ideas
– Investigate the feasibility of alternative solutions
• Benefits to clients
– Save resources
– Have a source of information or new perspective
– Learning along the process
Major Project Clients
• Companies
– Anthem
– BravePoint (now part of Progress Software)
– NueSoft Technologies
– DocWeb
– In-Touch IT
– WhatsThe.Buzz
– R.E. Thompson Travel Services

• Non-profit and government

– Georgia Tech Research Institute
– Georgia Technology Authority
– Forsyth County Schools
– Center for Visual Impaired
– International Community College
– Bethany Negash Foundation
– Atlanta Community Toolbank

• Internal
– KSU Distance Learning Center
– College of Computing and Software Engineering (CCSE)
– CCSE Lab
– CCSE faculty members
– SPSU University IT Services
– SPSU Stinger IT (ARN)
– SPSU Web Services
Example Projects by Type
Development: Implementation:
• BravePoint consultant performance • CCSE VMWare ThinApp deployment
dashboard • CCSE VMWare Mirage deployment
• Sitemap Explorer: an FireFox add-on • CCSE Lync implementation
• DESRIST CMS website • ARN Single Sign-On (ADFS)
• BethanyNegashFoundation.org implementation
website • Forsyth county schools personal site
• Atlanta Toolbank reservation solution
application • FoxPro data and report migration

Analysis/Research: Hybrid
• SPSU website traffic analysis • ICS school intranet portal
• GTA threat analysis and report • CSE SharePoint intranet portal
• Team collaboration system research • CVI volunteer management system
• NueMD SQL query analysis • Amazon data gathering and analysis
• Open source EHR systems • Anthem big data profile modeling
evaluation • DLC Training Course on Moodle
• CCSE web log analysis • GTRI ticket system replacement
• GTRI ELSYS disaster recovery plan

View all projects at http://itcapstone.blogspot.com

Client Feedback Highlights
View more at: http://itcapstone.blogspot.com/p/feedback.html Dr. Hossain, fall 2015

Steven, fall 2015

“I have completely enjoyed this project. This
project [ignites the] start of a long term
(This capstone project) “really allows the research on applying log processing
towards analyzing security and privacy
collaboration between school and
breaches. I think the student got stressed
business. I can see it will work out great for out, but the key success is their own
some proof of concept projects for overcoming of various challenges time to
businesses. Will do it again.” time including technical and sharing of
experiences from each other.”

“The IT Capstone project was an

enlightening experience that enabled us “… we are incorporating elements of
to have a new point of view at several their project into our Monthly CIO Cyber
procedures we use internally. This new Review. Their visualization of data thru
point of view could help us open some the use of graphs was very effective
opportunities and find answers to some and we have modified some of their
risk we were not taking seriously ideas for use in our reporting
environment.”
before.”

GTA, fall 2012

NueMD, spring 2015
Student Reflection Highlights
View more at:
I learned a lot form this experience and http://itcapstone.blogspot.com/p/feedback.html
actually enjoyed the challenges that we faced
along the way in hind sight. I felt that I was
actually using and applying the knowledge I This class gave me the experience in a
had learned in school for a real project, not team leader position to learn more about
just another grade for a class. the role of leader and how to better deal
with the stress related to a larger project
(organization, scheduling, attention to
details). This class also gave me more
confidence in myself and not to be shy
when needing to communicate clearly
with teammates and projects owners. I
I liked the fact that there was feel I am a better more confident person
no real “instruction” involved. It because of it. This class also reinforced
was up to us to find and solve my future goals to become a team
the problems. We were given a leader/ project manager in my career.
starting point and an ending
point, and everything in
between was our responsibility
to handle. That is the essence
of real-world experience, and I I view this project as the most helpful
believe that, especially for the of all the courses in my degree
younger students, it is an program and career. Capstone has
experience that cannot have a taught me more about myself and how
value placed on it. to interact with others and how the real
world work environment might be like.
Featured Projects
• The following slides provide brief information
about these projects
– NueMD data query analysis
– BravePoint performance dashboard
– GTA cyber threats analysis and reporting
– FoxPro data migration
– GTRI ELSYS ticket system
– Forsyth county school personal site solution
– SPSU website traffic analytics
• For more featured projects and their details,
visit
– http://itcapstone.blogspot.com/search/label/Feature
d%20Project
NueMD
• Overview
– Nuesoft Technologies, Inc. is a healthcare software as a
service (SaaS) company headquartered in Marietta, Georgia.
NueMD IT intended to analyze the SQL queries sent by its
applications to various databases. The purpose of this project
is to identify anomalies in the way queries are used.
Examples of these anomalies can be a query that runs too
often, or a query that takes longer than expected, etc.
• Major work and deliverables
– Analyze SQL query log database
– Write analysis report
– Document all data ETL process
• Project sponsor
– NueMD http://www.nuemd.com
BravePoint Performance Dashboard
• Overview
– BravePoint uses a custom system to manage consultant work
and project contracts. The management wanted to analyze
the performance data using a dashboard based tool. The
student team was required to utilize Qlikview as the desired
technology to deliver the executive dashboard.
• Major work and deliverables
– Discover and define key performance indicators (KPIs)
through interviews with major stake holders.
– Design data points and develop requested dashboards using
Qlikview.
– Document entire process for users of executive dashboard.
• Project sponsor
– BravePoint Inc. http://bravepoint.com
GTA Cyber Threat Reports
• Overview
– In this project, students worked with the Office of Information Security,
Georgia Technology Authority. The team assisted in the implementation and
performance of activities related to cyber security, cybercrime support, and
cyber terrorism analysis as part of the State’s responsibilities under the US
Dept. of Homeland Security, National Cyber Incident Response Plan of
2010.

• Major work and deliverables

– Perform collection, analysis, and dissemination of information relative to
cyber threats, cyber-attacks of a terrorist or criminal nature within and
against the State of Georgia, its citizens, or infrastructure.
– Perform research and collect information through open sources.
– Develop or employ an analysis framework and build a database to store
incidents and threats data.
– Produce a monthly report, and improve the report with quantitative data and
various visualizations.
– Develop a web application to access and manage the data

• Project sponsor
– Georgia Technology Authority http://gta.georgia.gov
FoxPro Migration
• Overview
– X (anonymized) is a tabletop manufacturing company which has
used FoxPro database for the past 20 years. The FoxPro database
was terminated by Microsoft in 2007 and the support will end in
2015. The company has the need to migrate its database to a new
database platform. In this project, the team helped the client to
analyze and implement the migration plan.
• Major work and deliverables
– Design a new database using SQL Server and document the design
– Import FoxPro data to SQL Server. Write scripts to regularly (every
X hours) update the SQL Server with updated FoxPro data.
– Write queries and generate a few reports from the data.
– Maximize the use of tools/functions/procedures that are built into MS
SQL Server, in order to make the solution as standard as possible.
– Produce emails to customers with shipping information.
• Project sponsor
– In-Touch IT Computer Services http://www.intouchit.com
GTRI-ELSYS Ticket System
• Overview
– The Georgia Tech Research Institute Electronic Systems Laboratory (GTRI-ELSYS) is an
applied research organization that provides technical solutions to a variety of sponsors and
supports about 450 researchers and staff. The computer support department currently
uses Kayako’s eSupport, version 3.70, a web application for submitting trouble tickets. This
version is rather outdated and Kayako has completely re-engineered their currently offered
ticket software. GTRI-ELSYS would like to either get this system upgraded to the latest
version Kayako provides or purchase a new system and migrate the tickets over.

• Major work and deliverables

– Research and determine the feasibility of both upgrading and replacing the existing
software
– Provide possible solutions with an Analysis of Alternatives (AoA)
– Develop implementation plan for the chosen solution
– Create process documentation and scripts, if necessary, for migrating ticket data to new
system
– Implement the new ticketing system

• Project sponsor
– Georgia Tech Research Institute Electronic Systems Laboratory
http://www.gtri.gatech.edu/elsys
Forsyth Country Schools
• Overview
– Forsyth county schools is a K-12 education system that serves over 42,600
students in 35 schools, the seventh largest school system in Georgia. It is
the largest employer in the Forsyth County with over 4,300 full-time
employees and 1,300 substitutes. FCS wanted to provide a simple personal
website hosting solution to its employees and students, with integrated login
using the current Active Directory system. A team was charged to study
FCS needs, recommend, and implement a solution. The final solution was
implemented on WordPress.

• Major work and deliverables

– Analyze and document client needs of setting up personal websites for
students and faculties.
– Research several possible solutions and make a recommendation
(including WordPress).
– Integrate the solution with single sign-on by active directory.
– Implement the recommended solution to demonstrate its effectiveness.

• Project sponsor
– Dr. Lessell Bray, Chief Technology and Information Officer, Forsyth County
Schools
SPSU Website Traffic Analytics
• Overview
– SPSU’s new website uses Google Analytics to record web usage.
We have a lot of usage data but did not really make use of them. In
this project, students analyzed the traffic data related to CSE
websites (CSE, CS, IT, etc.) to understand visitors and
recommended web site improvements.
• Major work and deliverables
– Analyze Google Analytics data for CSE related web sites
– Discover and report notable facts and trends, and analyze
problems, causes and impacts, based on student's expertise and
project owners’ requirements
– Recommend CSE website improvements based on the analysis
– Build custom reports and dashboards for CSE using Google
Analytics
– Recommend possible Google Analytics settings and configurations
• Project sponsor
– SPSU Web Services
Poster sessions were organized before formal presentations to
project owners, faculty, and industry advisory board members

More photos: https://plus.google.com/photos/108573100742046014316

More Information
• IT Capstone report 2012-2017
– http://www.slideshare.net/jgzheng/it4983-capstonereport2012

• IT Capstone Course Information

– http://itcapstone.blogspot.com
– http://jackzheng.net/teaching/it4983/

• Publications
– Practicing and Evaluating Soft Skills in IT Capstone Projects, SIGITE 2015
– Effects of communication, leadership, and team performance on successful
IT capstone projects: a case study, SIGITE 2011

• More info
– IT department: http://ccse.kennesaw.edu/it
– IT department blog: http://ksu-ccse-it.blogspot.com
– IT Graduates LinkedIn Group:
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=4673332
– CCSE Computing Showcase (C-Day) http://ccse.kennesaw.edu/computing-
showcase/computing-showcase.php

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