Using Project Management Techniques to Design a PMP Mathematics Study App for the Windows Universal Platform

Background As a late comer to the smartphone market, Microsoft has fallen behind the Apple and Google app ecosystems in the quantity and quality of apps offered. To attract developer talent, Microsoft released the Universal Windows Platform which enables apps to run across Windows devices with few additional modifications. Although the Windows app ecosystem has realized an increased number of available apps, few apps related to project management are currently available. About the project This project will design a PMP Certification Mathematics Study App for the Universal Windows Platform which will serve as a reference and study aid for the PMP certification exam. The app will be available to mobile and PC users who are utilizing the Microsoft Windows 10 and Windows 8 operating systems. Features of the app will include project management formula lookup, formula flashcards, and practice problems. At the completion of the project, the app will be submitted to the Windows Store for review and publishing to the Windows 10 application ecosystem. Approach The project scope will include the design of the app from requirements gathering to completion. Project deliverables will be aligned with Windows store applications evaluation criteria for responsiveness, reliability, and style. This project will conclude with submission of a completed application design to the project sponsor.Title Page / Table of Contents / List of Exhibits / Abstract / Background / About the project / Approach / Keywords / Introduction / Project Purpose / Project Approach / Research and Analysis / Research Approach / Research Analysis / Application Design Rating Verification / Research Objective 1: Investigate the preferred learning style of potential users / Research Objective 1: Design Conclusions and Implications / Flashcards Module / Formula Builder Module / Formula Reference Module / Research Objective 2: Investigate the most important aspect of user satisfaction / Research Objective 2: Design Conclusions and Implications / Research Conclusions / Requirements Gathering / User Interface Design / Project Deliverable Design / ViTech CORE / Input Application Requirements / Identify Application Components / Identify Component Functions / Identify Use Cases and Test Activities / Project Deliverables / Application Design Documents / Application Hierarchy / Conclusions and Recommendations / ViTech CORE Software Con/ lusions / Graphing Capabilities / Diagnostics Capabilities / Requirements Mapping and Verification / Final Project Deliverables / Recommendations for Further Research and Development / Application Publishing / Further Development and Product Updates / User Feedback Collection / Application Update Opportunities / Application Expansion Opportunitie

Model-based groupware solution for distributed real-time collaborative 4D planning via teamwork

Construction planning plays a fundamental role in construction project management that requires team working among planners from a diverse range of disciplines and in geographically dispersed working situations. Model-based four-dimensional (4D) computer-aided design (CAD) groupware, though considered a possible approach to supporting collaborative planning, is still short of effective collaborative mechanisms for teamwork due to methodological, technological and social challenges. Targeting this problem, this paper proposes a model-based groupware solution to enable a group of multidisciplinary planners to perform real-time collaborative 4D planning across the Internet. In the light of the interactive definition method, and its computer-supported collaborative work (CSCW) design analysis, the paper discusses the realization of interactive collaborative mechanisms from software architecture, application mode, and data exchange protocol. These mechanisms have been integrated into a groupware solution, which was validated by a planning team in a truly geographically dispersed condition. Analysis of the validation results revealed that the proposed solution is feasible for real-time collaborative 4D planning to gain a robust construction plan through collaborative teamwork. The realization of this solution triggers further considerations about its enhancement for wider groupware applications

South Korean teachers' social-emotional practices and their association with student connectedness : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master in Educational Psychology at Massey University, Distance Learning, New Zealand

Teachers’ social-emotional practices provide a promising avenue for fostering student well-being, particularly in countries such as South Korea where students experience disproportionate levels of stress. Little research has been conducted on teachers’ socialemotional practices internationally, and even less in the South Korean context. In the present research, two studies were conducted with South Korean middle-school students to explore Korean teachers’ social-emotional practices as perceived by students. Data were used to explore the underlying structure of students’ perspectives of teacher behaviours and group these behaviours into cohesive domains and profiles. A refined 88-item version of Harvey et al.’s (2003, 2012) teacher social-emotional behaviour inventory was used. In Study one, 30 students completed a card-sorting task where they sorted 88 social-emotional behaviour items according to perceived similarity. Multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analysis were applied to the data to produce visual representations of the structure of studentperceived teacher social-emotional practices. In Study two, 222 Korean middle-school students completed a rating task wherein they rated the extent to which they perceived their teacher to engage in each of the 88 social-emotional behaviours. A connectedness questionnaire assessing student feelings of connectedness to their teacher, school and peers was also completed. Application of Horn’s parallel analysis and rotated factor analysis on student rating data revealed five factors or themes of teacher social-emotional behaviours, interpreted as Social-emotional coaching, Relationship-building, Classroom and emotion management, Attitude to teaching, and Emotional transference. Then, factor analysis and Qfactor analysis were applied to identify profiles, where each profile represented a group of students who reported similar patterns of teacher behaviours for their homeroom teacher. Hierarchical cluster analysis and k-means cluster analysis were further applied to refine profiles by optimising case assignment to profiles. The resulting eight profiles were labelled: Enthusiastic Manager, Disengaged, Job-focused, Indifferent, Coach, Assured Coach, Transparent Manager, and Relationship-builder and Coach. Finally, the associations between the identified factors and profiles with student connectedness were explored using ANOVA. Results are compared and contrasted with existing literature and discussed with regard to potential usefulness of teacher social-emotional factors and profiles for enhancing student well-being

OntoWeaver S: supporting the design of knowledge portals

This paper presents OntoWeaver-S, an ontology-based infrastructure for building knowledge portals. In particular, OntoWeaver-S is integrated with a comprehensive web service platform, IRS-II, for the publication, discovery, and execution of web services. In this way, OntoWeaver-S supports the access and provision of remote web services for knowledge portals. Moreover, it provides a set of comprehensive site ontologies to model and represent knowledge portals, and thus is able to offer high level support for the design and development process. Finally, OntoWeaver-S provides a set of powerful tools to support knowledge portals at design time as well as at run time

Scientists in the MIST: Simplifying Interface Design for End Users

We are building a Malleable Interactive Software Toolkit (MIST), a tool set and infrastructure to simplify the design and construction of dynamically-reconfigurable (malleable) interactive software. Malleable software offers the end-user powerful tools to reshape their interactive environment on the fly. We aim to make the construction of such software straightforward, and to make reconfiguration of the resulting systems approachable and manageable to an educated, but non-specialist, user. To do so, we draw on a diverse body of existing research on alternative approaches to user interface (UI) and interactive software construction, including declarative UI languages, constraint-based programming and UI management, reflection and data-driven programming, and visual programming techniques