IT 343 Section 003, Friday 1:30-4:10 PM, Prince William, Bull Run Hall Room 256- 3 credits
Instructor: Dr. William Pegram, wpegram@gmu.edu,
Website: www.billpegram.com
Graduate Teaching Assistant: Dangkhoa Luong, dluong2@gmu.edu
Text: Schwalbe, Kathy, Information Technology Project Management, 6th Edition, Course Technology Cengage Learning, ISBN-10: 0-324-66521-0, ISBN-13: 978-0-324-78692-7. You can utilize previous editions. Do not worry about whether the book "comes with" Microsoft Project since you will have access to that for free through the MSDNAA.
Case Studies: Approximately 6 case studies from the Harvard School of Business are also required reading. These can be purchased through a link that will be provided on Blackboard for approximately $24. The case studies will be specifed early in the semester so do not buy them now.
The course schedule page can be found on Blackboard. It will be revised during the semester. If you miss class, make sure to check the schedule page for new material and changes.
The course will be conducted as a mixture of lecture and discussion. Most class sessions will be treated as two sessions: one devoted to a lecture, one to discussion of a case study. Students are expected to actively participate. A team of students will be assigned to read and analyze the case study and present their findings to the class as a foundation for subsequent discussion. All students are expected (1) to have read the case study presented and (2) to be prepared to participate in the subsequent discussion.
This course fulfills the University Writing Intensive Requirement for the IT major. It does so through requiring students to write an inclass writing assignment (approximately 400 words), two short papers, each approximately 750 words, and a longer paper, approximately 1600 words. Students must submit a draft of the long paper, which will be reviewed and returned with comments, and the student will then submit a final version of the paper. . The grade on the longer paper will be an average of the grade on the draft and the final version of the paper. One of the short papers must be on the case your team presents, and this paper is due one week after the presentation. The grade on each paper will be an average of tehnical (sentence-level mechanics and errors), and structure/argument (development, organization, and quality of argument)
Students will sign up to be part of a team of 5-6 people to present on some aspect of one of the Harvard Business School Case Studies. Each student will prepare and present a presentation coordinated with the rest of their team on part of their team's assigned case. The combined presentations of the team should cover its assigned case. Presentations will be evaluated on coordination, content, delivery and class response.
This semester I expect the Microsoft Project portion of the course to have two parts: (1) each student individually enters a work breakdown structure, effort, staffing, and dependency information into Microsoft Project to prepare and submit a project plan (estimated completion date, estimated cost, and critical path) (2) each student submitted a revised plan after some tasks are underway or completed. Students may download a free copy of Microsoft Project through the Microsoft Developers' Network Academic Alliance, to which the Volgenau School subscribes. Microsoft Project 2007 is available in the open lab in the first floor of the new Engineering Building, but not in the Johnson Center or Innovation Hall labs. The trial version of the software does not permit you to save your work, so please if you wish to work on it on your own computer, please use the Academic Alliance link to download the software.
Your grade will be a function of the inclass writing assignment (3%), 2 short papers (8% each), the longer paper (17%), 2 midterms (12% each), and final (16%), MS Project (16%) and Presentation (8%).
Students are encouraged to help each other out. On homework assignments and projects, students may ask for and receive some assistance from others, unless otherwise directed by the instructor. Yet those helping a student should avoid "doing the work" for the student. No assistance is permitted on exams and quizzes. On writing assignments, plagiarism will be punished and the instructor may utilize plagiarism detection tools. The instructor will provide at the beginning of the semester further guidance concerning plagiarism.
If you are a student with a disability and you need academic accommodations, please see instructor and contact the Office of Disability Services (ODS) at (703) 993-2474. All academic accommodations must be arranged through the ODS.