Last updated: May 09, 2006

General Expectations

CS 481 is a course that will continue placing significant emphasis on your professional development while at the same time introducing the complexities caused by team-based development projects.  In your "standard" university courses you have reading assignment, small to moderately sized homework assignments, quizzes and exams, etc. Most of these activities involve some kind of written material to guide your progress.  With a professional development focus, things are considerably different in CS 481.  Some assignments will be given to you verbally.  Some activities will be given in generalities or outline form from which you will be expected to develop a reasonable response or course of action.  You will need to leverage from what you learned in CS 480.  You will be expected to ask questions when you don't understand what's expected or wanted.  If your work does not measure up you will be asked to refine it until it meets customer and / or my expectations.  In CS 481 you will be expected to manage your own time and work, as well as ensure that your efforts are coordinated with other members of your team.  Procrastination is your enemy.  Letting down your teammates can be disastrous.  You will make many individual and collective decisions, some technical and some non-technical, and you will have to live with those decisions.  Successful completion of your project is expected.  The following is a list of some of the things you will achieve:

• You will distribute tasks equitably to all members of your team.

• Each of you will contribute a fair share to the development of project documentation, coding, testing, planning and management, and record keeping.

• You will follow a disciplined approach to development based on proven development processes and practices.

• You will develop and maintain a project / team web site that serves as a repository for project.

• You will provide complete and accurate reporting of individual and team activities.

• You will communicate frequently and honestly with your customer.

• You will develop a complete set of technical and usage documentation for your product.

• You will develop code that is well commented and meets accepted quality standards.

• You will thoroughly test your product prior to each release.

• You will deliver the completed system to your customer, install it, and verify that everything works the way it should in the customer's environment.

• You will submit an archive CD containing all of the material developed during the semester.

More specific information is found on the Project Course Student Characteristics page.