Projects

Here is a brief rundown on the current projects I am working on:

602 - Human Communications - practical communications in a seminar setting

• I wouldn't consider this a project, but I am working on my Theory of Human Communications for my mid-term exam during week 10 (currently in week 7).

630 - Research Methods

1. IBM's Symphony System620

• Design and conduct a research study of IBM's Symphony System in comparison with Microsoft's Office System. We will examine:

1) The installation process
2) The instruction material
3) The ease of operation and usability of the system for class assignments
4) Student productivity in employing the system for class materials preparation

This is a class led project where each team takes one of the above tasks. We will create
reports to be sent to IBM concerning the usability of this product and we may have the
chance to present it to IBM.

620 - Tech class (CCNA, phone systems, etc)

1. The Healing Net Hospital Case

• Prepare a strategic plan that presents our vision for an integrated network to serve Healing Net Hospital (I believe this used to be a real ongoing project but is done now. This case study still has been used for educational purposes across the country.) We will provide an implementation timeline, one-time costs for equipment with the network and communication devices for the physicians and nurses, consider all health care and privacy related legislation, security and integrity of information moving throughout the system, a disaster recovery plan, minimize costs for our budget, etc. We will present a documented solution that will be entered into a national contest, ITERA. A judging panel will review the papers and the top 3 teams will be invited to Atlanta in April 2009 to make an in-person presentation to a final judging panel who will select the winning team. Ball State teams have made it to this point many times from my understanding. They may have even won last year.

Ball State's CICS graduate program named best in nation

601 - Management focused class

1. Digital Media Programs in the USA

• The intro on my handout: "At least since the turn of the 21st Century the "emerging field" of digital media (and art) has exploded across the U.S. higher education landscape. There was lots of speculation about hundreds of programs enrolling thousands of students but there was no concrete data until the CICS class of 2007 did a preliminary research study in this class (601) which became the 'Digital Media Programs in the USA' survey book. The class of 2008 had the task of improving upon the original work and their work resulted in the directory titled, "Digital Media Programs of the USA." It doubled the number of entries and was distributed broadly across the US last November."
• The program was technically founded at BSU in 2002. Our tasks are twofold: 1) "First you must find a way to determine whether we missed any digital media and/or arts programs across the U.S. There are slightly over 3400 higher education institutions in the 50 states. " 2) "Second, using the current directory, you must confirm the accuracy of the content, updating and expanding where possible. This involves contacting those in the directory".
  
• After we presented our proposal for going about this, we decided (more so the teacher decided) how we were going to do this. I started about a week ago by sending emails to 61 schools in Pennsylvania. If they don't respond in 3 days, I send another email, slightly different from the first. Each email has a memo from Dr. Steele (our Prof) and an attached survey questionnaire. There are 50 students total working on this project. I sent out my round 2 emails last night on Sunday. I will likely start making calls tomorrow until mid next week. This is when we should have contacted everyone. I have only had about 5 replies so far. That means I will be calling 50+ people and I don't have that kind of time, especially during the business hours of the day. We will be using campus land line phones.
• iDMAa
  

2. The next project is the same case study as above for 620 but it is much less technical and
focuses on the management/business aspect much more.

699 - Study in Technology - Internet Penetration test (Pentesting)

This is not a part of CICS but it will count as an elective. This is the first time this class
has ever been offered (in my undergrad computer tech department).

1. The main outcome of this project is a security guide for small business. We will be gathering information about IT infrastructure in small businesses, setting up a typical small business networking environment as an Internet penetration spot (to hack it), applying best practices to enhance the security of the Internet penetration spot, launch ethical hacking to break into penetration spot run by peers at a different country, and to summarize our findings of the course project to develop this "Security Tips Guide" for small business. I am most excited about this project as it relates to security, one of the topics I am most intrigued about in my field.