Dynamic Interactive Communication Environment

Green Group

CS 410

April 27, 2006

1

Table of Contents

Document Pg. No.

NSF Form 1207 (Will Dandridge) 3

Project Summary (Will Dandridge) 5

NSF Form 1359 (Will Dandridge) 6

Project Description (Will Dandridge

/Sean Coogan) 8

Biographical Sketches (All Members) 14

Phase I Technical Objectives (Will Dandridge) 17

GUI Design (Sean Coogan) 20

Conclusion (Mark DeDomenic) 26

Summary Budget Proposal (James Hubany) 27

Works Cited (Sean Coogan) 30

Appendix:

Marketing Plan (Jeff Wolford) 32

Management Plan (Tom Romero) 45

Staffing / Organizational Plan (Jeff Worford) 56

Risk Plan (Jeff Wolford) 73

Mitigation Plan (Mark DeDomenic) 76

Funding Plan (James Hubany 81

Evaluation Plan (Jeff Wolford) 87

Resource Plan (Sean Coogan) 93

Conclusion (Mark DeDomenic) 97

2

COVER SHEET FOR PROPOSAL TO THE NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATIONPROGRAM ANNOUNCEMENT/SOLICITATION NO./CLOSING DATE/If not in response to a program announcement/solicitation enter NSF 00-2 FOR NSF USE ONLY      NSF PROPOSAL NUMBER

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AGENCY? YES NO IF YES, LIST ACRONYM(S)

000-00-0000 AN ACCOMPLISHMENT-BASED RENEWAL

     

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Computer Productivity Initiative E & CS BuildingAWARDEE ORGANIZATION CODE (IF KNOWN) 4700 Elkhorn Ave Suite 3300      Norfolk, VA 23529-0162NAME OF PERFORMING ORGANIZATION, IF DIFFERENT FROM

ABOVE

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(See GPG II.D.1 For Definitions) FOR-PROFIT ORGANIZATION SMALL BUSINESS MINORITY BUSINESS WOMAN-OWNED BUSINESS

TITLE OF PROPOSED PROJECT Dynamic Interactive Communication Environment

REQUESTED AMOUNT

     

PROPOSED DURATION (1-60 MONTHS)

6

months

REQUESTED STARTING DATE

January 10, 2006

SHOW RELATED PREPROPOSAL NO.,

IF APPLICABLE

     

CHECK APPROPRIATE BOX(ES) IF THIS PROPOSAL INCLUDES ANY OF THE ITEMS LISTED BELOW

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HISTORIC PLACES (GPG II.D.10)      

SMALL GRANT FOR EXPLOR. RESEARCH (SGER) (GPG II.D.12) FACILITATION FOR SCIENTISTS/ENGINEERS WITH DISABILITIES (GPG V.G.)

RESEARCH OPPORTUNITY AWARD (GPG V.H)

PI/PD DEPARTMENT PI/PD POSTAL ADDRESS

Computer Science 925 Brandon Ave Apt 5API/PD FAX NUMBER Norfolk, Va 23517757-555-1234      NAMES (TYPED) High Degree Yr of Degree Telephone Number Electronic Mail Address

PI/PD NAME

Janet Brunelle M.S. 1987 757-683-4832 brunelle@cs.odu.edu

CO-PI/PD

Tom Romero

3

CERTIFICATION PAGE

Certification for Principal Investigators and Co-Principal InvestigatorsI certify to the best of my knowledge that:

(1) the statements herein (excluding scientific hypotheses and scientific opinions) are true and complete, and(2) the text and graphics herein as well as any accompanying publications or other documents, unless otherwise indicated, are the original work of thesignatories or individuals working under their supervision. I agree to accept responsibility for the scientific conduct of the project and to provide therequired project reports if an award is made as a result of this proposal.

I understand that the willful provision of false information or concealing a material fact in this proposal or any other communication submitted to NSF is a criminal offense (U.S.Code, Title 18, Section 1001).

Name (Typed) Signature Social Security No.* DatePI/PD

Janet Brunelle 000-00-0000Co-PI/PD

Tom Romero 000-00-0000Certification for Authorized Organizational Representative or Individual ApplicantBy signing and submitting this proposal, the individual applicant or the authorized official of the applicant institution is: (1) certifying that statements made hereinare true and complete to the best of his/her knowledge; and (2) agreeing to accept the obligation to comply with NSF award terms and conditions if an award is made as a result of this application. Further, the applicant is hereby providing certifications regarding Federal debt status, debarment and suspension, drug-freeworkplace, and lobbying activities (see below), as set forth in the Grant Proposal Guide (GPG), NSF 00-2. Willful provision of false information in this applicationand its supporting documents or in reports required under an ensuing award is a criminal offense (U.S. Code, Title 18, Section 1001).

In addition, if the applicant institution employs more than fifty persons, the authorized official of the applicant institution is certifying that the institution has implemented a written and enforced conflict of interest policy that is consistent with the provisions of Grant Policy Manual Section 510; that to the best of his/herknowledge, all financial disclosures required by that conflict of interest policy have been made; and that all identified conflicts of interest will have been satisfactorily managed, reduced or eliminated prior to the institution’s expenditure of any funds under the award, in accordance with the institution’s conflict ofinterest policy. Conflicts that cannot be satisfactorily managed, reduced or eliminated must be disclosed to NSF.

Debt and Debarment Certifications (If answer “yes” to either, please provide explanation.)Is the organization delinquent on any Federal debt? Yes No

Is the organization or its principals presently debarred, suspended, proposed for debarment, declared ineligible,or voluntarily excluded from covered transactions by any Federal Department or agency? Yes No

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INTEGRAL PART OF THE NSF INFORMATION SYSTEM AND ASSIST IN PROCESSING THE PROPOSAL. SSN SOLICITED UNDER NSF ACT OF 1950, AS AMENDED.

4

Project Summary:

The Dynamic Interactive Communication Environment (DICE) is envisioned as a

stand-alone application with web functionality that will help students succeed by building

an online educational community. It will enhance student-to-professor and student-to-

student communications by integrating voice chat, application sharing, file transfers, and

instant messages. Also included will be a forum/personal message board, a Wiki-

database, and all chat sessions can be archived for later viewing.

The Internet has long held the promise of anywhere, anytime education. Online or

distance education is become a normal way of attending classes in pursuit of a college

degree; however, with the amount of students perusing education outside of the

classroom, progress has yet to be made in the way of out-of-class communication

between these students. Unfortunately, once the course website has been disabled, or

once the cameras have been tuned off (for televised classes) interactive learning has

essentially been disabled as well. While advances continue to be made, much is still

lacking in the way of online leaning communities. Students living near a satellite campus

are effectively isolated from other students and lack the ability to truly enjoy the benefits

of study groups as well as other interactive learning activities. These “non-traditional”

students are also cut off from campus life in that they find it difficult to participate in

student-to-student communication unless, as is sometimes the case, an entire group ends

up being near the same satellite. This leads to a feeling of alienation and poor academic

performance. The Dynamic Interactive Communication Environment intends to bridge

this gap by bringing together both distance students and traditional students into the same

forum.

5

TABLE OF CONTENTS

For font-size and page-formatting specifications, see GPG Section II.C.

Total No. of Page No.*

Section Pages in Section

(Optional)*

Cover Sheet (NSF Form 1207) (Submit Page 2 with original proposal only)

A Project Summary (not to exceed 1 page) 1      

B Table of Contents (NSF Form 1359) 1      

C Project Description (including Results from Prior NSF

Support)

7      

(not to exceed 15 pages) (Exceed only if allowed by a program announcement/solicitation or if approved in advance by theappropriate NSF Assistant Director or designee)

D References Cited      

E Biographical Sketches (Not to exceed 2 pages each) 2      

F Budget 3      (NSF Form 1030, plus up to 3 pages of budget justification)

G Current and Pending Support (NSF Form 1239)            

H Facilities, Equipment and Other Resources (NSF Form

1363)

1      

I Special Information/Supplementary Documentation            

J Appendix (List below)            Include only if allowed by a specific program announcement/

6

solicitation or if approved in advance by the appropriate NSFAssistant Director or designee)

:Appendix:

Marketing Plan (Jeff Wolford)

Management Plan (Tom Romero

Staffing / Organizational Plan (Jeff Worford)

Risk Plan (Jeff Wolford)

Mitigation Plan (Mark DeDomenic)

Funding Plan (James Hubany

Evaluation Plan (Jeff Wolford)

Resource Plan (Sean Coogan)

*Proposers may select any numbering mechanism for the proposal. The entire proposal, however, must be both columns only if the proposal is numbered consecutively.

NSF Form 1359 (10/99)

7

Project Description

Societal Problem Defined:

There is an absence of a comprehensive medium for communication outside of

the classroom for distance learning students. Communication, by definition, is the act of

communicating or better yet, the act of being connected. Distance can then be defined as

remoteness, a sort of disconnect. These two words alone, distance and communication,

do not compliment each other in a seamless manor. It is, therefore, necessary to find a

way to bridge this disconnect and allow a seamless connection between distance and

traditional learning.

An All Too Common Example:

Bob, a distance education student is struggling in his program. He as asked for

tutoring help but there is no help available to meet is level of needs. Bob feels isolated in

his studies and is quickly falling behind. Without a tutor or study partner Bob will most

likely fail the class. Disappointed he may leave the college all together.

Sandra, a traditional, on-campus student commutes to her classes and works full-

time. Like Bob, Sandra is also struggling. Although Bob and Sandra do not know each

8

other, they would make ideal studies partners. Both Bob and Sandra work full-time and

both are late night studiers; however, neither students knows the other and they live 300

miles apart.

Currently Bob and Sandra reside in different sections of the same class. Unfortunately

unless the students already know each other, there is now way for them to meet. The idea

is to create a merger of these two sections thus allowing an effective communication

method for students to share their resources (Figure 1).

Communication without DICE (Figure 1)

Background:

9

According to the latest Sloan Consortium’s report “Growing by Degrees: Online

Education in the United States online enrollment increased from 1.98 million in 2003 to

2.35 million in 2004, as seen in Figure 2 (www.sloan-c.org/resources/overview.asp).

Prior and estimated enrollment figures (Figure 2)

The 2005 and 2006 estimates are based on the continue growth at the present rate.

Old Dominion University, a leader in online and distance education has also shown

dramatic increases in their distance-learning students (Figure 3).

10

2002

*

2003

*

2004

*

2005

(Est

imat

ed)

2006

(Est

imat

ed)

1,000,000

1,500,000

2,000,000

2,500,000

3,000,000

3,500,000

4,000,000

Num

ber o

f St

uden

ts

Year of Enrollm ent

Old Dominion University Distance Enrollment

(www.odu.edu/ao/upir/factbook/hc_enrollment/hc_by_university/hconoffsum_r.html) (Figure 3)

The growing demand for distance learning is a common theme and a better

facilitation of communication among these students must be addressed.

To expand slightly on Old Dominion University, Old Dominion University is one of the

largest providers of distance learning degree programs in the country. ODU serves over

4,000 students at 50 sites in 6 states and U.S. Navy ships deployed around the globe,

which makes it the ideal site for the initial installation (www.dl.odu.edu/about_us/).

However, these locations do not reach into households or places where students

congregate to study. Seventy-five percent of ODU students work and of that percent,

thirty-three percent of them work more than 30 hours a week. Nationally, the average of

students juggling work and school is 78%

(http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=98243&ran=22164). This is a

staggering number and due to this, many students find it hard to meet and form study

groups; however, as outline in Old Dominion’s Strategic Plan, ODU is committed to

providing quality student support services to students at a distance and strives toward

11

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

4000

4500

5000

Students

1984-1985 1989-1990 1994-1995 1999-2000 2004-2005

Year

providing services that are at least as good as the services provided to the on-campus

population. This is not an impossible task.

Learning Communities:

A learning community is a purposeful restructuring of curriculum to link together

courses or coursework so that students find greater coherence in what they are learning

and greater interaction with faculty and peers.

Because retention of freshman students is low, Learning Communities were set up

to address this need; however, they were intended primarily for freshman coming out of

high school. This project intends to take the premise behind Learning Communities and

expand it to all students regardless of class rank, so that all students coming into a

university will benefit.

On almost all variables related to academic success, Learning Community

freshmen out-score non-Learning Community freshmen. These differences are highly

significant (Figure 4).

Benefits of Learning Communities (LC)

Item LC Non LC

Relationship w/

Faculty

52% 41%

Sense of

Community

85% 81%

Study w/ others 61% 41%

Benefits of Learning Communities (http://www.odu.edu/ao/upir/reports_presentations/alcprc1.pdf) (Figure 4)

Goal:

The goal of this project is to develop an educational community in the form of a

stand-alone application to improve the quality of education for students by allowing them

to:

12

Communicate with each other outside the classroom

Share applications like white board

Form study groups

Find mentors

Volunteer as mentors

Assist with homework

Form an online educational community

To create an environment where all students at ODU can increase their

educational resources in order to maximize their success rate.

This project will develop a stand-alone application that will provide students with

a real-time communication environment to improve their success.

Previously mentioned was the student’s lack of communication between others in

different sections of the same course (Figure 5).

Current Student Interaction (Figure 5)

Once the D.I.C.E. is implemented, cross-communication between these sections

will be possible (Figure 6)

13

Student Interaction using DICE (Figure 6)

There are a few mechanisms that were presented to address the absence of a

comprehensive medium for communication outside of the classroom. Early stages of

development indicate that these options will be offered in a software suite to distance

education students at the time of registration. The package is to include real time voice

and text chat, an interactive message board, virtual white board that enables the student to

share applications with other students. The application will also include a customizable

profile; to which the students will have an opportunity to share personal information with

one another (name, previous and current classes, etc.), to add and delete class groups

from the student’s profile and enable the students to form study sessions with one another

through the application. Students will have the ability to control what information they

wish to be shared or not shared.

Biographical Sketches

Tom Romero: Tom Romero lives in Portsmouth, Virginia is the Project Manager for the

Dynamic Interactive Communication Environment (DICE) project. After retiring from

the United States Navy in 2002, he decided to pursue a degree in computer science.

While in the navy he worked as a system administrator at Naval European Meteorology

and Oceanography Center, and for United States Naval Station Rota, Spain. He is

currently a senior at Old Dominion University majoring in computer science, with a

14

minor in information systems. The skills Tom brings to the project include management

and leadership, C++ and Java programming, and web design.

William Dandridge: William Dandridge lives in Virginia Beach, Virginia and is the

Documentation Manager for the Dynamic Interactive Communication Environment

(DICE) project. Mr. Dandridge is a computer science major at Old Dominion University

and plans on graduating in the fall of 2006. He has four years active duty service in the

United States Navy and is currently a Navy Reservist. William has worked in the

Information Technology field for over 6 years. His specialties are computer networking,

helpdesk support, and network security. Mr. Dandridge has a wide range of computer

certifications including Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) in Windows 2000,

Microsoft Certified Systems Administration (MCSA) in Windows 2000, CompTIA

Certified PC Technician (A+), and CompTIA Certified Network Technician (Network+).

William is also well versed in C++, Java, and SQL.

Jeff Wolford: Jeff Wolford lives in Charlottesville, Virginia and is a senior at Old

Dominion University taking courses in the distance education realm. Mr. Wolford is the

Marketing Manager for the Dynamic Interactive Communication Environment (DICE)

project. Having being thrust in managing smaller projects at the Virginia Department of

Forestry, he found a knack for keeping information technology (IT) projects running in

light of minimal funding. The “dog and pony” shows for forestry management proved to

be a strength and source of enjoyment for Mr. Wolford. He is currently employed at the

University of Virginia and is leading a project to implement the third largest IT system at

University of Virginia (after their Oracle Financials and PeopleSoft SIS), which is the

R25 Academic and Special Event Room Management System. Applying the principals of

determining what the market is ready for has proven for a successful phase I

implementation. He brings marketing knowledge, promotional presence, and application

development support to the team.  

Mark DeDomenic: Mark DeDomenic lives in Norfolk, Virginia and is the Risk Manager

for the Dynamic Interactive Communication Environment (DICE) project. He is a senior

in the computer science program at Old Dominion University, with an emphasis in

programming and a minor in information technology. He has been working with the

Office of Communications and Computing Services on campus since his entry into the

15

University, and is currently employed in the Media Services department in Webb Center,

providing audio/visual support for a variety of events. Mr. DeDomenic brings knowledge

of the University information systems to the project, as well as skills in Java, C/C++, and

networking.

Sean Coogan: Sean Coogan lives in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Mr. Coogan is the

Webmaster for the Dynamic Interactive Communication Environment (DICE) project. He

is currently a senior at Old Dominion University majoring in computer science, with a

minor in information systems. Mr. Coogan earned an Associates degree in Computer

Science from Tidewater Community College in 2004. He has been building computers

for five years. The skills Sean brings to the project include web design and development,

video and audio editing, extensive software knowledge, C++, Java and SQL

programming.

James Hubany: James Hubany lives in Hampton, Virginia. Mr. Hubany is the Financial

Manager for the Dynamic Interactive Communication Environment (DICE) project. He

is currently a senior at Old Dominion University majoring in computer science with a

minor in accounting. Mr. Hubany brings to the group solid knowledge of C++, Java,

graphics programming and parallel computing. He also has extensive financial

knowledge and experience.

Consultants

Professor Dennis Ray: Professor Dennis Ray received his Bachelors of Science degree

in Marine Engineering from United States Naval Academy in 1964 and his MS in

Computer Science from the United States Naval Postgraduate School in 1971. After

retiring from the United States Navy he began teaching at Old Dominion University in

1984. Professor Ray has over 20 years teaching at Old Dominion University.

Dr. Ravi Mukkamala: Professor Ravi Mukkamala received his Ph. D. from University

of Iowa in 1987. Also in 1987, he was appointed Associate Professor at Old Dominion

University, and in 2001 he was appointed Commonwealth Information Security Center

(CICC) Computer Science Research Fellow. Currently he teaches undergraduate and

graduate students in distributed systems, distributed databases, and operating systems.

His areas of expertise and research interests are: Information Security; Public-key

16

Infrastructure (PKI); Distributed Trusted Computing; Modeling of Distributed Database

Systems; Performance Modeling and Evaluation; Distributed Systems; Health Usage and

Monitoring Systems (HUMS).

Dr Irwin Levinstein: Professor Irwin Levinstein received his Ph. D. from University of

Chicago in 1973. His areas of expertise and research interests are Database systems and

Intelligent Tutoring.

Steve Crawford: Steve Crawford received his Bachelors of Science degree in Computer

Science from Old Dominion University in 2001. He has held various positions at the

Center for Learning Technologies and Academic Technology Services Faculty

Multimedia Lab since 1998; currently he is the Technology Coordinator for the

Academic Technology Services.

Christian A. Pucher: Christian Pucher is a technology and implementation expert in the

field of delivering media to distance students at Old Dominion University.

Sandra Waters: Sandra Waters is a Banner and SIS expert working for Old Dominion

University.

Kai Van De Carr: Kai Van De Carr, an online application-sharing expert currently

working with webex.com.

Carol Stanley: Carol Stanley is the University of Virginia Registrar and Family

Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) expert.

Phase I Technical Objectives

Domain:

The Dynamic Interactive Communication Environment will allow students to

have the option to join an online community, and allow them to communicate using voice

and audio chat. D.I.C.E also allows for voice and audio chat, file exchange / application

sharing also allows users the ability to archive chat sessions. The design of D.I.C.E. does

not call for high bandwidth.

A careful distinction has to be made when comparing this product to another

product used in the educational environment called Blackboard. Blackboard is a web-

based software system, which is used to support flexible teaching and learning in face-to-

face and distance courses. It provides tools and facilities for online course management,

content management and sharing, assessment management, and online collaboration and

17

communication (www.vuw.ac.nz/home/glossary) . Blackboard is configured as a

classroom management system not a communication device. The Dynamic Interactive

Communication Environment will not replace and does not plan on competing with or

replacing Blackboard.

Major Functional Components (Figure 7):

To properly implement the project, the following components are required:

1. A server to provided authentication and host sessions. The server will

also act as the storage device for archived chat and will host voice

sessions.

2. A database to store student records. It is possible to have the system

interface from exported data rather than connect directly to the

database.

3. A firewall is required to provide security to the system.

4. Connection to the World Wide Web for distance learning students to

connect with the system and to connect with other students.

Major Functional Component Diagram (Figure 7)

Project Scope (Figure 8):

The scope of the project does not expand beyond providing a software solution to

meet the needs of the education facility. The Dynamic Interactive Communication

18

Environment package does not include user PCs; however, a personal computer will be

used to load the client software responsible for providing the user with a Graphical User

Interface. The solution also does not provide a student enrollment database. The

customers will have to provide their own database solutions. DICE will; however,

provide the interface to this database.

Project Scope (Figure 8)

What’s in the Box? (Figure 9)

At the heart of the Dynamic Interactive Communication Environment is the web-

based solution. This solution provides the community building software, which is the

backbone of the system. This software includes Instant Messenger / Audio Chat. A web

based Wiki-style encyclopedia, web forums, etc. This software component of the DICE

will follow basic client-server Instant Messaging and Presence Protocol as set forth by

the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Also included are the required training and

technical manuals and software database interfaces.

19

What is in the Box (Figure 9)

The Graphical User Interface

Log-On and Process Flow Chart (Figure 10)

Log in process (Figure 10)

Home:

This is the first screen users will see after logging on to DICE. The Home screen is also

the main navigation screen. We aim to allow users to access mentors, tutors, or a study

20

group with in three clicks. This provides a user-friendly system, and allows the student to

maximize time efficiency (Figure 11). They will then be given the option to:

1. View the University schedule

2. Check to see if any student mentors are available.

3. View and customize software options

4. Check to see which tutors are online.

5. View which classes are available to them and interact with peers.

Home Page GUI (Figure 11)

Schedule:

This screen allows the user to see a list of the school’s offered classes that are available

on the DICE system. Through this interface users can access course information, course

materials, and professors’ course websites (Figure 12).

21

Schedule GUI (Figure 12)

Mentors:

This screen allows the user to see a list of their mentors whom they have made initial

contact with, both professors and peers. The user has two options to contact the mentor;

email or instant message. The color codes for the instant message are; green if the mentor

is online and available, red if the mentor is online but not available, and grey if the

mentor is offline. The user can email their mentor no matter the mentors’ online status

(Figure 13).

22

Mentor GUI (Figure 13)

Options:

The options screen allows the user to change or update their picture, adjust their default

microphone volume, set their contacts list options (Figure 14).

Options GUI (Figure 14)

23

Tutors:

This screen allows the user to see a list of available tutors. The list is broken down by

subject, and then by course number. The user can click any green JOIN button to join that

study group. If the JOIN button is red the group is either full or inactive (Figure 15).

Tutor GUI (Figure 15)

My Classes:

This screen shows classes the user is currently enrolled in and other class with the same

course number, but different section. This screen will allow the student to view the

number of peers available across different sections of a course and allows them to join a

study groups (Figure 16).

24

My Classes GUI (Figure 16)

Figure 17 is the initial version of the graphical user interface. Starting at the top

is the name of the current user, email address, current group (class) the user is logged

into, and a link to other groups the student is a member of. Moving clockwise is a picture

of the current person speaking, as the speaker changes, so will this picture enabling

students to associate a face with a voice. Next to the picture is list of students currently

logged into the group, in this example the CS 410 group. Below those two is the audio

controls, an enable audio and volume control. The instant messaging portion is next with

areas to read and send text. In the bottom left hand corner is the FTP button, which gives

the students the ability to quickly exchange files, also, in the lower left hand corner is a

list of the most recently archived chat sessions. And finally is the whiteboard/shared

application area.

25

User

Interface GUI (Figure 17)

Conclusion:

American President John F Kennedy once noted that “Our progress as a nation

can be no swifter than our progress in education.” Modern technology has allowed

education to expand beyond the classroom, enabling students to go earn full degrees

without ever setting foot on a college campus. However, these advances come at the loss

of the sense of community and better communication that a traditional setting provides.

The Dynamic Interactive Communication Environment will help fill this void,

connecting students across the nation and potentially improving the quality of education

for students. Our solution offers students a comprehensive tool to help them

communicate with fellow students and instructors. This tool will keep campuses on the

forefront of technology, increase retention rates in distance programs, and hopefully

increase overall graduation rates.

26

54 SUMMARY PROPOSAL BUDGET

FOR NSF USE ONLY

ORGANIZATION

Computer Productivity Initiative

PROPOSAL NO. DURATION (MONTHS)

Proposed GrantedPRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT DIRECTOR AWARD NO.A. SENIOR PERSONNEL: PI/PD, Co-PIs, Faculty and Other Senior Associates NSF-Funded Funds Funds List each separately with name and title. (A.7. Show number in brackets) Person-months Requested By Granted by

NSFCAL ACAD SUMR Proposer (If Different) 1.    $      2.         

3.         

4.                           

5.                           

6. (   ) OTHERS (LIST INDIVIDUALLY ON BUDGET EXPLANATION PAGE)                     

7. (1) TOTAL SENIOR PERSONNEL (1-6)                     

B. OTHER PERSONNEL (SHOW NUMBERS IN BRACKETS) 1. (0) POSTDOCTORAL ASSOCIATES                     

2. (3) OTHER PROFESSIONALS (TECHNICIAN, PROGRAMMER, ETC.) $24,000.00      

3. (0) GRADUATE STUDENTS            

4. (6) UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS $42,240.00      

5. (0) SECRETARIAL - CLERICAL (IF CHARGED DIRECTLY)            

6. (0) OTHER             TOTAL SALARIES AND WAGES (A + B) $66,240.00      

C. FRINGE BENEFITS (IF CHARGED AS DIRECT COSTS) $26,496.00      

TOTAL SALARIES, WAGES AND FRINGE BENEFITS (A + B + C) $92,736.00      

D. EQUIPMENT (LIST ITEM AND DOLLAR AMOUNT FOR EACH ITEM EXCEEDING $5,000.)     

     

     

TOTAL EQUIPMENT            

E. TRAVEL 1. DOMESTIC (INCL. CANADA, MEXICO AND U.S. POSSESSIONS)            

2. FOREIGN            

F. PARTICIPANT SUPPORT 1. STIPENDS $      

2. TRAVEL      

3. SUBSISTENCE      

4. OTHER      

TOTAL NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS (1) TOTAL PARTICIPANT COSTS 0      

G. OTHER DIRECT COSTS            

1. MATERIALS AND SUPPLIES $3,040.00      

2. PUBLICATION/DOCUMENTATION/DISSEMINATION 0      

3. CONSULTANT SERVICES 0      

4. COMPUTER SERVICES            

5. SUBAWARDS            

6. OTHER                  

TOTAL OTHER DIRECT COSTS            

H. TOTAL DIRECT COSTS (A THROUGH G) $95,776.00      

I. INDIRECT COSTS (F&A) (SPECIFY RATE AND BASE)     

     

TOTAL INDIRECT COSTS (F&A)            

J. TOTAL DIRECT AND INDIRECT COSTS (H + I) $95,776.00      

K. RESIDUAL FUNDS (IF FOR FURTHER SUPPORT OF CURRENT PROJECT SEE GPG II.D.7.j.)      

L. AMOUNT OF THIS REQUEST (J) OR (J MINUS K) $95,776.00 $     

M. COST SHARING: PROPOSED LEVEL $      AGREED LEVEL IF DIFFERENT: $     PI/PD TYPED NAME AND SIGNATURE* DATE FOR NSF USE ONLY

27

Budget Detail

Undergraduate Students:

The cost of labor at $42,240 consists of six undergraduate interns, while another

$24,000 is allocated for a security expert, network expert and database expert. An

additional 40% of salary cost at $26,496 is included as overhead for general and

administrative costs.

Our security expert is responsible to over look our security plan, to insure that the

Federal Education Rights Privacy Act (FERPA) is not violated in any manner and to

insure methods dealing with the honor code and to keep unethical activities at a

minimum. The database expert and the networking expert are one in the same, as they

will both provide us with information regarding how much space is needed for each

student database and to help us insure that the DICE team will have enough bandwidth to

handle the server load.

The primary responsibilities of the undergraduate interns during phase I will

involve coordinating group efforts. Each team member will be held accountable to a

specific task and responsibilities accordingly. A description of each task can be seen by

looking at our staffing plan on page 57. The amount of time required for this work is

budgeted to be 704 hours with a cost of $7,040 for each intern. This labor category as

well as all others includes an overhead cost estimate of 40%. Table I shows a breakdown

of the labor budget for Phase I.

28

Table 1.

Materials & Supplies:

Development of the Dynamic Interactive Communication Environment will

require hard resources. The two Dell Precision 380 machines will be used to run the

DICE software package to prove functionality between the computers. The Linksys - 4-

Port Ethernet Broadband Router will be used to connect these computers together. The

DICE team will not have to worry about additional hard resources as Old Dominion

University will provide workstations and software licenses needed to develop the DICE

software package. Table II shows the cost of the materials needed in more detail.

Table 2.

29

Works Cited

Distance Learning @ North Seattle Community Colleges “Distance Learning

Survey” (2005) <http://www.virtualcollege.org/stats/stats_reports.htm>

National Association of College and University Business Officers: US Department of

Education Publications and Tools (2004) <http://www.nacubo.org/x164.xml>

National center for education statistics http://nces.ed.gov/

Old Dominion University: Changing Lives “Old Dominion University Strategic Plan

2005 – 2009”

<http://www.odu.edu/ao/affairs/odusp2005%5B2004.12.10%5Dbov.pdf>

Old Dominion University Distance Learning: “About us” (2003)

<http://www.dl.odu.edu/about_us/>

Old Dominion University: Institutional Research and Assessment

<http://www.odu.edu/ao/upir/factbook/hc_enrollment/hc_by_university/

hconoffsum_r.html>

Powel, Richard. Conway, Christopher. Ross, Lynda. “Effects of Student Predisposing

Characteristics on Student Success” Journal of Distance Education (1990)

<http://cade.icaap.org/vol5.1/8_powell_et_al.html >

Swan, Michael K, Jackman, Diane H. Comparing the Success of Students Enrolled in

Distance education Courses vs. Face-to-Face Classrooms (2000)

<http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JOTS/Winter-Spring-2000/pdf/swan.pdf>

Shape, Marty Smith, Pickering, Worth, and Gile, Roxanne Old Dominion University:

30

Learning Communities – Assessing the Impact on Students and Faculty

http://www.odu.edu/ao/upir/reports_presentations/alcprc1.pdf

The Sloan Consortium. Sizing the Opportunity: The Quality and Extent of Online

Education in the United States, 2002 - 2003

<http://www.sloan-c.org/resources/overview.asp>

US Department of Education: Office of Vocational and Adult Education (2005)

<http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ovae/pi/cclo/distance.html>

Virginian-Pilot

http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=98243&ran=22164

31

2002

*

2003

*

2004

*

2005

(Est

imat

ed)

2006

(Est

imat

ed)

1,000,000

1,500,000

2,000,000

2,500,000

3,000,000

3,500,000

4,000,000

Num

ber o

f St

uden

ts

Year of Enrollm ent

APPENDIX

DICE MARKETING PLAN

OUR CUSTOMER

Total Market

All universities and colleges are our target customer for DICE. By the nature of

these institutions, our secondary customer is the faculty and students who will be using

DICE to enhance their educational journey. In the fall of 1999, the US Department of

Education reported that there is 39581 degree granting institutions. This is the total

number of possible customers that DICE can reach. When determining our actual market

share for the services that we will

provide, this number decreases

roughly in half. Of these degree-

granting institutions, 56% (as

reported in 2005 and published by

Sloan’s Consortium) have

identified online education as a critical long-term strategy2. Additionally, United States

online enrollment increased from 1.98 million in 2003 to 2.35 million in 20043. These

figures, as well as estimated figures can be seen in the chart pictured at right. DICE’s

benefits can be realized in the traditional full-time on-campus student profile exhibited by

all of the degree granting institutions. However, the benefits are expressed in greater

quantity to distance and online education curriculum in these institutions.

First Customer

1 http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d01/dt180.asp2 http://www.sloan-c.org/resources/overview.asp 3 http://www.sloan-c.org/resources/overview.asp

32

For our first instantiation of DICE, we have selected Old Dominion University as

our premier customer. The reasons for choosing ODU relied on two items: this is the

current university that the DICE development team attends and ODU has a vested interest

in the success of their distance education program. Old Dominion University is one of

the largest providers of distance learning degree programs in the country. It serves over

4,000 students at 50 sites in 6 states and U.S. Navy ships deployed around the globe.

These also reflect students who are enrolled at certain sites, but attend their classes in the

online setting.

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

4000

4500

5000

Students

1984-1985 1989-1990 1994-1995 1999-2000 2004-2005

Year

ODU Distance Education Enrollment 1

Additionally, as outlined in Old Dominion’s Strategic Plan, ODU is committed to

providing quality student support services to students who are in distance education and

strives toward providing services that are at least as good as the services provided to the

33

on-campus population. This commitment to distance learning is clearly explained in the

6th goal of ODU’s Strategic Plan.

Old Dominion University’s 2005-2009 Strategic Plan Excerpts:

“6a.1 Develop new programs or enhance existing programs in all academic

colleges that focus on regional needs or “changing lives” within the region.”

“6b.1 Strengthen our current distance education programs across the

Commonwealth of Virginia and the world, specifically through special accessibility

agreements with Virginia community colleges but also by initiating new global

programming.”4

Secondary customers Identified

Finally, our secondary customer becomes the faculty and students who will

ultimately use DICE. Our product will be based off of the idea of community. The

educational community aspect will be the key element that truly separates DICE from

any other product currently on the market. By looking at the success of similar

community software packages, we can ascertain the potential success of DICE. Using

the product Facebook (http://www.thefacebook.com) and MySpace.com

(http://myspace.com), we can draw comparisons to the societal acceptance of online

communities. Each of these companies reported roughly a three hundred percent increase

in daily reach, with Myspace.com reaching upwards of 25 billion people logging in per

day. The trends of society flocking to some type of online community are displayed in

the following charts detailing the two companies mentioned above.

4 http://www.odu.edu/ao/affairs/odusp2005%5B2004.12.10%5Dbov.pdf

34

COMPETITION

The following chart details what features DICE brings to the table in comparison

to current technologies that are available. As you can see, many other products come

close to a complete solution for distance education community building. However, they

either lack in functionality or lack community.

35

Most Instant Messaging clients do not include any type of community. They rely

on the user to create their own community. This however presents the problem when a

student does not know whom they need to add to their community. The current academic

products of our competition create a community. However, this community is limited to

a single class. If students need additional help, these products do not address this.

All of the features that need to come together to create the comprehensive

solution are not available in any existing product. DICE creates the online community

and adds each of the modules of communication that are necessary to facilitate the

learning environment. Therefore, as shown in the matrix above, DICE is clearly the only

solution for colleges and universities who want to facilitate the learning process for their

online or distance education faculty and students.

BENEFITS TO CUSTOMER

What physical items are purchased?

36

As shown in the above figure, schools will receive DICE, along with Training

Materials, and a custom interface to their own Student Information System (Banner,

Oracle, PeopleSoft, Matrix, Datatel, etc.). This listing is subject to change as new

releases or versions of DICE are instantiated. These three items are outlined below:

Training Materials

o 20 Printed User Guides

o 20 Electronic User Guide (in PDF format) on CD

o Sample of Promotional Materials to Use for Faculty/Staff/Student

Acceptance

o 20 Hours of Onsite Training from a DICE Expert to each school’s

identified support personnel

Interfaces

o Customizations as detailed in the purchase agreement

37

o Documentation describing interface links and data mapping

DICE

o Initial setups to link to your database of choice

Supported databases include (MySQL, Oracle, SQL, Solid,

Access)

o Installation of client/server and web based tools for management

staff

o Customizations as detailed in the purchase agreement

o Reporting mechanisms as detailed in the purchase agreement

What is not in the box that is required?

o Database to house DICE community information, archived

communications, and management data

o Local support staff (1 staff member per 10,000 students

recommended)

o Peripherals needed to use certain features of DICE (i.e. computer

speakers, microphones, etc.)

What Do You Get That is Not in the Box?

When purchasing DICE, your benefits will start coming in a chain reaction

fashion. Starting with a higher retention of students and ending with increased money

from tuition payments of these retained students. Learning communities, like DICE, will

38

increase study with others by 20%5. This amount of increase is key to retaining freshman

that will get lost in the shuffle, for recruiting non-traditional students, and for offering

support to students in higher-level classes.

Benefits of Learning Communities:

5 http://cade.icaap.org/vol5.1/8_powell_et_al.html 

39

Once student retention is achieved, federal funding will increase. Although it

may be a bad indicator, graduation rates are key in determining how much federal

funding a school will receive. To the federal government, higher graduation rates are an

indicator that the institutions are performing well. However, this does not take into

account the non-full time students, who decrease this number drastically. DICE will help

to even the playing field in this regard. Students will be able to take more classes since

the amount of time they spend looking for help will be reduced to a negligible number.

This idea will help ODU tremendously, since they have one of the lower graduation rates

for 4 and 5 years in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Graduation Rates in Virginia:

Finally, a return on investment for schools is in the increased tuition that they will

see from student retention. Just bumping up retention or recruitment to one percent well

outweighs the monetary cost of DICE. In the example below, we can look at the benefit

that ODU would receive if one percent of their student population took 12 credit hours

40

more than usual. This directly relates to retaining freshman and increasing the amount of

classes that part-time students can take.

If we can increase ODU enrollment by 1%

o 208*12*181=451776

Student * 12 hr * $181 cost per credit hour = $451,776

o $45,1776 * 2 semesters = $903,552

o Annual comparison:

1% retention/recruitment +$903,552

Cost of DICE -$35,000

Increase realized by ODU +$868,552

CUSTOMER RETENTION AND NEW CUSTOMER SOLICITATION

We will need to continue to address the needs of our current customers, as well as

using them to promote our product. We will employ certain forums that will encourage

the word-of-mouth sales tool. Using word-of-mouth publicity, we can reach markets

without spending a lot of time and money. In essence, we are employing our customers

to create the buzz on DICE to increase our customer base.

Our post-sales/retention plan consists of:

1. Educational conferences

2. User Conferences

3. Training of users

o Step-through demos

41

o FAQ listing

o Online help “wiki” format

o List serves

4. Customer feedback forums

5. “Golden User” reviews

We will explore what Educational Conferences are attended by faculty and

administrative officials who make decisions on IT solutions and on distance education

curriculum. Some conferences that we will plan on attending include: Annual

Conference on Distance Teaching and Learning as sponsored by the University of

Wisconsin-Madison, TCC Worldwide Online Conference as sponsored by the University

of Hawaii, etc. Once our customer base increases to several institutions, we can then

create our own annual User Conference where we can facilitate the word-of-mouth

publicity. Finally, we will create an intensive company website that will allow customers

to get direct feedback, updated notes on DICE and the company, and online

tutorials/help. Each of these items will be available to current and interested customers

so that the materials can play a dual role of education/support and marketing.

BREAK EVEN ANALYSIS

DICE will use a strategy to bring its first customer on-board at a special

discounted price. This will allow our product to take root into the market and create a

buzz. Since DICE will be roughly $9.000 shy of breaking even (after the federal grants

are applied and our ongoing or Out Years costs are ignored), we will be able to sell this

product to ODU for a $10,000 one-time fee. This will essentially wash the loss that

DICE will experience in its initial implementation. The next cost that must be considered

42

is the recurring cost, or Out Years cost of DICE. This is roughly $346,000. It makes

absolutely no sense to license this product to one individual school for such a large

amount. Just looking at the recurring cost quickly, we can see that 10 schools paying

$35,000 yearly licensing fee will cause a break-even point. The DICE staff has agreed

that setting a goal of the break even point to be 10 schools is acceptable. There are 29

potential customers in the commonwealth of Virginia alone who we can sell DICE to.

Additionally, there are over 3900 schools where DICE is a product that may be of

interest. This makes our break-even point at .25% of the total potential market.

Therefore, any amount that we charge ODU can be applied as promotional discounts.

We have chosen $25,000 as the discounted yearly licensing fee for ODU. This number

was derived as a medium point so as not to have the discount a stumbling block or point

of frustration for new customers.

The chart below shows our break even analysis in simple form:

Total Cost of DICE $1,206,213

Phase 1 grant -$100,000

Phase 2 grant -$750,000

OutYears Cost -$346,431

$9,782 Cost of 1st Implementation

$74,963

Cost of new customer

implementations

One time Annual

43

Total Costs $74,963 $346,431

Price to Cust $75,000 $35,000

Customers, after

ODU, needed to

break even 0 10

Special ODU Price $10,000 $25,000

After DICE is rolled out to around 12 customers, we will start seeing a net profit

of about $35,000 per year. There is some point at which we will need to increase staffing

levels to accommodate for the size of our customer base. This will increase the OutYears

costs that we have listed. We will not estimate at what size our customer base needs to

be to account for this staffing increase. Instead, our marketing plan will be adjusted after

15 customers are welcomed into the DICE family since the Out Years costs will not

fluctuate for these 15 institutions.

A chart listed below shows our net income potential on the basis of charging

customers (after ODU) a price of $75,000 one time set up fee and $35,000 yearly

licensing cost:

Customer # Profit/Loss Amount Profit/Loss

1 - ODU Loss -$321,431

2 Loss -$286,431

3 Loss -$251,431

4 Loss -$216,431

5 Loss -$181,431

6 Loss -$146,431

44

7 Loss -$111,431

8 Loss -$76,431

9 Loss -$41,431

10 Loss -$6,431

11 Profit $28,569

12 Profit $63,569

13 Profit $98,569

14 Profit $133,569

15 Profit $168,569

45

DICE Management Plan

Program Identification:

This Program Management Plan (PMP) is for the Dynamic Interactive

Communication Environment (DICE). The program will deliver the DICE hardware,

software and documentation for the Dynamic Interactive Communication Environment.

Computer Productivity Initiative group is responsible for the integration, acceptance

testing and training of the Total Computing Environment.

Program Management Overview:

Execution of the Program will be performed in accordance with the procedures

defined by the set of planning documents. These documents include Program

Management Plan, Development Plan, Evaluation Plan, Marketing Plan, Scheduling Plan,

Organizational Plan, Financial Plan and Risk Management Plan (RMP) (see Figure 1).

The responsibilities of the Program Team, the capabilities of the system, and the Program

deliverables are detailed under the contractual provisions, as well as Dynamic Interactive

Communication Environment’s technical, management, and cost proposals.

Figure 1. Program Management

46

This Program Management Plan describes the management philosophy, program

organization, schedule, and major milestones that serve as the guide for execution of the

Program. The PMP also provides the customer and the quality team with the information

they need to monitor and evaluate the progress of the effort. This plan provides the

following pertinent information:

Corporate Organization

Program Team Organization With Areas of Responsibility

Work Breakdown Structure

Program Planning

Progress Reporting and Team Management

Detailed Program Schedule and Milestones

The Program Management Plan provides guidance for the content and execution of

the following plans:

Risk Management

Financial

Evaluation

Development

Corporate Structure:

The entirety of Computer Productivity Initiative supports the DICE Program. In 1995,

Old Dominion University started the Computer Productivity Initiative from a grant by the

National Science Foundation to give Computer Science students the opportunity to

develop solution to real world problems. Over the past 11 years, this commitment has

resulted in students utilizing the knowledge and skills they gain in their undergraduate

47

courses to research and solve real world problems. The following is Computer

Productivity Initiative's Dynamic Interactive Communication Environment Corporate

organizational structure:

Old Dominion University

General Manager, Computer Productivity Initiative

Dynamic Interactive Communication Environment Program Office. Dynamic

Interactive Communication Environment Program Office will execute the

program and provide day-to-day senior management supervision, management,

engineering, and administrative resources necessary to manage and administer the

Dynamic Interactive Communication Environment program.

Management Approach

Dynamic Interactive Communication Environment’s management goal is to work

closely with the customer to fully understand the system requirements and field a system

that meets those requirements. The management approach to executing contracts at DICE

is based on the philosophy that successful Programs are delivered by goal-oriented teams.

A Program Manager (PM) will lead the DICE team. The PM is responsible for all planning,

programmatic, technical, and financial aspects of the Program. The PM is the primary Point

of Contact (POC) for the customer. The primary duties include supervision of all planning,

scheduling, financial, and technical activities, and customer liaison. The PM is responsible

for all Program-related decisions and commitments with approval, as required, from the

Corporate Management Team.

A key element of Dynamic Interactive Communication Environment’s program

management approach is customer involvement. The DICE team encourages the customer

48

to retain an active role in monitoring the progress of all aspects of the project from proof of

concept, to critical design, and continuing into the production and the out years. The

customer is encouraged to discuss technical details directly with members of the project

team, provide planning and schedule recommendations, and assist in resolution of technical

and programmatic issues. In order to facilitate customer involvement, DICE will provide

access to program information including, but not limited to:

Program Plans and Schedules

Program Status

Profit

Formal Review Material

Action Items

System Drawings and Documentation

Program Team:

The Program Team is committed to provide the best value by delivering reliable

real world solutions utilizing advance easy-to-use, low-risk solutions at the lowest cost.

This commitment is attainable because it is based on the re-use of existing technology

that is field-proven. Through strategic teaming and an extensive system selection process,

Computer Productivity Initiative has assembled a cohesive Program Team that is

experienced with the implementation of each component that will comprise the DICE

system.

Program Manager. Overall management responsibility for DICE is assigned to

a Program Manager who is responsible for planning and coordination of the day-

to-day technical, contractual, and financial aspects of the program. The PM is

49

responsible for the generation and management of all program schedules, for the

coordination of program staff assignments and for coordinating all program

activities. The PM's principal assistants are:

Documentation Specialist. The DS provides overall documentation direction for

the Program Team. The DS will ensure that everyone on the team has met the

required documentation specifications, and that each person is aware of the tasks

he/she has been assigned. The DS will also provide documentation of each

meeting in which an overview of tasks assigned is given

Financial/SBIR Specialist. The FS works in coordination with the rest of the

team to devise a specific and schedule based budget plan, that will be reviewed by

each of the team members and approved by both the PM and the customer. The

FS will also determine the best agency to pursue to get funding for the project.

The FS must also compile the materials from each of the various plans into one

SBIR Proposal Document that will be sent to the agency to request funding.

Marketing Specialist. The MS is responsible for developing a marketing plan

that includes the specification of an initial target market. The MS is responsible

for the development of an in-depth plan on how to advertise and sell the DICE

program to the specified target market. The MS must also determine the various

risks involved and the best way to mitigate them.

Webmaster. The WM is responsible for the creation and maintenance of a

product website which will include the display of all relevant documents and

presentations. The WM will update the website on a weekly basis as new

documents and milestones are reached.

50

Technical Specialist (Hardware and Software Development). The TS is

responsible for making sure the team understands all the aspects of the technical

aspects of the technology involved in the design of the DICE. Areas of software

research include determining the best programming language to use, an

appropriate tool for the GUI, program control flow, and test plans. Other areas of

research include determining the server specifications and network connection

requirements for the application to run.

Program Duration:

The DICE program is a planned 1109 workday project starting January 1,2006.

Phase 0, the conception of the project, is schedule from January – May 2006. The next

phase, Phase 1 is Proof of Concept where a lab prototype will be built along with the

creation of several documents including a user's manual will last from August –

December 2006. The Critical Design phase, Phase 2, will last from January 07 –

December 08, is where the DICE team will develop and prepare the DICE software for

the final phase. The final phase, Phase 3, will consist of producing a final product to sell

to the target market. While Phase 3 will last 438 working days, it is understood Phase 3

is the production and out years, which means the program will review its current state and

plan for the future implementations and support.

Work Breakdown Structure:

The program Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) reflects the budgeted cost versus

resources required to complete each task. The WBS phase numbers are integrated as part

of the master program schedule. Assuming SBIR funding, the budget will be carefully

planned out against the set deadlines set by SBIR guidelines. The budgets are created by

51

the Financial Manager, reviewed by the DICE program and set by the Program Manager.

The WBS will be used to mark the different milestones throughout the phases and to

make sure the team is on time and under budget. The WBS management tool that DICE

will use is Microsoft Project.

Program Planning:

The Dynamic Interface Communication Environment program team office will

maintain the program master schedule. The master schedule contains a line item for each

WBS element and will be used to track the progress of each element. All deviations from

the master schedule must be coordinated with the program office. It is the responsibility

of each team member to call attention to possible schedule deviations at the earliest

opportunity. The program office will coordinate the program schedule with Computer

Productivity Initiative. The program will be developed in phases; within each phase,

formal reviews will play an integral part in monitoring program progress. All formal

reviews will be announced four weeks in advance of the starting date.

DICE will take a “top down approach” to the Program Schedule, meaning that we will

pace our workload to fit the overall Program requirements. Particular attention will be

given to timely milestone completions. It is recognized that the schedule is particularly

tight, containing critical program milestones during the first year, and adequate personnel

will be available in order to keep the program moving forward.

Progress Performance Assessment:

All Dynamic Interactive Communication Environment team members will participate

in progress reporting and team management. DICE will track technical and financial

52

progress of the program. Reviews will be held monthly or as mutually agreeable between

Computer Productivity Initiative and DICE.

Report on progress to date

Present work to be performed during the next month

Present status of all deliverables and review planned delivery dates

Plan and coordinate activities, including next review date

Discuss technical or programmatic issues as necessary.

In preparation for the meetings the DICE Program Manager will collect the current

status data on relevant on-going activities, progress against schedule and budget, and

planned activity for the next reporting period. Quality reviews of all program

documentation and procedures will be held periodically. Peer editing groups set by the

PM will hold continual quality reviews. In particular, the quality program will be

involved with program deliveries and milestones and will work off of the master program

schedule to plan program audits. Technical, financial and quality progress and status

reporting will be conducted according to the following general guidelines.

Technical Progress and Reporting:

The schedule for the program is established during the planning phase and

monitored throughout the performance period. The schedule contains an entry for each

WBS element. The percentage of completion for each WBS element is determined as

necessary to manage program progress and is reviewed at least quarterly during the

General Manager’s review.

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Financial Management and Reporting:

The financial profile for the Program is established during the planning phase and

monitored throughout the performance period. Assigning accounting phase numbers to

each WBS element generates this profile.

The PM is provided an information package that identifies the phase numbers assigned to

each WBS activity, the corresponding budgets and schedules, the overall spending profile

for the program, and a synopsis of all major deliverables and milestones specified in the

contract.

The PM uses this information, combined with an on-line financial summary of the

Program to track its financial status on a weekly basis. The Financial Manager on a

monthly basis, or upon request provides an updated spending profile automatically to the

PM. The PM uses the financial summary in conjunction with his assessments of technical

progress to track the overall status of the efforts.

Profit and Cost:

Profit will be viewed as all those monies incurred above and beyond the overall cost of

the program. Profit will be reviewed upon later phases to monitor the financial success of

the program.

Cost is calculated by the following formula:

Cost = Labor Costs * Time + Direct Costs + Indirect Costs

Monthly Progress Report:

DICE will submit a monthly progress reports. The report shall cover, at a minimum, the

following:

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Progress Summary

Milestone Deliverables, planned actual and forecast

Cost and Profit report

Dependencies: a ‘critical items list’ of all items, which could jeopardize timely

completion of the work or any significant parts of the programme

Risk Status: update of risk register

Look Ahead (Future action and Forecast)

Resource Profile

Work Package/Activities planned, actual & forecast status

Milestone/Deliverables planned, actual & forecast status

Configuration Change Control issues

Quality Actions (Reviews, audits)

Reviews:

Reviews will play an integral part in the management and monitoring of all phases of

the Dynamic Interface Communication Environment Program. Informal reviews with the

program team members will be held at all levels on a bi-weekly basis to ensure that the

program stays on track. Formal technical reviews will be held to ensure that the program

is proceeding as planned. The PM will meet with each team section and ensure that they

are up to speed with the course of the project. In turn, the team members will timely

report all successes and difficulties they have encountered that have had any effect on the

course of the project. Formal reviews will be completed at least every three months. The

formal reviews will deal with those issues that can be fixed in the future, and will also use

55

the evaluation plan as a way of gauging the success of the program through the current

time.

56

STAFFING AND SCHEDULE / ORGANIZATIONAL PLAN

The personnel needed for DICE will change as the project progresses. The

personnel needed for each phase are shown below.

Phase 0

57

During the initial phase, the DICE team will consist of five Old Dominion

University seniors in the Computer Science department. They will be tasked with the

research and development of DICE and will be required to prove its rationale and

feasibility. In addition to these students, there will be an active searching for experts who

can aid in the SBIR proposal. These experts will aid in the research and risk assessment

areas. These experts include: Kai Van De Carr - a online application sharing expert who

currently works with webex.com, Carol “Stash” Stanley - the Family Educational Rights

and Privacy Act (FERPA) expert and is the University Registrar at the University of

Virginia, Steven Crawford - Technology Coordinator at Old Dominion University and the

expert for distance learning/archive of materials, Dr. Levinstein – the enterprise database

expert and professor of this material at Old Dominion University, Sandra Waters – a SIS,

specifically Banner, expert and Director of Academic Continuance and Undergraduate

Services, Christian Pucher – a technology and implementation expert in the area of

delivering media to distance students at Old Dominion University.

Phase I

58

Once the SBIR approval has been reached and funding secured for the project, the

DICE team will have a slightly different look and feel for phase I. The student team

59

members will shift into new duties, while still maintaining their individual managerial

roles. Jeff will become the security specialist; James will become the software specialist,

and Will will take on the added tasks of being the database specialist, while Sean will

become the GUI Developer and Webmaster. Mark will become the Testing Technician,

while Tom will continue to manage all aspects of the project. Experts will be added in

order to provide oversight to the team. These include a Security Expert, a Networking

Expert, and a Database Expert.

Security Expert:

Responsibilities include consulting with Security Specialist on: examining DICE

for any potential security or FERPA violation in the interfaces between communication

technologies, interface software between Course Enrollment Databases and DICE,

individual components of system, and complete prototype.

Required skills and experience: Must be a graduate of an accredited computer

science school, completion of a Master’s Degree and 5-8 years of experience.

Security Specialist:

Responsibilities include examining DICE for any potential security or FERPA

violation in the interfaces between communication technologies, interface software

between Course Enrollment Databases and DICE, individual components of system, and

complete prototype.

Required skills and experience: Undergraduate student majoring in Computer

Science. Senior level status preferred. Previous experience in C++, Java, and other

programming languages, hardware integration knowledge, and databases is required.

Software Specialist:

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Responsibilities include developing interfaces between communication

technologies, developing interface software between Course Enrollment Databases and

DICE, testing of individual components of system, and complete prototype testing.

Required skills and experience: Undergraduate student majoring in Computer

Science. Senior level status preferred. Previous experience in C++, Java, and other

programming languages, hardware integration knowledge, and databases is required.

GUI Developer:

Responsibilities include designing and developing a number of GUI screens to be

used in final product, integration of GUI screens with other components of the system,

and testing each screen individually and each GUI as a whole.

Required skills and experience: Undergraduate student majoring in Computer

Science. Senior level status preferred, previous experience in graphical design and GUI

development. Proficiency in Dreamweaver, JavaScript, and Database-Interfacing Web

Application Development preferred.

Testing Technician:

Responsibilities include developing interfaces between input and output devices,

developing interface software between for a kiosk and for a database, testing of

individual components of system, and complete prototype testing.

Required skills and experience: Undergraduate student majoring Computer

Science. Senior level status preferred, experience in C++, Java, and other programming

languages, hardware integration knowledge, and databases.

Networking Expert:

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Responsibilities include consulting with Networking Specialist on: designing and

developing a number of GUI screens to be used in final product, integration of GUI

screens with other components of the system, and testing each screen individually and

each GUI as a whole.

Required skills and experience: Must be a graduate of an accredited computer

science school, completion of a Master’s Degree and 5-8 years of experience.

Networking Specialist:

Responsibilities include designing and developing a number of GUI screens to be

used in final product, integration of GUI screens with other components of the system,

and testing each screen individually and each GUI as a whole.

Required skills and experience: Undergraduate student majoring in Computer

Science. Senior level status preferred, previous experience in graphical design and GUI

development.

Database Expert:

Responsibilities include consulting with Database Specialist on: developing and

building a database with linked tables for a PC, testing individual components of the

database, testing entire database, and system testing.

Required skills and experience: Must be a graduate of an accredited computer

science school, completion of a Master’s Degree and 5-8 years of experience.

62

Database Specialist:

Responsibilities include developing and building a database with linked tables for

a PC, testing individual components of the database, testing entire database, and system

testing.

Required skills and experience: Bachelors degree in Computer Science. Oracle

certification preferred; previous experience in designing and implementing databases

courses taken in database development such as CS450 at Old Dominion University.

Phase II

63

Phase II the members of the DICE Implementation team will have matured in the

project development process and many will have received bachelor’s degrees in

Computer Science. To meet the development timeline, a Senior Software Engineer will

also be hired to assist in the development of the system and provide leadership in the

development as needed. The team will consist of three software engineers, two GUI

programmers, one technical writer, a project manager, a database specialist, one GUI

programmers, and two testing technicians. During this phase, the legal assistance will be

provided by Old Dominion University or an equivalent will be acquired from the local

community. We will also add two Testing Technicians to help with the evaluation and

testing in this phase. Experts will be added in order to provide oversight to the team.

These include a Security Expert, a Networking Expert, and a Database Expert.

Security Expert:

Responsibilities include consulting with Security Specialist on: examining DICE

for any potential security or FERPA violation in the interfaces between communication

64

technologies, interface software between Course Enrollment Databases and DICE,

individual components of system, and complete prototype.

Required skills and experience: Must be a graduate of an accredited computer

science school, completion of a Master’s Degree and 5-8 years of experience.

Software Engineer:

Responsibilities include developing interfaces between communication

technologies, developing interface software between Course Enrollment Databases and

DICE, testing of individual components of system, and complete prototype testing.

Required skills and experience: Bachelors degree in Computer Science. Senior

level status preferred. Previous experience in C++, Java, and other programming

languages, hardware integration knowledge, and databases is required.

GUI Programmer:

Responsibilities include designing and developing a number of GUI screens to be

used in final product, integration of GUI screens with other components of the system,

and testing each screen individually and each GUI as a whole.

Required skills and experience: Bachelors degree in Computer Science. Senior

level status preferred previous experience in graphical design and GUI development.

Proficiency in Dreamweaver, JavaScript, and Database-Interfacing Web Application

Development preferred.

Technical Writer:

Responsibilities include creating formal documentation for the DICE, both for

source code as well as design plans and such.

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Required skills and experience: Knowledge of the product and general knowledge

of the programming practices being used as well as a bachelor’s degree, preferably in

English or writing.

Project Manager:

Responsibilities include assembling the team, contracting with vendors for

necessary supplies (Dell, MySQL, etc.), assign tasks to team members, oversee project to

ensure it is on time and under budget, assist in the development of the product when

needed, ensure all necessary deliverables and milestones are met, act as liaison between

project team and upper management.

Required skills and experience: Bachelors degree in Computer Science. Previous

experience in project management, personnel management, and scheduling preferred.

Senior Software Engineer:

Responsibilities include providing expertise and help to the software developers.

Required skills and experience: Bachelors degree in Computer Science and five years of

work experience: experience in C++, Java, and other programming languages, hardware

integration knowledge, and databases.

Database Expert:

Responsibilities include consulting with Database Specialist on: developing and

building a database with linked tables for a PC, testing individual components of the

database, testing entire database, and system testing.

Required skills and experience: Must be a graduate of an accredited computer

science school, completion of a Master’s Degree and 5-8 years of experience.

Database Specialist:

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Responsibilities include developing and building a database with linked tables for

a PC, testing individual components of the database, testing entire database, and system

testing.

Required skills and experience: Bachelors degree in Computer Science. Oracle

certification preferred; previous experience in designing and implementing databases

courses taken in database development such as CS450 at Old Dominion University.

Testing Technician:

Responsibilities include developing interfaces between input and output devices,

developing interface software between for a kiosk and for a database, testing of

individual components of system, and complete prototype testing.

Required skills and experience: Undergraduate student majoring Computer

Science. Senior level status preferred, experience in C++, Java, and other programming

languages, hardware integration knowledge, and databases.

Network Expert:

Responsibilities include designing and developing a number of GUI screens to be

used in final product, integration of GUI screens with other components of the system,

and testing each screen individually and each GUI as a whole.

Required skills and experience: Must be a graduate of an accredited computer

science school, completion of a Master’s Degree and 5-8 years of experience.

Phase III

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Phase III is the actual production of our product. The Managerial roles of the

team will continue through this phase and will exhibit themselves either in the production

of evaluation of the project. During this phase, the necessary personnel become more

customer oriented rather than technology oriented. The phase requires a software

68

engineer, a customer service manager, a technical support manager, a GUI programmer, a

database specialist. Additionally, we will add a Finance Director, a Marketing Director, a

Lawyer, a Webmaster, several technical support staff and several office staff.

Customer Service Manager:

Responsibilities include answering telephone call inquiries, and promoting DICE

products and services, researching and resolving complaints to ensure customer retention

and satisfaction.

Required skills and experience: A minimum of a high school diploma or its

equivalent and 0-2 years of experience in the field or in a related area.

Technical Support Manager:

Responsibilities include managing a team of support personnel who troubleshoot

DICE issues, implementing policies and procedures regarding how problems are

identified, received, documented, distributed, and corrected,

Required skills and experience: A bachelor's degree with at least 7 years of

experience in the field.

Technical Support Staff/DICE Experts:

Responsibilities include troubleshooting DICE issues, implementing policies and

procedures regarding how problems are identified, received, documented, distributed, and

corrected,

Required skills and experience: A bachelor's degree with at least 2 years of

experience in the field.

Financial Director:

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Responsibilities include coordinating the with the marketing director on sales of

DICE, documenting records for tax recording and auditing purposes, general booking,

forecasting of finances, preparation of financial statements.

Required skills and experience: A bachelor's degree with 2 years of experience in

the field or in a related area. A CPA license is desired.

Office Staff:

Responsibilities include answering phones, opening mail, answering customer

questions, filing documentation and contracts, etc.

Required skills and experience: Associate’s Degree in some business related field

and 1 year of experience in the field.

Production Manager:

Responsibilities include managing production workers, maintaining inventory of

available products, overseeing packaging and shipping, ordering supplies for packaging.

Required skills and experience: A bachelor’s degree with at least 7 years of

experience in the field.

Marketing Director:

Responsibilities include coordinating the marketing activities of the DICE

including: advertising, direct mailing, printing, customer events, and trade shows.

Required skills and experience: A bachelor's degree with 2 years of experience in

the field or in a related area.

Lawyer:

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Responsible include providing legal advice to the organization, preparing

resolutions and forms, and participating in major legal actions, and foreseeing and

protecting the company against legal risks.

Required skills and experience: Must be a graduate of an accredited law school

with 5-8 years of experience and admitted into the state bar.

Database Specialist:

Responsibilities include developing and building a database with linked tables for

a PC, testing individual components of the database, testing entire database, and system

testing. This will require maintaining DICE and producing all viable updates, patches,

and hot fixes that pertain to the database.

Required skills and experience: Bachelors degree in Computer Science. Oracle

certification preferred; previous experience in designing and implementing databases

courses taken in database development such as CS450 at Old Dominion University.

Software Engineer:

Responsibilities include developing interfaces between communication

technologies, developing interface software between Course Enrollment Databases and

DICE, testing of individual components of system, and complete prototype testing. This

will require maintaining DICE and producing all viable updates, patches, and hot fixes

that pertain to the application.

Required skills and experience: Bachelors degree in Computer Science. Senior

level status preferred. Previous experience in C++, Java, and other programming

languages, hardware integration knowledge, and databases is required.

GUI Programmer:

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Responsibilities include designing and developing a number of GUI screens to be

used in final product, integration of GUI screens with other components of the system,

and testing each screen individually and each GUI as a whole. This will require

maintaining DICE and producing all viable updates, patches, and hot fixes that pertain to

the user interface.

Required skills and experience: Undergraduate student majoring in Computer

Science. Senior level status preferred previous experience in graphical design and GUI

development. Proficiency in Dreamweaver, JavaScript, and Database-Interfacing Web

Application Development preferred.

Webmaster:

Responsibilities include designing and maintaining the DICE webpage. This will

include updating customers on latest versions, FAQ listings, support documentation, as

well as informing customers on latest marketing/promotional ventures of DICE.

Required skills and experience: Undergraduate student majoring in Computer

Science. Senior level status preferred, previous experience in graphical design and GUI

development. Proficiency in Dreamweaver, JavaScript, and Database-Interfacing Web

Application Development preferred.

Project Manager:

Responsibilities include assembling the team, contracting with vendors for

necessary supplies (Dell, MySQL, etc.), assign tasks to team members, oversee project to

ensure it is on time and under budget, assist in the development of the product when

needed, ensure all necessary deliverables and milestones are met, act as liaison between

project team and upper management.

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Required skills and experience: Bachelors degree in Computer Science. Previous

experience in project management, personnel management, and scheduling preferred.

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Risk Management Plan

Overview:

These are the potential risks to the Dynamic Interactive Communication

Environment development project. Risks have been analyzed and classified in two

categories: the probability of the risk occurring and the how difficult it will be to correct

the risk should it occur. This listing of risks has been evaluated and ranked according to

these characteristics.

Risk Chart

Risk:

Our most significant risk is that of technology compatibility. We are tapping into

several different communication methods, such as streaming voice, application sharing,

and other instant messaging mediums. Being able to leverage these resources to fit into

the different web browsers and operating systems on the market today will be a

challenge. Choosing how to implement these, either with a homegrown solution or from

tapping into open-source tools, will require certain mitigation. We have determined that

the best mitigation for this risk is through extensive testing, software compatibility

74

research, and getting advice from experts in these communication areas. This risk is

defined with a probability of 4 and an impact of 5, making it a serious risk.

Our second risk is database availability. This risk is defined as the potential for a

specific college or university to have a “closed door” policy with its student enrollment

database. Although most schools do have to have daily data dumps, which are made

available, there must be some political roads that need to be navigated to ensure this

interface can happen. A possible mitigation if this occurs is to create a voluntary sign up

that is faculty and staff controlled. Another mitigation would be to look at other systems

in the university, which have similar data which information can be transferred from.

This risk has a probability of 3 and an impact of 4, making it a moderate risk.

University (customer) acceptance is the next risk to address. Embracing a new

enterprise-level application on the university or college level can be difficult, since it

requires significant cost. The cost factor is usually why customers do not embrace the

new technologies or applications. However, with marketing techniques we can mitigate

this risk. We must make the customer aware of the benefits that they will receive, along

with the features of the product. Additionally, we need to make the ROI clear and easy to

understand for the customer, so that they can identify the impact on their financial aspects

and how in the long run, DICE is a money saving application. This risk gets a 3 for

probability and a 4 for impact, making it a moderate risk.

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) clearly states that

information pertaining to the current enrollment of a student is sensitive information that

cannot be disclosed, unless permission is granted, to a third party. We will face this issue

as DICE creates the community of educational resources. Our team has agreed that

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giving enough time for planning and testing will mitigate this risk. By allowing the

software to give students opt-in and opt-out capabilities and how this methodology is

structured will be key. This risk gets a 3 for probability and a 3 for impact, making it a

moderate risk.

Funding and cost are issues that almost every project faces. This is similar for

DICE. We will be required to secure funding, as well as small business loans until our

break-even point is realized. Mitigation for risk comes down to planning and marketing.

We must identify how many customers in what time frame that DICE can be rolled out

to. The better we can leverage our successful implementation, the better this risk can be

addressed. This risk gets a 3 for probability and a 3 for impact, making it a moderate

risk.

Student acceptance is another risk facing our project. Since the students are the

secondary customer to DICE. Therefore, if they do not embrace the benefits, then the

primary customers, the colleges and universities, will not continue to use DICE or will

choose not to implement DICE at all. The key mitigation that can be applied to this risk

is marketing. If DICE uses other successful community applications as a model, then the

acceptance will be a natural fit. This is a low risk with a probability of 2 and an impact

of 2.

The maintenance complexity of DICE must be addressed as well. The greater

complexity that DICE becomes, the more resources and education must be utilized to

maintain the system. For mitigation, we will work to create a seamless system that is

based on administrative simplicity. This means that documentation and using standard,

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accepted technology will be key. This risk gets a 2 for probability and a 1 for impact,

making it our lowest risk.

Mitigation

Risk Mitigation Chart

#1 Technology Incompatibility

Probability: High Impact: Very High

The concepts behind DICE involve a highly integrated, easily navigated user

interface to appeal to a wide variety of students and faculty. Therefore the underlying

tools must seamlessly work behind the scenes, which could be difficult considering the

wide variety of software out there, which could be licensed or modeled upon for the

separate components, which comprise DICE. Among the major software with which

compatibility is desired are other educational packages such as Blackboard.

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Mitigation: Extensive research and testing must be done to ensure that the

different parts of the system can be assembled to work cooperatively. If existing

software cannot be found which will integrate with each other, individual parts can be

developed or software connectors can be used to bridge components. Internal alpha

testing will ensure functionality before the system is deployed to any campus systems.

#2 Database Availability

Probability: Medium Impact: High

In order to populate each student’s class information and allow him or her easy

access to classmates and potential study groups, DICE must be able to query an

educational institution’s enrollment database to obtain this information. However, this is

considered sensitive information, and therefore access to these databases may be difficult

to obtain or be restricted depending on the campus’ information systems policies. In

certain cases such as smaller campuses, online databases may not be available at all.

Mitigation: DICE will be developed with the mentality of making it

customizable to each campus that it is deployed at. Thus the system’s interface with the

campus database will be able to be scripted as needed to meet that IT department’s

standards. If access to this database is still unavailable, DICE will be capable of being

deployed with a standalone database that can be populated by students setting up their

own accounts and entering information or having that data entered by faculty.

#3 University Acceptance

Probability: Medium Impact: High

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As our primary customer, gaining the interest and support of the educational

community is critical to the success of this project. While DICE seeks to fill a niche that

has yet to be filled, it will be difficult initially to distance ourselves and compete with

other educational software packages, as well as simpler and more widely available

products such as instant messaging clients.

Mitigation: An aggressive marketing plan will emphasize the benefits of DICE

to higher education campuses across the country, touting the features set of the product

and illustrating the lack of community, which is clearly present in current distance

education. In addition, partnerships with companies such as Blackboard and textbook

manufacturers will be attempted to gain market presence and recognition.

#4 Privacy Issues

Probability: Medium Impact: Medium

The Federal Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) of 1974 governs and protects

student educational information and its distribution. Accordingly, any software which

uses student enrollment data, such as DICE, must be FERPA compliant and capable of

securing private information. Students must be unable to access other student’s

confidential data and all communications between the DICE system and database servers

must be encrypted and confidential.

Mitigation: While privacy concerns are an acknowledged risk to the project,

compliance with FERPA can be ensured with extensive testing and emphasis on security

during network communications. During Phase 1 further research will be done on

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FERPA to make sure that all data students can access concerning other students will not

violate protected information.

#5 Project Funding

Probability: Low Impact: Medium

Funding is an issue that affects any development project, and DICE is certainly no

different, as it will have no initial support from any outside software houses or other

businesses. Hiring experts will comprise the bulk of expenses in the initial phases as the

development team will be using Old Dominion University equipment and software. As

the project expands and begins to deploy software at campuses across the country it will

have to increase staffing and equipment to meet the demands.

Mitigation: SBIR grants will provide the initial funding for the project, allowing

the development team to hire experts and do the required research to begin

implementation. In the latter part of Phase 2 and subsequent out years, if additional

money is needed a small business loan can be obtained to offset costs until DICE begins

earning profit.

#6 Student Acceptance

Probability: Low Impact: Low

Although students are the ultimate end users of DICE, they are classified as

secondary customers. However, it is still important to gain student interest and

appreciation for the system, as campuses will be unable to establish learning communities

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without the participation of their students. As such, it will be important to have a feature

set and interface that will attract students to use the application.

Mitigation: Ideally once deployed at an institution, the faculty and staff at that

campus will encourage use of the software, whether that is in the form of posting

supplements to the class or setting up study times and groups for students to use. Once

the student population begins to use it, the community should grow at a steady rate as

students begin to encourage their peers to give it a try.

#7 System Maintenance

Probability: Very Low Impact: Low

As with nearly any information technology system, DICE will need to be periodically

maintained and updated to include new features and ensure continued compatibility

between tools. This process needs to be as non-disruptive as possible to allow campus IT

staff to deploy updates in between semesters or during other short periods when the

system will not be as heavily used. If the system is unable to update easily and

painlessly, campuses may be reluctant to invest in it.

Mitigation: Maintenance cycles will be taken into consideration during the

development cycle, and provisions for distributing patches and updates will be built into

the server and client software packages. DICE will be designed so that IT departments

will be able to take over maintenance after a set period of time to avoid overtaxing

project staff during the out years.

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FUNDING PLAN

In order to make DICE a success, we must provide enough revenue to cover the

cost of the project. The green team will submit a Small Business Innovative Research

(SBIR) grant proposal for Phase I and Phase II to the National Science Foundation

(NSF). The team will apply for small business or government loans to help with

additional funding needed in Phase III.

The National Science Foundation is an organization whose primary goal is to

increase incentives and opportunities to small businesses to take under new cutting edge,

high risk research that has the potential to have an outstanding economic payoff. Under

the Directorate for Engineering Office of Industrial Innovation, is the topic of

Information Technology; this topic solicits many innovative proposals that can increase

quality of business and commerce, industry processes, education, work life and personal

life. The organization break down for DICE is as followed:

Funding Agency: National Science Foundation SBIR

Division: Directorate for Engineering Office of Industrial Innovation

Topic: Information-Based Technologies (IT)

Subtopic: Education Applications

Area: Applications in Support of Learning

Deadline:  June 13, 2006

Awards Amount:

Phase I award: $100,000

Phase II award: $750,000

Budget Phase Breakdown:

. The DICE team will be using NSF funding for Phases I and II. For Phase III the team

will apply for small business loans and grants to help with the cost of implementing

DICE. Below is the breakdown on how the team plans to use the funding:

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Phase I.

Preliminary Cost Phase I

Proof of Concept

Allocated Time: 6 monthsBudget: $100,000

Hardware:

Number

Required Cost

Total

Cost

Dell Precision 380 2 $1,490 $2,980

Dell 19 inch UltraSharp™ 1907FP Flat Panel 6 $0 $0

Linksys - 4-Port Ethernet Broadband Router 1 $60 $60

Total Hardware Cost: $3,040

Staffing

Number of

Hours

Pay

Rate

Total

Pay

Student Interns:

Sean 704 $10 $7,040$7,040

William 704 $10 $7,040$7,040

Mark 704 $10 $7,040$7,040

Tom 704 $10 $7,040$7,040

James 704 $10 $7,040$7,040

Jeff 704 $10 $7,040$7,040

Experts:

Security Expert 200 $40 $8,000

Networking Expert 200 $40 $8,000

Database Expert 200 $40 $8,000

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Overhead (40%) $26,496

Total Labor Cost: $92,736

Total Resource Cost: $3,040

Total Preliminary Cost Phase I $95,776

Phase II.

Preliminary Cost Phase II

Critical Design

Allocated Time: 2 yearsBudget: $750,000

Software:

Number

Required Cost Total Cost

Microsoft Project 2003 Standard 6 $599 $3,594

Microsoft Office 2003 Pro 15 $499 $7,485

MSDN Universal Subscription 2 $2,799 $5,598

Adobe Creative Suite 2 Premium 2 $415 $830

Microsoft Project Server 2003 1 $999 $999

Windows® Server 2003, Web Edition 2 $0 $0

Microsoft Windows XP Pro SP 2 15 $0 $0

Macromedia Studio 8 1 $1,000 $1,000

Total Software Cost: $19,506

Hardware:

Dell PowerEdge SC1425 4 $1,750 $7,000

Dell Precision 380 15 $1,490 $22,350

Cisco 2610XM T1 Router 1 $1,478 $1,478

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Dell Color Laser Printer 3100c 1 $473 $473

25' CAT6 Network Cables 8 $25 $200

Dell 19 inch UltraSharp™ 1907FP Flat

Panel 15 $0 $0

Total Hardware Cost: $31,501

Staffing

Number of

Hours*

Pay

Rate**

Yearly

Salary

Total

Pay

Project Manager 832 $42 $79,128 $35,018$35,018

Senior Software Engineer 480 $41 $77,500 $19,787$19,787

Software Engineer 1 2352 $32 $59,700 $74,689

Software Engineer 2 2352 $32 $59,700 $74,689

Software Engineer 3 2352 $32 $59,700 $74,689

Testing Technician 1 208 $35 $65,100 $7,203

Testing Technician 2 208 $35 $65,100 $7,203

GUI Developer 120 $31 $57,600 $3,677

GUI Developer 120 $31 $57,600 $3,677

Technical Writer 400 $28 $53,500 $11,383

Database Specialist 400 $32 $60,000 $12,766

Networking Specialist 400 $29 $54,100 $11,511

Security Specialist 600 $33 $62,000 $19,787

Overhead (40%) $142,430

Total Labor Cost: $498,507

Total Resources Cost: $51,007

Money Allocated for Additional

Purchases $20,000

Total Preliminary Cost Phase II $538,507

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Phase III.

Preliminary Cost Phase III

Deployment

Software:

Number

Required Cost Total Cost

Microsoft Project 2003 Standard 6 $599 $3,594

Microsoft Office 2003 Pro 4 $499 $1,996

Microsoft Windows XP Pro SP 2 4 $0 $0

MSDN Universal Subscription 1 $2,799 $2,799

Macromedia Studio 8 1 $1,000 $1,000

Total Software Cost: $9,389

Hardware:

Dell Precision 380 4 $1,490 $5,960

Cisco 2610XM T1 Router 1 $1,478 $1,478

Dell Color Laser Printer 3100c 2 $473 $946

25' CAT6 Network Cables 4 $25 $100

Dell 19 inch UltraSharp™ 1907FP Flat

Panel 4 $0 $0

Total Hardware Cost: $8,484

StaffingNumber of

Hours

Pay

Rate

Yearly

Salary

Total

Pay

Project Manager (Tom) 744 $42 $79,128 $31,314$31,314

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Maketing Director 1848 $33 $62,600 $61,534$61,534

Finance Director 480 $34 $63,200 $16,136$16,136

Technical Service Manager (Jeff) 500 $29 $54,000 $14,362

Customer Service Manager (James) 500 $29 $54,000 $14,362

Software Engineer (Mark) 300 $35 $65,100 $10,388

Webmaster 300 $35 $65,700 $10,484

GUI Developer (Sean) 120 $31 $57,600 $3,677

Database Specialist (Will) 400 $32 $60,000 $12,766

Customer Support Technician (5) 1000 $20 $37,600 $100,000

Office Staff Technician (5) 1000 $20 $37,600 $100,000

Lawyer 300 $49 $92,800 $14,809

Overhead (40%) $155,933

Total Labor Cost: $545,765

Total Resorce Cost: $17,873

Total Preliminary Cost Phase III $563,638

*For more information about the budget breakdown please refer to the DICE Resource

plan and the DICE Staffing plan.

EVALUATION PLAN

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DICE will be evaluated comprehensively in order to ensure a

complete and robust product that will be destined for success. The

individual phases of the project, as well as the project as a whole will

be evaluated based on specific criteria. The testing and evaluation

periods of the project are outlined in the WBS. Although we have

documented and placed these items on the project timeline, we have

recognized the need to be flexible and to “take a step back” to look at

the project to ensure we are reasonable and complete with our efforts.

As noted in the WBS, all phases will be considered complete when the

tasks that are associated within the phase are successful and this

success is documented. Below, you will see a conceptual diagram of

our evaluation strategy for DICE.

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Each phase will be evaluated based on the evaluation checklist for that phase.

Evaluation will occur every 3 months or as deemed necessary by the PM. The evaluation

checklist consists of four identification points. They are as follows:

Marketing: the current target customers, the scope of this market audience and

an updated list of competitors will be validated.

Management: scheduling, task breakdown analysis, application of human

resources, and overall project scope is included in this evaluation identification

point.

Technical: the components of the software, hardware, interfaces and overall

system will be evaluated for completion, and interoperability.

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Cost: the scheduled budget for the current phase will be evaluated for cost

efficiency, funding allocation, and mitigation/impacts of potential risks.

Marketing:

The identification of customers, market share, and competition

helps to mold how the product will eventually look. In order for user

acceptance to occur, the market must be explored for consistency or

for changes in societal and technological trends.

Success is when the following are obtained:

Customer base is clearly and accurately defined

Documentation is update on competitive threats

Management:

The DICE team is driven by upholding professionalism amongst

its team members. The team will strive to become a performing team

as quickly as possible, as well as to maintain this performing status.

This will require oversight and insight from the team leader and

constant positive communication amongst the team members.

Viewpoints and ideas are to be respected and discussed with only

constructive criticism. On an aggressive project like DICE, negativity is

the breeding ground for failure.

Success is when the following are obtained:

Collaboration is the leading factor in discussions

Open, Honest, and Direct Communication is present

Each members’ contributions are satisfactory

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Schedule for meetings clearly articulated

Every meeting is documented

Cost:

One of the largest driving factors of all projects is the bottom line

(how much will it cost and how much will I profit from it). Each phase

of the project hinges on the funding and the wise spending of this

funding. Truly, the only successful way to migrate into the next phase

of the project and to achieve success of the outlined goals in the WBS

is to be sensitive to the cost. The break even points for the business

and its sustainability must be monitored by all team members.

Forecasting, budgeting, and reconciliations will all prove critical tools in

this indication point.

Success is when the following are obtained:

Budget that meets the SBIR funding allocated

Budget broken down by phase and reviewed periodically

Breakeven point is documented and realized

Technical:

There are four components in determining the technical success

of the project: hardware, software, interfaces and overall system

integration.

Software:

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Software is managed and evaluated under the Capability

Maturity Model Integration (CMMI:

http://www.sei.cmu.edu/cmmi/cmmi.html).

Testing will be performed whenever new features are added to

ensure functionality. Integration testing will be performed at

every level of development.

Hardware:

The hardware to be used will undergo exhaustive testing (if

it performs well under a heavy load, then other states will be

non-issues). The network infrastructure will be also tested to

determine sufficiency of bandwidth.

Interfaces:

The interfaces are the key aspect to creating the

community on DICE. With our first instantiation to be housed at

ODU, we must successfully create the tie in to their SIS, which is

Banner. Other schools will have different SISes that will need to

be accounted for. By creating a model for the Banner

information pull, these principles and data elements will be

examined and documented for future implementations.

System:

The system will be tested to ensure that the software and

hardware components work together seamlessly to provide a

quality product. Rigorous in-house testing will be performed on a

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regular basis and in fact may encapsulate both the hardware and

software testing once both facets of the project are sufficiently

complete.

Success is assured when the following are obtained:

Functioning GUI prototype

Functional interface with Enrollment Database

Functional hooks to enterprise level databases

Documentation of interoperability components are published

Functional integration of hardware and software

Technical documentation for software and hardware

Testing Defined:

The DICE project is going to be taking a unique approach to testing. There are three

identification points that must be evaluated by an expert on the team. These are outline

in the WBS and listed below:

Marketing: Marketing Director

Management: Project Manager and Operations Manager

Cost: Financial Director and Risk Manager

It should be noted that the Technical testing and evaluation are missing from the

above list. This is where the uniqueness of DICE’s evaluation plan coming into being.

As contained in our WBS, DICE is gong to hire 1 testing technician in Phase 1. This

individual will eventually become the lead DICE expert in the technical realm. We will

hire another testing technician in Phase 2 and will continue with the two technician

approach throughout the project. When we have achieved success and are experiencing

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the OutYears portion of the project, we will convert the testing technicians to DICE

Experts. These experts will act as second layer support to the DICE system, as well as

becoming intimately involved in the inner workings of DICE. Please refer to the

following diagram:

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Resource Plan

Abstract: This document describes what hard resources are required to complete the

DICE project. The resources are broken into four phases ranging from 0-3. Each phase

will provide a short description of why the resources are needed and the estimated cost

associated.

Phase 0:

Phase 0 is primarily the idea phase of the project and thus does not require any

hard resource requirements.

Phase 1:

The objective in Phase 1 is to prove the concept that this product is needed and it

is technically feasible. We will develop and test a basic prototype of DICE.

Hardware:

Dell Precision 380 2 $1,490 $2,980

Linksys - 4-Port Ethernet Broadband Router 1 $60 $60

Dell 19 inch UltraSharp™ 1907FP Flat Panel 2 $0 $0

Total Hardware Cost: $3,040

Dell Precision 380 (Workstation PC) – At this phase in the project we will be purchasing

two personal computers from Dell to develop the prototype. One computer will represent

a server and the other will represent the client.

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Dell 19 inch UltraSharp™ 1907FP Flat Panel – These monitors come with the Dell

Precision 380 (Workstation PC) for free.

Linksys - 4-Port Ethernet Broadband Router - Connects up to 4 computers to share

broadband Internet access, files, printers and more. It comes equipped with a built-in 4-

port switch and an advanced SPI firewall.

At this phase in the project we will be utilizing the software licenses acquired by Old

Dominion University.

Phase 2:

The objective in Phase 2 is to design and develop a functional prototype and

design testing scenarios that will accurately represent conditions that our product will

confront. We will be producing productions specifications, contracts, management plan,

personnel plan, test and evaluation plan, and marketing plan.

Software:

Number

Required Cost Total Cost

Microsoft Office 2003 Pro 15 $499 $7,485

MSDN Universal Subscription 2 $2,799 $5,598

Microsoft Project 2003 Standard 6 $599 $3,594

Macromedia Studio 8 1 $1,000 $1,000

Microsoft Project Server 2003 1 $999 $999

Adobe Creative Suite 2 Premium 2 $415 $830

Windows® Server 2003, Web Edition 2 $0 $0

Microsoft Windows XP Pro SP 2 15 $0 $0

Total Software Cost: $19,506

Hardware:

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Dell Precision 380 15 $1,490 $22,350

Dell PowerEdge SC1425 4 $1,750 $7,000

Cisco 2610XM T1 Router 1 $1,478 $1,478

Dell Color Laser Printer 3100c 1 $473 $473

25' CAT6 Network Cables 8 $25 $200

Dell 19 inch UltraSharp™ 1907FP Flat Panel 15 $0 $0

Total Hardware Cost: $31,501

Total Resource Cost: $51,007

Dell Precision 380 (Workstation PC) – There will be 15 team members in phase 2, so

naturally 15 workstations will be required. The systems will have Microsoft Windows

XP Professional, Microsoft Office Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 suite, Microsoft Project

and Microsoft Project Server. Two of the machines will also feature Adobe Creative

Suite 2 Premium for GUI development.

Dell PowerEdge SC1425 – (Servers) the server will hold as our mock datacenter for

initial testing. The server will be installed with Windows® Server 2003, Web Edition.

Dell Color Laser Printer 3100c – Used to print our documents and other necessary hard

copies.

Cisco 2610XM T1 Router – This is used to network the computers together. In phase 2

we will be developing and testing the functional prototype. We will need a larger, more

stable network. This justifies the more expensive Cisco router.

25' CAT6 Network Cables – These are used to patch the PCs into the switch.

Dell 19 inch UltraSharp™ 1907FP Flat Panel – These monitors come with the Dell

Precision 380 (Workstation PC) for free.

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All software must be updated as new versions are released and as new hardware is

purchased.

Phase 3:

The objective in phase 3 is to produce and sell our product. We will also need to

support existing customers for a negotiated timeframe, until they train there own support

team.

Software:

Number

Required Cost Total Cost

Microsoft Project 2003 Standard 6 $599 $3,594

MSDN Universal Subscription 1 $2,799 $2,799

Microsoft Office 2003 Pro 4 $499 $1,996

Macromedia Studio 8 1 $1,000 $1,000

Microsoft Windows XP Pro SP 2 4 $0 $0

Total Software Cost: $9,389

Hardware:

Dell Precision 380 4 $1,490 $5,960

Cisco 2610XM T1 Router 1 $1,478 $1,478

Dell Color Laser Printer 3100c 2 $473 $946

25' CAT6 Network Cables 4 $25 $100

Dell 19 inch UltraSharp™ 1907FP Flat Panel 4 $0 $0

Total Hardware Cost: $8,484

Total Resource Cost: $17,873

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Dell Precision 380 (Workstation PC) – We will need four workstations in phase 3. The

systems will have Microsoft Windows XP Professional, Microsoft Office Microsoft

Visual Studio 2005 suite, Microsoft Project and Microsoft Project Server.

Dell Color Laser Printer 3100c – Used to print our documents and other necessary hard

copies.

Cisco 2610XM T1 Router – This is used to network the computers together. We will still

need a large and stable network in this phase.

25' CAT6 Network Cables – These are used to patch the PCs into the switch.

Dell 19 inch UltraSharp™ 1907FP Flat Panel – These monitors come with the Dell

Precision 380 (Workstation PC) for free.

All software must be updated as new versions are released and as new hardware is

purchased.

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