ITC 6040: Informatics Capstone

Course Information

Course Title: Informatics Capstones

Course Number (CRN):  20181

Term and Year: Winter 2024 (Jan 8 – March, 2024)

Credit Hours: 3

Course Format: Hybrid (on-ground)

Location:  Hastings Suite 107

Meeting Days/Times: 2:50-5:30pm, Wednesdays, biweekly

Second Point of Contact

In the event that some concern about the course arises and is not addressed by the instructor, please contact:

Full Name: Dr. Chris Bolick, Associate Dean of Graduate Programs, College of Professional Studies NEU Email Address: [email protected]

If for any reason you wish to express a concern about anything that may impact your success in a course, first speak directly with your Instructor. If you need additional support, please contact your Academic Advisor.

NuFLEX Requirements

This course is a NuFLEX section. Please click thelinkto see more related information. For additional information, please refer to your advisor Nancy Her at [email protected].

Technical Requirements

Courses are available on Northeastern University’s Canvas at the following link:

http://canvas.northeastern.edu. Canvas Technical support and resources including 24/7 phone (1-833-450-   3937), and chat can be found on the help icon in Canvas. Northeastern Teachnical support can be accessed at

617-373-4357 (xHELP) orhelp@northeastern.edu.

Each student is responsible for his or her access to the internet for purposes of this course and for research.    Internet access is a required component of this course and will not be accepted as an excuse for missed work. If you know that you will be traveling, then make sure you plan accordingly.

Note regarding e-mail/voicemail: If you e-mail, please include your name and class title. Please allow up to 48 hours for an email reply. If you leave  a voicemail, please remember to include your name, class title, and phone number.

Course Prerequisites

Locate your course listing online atthe CPS course listings pageto find and provide here course prerequisites and other requirements.

Course Description

The course offers students an opportunity to produce a polished paper, along with a presentation and product that reflect their training and focus in the fields of informatics, an applied form of Information Science.

Emphasizes aspects of integrating information systems, technical architectures, and enterprise functions. The course also offers students an opportunity to incorporate issues involving research and development or business and market strategies. The course, also, strongly encourages students to create a portfolio piece that can be shown to potential employers or current supervisors.  Prereq. ITC 6400, ITC 6000, ITC 6010, ITC 6020,    ITC 6035, and INT 6940.

Course Materials

.     No specific text-book is required for this course. Instructors will prepare reading materials or provide links to online resources that you can access.

.     Use APA format citations when you cite references in your written essay for this course.  or the format.

Program Learning Outcomes (PLOs)

. PLO1: Computational Knowledge and Skills -- Integrate the foundational computational knowledge and skills critical in the field of informatics to solve authentic real-world problems.

. PLO2: Advanced Information Technology (Software, Application, & Tools)/Innovation & Design   Thinking -- Design and execute an applied or investigative work that draws on a multidisciplinary approach to research and analysis in informatics.

. PLO3: IT Management Agility -- Apply analytical techniques and research methods to manage, implement, secure, and govern within a variety of information technology environments.

. PLO4: IT Leadership, Governance, Policy & Ethics -- Assess a complex issue that incorporates the ethical, legal and social impacts of information technology and knowledge management within a  societal and global business context.

This course is designed to reflect these program learning outcomes at an advanced level, i.e., the practice level.

SAIL Baseline Mapping

Refer to SAIL for Web at https://sail.northeastern.edu/about/

Course Learning Outcomes

Based on satisfactory completion of this course, a student should be able to:

. CLO1: To synthesize the knowledge of Informatics.

. CLO2: To investigate real-world informatics issues in an organizational setting (including business,   government, education institution, non-profit organization, social media, urban environment, etc.)

. CLO2: Identify critical research issues and practical problems in real-world from an IT innovation perspective.

. CLO3: Develop research skills to study the issues surrounding information system and technology.

. CLO5: Propose, develop , and implement new IT solutions to address the problems.

. CLO6: Analyze obstacles and success factors for integrating information technology and system in a business setting.

. CLO7: Discuss management and policy implications of technology and system integration.

Expectations

.    Workload

o For a three-credit course of 12 weeks, students should expect 3 hours a week of classroom or faculty instruction and a minimum of 9 hours of out of class related per week.

o Some students whose native language is not English may expect longer hours to complete the reading assignments

.    Writing

o APA citation format is recommended for all written assignment for this course

.    Assignment submission

o Instructions for each assignment are in the Assignments folder. If you need further

clarification, raise your question via “Ask the Instructor” so other students may also receive the response from the instructor.

o It is each student’s responsibility to make sure that assignments (individual and group) are

properly submitted. Once your assignment has been graded, you will be able to view the grade and feedback provided by clicking on Tools, View Grades.

o The Instructor will NOT accept assignments via email in accordance with Northeastern

University policy nor review any preliminary work sent via email.  All coursework must be submitted via the appropriate link or label in Canvas.

Attendance Policy

Students who register this course in NUFlex sections are expected to attend the class in campus or pariticipate synchronously online. Missing classroom learning and activities may result in adjusted points deduction, even   if you did not miss any written assignments. Students must notify the instructor and obtain an approval if

unable to attend class, or complete any assignment by the published submission deadline. Extensions for

assignments may be granted as long as the request is made by e-mail at least 24 hours before the due date/time. Your extension request email should

Policy on late work

As stated in the Student Handbook (see:http://www.cps.neu.edu/student-resources/),students must notify the instructor and obtain an approval if unable to complete any assignment by the published submission

deadline. Extensions for assignments may be granted as long as the request is made by e-mail at least 24 hours before the due date/time. Your extension request email should include:

1.    Include the Course Number and CRN Number in the Subject line.

2.    Include the weekday, date, and time when you intend to submit the assignment

3.    Copy ALL team members (if it’s a group assignment)

4.    Send to the instructor’s NEU Faculty account (xi.zhou@northeastern.edu) from your NEU STUDENT ACCOUNT

Note: Late responses for online discussion will be penalized 50% after published due date/time, and further 10% more for each day. Late responses for all other assignments will be penalized by at least 10% for each day unless previous arrangements (e.g. granted extension) have been made. Submission will not be graded after 5  day delay without any request in advance.

Course Methodology

. Course context and rational

The fundamental aspect of Informatics is the integration of people, information, and technology. For

Informatics capstone project, students will have an opportunity to synthesize the knowledge and apply the

skills they acquired in their previous academic courses to address a real-world informatics problem in the

context of business, nonprofit organizations, government, online platforms, and so on. To do so, students need to learn and develop research methods to investigate the existing information and technology problems, end-   user needs (from the perspective of actual users), examine technical functions, perform system integration

analysis, and solve IT related management issues. As part of the course requirement, students will present

findings, and propose innovative design ideas to improve the information and technology applications in the real world.

In particular, students will be placed in Experiential Learning sponsored project team, then work closely with the instructor to conduct a guided research. Based on their own motivations and professional experiences,

skills and knowledge strength, and personal interests, students may choose topics in the areas that may vastly different from one another, e.g., cloud computing, user experience design, data visualization, system

integration, organizational issues of information and communication technologies, platform strategies to

improve market performance, or other contemporary ICT topics for their final paper in the context of their

project scope. There is no significant amount of learning materials, but the instructor will introduce students specific research methods that best address informatics problems as well as the latest technology topics;

students share their topics, approaches to the problems, research processes, findings, and proposals to

innovative improvement. The instructor will work with each student team separately to assure that the level of technology, research complexity is appropriate for each student’s skills and expertise.

. Class Participation/Discussion Board (13%)

o Contribute one or two primary responses (based on the primary questions provided by the instructor) are due 11:59pm EST Monday of the week

o At least 2 secondary responding posts are due 11:59pm EST Tuesday of the week

o Classroom activities about the topic of the week (e.g., hot topic debates)

To facilitate interaction, students are expected to review the online postings on a regular basis even after they  have posted their own minimum required postings. Please treat your classmates and the instructors with the    utmost respect. Inappropriate posts will be removed immediately. The instructor reserves the right to penalize students for repeated violations of the participation policy (and/or Academic Integrity Policy) within a course.   In the discussion board and in class, high quality contributions advance the class discussions and do not simply  summarize the material that was assigned. Quality contributions take into account not only the instructor’s

questions but also your classmates’ contributions. Please be mindful that the Discussion Board is a space for

academic exchanges. As a result, students are accountable for using proper and exacting punctuation, spelling, and grammar. In addition, you may be required to reference all outside sources in correct citation format. It is  crucial that all participants maintain a high regard for proper decorum in the Discussion Board.

. Project-based learning (87%)

The course project offers students an opportunity to integrate specific knowledge and perspectives from

Informatics courses to a comprehensive real-world project. Students can be matched with a specific sponsor

(with XN and the instructor’s help) and investigate the IT issues in the situation, and propose an improved IT

solution (e.g., better designed system functions, interface, interactive dashboard, security measurement, or

other new IT solutions, etc.) To do this, you need to distill, and apply the knowledge you have accumulated in   prior courses and previous experiential learning, under the direction of your instructor. The final product will    be presented in the format of a combination of (1) a design prototype or functional IT product (website front- or back-end, interactive dashboard supported by data analytics, database, data warehousing ), a practical IT

project management plan, or a business segmentation analysis, and (2) a polished paper that includes the

literature (i.e., theoretical aspect and scholarly research findings related to the topic of project), detailed

description of the project (i.e., background and research topic of the project, research methods, findings, and new design), and analysis (i.e., how the knowledge learned is applied in this project).

You will be working on this project throughout the course and will have several opportunities to incorporate feedback from your instructor and peers, from the following

(1) Two project progress report and reflection (PPRRs, each 15%, 30% in total, team-based)

You will be working on this project throughout the course, and write project progress report at each milestone

week. You are also required to reflect the process (i.e., non-technical perspectives of the lessons learned) and share the experience of your interaction with the sponsors or stakeholders you deal with. These will serve

opportunities for the instructor’s feedback and for your improvement. There are three project progress reports and reflections scheduled at different weeks:

.     PRRR1 -- Topic selection, working with XN and business sponsors to define problems, identify and select methods (research and technical) (around Week 5)

.     PRRR2 -- Data collection and preliminary analysis and findings, prototype design that lead to final functional product (around Week 9)

(2) Two project presentations (each 10%, 20% in total, team-based)

Any findings, new ideas for improvement, and design prototype should be communicated and presented in public forum.

Mid-term presentation – In Week 7, each team will present their on-going project. Some teams may have made significant progress and collected lots of data, while some may be still working on the project topic selection. Regardless, mid-term presentation is the opportunity for the instructor and   your peer classmates to provide feedback and help you move forward or improve your design of the project.

Final project presentation – In Week 11, teams will showcase their final project findings or design products. Each team will be given about 15-20 minutes to present your research findings and your new IT solutions (e.g. new website interface design, data analytics findings, etc.) to address the issues you identified in your project research.

(3) Signature Team Assignment – Technical final project report (20%, team-based)

This final signature team assignment is the opportunity for your team to generate an official report and submit to your sponsor as well as being the part of final report for this course

For this team technical report, your team will write collectively to include

.     Background of the project ( description of what your sponsor's public profile, business model, stakeholders, and business operations)

.     Project requirement, IT issues and problems identified (Describe your sponsors' requirements, and IT issues and problems you have observed)

.     Research and technical methods you employed (specify with details about what exactly the research methods you used, and ALL technical tools you have adopted to get the final results, considering this report as a written document you will pass this project to next new team to carry on)

.      Report research findings, or website design, algorithm test results, etc. (Note, if your team designed a website or prototype, dashboard, web tools, or other type of the information project, please include a link and representative screen shots; If your team collected data and conducted analysis, write about   your research findings; If your team worked on testing algorithm, present your test results, and what   your adjust of each algorithm. )

(4) Signature Individual Assignment – Literature review, knowledge application, and lesson learned (10%)

For this individual signature assignment, you will write a 10 page (1.5 space, Time New Roman, 11.5 or 12 font size)  paper that will focus on the knowledge and theories you have applied in your capstone project, and reflect the lessons you have learned from conducing  your capstone project.

Specific elements for this assignment include:

.     Literature Research and Review: Collect and interpret relevant literature on the research topic of your capstone project is situated in. (Note, a combination of 15~20 scholarly articles and business/IT news   reports is expected to support the writing of this section)

.     Explain how you applied the theories and research findings from the literature (above presented) into your own capstone projects. This needs you to connect the theories to your project.

.     From doing your project, did you observed the findings that are consistent to the published literature, or anything brand new you did not come across from reviewing the literature you collected. (This requires to demonstrate your critical thinking)

.     Reflect what you have learned (via Informatics curriculum, and externally self-learning) in last 1.5--2    years, what knowledge and skills you have used in this project; What new knowledge and skills have    you gained via doing this project; What perspective of the project (process, communication, technical how-to, etc.) excites you the most, and went well; Which part of the project could be managed differently and better from your perspective?

.     Please write your insights of your team dynamics based on the table included, including how the team collaborations are like in general, coordination efforts, documents archive, communication and information sharing situation. List specific roles of each member from your perspective, including who  is responsible for what, and whether this person took the assumed responsibility. Carefully assign a #% of the effort to yourself, and each member of the team, regarding their contribution to the overall project.

Note: There are more specific instructions as to how to construct and write the final paper. Please see them in Canvas class site.

(5) Team dynamics report and project contribution (7%)

Students will each individually describe in-details what they have contributed to the project, including

themselves and each of the team members, as well as overall lesson learned from the project. The instructor will provide the overall assessment based on the insights contributed by each of the students, and cross-examine all content provided the entire team, and the observations and feedback provided by the sponsor.

Evaluation Standards

Rubrics for each assignment have been added to the class shell in Canvas. Make sure to check rubrics when you work on each assignment in order to meet the standard of work quality.

Grading

Graduate Programs Final Grading Scale

Course Schedule

.    Week 1: Introduction of the Capstone, project requirement, Match with XN sponsors, readings on Contemporary Informatics research topics and project examples

.    Week 2: Design thinking and project management logistics (including team dynamics, communication protocols, interaction with the sponsors, problem-solving, etc.)

.    Week 3: Qualitative and Quantitative research methods; Data Collection

.    Week 4:Topic on User-centered design in IT system development

.    Week 5:Topics on Platform Strategies for business and IT development

.    Week 6 :Working sessions; NO readings; Catch up with your teamwork, prepare for mid-term presentation

.    Week 7: Mid-term presentation

.    Week 8: Big Data and Artificial Intelligence

.    Week 9: Mis-/disinformation and IT social, ethical, and legal implications

.    Week 10: Program review

.    Week 11: Final project presentation

.    Week 12: Signature team paper and signature individual paper (including team dynamics peer assessment)

End-of-Course Evaluation Surveys

Your feedback regarding your educational experience in this class is very important to the College of

Professional Studies. Your comments will make a difference in the future planning and presentation of our curriculum.

At the end of this course, please take the time to complete the evaluation survey at

https://neu.evaluationkit.com. Your survey responses are completely anonymous and confidential.  For courses 6 weeks in length or shorter, surveys will be open one week prior to the end of the courses; for

courses greater than 6 weeks in length, surveys will be open for two weeks. An email will be sent to your HuskyMail account notifying you when surveys are available.