Software Engineering Collaboration 8

Our Open Rooms group is making a lot of headway. The developers completed one of our main goals already. They have updated the default editing capabilities to make it easier for the administration to set up and make time changes. They have also changed all of the CSS code to Bootstrap so now they will be able to make CSS changes very quickly and achieve our second goal which is to make the program look and feel more like the library website. We hit a roadblock with our third goal because we would need to change our library website over to https in order to make LDAP work with the program. The product owners are currently discussing the implications of rushing this change through before school starts. We may have to put this project in the "parking lot" for now.

Software Engineering Collaboration 7

 The past two weeks have been exciting. We are getting to actual get into the code and really start working on our end goals. We finally have everything set up and running so our sprints are becoming "fun." It will be exciting to be able to see changes on the program in the near future.

Last week we figured out that our backlog stories were too broad. We had to evaluate each of them and think about how we could break them down into smaller sprints that could be completed in one week. Our team is also naturally dividing into smaller teams/pairs as they realize their strengths or areas of interest. Allen and Tyler have jumped head first into the CSS changes. Kevin, since he works in IT, is doing research on how to implement LDAP with our program. Jacob and Hannah have already made big strides on working directly with the code for entering default hours into the program.

One issue brought up in class that our team needs to work on is writing stories instead of just listing tasks in our backlog. If I'm understanding them correctly this means writing the tasks in end user language. As a < type of user >, I want < some goal > so that < some reason >.

Escape Room Report

The escape room was a success - well kind of! Only one team "sort of" escaped in the twenty minute time period. They actually did it twenty-two minutes so we gave them "bragging rights" since no other teams made it as far as they did. 84 students came to game night and twelve teams attempted to escape. It went so smoothly that we decided to offer Faculty and Staff an opportunity to test it out on the day of the Spring Fair. We actually set up two duplicate rooms that day and twelve teams went through in three hours. Unfortunately, none of the groups were not able escape. Everyone had a great time! Now, we are considering offering it to our students for a small fee to offset the cost of the extra staff we would need to run it.

Everyone LOVED the button makers and even made some really creative buttons. Word spreads quickly, students are already asking when we will be putting them out for anyone to make.

Library Game Night and the Button Maker

The library student employees are anticipating a fun evening tonight. It's our annual library game night. This is an opportunity for library employees to come to the library at night after we are closed and play games. The games vary from board games to Sardines on the dark, third floor.

This year Matt M and Ann J designed an escape room for them to participate with teams of 4-6 people. So far on the trial runs, no one has escaped their room in the twenty minute allotted time. Some of the teams are pretty confident that they are going to be the first to escape.

Another highlight of the evening will be an opportunity to use the library's new button makers. Thanks to another generous donation from Irene Clerico Farley's daughter, we were able to purchase two button makers. Students will be able to make 1.5" buttons for $0.15 and 2.25" buttons for $0.20 each. Informatics admin will train any library students interested in making their own buttons on Friday night. It is great advertisement because they are allowed to bring one (non-library employee) guest with them to game night.

The button makers will be made available in the Irene Clerico Learning Zone (ICLZ) when the students return from Spring Break. For more information, visit our website. http://library.olivet.edu/services/other_services/button_making/index.php

Software Engineering Collaboration 6

We have had our first backlog this week. We were supposed to have a sprint meeting but IT was there to thaw the computers so we could install WAMP. The install was not going as plan so we ended up using the entire time to troubleshoot that. We had some individual discussions so that we could keep working on other issues and we made some tentative sprints for next week. Since class time ended before we completed the install we had to set aside our planning/meeting until Thursday.

Queens College uploaded new files on Monday so we were excited to delve into them and see if we can successfully install them. Since we didn't get to it during the class time. Jacob spent some time outside of class working on the two installs and has found solutions for both. This should get us back on track for next Tuesday.

Allen showed Matt and I the two rough mockups they had made for the CSS changes. We really liked the simplicity of the proposal. We talked about a background color change and a spacing issue. We had a definite favorite so we voted to go forward with that plan.

Hannah and I wrote up some backlog/sprint items so that we would at least have some goals for this week. It will all be dependent on what we get installed on Thursday.

Software Engineering Collaboration 5

This week our team had our first sprint completion celebration. We all finished our sprints and figured out the new ones. We had candy bars to celebrate our first milestone. We had our first "blockage" because we still cannot successfully install the version from Queen's College GitHub site. We have contacted the head librarian from Queen's College and had an exciting response from him. They are working on getting some updates pushed, but we have to wait for that before we can proceed with the changes. Our plan is to use the original version from Ball State so that we can at least start looking at the code. Jacob V and Matt have been working on working through the install issues while the rest of the team is working on a mock-up for the CSS changes. Their plan is to review their designs and choose one to present to the rest of the team.

Software Engineering Collaboration 4

Today, we talked about stand up meetings. The concept of a stand up meeting is that it should be short. It gives a quick overview of where each team member is on a project without monopolizing valuable time or one person taking over the entire meeting. The thought is that no one wants to stand for long. The meeting should be about a minute per person and the entire meeting should take less than 15 minutes. There are three questions that should be addressed.

1.     What did you do yesterday?
2.     What will you do today?
3.     Are there any impediments in your way?

In a normal workplace this would be done daily so that issues and timing problems would be discovered before the sprint due date.Our group had time to work toward the end of class. We used the time to ask any pending questions we had and then the team members decided to pull up a php file from OpenRoom and talk about the code. It was very productive and everyone was catching on to the differences from languages they already knew pretty quickly.

Software Engineering Collaboration 3

When our team met the first time, it was our responsibility to overview the project. I explained to them that we would be using an OSS, Open Room for the library, but there were some changes we wanted to make before we made it available to our patrons. Open Room was designed by Ball State University in 2010 as an online reservation system so that patrons could check out study rooms in the library without interacting with library staff. The product owner often gives the requirements in form of a story: As a <type of user> I want to <do something>, so that <some value is created>.

Since the program was developed 7 years ago, there are some technologies that can be improved on to make some of the setup and admin functionalities. We also would like to make the program "feel" more like a library website so that our patrons have a sense of familiarity when they are making reservations. Our story might be: As the product owners, we want to improve administrative functionality and the look and feel of the website so that both the patrons and the software admin can have a successful experience when using the application.

After the overview, our team talked about what tools we plan to use. Since Queens College has since taken over the maintenance of OpenRooms and has it set up in GitHub, we decided we would use GitHub to track our changes. We also decided to use Slack as our method of communication. Slack will be helpful because it will allow them to share code when needed. 

Software Engineering Collaboration 2

The first couple class periods, Dr. Vail introduced us to scrum and agile. He talked about his personal experiences while away on his sabbatical. He talked about the Agile Manifesto list http://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html. He also gave many suggestions and guidelines for our projects. There are two other teams with two other projects. He made it clear that students were expected to work five hours outside of class. Each group already has an assigned Product Owner, but would need to assign a Scrum Master. Those are the only two roles in scrum, everyone else are team members.

Software Engineering Collaboration

Informatics administration is trying something new this semester. We are collaborating with Dr. Vail from the Computer Science Department. He is implementing a new work system (framework) that he was able to observe and participate in during his sabbatical in Spring of 2016 with his software engineering course, CSIS-457. The new system is called Scrum. It has become very popular in the developing world. The basic concept of the system is to meet often and set realistic goals (sprints). At each meeting, you would re-assess plan (backlog) and plan the next sprint. One of the main goals of scrum is to improve a product in a faster manner by focusing on smaller tasks with a high intensity.

Dr. Vail invited us to propose some project ideas for a group of five students to work on. We met with him and proposed a few different projects that we thought would be manageable for a semester time period. We found a project that should work well with the scrum framework and help our department with a legitimate project. He invited us to be the Product Owner. This is one of three roles in scrum. The Product Owner helps the team prioritize on what is needed to be completed first. We have committed to attempt to attend most of the class periods on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This should help our team move at a decent pace while allowing us to learn and observe scrum in process. We are interested in analyzing this system to see if it would benefit us to adopt it with our development team.