Fall 2017
INF 388L Professional Experience and Project
DESCRIPTION
As the culminating experience of the MSIS program, INF 388L allows every student to apply their unique skillsets and learnings to a professional project that is focused on a real-world problem or initiative. The course is designed to support your capstone journey throughout the semester as you work on your project with your project Field Supervisor. As an asynchronous course, students and instructors communicate via Canvas and various discussion prompts. Progress in the course is measured through updates and documents submitted directly to Canvas. During the semester, time is allotted for 1-on-1 meetings between student and instructor, and for small group meetings, as needed. Summary of Course Goals 1. Deliver a professional-level project/solution to showcase your knowledge, skills, and abilities. 2. Take direction and feedback from a supervisor working in your applied field of study. 3. Strengthen communication and presentation skills. 4. Manage expectations around project goals, schedule, and deliverables.
COURSE NOTES
The PEP is intended to allow you to apply the knowledge you gleaned from your coursework to a real-world problem in a real-world setting. Time Investment. We expect you to spend approximately 125 hours on the project, spread evenly across the weeks in the semester, conducting some piece of professional work above and beyond whatever obligations you might already have at the organization. Although you may take advantage of previous work done for the sponsoring organization, and you may continue working on additional elements of the project after the course formally ends, you must structure your PEP such that it does not require more than 125 hours of work and finishes by the last day of class. Your Role and Ours. The iSchool strives to achieve as much consistency as possible across the sections of the PEP course. Your instructor will serve as a facilitator, less a subject-matter expert and more an advisor to help you carry out this ââ¬Åindustrial-strengthââ¬Â piece of work. Your project involves not only ââ¬Ålearning,ââ¬Â but also ââ¬Ådoing;ââ¬Â you will have true ownership of it. Your instructor will contact your field supervisor at the beginning of the semester to initiate a channel of communication and to invite feedback at any point in the semester. The primary responsibility, though, for maintaining good communication with your field supervisor and resolving any issues that come up lies with you. Your instructor is available to offer you advice and counsel, to serve as a sounding board for your concerns, to help you brainstorm solutions and, in severe instances only, to mediate issues with your field supervisor. The syllabus listed here is from 2014; I will revise it for the fall but the essence will remain unchanged. Old Syllabus: https://www.ischool.utexas.edu/sites/default/files/images/webform/Capstone%20Syllabus%20Summer%202014_0.pdf
PREREQUISITES
Graduate standing; Completion of at least twenty-one semester hours of coursework in the graduate program in information studies.