Academics:  Bachelor of Science in Informatics

This paper discusses the design of a unique note-taking program that allows users to make free form notes on a Tablet PC. The note-taking program, titled D-Notes, gives users the ability to create handwritten as well as typewritten notes, while supporting the reader with the ability to extract their notes into a summary sheet. Initial observations on the difficulties surrounding the note taking process of university students are reported. A needs assessment that included literature research and interviews is documented. The design process and interface prototype for the D-Notes application is also explained within this paper. Finally an evaluation of the prototype is presented.

Adaptive hypermedia systems dynamically change their design and/or architecture in an effort to facilitate the information seeking process for its users. This There are many sources of ecological information in the State of Washington from various governmental agencies. Our initial goal was to take some of this data and create a resource that would display statistical information to a non-expert audience. We worked with contacts from the Department of Ecology who were concerned that this information is often difficult for the general public to access and interpret. This project seeks to help solve this problem by building a web-based ecological information system. The system is for the general public and is intended to strengthen the usability of the interface between people and the information on the Department of Ecology's website. The project is grounded in a study of the users' needs and wants, and controlled by established methods of displaying scientific data to a non-expert audience. The initial phase of this project, and our main focus, was a user needs assessment. In this phase of the project, user needs and wants were collected via focus groups, a questionnaire, a literature review and a heuristic evaluation of focus group recommended websites. Through the needs assessment we attempted to determine what issues were most important to users, what sources they turned to for environmental information, and most importantly, the best method for making this information easy to interpret. The next phase was to implement a template website presenting two of the most important issues to the public, utilizing methods for interpreting data derived from the needs assessment. Within the website, we created a site architecture that would enhance ease of use and navigability for users. Other considerations that went into the website included giving the user a way to choose their local area of focus and the ability for the user to dynamically view different representations of the same data. This website was then tested by users from the general public, and adjustments were made to the site to incorporate user feedback. Details of the methods and results from the various phases are discussed in this paper. Final recommendations are made and then followed by a brief summary of our project. The appendix, which follows the end of the paper, can be reviewed for further detailed information.

Ottoman culture had a profound influence on the structure of life and thought in areas of vital concern to the world today. A resource is needed for scholars to translate and interpret important historical Ottoman documents.

With technology growing at such a rapid pace, computers allow people to communicate in may ways. We decided to implement a database and web page to allow customers of Kicks Hobby store to communicate in the same way they would in the physical store.

Freshman and sophmores at the UW have low registration priority. The Idea: A product or service that alerts students at the University of Washington when a class that is full, opens up.

In the American public school system the report card provides an important window into the past performance, the current challenges and the future potential of our country's greatest resource, our children. However, for many elementary school teachers, the mechanics of the report card writing process is inefficient and more time consuming than necessary. Frequently when a teacher has performed this exercise over many grading periods they discover that specific descriptions of one student's performance, attributes or behavior often pertain to others, yet they are left to manually enter the same comments over and over again. My capstone project attempts to solve this problem by increasing the efficiency of the report card writing process. The project that has been designed has been titled "The Report Card Assistant." This program is a Microsoft Word based application that gives teachers the ability to create, edit, and repeatedly retrieve student report cards with ease. From a toolbar in the Word application, a teacher can select a member of his or her class from the pre-programmed class list, enter personalized or pre-programmed comments and then save the report card for revision, reference or printing. A first grade teacher who spends a considerable amount of time each term writing report cards suggested a report card generator as a capstone project idea. Since much of the comment writing process is repetitive, teachers in her district recognized the need for a program to limit this redundancy. A group of teachers developed a small application that stored a preprogrammed list of comments in a Microsoft Access database and allowed users to select these comments and display them on a report card template. This program increased the efficiency of the report card writing process of some teachers in the district by eliminating the need to repeatedly type a particular comment out by hand. There were several problems with the Access program however, not the least of which was that it was difficult for many teachers to use. The inspiration for the Report Card Assistant application grew from the realization of the power that an application like the access program could have if it were flexible and easy to use. The original idea for this capstone project was to interview the users and developers of this system in order to determine the aspects of the system that matched the report card writing process and those that did not. My assumption was that since this system was developed by a group of teachers, who were not trained in software development, user-interface design, or database design, they would welcome my interest in their system and possibly even allow me to improve upon its design. At the very least I assumed that the developers of the system would be happy to share their thoughts on the system with me so that if I was to design a system from scratch I could learn from their mistakes. Like many assumptions, these proved to be untrue.

Studying is hard work. Most students are familiar with the struggle to gather their notes, sit down and work through the material. Many students choose to study in groups, using each other as resources in addition to their books and notes. However group work has costs; class and work schedules conflict and students cannot always meet at the same place at the same time. Some students use telephones, e-mail or instant messaging to bring the expertise of their peer study group into their own home. While these technologies are often used, each has its own set of limitations. Sharing study materials such as notes, documents, sketches and even the knowledge of other people is often difficult, and sometimes even impossible. The StuCAN project is an attempt to develop a product that can help students work and study together, even across town and at every hour of the night. We developed StuCAN as a tool for the Groove Workspace, which is an online collaborative workspace environment that provides many useful and built-in tools such as file sharing, photo repository, and sketchpad. We will discuss Groove and the StuCAN tool in detail later.

Colvos Creek Nursery occupies a special niche in the nursery business by providing a source for native Northwest plants and hard-to-find plants of unusual interest. The nursery maintains an extensive inventory and the current system has proved to be inefficient with respect to inventory management and ineffective in the dissemination and communication of Colvos Creek Nursery plant information. For this capstone project we plan to design and implement an integrated system including an online searchable catalog through an ASP.NET web application, a SQL Server database and an Access front-end to SQL Server to facilitate inventory management. The Colvos Creek Nursery online system will be supportive of the nursery's mission statement, marketing goals and inventory management needs.

The outdoors are an integral part of society in the state of Washington, yet there is a lack on online resources necessary for people to easily and safely choose a trail for a day-hike or multi-day trip. The Washington Trail Guide solves this information resource problem by consolidation all types of information necessary for outdoor enthusiasts.