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Student Capstone projects support community organizations

Created: June 5, 2020  |  Last Updated: July 19, 2020  |  Category:   |  Tagged: ,

WASHINGTON, PA (June 5, 2020)—When the world went remote due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Professor of Computing and Information Studies (CIS) Charles Hannon, Ph.D., faced a particular challenge in adapting the capstone course for CIS majors.

The class, called Service Learning Project Management, connects students with local non-profit organizations so they gain experience working for a client. Each year, the department puts out a call for organizations in need of technology services and matches the students completing the capstone course with a different community partner.

This semester, student groups worked with WashPa Outdoors, Domestic Violence Services of Southwestern PA (DVSSP), Washington County Food Bank, and Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA). Their projects ranged from creating a local bird-finding app to promote conservation education to analyzing information security management.

“We use this course to reinforce and evaluate the CIS program outcomes of being able to research and analyze an I.T. challenge and make a sound recommendation for its solution, implement robust and well-documented I.T. solutions that respond to specific user requirements and that anticipate future needs, work as a productive member of a team to accomplish project goals, and acting ethically in the execution of all these objectives,” Hannon said. “This is our answer to the question, what can a student do if they complete the CIS major? When students give their final presentations, they are specifically asked to address how they demonstrated these outcomes in the course of working on their projects.”

The projects were a welcome experience for students, who enjoyed this transition into the professional world.

“It was incredible! Everyone I met was so nice and helpful and passionate about what they did,” said Kevin Bergen ’20, a member of the team working with DVSSP. “The CIS department taught us many things like data science, user experience, and video production that helped us to conduct a needs analysis to understand where our users were having problems and create a deliverable that helped them in every way they needed.”

Want to learn more about the individual projects the students completed? Click on the organization logos below!

How do you bring the outdoors and technology together? It’s easier than you think! CIS majors Nathaniel Moore, Jonathan DeVito and Maximillian ‘Oche’ George worked in conjunction with Pam Kilgore at WashPa Outdoors to create WashPark Birds, a local bird finding app to promote conservation education.“The team was very attentive to the main goal of this project, which was to create something easy to use. Their idea of creating a web-app allows folks to access the page without having to download an app, something useful if you want to use the page on-the-fly, so to speak,” Kilgore said. “The simplicity of the product is what I'm most excited about. There are great bird [identification] apps out there, but for someone who has never gone birding, they can be intimidating. This program is very simple to use, and it only includes species that have been observed in Washington Park. So while that is still an impressive list of nearly 150 species, it's far less imposing than searching through a list for the Northeastern United States.”The students involved appreciated learning how to work with a client, even with the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. “This project taught the essentials and critical steps that need to be considered before the coding of the application can begin,” Jonathan said. “The CIS program has allowed me to step out of my comfort zone and learn material that I had no prior experience or knowledge in before declaring CIS as my major. This program has really prepared me because it provides a solid background in effective coding and production as well as user-focused design and interaction.”
CIS majors Kevin Bergen, Chris Madia and Gianni Mangino used their capstone experience to train the staff at Domestic Violence Services of Southwestern PA (DVSSP) to use Microsoft 365 tools. “DVSSP has collaborated with W&J College and it's students for many years and we've always had a great experience working with the students,” DVSSP Prevention Education Coordinator Alexandra Brooks said. “Kevin, Chris, and Gianni were not only knowledgeable about our technology needs, they were also a pleasure to have in the office. Their humor and positive attitudes brightened the office each week.”The students developed training videos for staff and volunteers to learn about all that Office 365 has to offer and how to utilize the available applications. Kevin, Chris, and Gianni took a look at the DVSSP website to assess its performance and to help streamline online donations. Their training videos turned out to be an immediate need, as many staff members began working from home and were learning how to use some of the Office 365 applications for the first time. “Project management was a major focus of our capstone experience in the CIS department. Learning techniques for effective documentation and planning were essential to successful completion of this project,” Chris said. “Throughout my time at W&J, it has also been essential to quickly become familiarized with new software and applications. This skill translated well onto our project with DVS.”“My education at W&J gave me the tools needed to both effectively understand the nature of the DVS’s IT problems and implement effective, well documented, and simplistic solutions. Furthermore, I was also given the tools necessary to explain these solutions in a way that was easy for the DVS to understand as their satisfaction and understanding was of the upmost importance,” Gianni added.
Ryan Berback, Frances Sinclair, and Jade Annaldo, who worked with the Washington County Food Bank, helped digitize how donations are recorded and tracked. The information had been tracked on paper and required hours to be collected and logged correctly, and now it is fully automated. Students had to figure out how to do this type of work remotely from each other and their client, but were able to use Airtable to create a valuable product that is currently in use by the Food Bank. The trio created forms and tables that were identical to the paper formats the Food Bank was using. Using Airtable dramatically reduced the amount of transferring data and human work, as well as decreased the chance for error. “The education at W&J had prepared us for this project because it had incorporated all our liberal arts education,” Jade said. “Not only did it mainly focus on incorporating our major into this project, but we also had to incorporate writing, speaking, and ethical knowledge because this wasn’t just a project that was getting graded but it was a project that was actually going to be used in the real world. It felt amazing that we have made it that far that we are able to make a difference and actual help people improve their businesses.”
Eun Ju Jong, Long Nguyen, Malik Kelson worked with Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) performing an analysis of information security management.The students worked directly with CASA’s data entry and office operations specialist and executive director to help the organization understand where to focus resources moving forward. “Our organization has collaborated with W&J on prior projects with great outcomes,” said Executive Director Carrie Richardson. “Washington is a close-knit community with a lot of good opportunities for the students. The students bring a lot of experience with them when they come to school. The community and the students can learn a lot from each other, which can only make our community stronger. This collaboration is an excellent example of how that can work.”

About Washington & Jefferson College

Washington & Jefferson College, located in Washington, Pa., is a selective liberal arts college founded in 1781. Committed to providing each of its students with the highest-quality undergraduate education available, W&J offers a traditional arts and sciences curriculum emphasizing interdisciplinary study and independent study work. For more information about W&J, visit washjeff.dev, or call 888-W-AND-JAY.