IFI8109 Planning and Running Research and Development Projects Planning development projects

1. IFI8109 Planning and Running Research and Development ProjectsPlanning development projects • Peeter Normak

2. Plan • Plan for the rest of the course. • Comments to the previous topic (planning research projects) • Definition of a development project. • Planning development projects – specific aspects: • Description of the outcome • Cooperation with the target groups • Impact of the project outcome • Intellectual property • Risks • Universal indicators

3. Plan for the rest of the course • 25.02 • Planning development projects • Homework: analysis + initial composition of a development project plan • 4.03 • Reviewing development projects • Homework: completion of the development project plan • 11.03 • Running R&D projects • Seminar: presentation of development project plans. • Homework: review of a research project • Deadlines: • 3.03 – Submitting individual research project proposals • ASAP – Submitting reviews of individual research project proposals • 20.03 – Submitting development project proposals

4. Comments to the previous topic (planning research projects)

5. Definition of a development project • We define development projects as projects which: • are based on some research, • are aimed at satisfying some needs of a wider target group. • Examples: • Development of a tool that bases on a new concept / framework or that has some completely new features (example – Dippler). • Development of a new usage methodology of some tool (example – usage of tablet PC in the classroom). • Development of learning exersices and / or materials for application of some new methodology (example – e-textbook). • NB! Testing some methodology does not fit under this definition.

6. Specifics of evaluation of development projects • The lack of quantitative (numerically measurable) criteria. • Local internal decision-making (including international projects). Example – Tempus JEP 12418 (Development of Master Programme in Multimedia and Learning Systems). • Possible incompetence of reviewers. • The wide variation in evaluation process, from non-existent (examples – innovation vouchers, or IKTP) to an extremely rigid and regulated (example – public procurement). • Multitude of possible sources of funding. Examples?

7. Planning development projects – specific aspects

8. Development projects – Description of the outcome • Expected outcome should be described as specifically as possible, both in quantitative and qualitative terms. It should be possible to assess the adequacy of project proposal (including resources and the risks), based on the description of the outcome. • Sector-specific, according to the terminology used in the sector. • The outcome of software development projects is normally described by the list of requirements; in the case of larger projects the description of architecture or some other elements (for example, any description of the design elements) may also be included. • Examples: Dippler University textbook

9. Development projects – Cooperation with the target groups • The purpose of cooperation: ensure that the outcomes of the project meets the needs of potential users, and will subsequently be widely used. • Principles: • Representatives of potential users are involved in the project. Why? • The outcomes of the project will be given to the representatives of users for testing as early as possible. • Foresee the possibilities to change the outcome if necessary.

10. Development projects – Impact of the project outcome • Impact can be: • Economic, measured in money or efeciency. • Social, measured, for example, by the rate of involvement of retired people in social networking. • Political (example – the percentage of citizens participating in elections). • Educational (example – the percentage of school leavers). • By certain universal indicators. • What else?

11. Development projects - Intellectual property • The purpose: establish the conditions for usage of the project outcome. • Often the financier does not prescribe the rights and conditions for usage of the outcome; these should just be explicitly stated. • NB! For public sector funded projects the conditions of use normally given (example: EU funded BeSt programme for development of learning objects and e-courses).

12. Development projects - risks • Risk is a feature of an outcome of an activity (the potential of an undesirable outcome); it describes the level of uncertainty for obtaining a predefined outcome. Risk is a probabilistic measure: the simplest formula – M/N. • The objective of risk management: keep the realization probability of risks cost-effectively on an acceptable level. • Some possible techniques for determination of risks: • analysis of documents (including web based) • brainstorming • Delphi-technique • interviewing customers • SWOT-analysis • diagrammatic analysis (analysis of cause-and-effect diagrams)‏ • NB! Usually people are the biggest sources of risks, then information/data (non-adequate, missing, leaking etc) and then infrastructure. • .

13. Development projects – universal indicators • Universal (cross-cutting) indicators concern the overall objectives of the society, such as the effect of the project on: • environmental protection • promotion of equal opportunities (by sex, race, language etc) • information society promotion • regional development promotion • civil society development promotion • the intensification of cooperation in the region (for example in the Baltic states). • NB! So far, the role of the universal indicators has been relatively small in assessing the projects.

14. Homework • Find a strategy, programme, development plan or a policy that points out your research area as an important one. • Compose a short (one page) analysis of research done by other authors (main results, research methodology used) and list problems/issues that need more research. • Compose a project proposal according to the structure and size limits given in the file Research_project_form.doc. • Prepare a 4 minute presentation (NB! Exactly four minutes) about the presence of the topic in the documents found under task No 1, and possible applications of the outcome of your research.

15. Home assignment • Study the LearnMix project application. • Compose a form based LearnMix evaluation, according to the Guide. • The form – Evaluation_form_application_project.doc • The guide – Evaluation_guide_application_project.doc. • Team work. Compose an initial version of the development project: • Determine the objective and expected outcome of the project. • Determine the main target groups of the project. • Conduct the needs analysis. • Describe the expected outcome (a list of requirements). • Determine a financing scheme of the project.

16. Next class: Tuesday, March 4, at 12:00Topic: Reviewing development projects

17. Example: incompetent evaluation of development project • The objective: Development of a web-based and competence-driven learning environment for personal learning which is open to all educational institutions in Croatia. • Reviewer 1: This is an extremely innovative solution to make teaching more effective and more personal, the application could also be used in workplace learning. Particularly worthwhile is the possibility for automatic generation of feedback in assessment (the score – 4). • Reviewer 2: It is not clear achievement of what learning outcomes the tools support: focusing on the assessment of forgetting indicates that the outcomes of the project aim primarily at increasing the learners knowledge, not so much at increasing their ability to apply their knowledge, and ability to analyze and synthesize new knowledge from existing one (the score – 1,5).

18. Example: requirements for DIPPLER • Use of Semantic Web and Web 2.0 technologies (RSS, folksonomies, web services, widgets, embedding, semantic annotation, ontologies). • Modularity and open source code (GNU LGPL or BSD license), which would allow community based development. • Different levels of use: suitable for both beginners and advanced users. • Compatible with learning technology standards and specifications (LOM, QTI, SCORM, LD, CommonCartridge etc). • Interoperability with other TEL tools (blogs, wikis, repositories). • Support for Single Sign-on and authentication with OpenID and ID card. • Multilingual and easily localized. • Possibility to add individual tools and services, personalize the look and feel. • Possibility to apply different business models. • Powerful Learning Analytics possibilities. • Compliance to general software requirements: scalable, secure, well-documented, adaptable, easy installation and administration.

19. Example: the architecture of DIPPLER

20. Example: cooperation with the target groups • An IT department of a university was asked to develop a software allowing students to register over the Internet to the courses. As the Study Information System of the university did contain all the necessary databases the task seemed to be relatively easy and this was given to a novice developer without any list of requirements from academic departments. After launching huge amount of problems emerged, including for example the following: • as not all time-tables were available in the internet,the students had to check the time-tables in academic departments; • As only users of the university computer network had opportunity to register over the web (authentication!), the departments were forced to introduce a parallel registration; • no control was performed whether all prerequisite courses are already completed. • Only 1,5% of the students used this service. An additional analyst was involved and the project was repeated from scratch.

21. Example: university textbook • Determination of the target group. • Description of possible usage (textbook/web support/training). • General principles of composing the textbook (sh innovation). • The structure of the textbook and description of the chapters. • Description of the structure of chapters and principles of their composition. • Example of a completed chapter or a part of it. • Description of web support (both content and functionality). • The approximate volume of a textbook.

22. Example: impact to the economic development • The need for determining the level of Estonian proficiency level is extensive: knowledge of Estonian – the only official language in Estonia – is included in a large part of job requirements (in the public sector almost exclusively). It concerns a relatively large proportion of the population, because 31,3% of people living in Estonia are non-Estonians (2011). • The software that will be developed during the project can also be used for development of different services supporting, for example: 1) unsupervised learning of Estonian, 2) composition and running courses of Estonian for immigrants, 3) testing Estonian proficiency level in specific contexts or business areas. • Relating each proficiency level with concrete requirements (vocabulary and constructions) would make learning Estonian more targeted and effective.

23. Example: risks NB! Risks are changing in the course of a project and need for regular review. More examples: http://www.headfirstlabs.com/books/hfpmp/hfpmp_ch11.pdf

24. Example: universal indicators (a program for learning Estonian) • Environmental protection: “green IT” (paper-free learning). • Promotion of equal opportunities: knowing Estonian (the only official language in Estonia) increases employment opportunities for non-Estonians. • Promotion of information society: using the learning program increases ICT skills of users. • Promotion of regional development: The unemployment rate in Ida-Virumaal is by far the highest in Estonia (20,3%in 2011). Knowing Estonian would improve the opportunities to find a job, and integrate the region better into the common economic space of Estonia. • Promotion of development of civil society: knowing Estonian supports better involvement of citizens in societal processes, and therefore in development of civic society.