CSSE 371-372 Project Descriptions

#	Sponsor and Department	Project Description
1	Luanne Tilstra (Chemistry)	"Creating a functional data base for the management of volunteer activities in a not-for-profit organization." Every year, our church collects data in the form of a survey. The survey asks members to volunteer their time and talents to complete the many tasks associated with the church. The project would require taking data from the survey and entering the data into a data base. My desire is that several things happen once the data is entered. I would like each individual to be matched up with the appropriate committees and/or commissions of the church based on what they've identified on the survey as their special interest. I would like letters and lists of people to be generated automatically; these letters and lists would go to committee chairs. I would also like letters to be generated to the volunteers so that they know which committee they are being referred to. I anticipate that one individual of the church/organization will be in charge of maintaining the data base. It should be assumed that the data maintenance person is NOT a programmer or extremely computer literate. Data entry must be do-able by simply checking boxes in an easy-to-complete form. In addition, mapping the activities to committees and commissions must be something that is easy to modify by the data-base maintenance person. Right now, I'm managing this information using Excel, which is definitely NOT the best tool for the job. But I haven't time to learn how to create and manage the data-base.
2	Bill Weiner (ABBE)	This project involves programming a virtual instrument (using the software LabVIEW) that will enable me to collect and analyze electroretinograms (ERGs). Students would gain experience in data acquisition issues as well as the design of a virtual instrument using graphical programming. I am very interested in having this project completed next year as it will open the doors for several biology senior research projects (once the virtual instrument is functional). I would be happy to serve as the client and meet regularly with the team of students to provide them guidance.
3	Mark Schawitsch (IRPA)	I just attended an Institutional Research conference and many of the schools have built their own or are using a commercial product that integrates the strategic planning process from the Institute level all the way down to department levels. It seems simple on the surface, but I imagine it could get rather complicated. I figure we'll either buy a commercial version, build one in-house or do without. And since IAIT is perpetually understaffed and overworked, I was ruling out that option. It might be a good project for the students, however...if it is not too complicated.
4	Aaron Baldauff (Student Affairs)	The project will involve GUI and data layer programming for the RA webpage.  I don’t currently have database server space for the page, but I’m told it would be easy to acquire.  I would like to make the page more user-friendly and easier for me to manage.  The ideas that I have thus far are simple, but perhaps through the project work the page could be developed a bit more than I currently intend. Your student group would be the ideal solution, as I would otherwise have to occupy IAIT resources to get this done.  You can check out the webpage here.  The page that I am interested in altering is the Duty Calendar page, and I would like to add some functionality to the Staff Tools page.
5	Aaron Kelley (Admissions)	The Office of Admissions would like to redesign the look and output of several online forms that are utilized in day to day operation.  These forms include the following: Information intake form for incoming freshmen http://www.rose-hulman.edu/admissions/request/request-freshmen/index.htm Information intake form for potential transfer students http://www.rose-hulman.edu/admissions/request/request-transfer/index.htm Information intake form for athletic prospects (will need to include the Athletic Dept. in this discussion)               https://banner.rose-hulman.edu/sports/ The Campus Day Registration Form http://www.rose-hulman.edu/admissions/campusdayregistration.htm The Online Catapult Application http://www.rose-hulman.edu/catapult/forma-e.htm These forms in their current design are functional, but there is the hope that a redesign can solve some issues involving output (which is currently by email), as well as confusion on the part of users who input information incorrectly.  We hope to be able to design these sites in such a way that will not only provide better service to our prospective students and Catapult participants, but also for the Admissions and Athletics staff members who utilize the data in various ways.
6	Bryan Taylor (Public Relations)	The public relations office would like to request consideration of a class project that would lead to the development of a content management system to be used on the Rose-Hulman web site. For instance, if an news item was posted related to a particular department, the webmaster for that department would receive a copy of the item with link information.
7	Lee Waite (ABBE)	I am the President of the Rocky Mountain Bioengineering Symposium and each year we hold an annual bioengineering conference. Next year it will be here at RHIT. In the past abstracts have been submitted electronically over the web (by using a CGI script file), and the data was compiled manually by a secretary. This year, we would like to develop a system to automatically collect all submissions into an electronic database so that information can be sorted electronically thus eliminating the need for a secretary to enter data manually into the database. Prospective authors will submit an "intent to present" form sometime in the fall. Somewhere near December 2005, each author will submit a 6 page manuscript (approximately 100 manuscripts will be submitted) in electronic form for review. It will be my job to manage the review process for those manuscripts. The goal of the project would be to develop a system to manage the submission of intent to present forms and the manuscripts, from initial submission throughout the acceptance process. At each step along the way, we should have access to a database that includes names, addresses, affiliations, . . . for all authors as well as the status of their submission.
8	Zac Chambers (ME) and Marc Herniter (ECE)	We have an idea for a project proposal to support ChallengeX. We have developed vehicle models and controls strategies to "drive" our vehicle based on accelerator and brake pedal input. While this is great for analysis, it provides little wow factor for our next round of competition. As such, we are building a vehicle simulator consisting of most of the Equinox dashboard including a steering wheel, pedals, and seats. To make this simulator even cooler, we'd like to employ a computer screen in front of the driver so that it looks like you are actually going somewhere ala Grand Theft Auto. We would like a student team to take the signals output from our hardware (steering and acceleration) and send them into a video-game like environment. If I understand, old PC versions of GTA3 Liberty City admit additional maps for new vehicles.
9	Timothy Chow (IRPA)	Redesign, develop online data collection/reporting system for the AITU Annual Data Exchange project: We have been gathering a collection of data (student enrollment, graduation, test scores, and many others) among 19 other institutions using an in-house developed web-database application. There are some inefficiencies with the existing application and I hope to get some help to built a better system that is flexible to adjust year after year (with new survey questions or remove old survey questions), documented and one that can be used for the years to come. We will be using the existing system for this coming academic year and hope to deploy the improved version in the following year.
10	Timothy Chow (IRPA)	IRPA Office web site content management system: Our office does not have systematic ways (following any best practice/standards) in up keeping our websites. If possible, we would like to obtain help from your students to provide a good framework to maintain and update contents on our office websites. We would like to have interfaces built that would be easy for all staff members to do (filling out forms and set parameters without programming).
11	David Miller (CHE)	The project is a database and user interface for the department to manage its internal ABET documentation and mapping of course objectives to departmental objectives.
12	Jim Hanson (CE)	I have an NSF project to develop course materials for structural analysis courses. As part of the proposal, I committed to make the information available to faculty members and practitioners via the web. But I need some way to register users so that students don't get access. I would also like to be able to track use statistics so that they can be reported back to NSF.
13	Julia Williams and Timothy Chow (IRPA), Will Mathies (Ventures)	RoseEPortfolio Last year Quest Systems from Indianapolis released a re-architected version of the RoseEPortfolio system. RHV has helped the Assessment office by developing tools to import, export and examine data within the system. The interconnections between RoseEPortfolio and Banner for example are not part of the current release but are critical to the applications functionality. I believe the assessment office has identified several issues with the system that they hope to have resolved. I think that there would be an excellent opportunity for any help your classes could provide in developing detailed specifications for these issues.