[MIS476]
[MIS376]
[IE5541]
[MIS360]
[MIS175]
[Projects]

Sample Student Projects

These projects provide samples for current and future students to review. These projects provide excellent examples of combining learning and community service.  If anyone would like to submit a project, please send an e-mail to schwalbe@augsburg.edu.  (Note:  Sorry if some of the links no longer work.  Several sites are on students' personal pages, and they may no longer be available).

A great example of a student project is the Tempting Templates project.   I've permanently put this project info on my site at this link.  Results of this project were used for the third edition of my textbook, and the student project manager, Bill Hunt, and I gave a presentation on this project at the Minnesota Chapter of PMI's Professional Development Days on Nov. 21, 2003, to a standing-room only crowd.

Spring 2003 U of M class projects:

Projects done in MIS476, IS Projects, at Augsburg College: 

Urban Coalition:  This nonprofit research and advocacy organization advocates for certain public policy issues, such as poverty, hunger, and civil rights.  Media presentation of these issues must be tracked to identify issues, support, and trends, previously a huge manual task.  The MIS476 group built a database designated as Multi-Media Advocacy Analysis System (MMAAS) for staff and volunteers to enter data from media sources with key criteria coded in for analysis, such as favorability toward issue, bias, partisanship, etc.  The final Access database included capabilities for linking to source articles or storing Adobe Acrobat documents. 

MN Indian Women's Resource Center:  MNIWRC is a nonprofit social and educational service agency to assist American Indian woman and their families.  There are many programs and aspects to their services, most of which is paper based and therefore difficult to track and report to funding organizations.  The student project undertaken involved the support services for pregnant women and their children.  An existing database for tracking these clients and the services provided was analyzed and totally redesigned and replaced.  The team developed a user interface for data capture, and provided documentation and training for client development of queries and reports. 

ASL Interpreter:  Dena Stolp is a self-employed sign language interpreter who has over 200 companies (including Augsburg) and clients who use her services.  The project team developed a specialized small business accounting system to track clients and assignments, produce invoices for billing, and provide information for tax reporting.

 Red Cross Volunteer Services System:  The St. Paul Chapter of the Red Cross coordinates medical services volunteers with community events needing stand-by emergency services (such as the State Fair).  An Access database was developed to track volunteers, their medical certifications and the validation/expiration date, and easily identify potential volunteers for upcoming events. 

North Central Blood Services of the American Red Cross:  Two projects were completed for this area of the Red Cross, the Desktop project and Time Tracking project. 

1. Red Cross Desktop – An Access database existed on the network server for planning and scheduling Blood Mobile Services.  Two administrators of the database were responsible for providing reports requested from other areas.  The student project created a standard Access database template with reporting menus and links to the network tables.  Five versions of the template, based on user roles and information needs, were created for installation on a user desktop, allowing user areas to run their own reports while still maintaining control of the data at the network level through the administrators.

2. Red Cross Time Tracking – Actual time worked by employees in Blood Mobile Services was previously sent in and keyed into an extensive Excel spreadsheet.  Since the planning and scheduling of the blood mobiles already resided in Access, the student project was to convert the time tracking system to an Access database system.  Potential future projects could then integrate and analyze the planned/scheduled/actual data.

District Del Sol (Riverview Economic Development Association: REDA):  This organization works with small business owners to increase the capacity of existing businesses, promote business community as a whole and attract new investment and tenants to the St. Paul West Side District del Sol area. The student project created a database to track properties, buildings and business owners and generate detailed reports on each piece of property for potential developers. The data captured in the database include photographs of properties and will also provide for the analysis of trends and the ability to work toward filling the voids in the commercial area. The final product includes a user interface, documentation and training materials.

 MGT Productions:  This web development and hosting small business is owned by an Augsburg 2002 graduate. The student project involved the development of an enterprise data model and a basic database to manage client contacts and client services and support client billing. 

Mississippi Corridor Neighborhood Coalition:  The MCNC is a coalition of 20 community groups dedicated to preserving, protecting, enhancing and restoring the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. The student project developed an Access database to capture water analysis data collected by volunteers and organize, report, and export the data for analysis and communication. The database includes a user interface, reporting by selection criteria (including pivot charts) and the export to and launch of Microsoft Excel for further data analysis.

 Custom Stud, Incorporated:  CSI is a steel-framing products company that is owned by an Augsburg alumnus. The project involved creating a database of product specifications to drive the product search pages of a new company Web site. The project required far more data analysis to understand the data and the data relationships. The team created a prototype database and web pages in Dreamweaver to prove the concept. Work during the summer of 2003 further developed both the database and the Web site.

 Peace Africa Community Center:  This organization supports immigrants from northern Africa countries as they seek to become US citizens, nurture, protect and educate their children, learn English, find jobs and maintain community. The team project involved the creation of a database to track clients, service programs, services given and events to manage the work of the center, maintain a history and report activities and service levels.

 Data Mining for Statistical Literacy:  This project for Professor Milo Schield installed and evaluated XLMiner, a data mining “add-in” product for Microsoft Excel. Vendor supplied data was used to understand and exercise the software and new data was organized, input and analyzed using the tool. The outcome was a Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) solution recommendation addressing data mining MIS, Marketing, Quantitative Analysis and other Business Administration department courses. The overview and recommendation was presented to the MIS and Marketing faculty.

Fall 2002 U of M class projects:

Augsburg College Winter/Spring 2002 Project Web Sites:

MIS376T Class:

Blackboard Team Web Site: Click here to see the Blackboard Team's web site. They evaluated the use of Blackboard and potential of using it for virtual courses.

Riversbend Project Team Web Site: The Riversbend Project team is creating web page templates for Girl Scout Troops to use to make their own web sites. 

Weddings By Jane Project After the Total Athlete Database Project was cancelled, the same students are now doing a project for Weddings By Jane which involves creating a database and web site for this small business.

U of M Class:

Augsburg Student Project Web Sites for the 2000-2001 School Year:

Spring 2001:

Link to MIS476, Information Systems Projects, web sites and class schedule information in Excel.  Most of these projects involved creating databases for local companies or non-profit groups.

MIS376 Project to create a web site for Trinity Lutheran Church - great project information and web site created by this Augsburg WEC team

www.geocities.com/ie5541 - project by three Unite students at the U of M, good case study based on an IBM project

www.angelfire.com/sports/icefishing - ultimate ice fishing house project, U of M engineers designed a fish house

www.geocities.com/projectmannagement/project_main.html - Formula SAE database project

www.users.qwest.net/~hansonmark - PM resources web site project

www.geocities.com/taekwondo5541 - U of M Taekwondo web site project

www.geocities.com/tomp0018/Kitchen_Remodling.html - project to plan remodeling a kitchen

Fall 2000:  Note:  This group mostly did case studies of real projects.

www.geocities.com/imzadiidazmi/totalscope.html

www.itlabs.umn.edu/~sehn0003/project

www.geocities.com/pm5541f00/index.htm

http://www.scc.net/~igor/ie5541 (nice example of using the web for virtual team communications)

http://www.me.umn.edu/~brosch/project.html

Samples of Projects from the 1999-2000 School Year:

Augsburg Student Chapter of PMI Web Site:   Four students in my MIS376 class created this web site.  Great job!
Access Database for 3M:  Another group in my fall MIS376 class created a database for a marketing group at 3M.  It was a great success.   Unfortunately, the information is proprietary, so no link here!
Engineering Finance Seminar:  This project included holding a seminar to teach key finance concepts to engineers and create this web site.  This link includes all of the project documentation and a link to the seminar web site.
Sigma Nu Web Site:   This project established a web site for the Sigma Nu fraternity at the University of Minnesota.

Samples of Projects from the 1998-99 School Year:

Active Server Pages:  In winter 1999 we finally got an NT web server (in Kathy's office) with active server pages capability.  Now we can do projects using dynamic Access databases.   This web site does a great job of summarizing information on active server pages thanks to 3 MIS376 students.
Weekend College Course Information:  Another great example of a class project that also helps the college.
 Lutheran Bible Institute Web Site:  This organization contacted me about having students set up a web presence for them.
Camphor Memorial United Methodist Church:  A WEC student proposed a project to build a web site for her church.  Here it is.

Other projects included setting up an Augsburg student chapter of PMI, creating an Access database for Sheldahl Corporation's lab notebooks, developing an on-line registration form for WEC, updating web pages for the MilleLac's Corporate Commission, researching real uses of Project 98, creating a Lotus Notes database to track diving equipment for the county sheriffs office, investigating options for PMI student scholarships, updating web pages for the women's hockey and men's basketball teams at Augsburg, researching the Skills Assessment Manager software, and developing web pages for the Cleveland Neighborhood organization..

Samples from the 1997-1998 School Year:

Guide for Using Microsoft Project 98:  Excellent resource for this class or anyone using this software.
Guide for Using FrontPage 98:  Excellent resource for anyone using this web site tool.

Other projects included creating a web site for Robyn's Daycare, reviewing the IT Certificate Program web pages, creating an Access database for the Woodbury Athletic Association, researching the use of multimedia, etc.

Projects from previous years:

University Neighborhood Network Database: Three students in my winter 1997 section of MIS475 and spring section of MIS476 created an Access database that now runs over the web, thanks to some folks and an NT server at the U of M. This system helps connect academia and neighborhoods by allowing Twin Cities neighborhood groups to post their project needs and faculty at local colleges to post their classes with applied research projects. The first version of this system is already operational! Check it out to find student projects.

Riverview Economic Development Association (REDA): Four students in my fall 1997 section of MIS376 created web pages for this group. We found this project by using the UNN described above.

Kattner FVB: Four students in my fall 1997 section of MIS376 created web pages for this company. One of the students' mom's works for Kattner. It is interesting to note that Kattner had a bid from a company (over $2,000) to do the same job these students did for a small donation to Augsburg College.

Project Management Software: Three students in my fall 1997 section of MIS376 worked on this project.

Minnesota Missing Children:   Four students in my fall 1996 MIS376 class created web pages for the Minnesota Missing Children foundation.