When Mary McKee learned that she would be part of a team creating an interactive map of the Duke campus for her Information Science + Information Studies (ISIS) capstone course, she knew it was going to be unlike any other course she had taken.
"I don't think any of us had any idea what we were getting into," she said.
During the spring 2005 semester, seven ISIS students dove into the project, building an online site from scratch, guided only by two instructors. By the end of the semester, the students produced a much-needed addition to Duke's online infrastructure.
"Until our project, Duke didn't have much in terms of a user-friendly, online map," said David Eisinger, another ISIS 200 student.
The interactive map is complete with addresses, parking information, building descriptions and histories, facility information, and pictures from the perspective of a person approaching the building on foot.
With the campus expanding and parking at a premium, the university had needed an online map for years. However, nobody had the resources to do the project.
Enter ISIS, an unusual interdisciplinary program that studies technology and its effect on arts and culture.
Casey Alt, ISIS administrative director co-taught ISIS 200 with Jessica Mitchell of the Office of Information Technology. He said he saw the project as a prime opportunity to rejuvenate ISIS 200.
"We were trying to remake the class because the previous year it hadn't come together the way people wanted it to, and we wanted to keep it as a group project class with a project that the students could get into and take ownership of and that would endure beyond the end of the semester," Alt said.
"We also wanted something that benefited the Duke community in some way and stayed around as a permanent fixture."
Alt and Mitchell envisioned the class as a startup company organized by students with Alt and Mitchell serving as CEOs.
"We did not mandate that they break themselves up, but they organized themselves internally and separated into three groups: programming, logistics, and marketing and communications," Mitchell said. "Casey and I were there to shepherd the students as they ran into stumbling blocks."
"They had deliverables, a timeline; they had all the pieces of a [similar corporate] project," Mitchell said. "They also presented to university administrators who would give feedback that they would apply to their models. And they made a final presentation that was open to the Duke community."
The students had to win Mitchell's and Alt's approval, as well as that of various Duke administrators, throughout the process. Ultimately, though, the students had ownership of the project.
"They didn't quite get that at first," Alt said, "but we kept trying to reinforce that this was your project to run into the ground or hit out of the park.
"Fortunately, they hit it out of the park."
That final presentation won over a range of community members and Duke officials, from facilities administrators to OIT staff.
Mitchell said the process helped the students to learn how to work with groups that they don't normally come into contact with while at Duke.
"It was wonderful to see the departments at Duke collaborating and seeing the students working with them," Mitchell said.
For McKee, the process was eye-opening.
"This class really changed how I plan to attack big projects," she said. "I have always dismissed meetings as a waste of time, and sometimes at the beginning of the semester I would be frustrated with how much we were talking and how little we were doing."
When the hands-on part of the project began, McKee realized that the pre-planning was invaluable.
"Once we started programming, every decision that had been made at the beginning came into play, [as did] every bit of advice we got from professionals in the Duke community."
Alt said he believes this sort of professional training is imperative for students entering the workforce.
"There have been a fair number of studies lately about how what students think they'll be doing in a job and what they actually do in a job are very different," he said. "Often you have computer science majors or engineers who think they'll be doing designing and coding but end up doing project management."
Alt and Mitchell wanted to hone skills in the students that are important to almost any career path.
"Softer skills, like communication, never really get taught, but you realize you need them every day when you get into a real career," Alt said.
Eisinger valued this type of training.
"[The project] showed me that technical skills are nothing without people skills and vice versa," he said.
Alt and Mitchell said the work was daunting, but they were thrilled with the results of the project.
"We pitched the project at the beginning of the semester, and throughout we were met with a feeling of maybe it won't happen or maybe we won't make the deadline, but they did an amazing job in 12 weeks," Mitchell said.
"It was probably the most fun class I've ever taught but also the most stressful," Alt said.
Putting the map together was an unusual sort of project for a senior capstone class, but the students said it was a rewarding one.
"Our course was pretty revolutionary in that it took these students from a wide variety of backgrounds, gave them a task, and then just let them go, and the results were incredible," Eisinger said.
"I think the university would do well to follow this course model."