Course information

Course Overview

This course will provide opportunity for BSc(IS) student to

• Develop an IT system or proof of concept application that satisfies a list of functional and quality requirements. Student will work with a team and practice their requirements gatherings, analysis, design, implementation, testing, deployment and project management skills.
• Build the addition depth required to become a Business IT professional. This includes building up competence in the student's selected track, applying their learning domain knowledge and technology to the relevant track domain industry sector.

IS Project Experience Options

Student may choose to complete an IS Application Project or an IS Research Project or an IS Project Experience (FinTech).

IS485: IS Research Project	IS483: IS Application Project	IS484: IS Project Experience (FinTech)
Research + Data Collection + Solution approach + solution implementation + report	Requirements + Scoping + Design and Development (POC) + Testing (System and User Testing)	Financial Technology track students are given priority, to take this course in place of IS485 or IS483.
Implemented POC (Demo of the implementation is need)	Implementation (Demo of the implementation is need)	See details at IS484: IS Project Experience (FinTech)
Student with GPA > 3.4

Prerequisites

• For 2018 intake and preceding batches of IS students: Students can work on a project that is aligned to one of the six (6) tracks declared for their 1st major or 2nd major.
• For 2019 intake and succeeding batches IS students: Students can work on a project that is aligned to one of the three (3) tracks declared for their 1st major. For students taking dual track, they can choose to align to either their 1st or 2nd track. An IS483 project needs to be aligned to IS track(s) only; it cannot involve tracks across different majors.

Student must pass the following courses:

• Software Project Management (IS212): This can be taken in the same term as IS Project Experience. However, if a student drops IS212 in the term IS Project Experience is also being taken, the student will get an "F" grade for IS Project Experience.
• Any two (2) track courses: One of the track courses can be taken in the same term as IS Project Experience. However, if a student drops this course in the term IS Project Experience is also being taken, the student will get an "F" grade for IS Project Experience.

Student must also be in year 3 or year 4. Do note that this is a mandatory course for ALL SIS (IS) undergraduate students. Students are likely to get most value out of IS485/IS483 if they take it late in their curriculum, after maximal exposure to ideas in various courses. So, taking IS485/IS483 in the first term of year 3 is discouraged. A maximum of 4 (four) additional courses at SMU can be taken by a student in a term along with IS485/IS483/IS484.

Student who wish to complete an IS Research Project will need to have a GPA of > 3.4.

Multi-track Projects

Multi-track projects can include two tracks only. There has to be more than one student from each track in the project team. Acceptance of multi-track project proposals and project grading will be on the basis of required criteria being fulfilled for both the tracks.

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of the course, student will be able to:

• Showcase expertise in executing a project using knowledge acquired from the courses taken from the IS curriculum
• Experience developing of some technology deliverable for an IT system or proof of concept
• Experience working in a team environment with a sponsored project (internal, external or self-proposed) using project management skills experience throughout the courses taken in IS
• Learn about an industry or technology that is related to his selected track not otherwise available in the course curriculum.
• Work on complex and real project used by the project sponsor

Stakeholders & Students

Stakeholders

• All track project will be manage by Track Coordinator of the corresponding track.
• Each project will have a faculty supervisor and a faculty evaluator.
• Sponsors/Mentors of the project may be an internal faculty or from the industry for external industry depending on the nature of the project.

Students

• All project must be completed in teams.
• Application project will consist of students of group size 4 to 6.
• Research project will consist of students of group size 2 to 3.
• Application project must be done only once
• Students are to self-form their teams prior to registration of the IS Project Experience course. Thus, team formation is the responsibility of the students. Students may post messages at the “Team formation” forum under the “IS Project Experience” course on eLearn to contact one other regarding team formation.
• Students from different cohorts are welcome and encouraged to work together.

IS Application Project IS483	IS Research project IS485
4-6 student members	2-3 student members
Sponsors/ Mentors	Sponsor is the supervisor (internal faculty)
Supervisor + Evaluator + Track Coordinator	Supervisor + Evaluator + Track Coordinator

Project Timeline and Milestones

Activities	Timeline	Term 1/ Term 2	Action By
Project Sourcing and Registration	Week -16 to Week -8	Teams Formation, Project Sourcing & Requirements Gathering	Students
Proposal	Due before the start of Week -8	Proposal Submission	Students
Decision on Proposal	Week -4	Presentation (whether a presentation by students on the submitted proposal is required will be decided by the Track Coordinator), Acceptance/Rejection	Track Coordinator, Students, (Optional: Sponsor)
Supervisor Assignment	Week -3	Supervisors - Teams assignment	Project Coordinator
Project preparation	Weeks -2, -1, 0	Project pre-start activities	Students
Start of Project	Week 1	Supervisors - Teams	Students
Midterm	Week 7 to 9	Presentation	Students, Supervisor, Evaluator (Optional: Sponsor, Track Coordinator)
Finals	Week 13 to Week 16	Presentation	Students, Supervisor, Evaluator (Optional: Sponsor, Track Coordinator)

Project Sourcing: You may select projects listed on the wiki's individual track link for your track project or you may self-source your own projects with the companies. For self-source projects, please approach your track coordinator to verify if the project is suitable to for the track.

Project Registration: For resource planning, the school needs to keep track of the number teams planning to enroll in IS485/IS483 projects in forthcoming terms. As soon as your project sourcing is complete, please register your project (one registration per group only) at IS Project Experience Registration. Please note that project teams which have registered but did not submit their project proposal within the deadline for a particular term will be automatically disqualified.

Proposal Submission: If you have specific queries in the proposal development phase about project scope and relevance to particular track(s), you may post your query at http://bit.ly/IS483-PROPOSAL-QUERY (you need to be logged in using your SMU id). Please read the guidelines mentioned at the top of the form before posting your query. Please do not post more than one query per team. Completed proposals need to be submitted on eLearn. The next proposal submission deadline is 13 June, 2021 23:59 for the term starting on 16 August, 2021. Proposals to be submitted to the eLearn Assignments folder: "AY21-22 Term 1 Proposal Submission". Each team needs to submit a duly completed "Prerequisite Summary for Team Members" (template available in the Resources section below) along with the proposal. If a team does not submit this form with the required information, the team's proposal will not be evaluated. After acceptance of the project proposal students need to bid for IS Project Experience during BOSS 2 and they should bid only e$10. If there is insufficient e$ balance in a student's account, he/she will not be able to enroll in IS485/IS483 even if his/her team's proposal is accepted.

Proposal Submission template: Download Proposal template from Resource link below.

Grading

Grading components - IS483
Proposal Review [10%] (by Track Coordinator(s))
Midterm Presentation [25%] (by Supervisor, Evaluator)
Final Evaluation (Presentation and Report) [45%] (by Supervisor, Evaluator)
1 min Project Video [5%] (by Supervisor, Evaluator)
Poster [5%] (by Supervisor, Evaluator)
Individual contribution [10%] (by Supervisor)

Grading templates for IS483: Please refer to the grading templates for the Proposal Review, Midterm Presentation, and Final Evaluation from the Resource link below for further details about the grading components.

Grading components - IS484
Proposal Review [5%] (by Track Coordinator(s))
Midterm Presentation & Demo [30%] (by Supervisor)
Final Presentation & Demo [65%] (by Supervisor)

Grading templates for IS484: Please refer to the grading templates for the Proposal Review, Midterm Presentation, and Final Evaluation from the Resource link below for further details about the grading components.

Grading components - IS485
Proposal Review [5%] (by Supervisor)
Midterm Presentation [35%] (by Supervisor)
Final Presentation [20%] (by Supervisor)
Term paper [40%] (by Supervisor)

Guidelines for IS485 projects: Students in a team needs to have a separate research problems which are sub-problems of one main research problem. One term paper per team is required which integrates the results from each sub-problem worked upon by the students. The work of a team needs to be demonstrated using some user interface.

Roles and Responsibilities

Track Coordinator – (All Tracks):

• Create and maintain both course design documents for Track X (Application and Research)
• Arrange project briefing to students and supervisors- optional (Week 1)
• Manage the Requirements + Scoping of projects
• App Projects and Research projects
• Preparing the proposal doc outline and share with students
• Project requirements
• Alignment to track
• Time line
• Solution approach
• Technology
• Any preliminary design/analysis/research
• Manage Grading regulations
• App Projects and Research projects

Project Supervisor: Supervision is not track dependent. Faculty from any track can supervise the IS projects.

• Weekly/Bi-Weekly supervisions
• Tracking Project progress (PM skills)
• Participation during the milestones’ timeline
• Grading

Faculty Manager: The faculty manager is the instructor who manages the admin aspects of the course

• IS Project process management
• Wiki management
• Policy management
• Posters Submission & Poster day
• Award Management (Awards - Best track project, Best IS project)

Project Sponsor: Project sponsor is the stakeholder who provides the project opportunity for the students.

• Recognize that IS Project Experience is an academic course for students rather than an internship or industrial attachment program.
• Recognize that a team’s outcome from this course is expected to be a proof of concept, rather than an industrial strength system.
• Work with the team and faculty supervisor to define the team’s goals and objectives at the start of the project.
• Ensure that a project team’s progress is not hindered by lack of access to relevant data, software/hardware resources or internal rules and procedures of the sponsoring organization.

Project Team Members: Project team members are students enrolled in one of the IS Project Experience set of courses.

• Work on the project as defined by the supervisor and sponsor towards a course grade.
• Fulfill individual and collective responsibilities towards successful completion of the project.
• Maintain professional conduct in their interactions with various stakeholders.

Resources

Proposal Template

1. Software Development & Digital Business Solutioning Proposal Template [link]

2. CyberSecurity Proposal Template [docx]

3. Artificial Intelligence and Business Analytics Proposal Template [docx]

4. Financial Technology Proposal Template [docx]

5. IS483 Generic Proposal Template [docx]

6. IS485 Research Template [docx]

Prerequisite Summary

1. Prerequisite Summary for Team Members [docx ]

Grading Templates

1. Proposal Review [xlsx]

2. Midterm Presentation [xlsx]

3. Final Evaluation [xlsx]