ITEC-200 Emerging Technology ("ETech") Project
Instructions Fall 2017
Scenario
Your project team has identified an emerging information technology that you think could be important
to a business. Your job is to persuade senior management to adopt this technology so they can sell it to
their customers use it themselves to solve a business problem. It's essential to understand that you are
not selling the technology directly to the end users but to your client who will then use it accordingly.
Deliverables and Due Dates
There are four, graded deliverables that make up a total of 29% of your total course grade.
Due Date
Deliverable
Individual Topic Paper due
Team Topic Selection due
Team Meetings with Professor
Draft Reports due
Presentations in-class
Best in Class Competition!
Final Reports due
% of Course
Grade
1%
N/A
N/A
6%
12%
N/A
10%
General Guidelines
Information Technology is everywhere in our lives. It would be impossible to cover the wide variety of
currently available technologies in a one-semester course so the idea in this assignment is to give you
freedom to explore an IT that interests your team and give you an opportunity to develop an understanding of what this IT does and how it adds value to business.
The ETech Project consists of an evaluation of an important, interesting, and innovative IT. A successful
project will be one in which:
(1) The IT is relatively new or will be coming into the market in the next 6 months to 2 years, innovative,
specific, and has or could have good potential business impact.
(2) The team demonstrates good research skills that clearly show your understanding of the following:
WHAT the IT does
HOW it works (this must include data inputs, processing, output, storage, connectivity, and if data
are available for analytics)
HOW you think it can benefit your client (i.e., the problem(s) it will solve)
WHAT the risks are
WHAT your conclusion are
(3) The team demonstrates effective communication – good research is useless unless it is well
communicated to its target audience. You need to have clear, concise and informative presentations
and written reports.
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How to Select a Topic
It is important for teams to select interesting topics. Consider hardware, software and business
applications – IT and general business journals devote considerable space to new innovations in IT
related areas – be curious!
As your instructor, I will have the final say in the topic chosen by your team but let's start with the kinds
of topics that are not appropriate for this assignment:
1. Any topic from a previous semester presented at the "Best in Class" competition between sections
(see the complete list in the file 'ETech (ITR) Best in Class Topics.pdf' on Blackboard).
2. Engineering-only type technologies such as batteries, chargers, filters, lights or any other technology
that is purely mechanical or electromechanical. Your technology must include the input, processing,
and output of data.
3. Consumer-only products or "gadgets"; remember, you are not selling the technology to end users
but to a business.
4. Any IT that is too far in the future because quantifying costs and benefits will be too difficult.
Where to Investigate Ideas
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Weekly technology columns in the NY Times (David Pogue) or WSJ (All Things Digital)
IT News publications: Computerworld, CIO, Information Week, Wired
Business publications: WSJ, Fortune, Business Week, Forbes, Economist
Product Review Guides: CNET and web shopping sites for IT
A good digital privacy resource is the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF): https://www.eff.org
Take the time to read several of the publications above and you will be amazed about what you can
write about. What companies are using an IT to innovate in product delivery, service? The source of this
innovation may just be a new IT. Explore, be adventurous – you will be amazed at the diverse set of
topics that await you and your teammates! Likewise, you are encouraged to read/watch the winning
presentations from previous semesters (files and links are posted on Blackboard).
Milestones and Deliverables
In order to help your team to deliver a high-quality project in a timely manner, this assignment has a
series of deliverables due at different points of the semester. The first deliverable is an individual
assignment in which each team member explores one IT that interests them individually. The remaining
components of the project then need to be prepared with your team. The complete set of deliverables
includes:
1. Topic Paper (Individual): Choose a potential IT topic in a 1-page report of approximately 300 words.
You will write the topic exploration paper individually but share your findings with your teammates.
Format:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Title in 10 words or less
Introduction in 50 words
Technology description
Business benefits description
References. At least one external reference link to a web piece, article, book chapter, etc.
2. Topic Analysis (In Teams): the team needs to get together and discuss all technologies identified by
individual team members and prepare a brief topic analysis and make a selection of their final topic.
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The topic analysis needs to have a short paragraph (5 lines max. each) for each of the individual
technologies numbered and ranked in the order of preference (i.e., number your team's preferred
topic #1 and list it first, then the second choice, etc.). Each paragraph should briefly discuss why the
topic was selected or not.
3. Team Meeting with Instructor: Teams will meet with the professor towards the end of the semester.
All team members must be present for this meeting. The meeting is not graded but attendance is
expected. Sign-up sheets will be made available – SIGN UP EARLY.
4. Draft and Final Reports (In Teams): The Final Report includes revisions to the Draft Report (separate
deliverable) as described below. The Draft Report must follow the same structure and flow of the
final report (i.e., all the sections) but with basic information completed. The expectation is not to
have a completed product but to demonstrate that you have enough of an understanding to
ultimately have a successful final report at the end of the semester. This means that sections such as
the Business Impact do not have to be completed but must show your plan for how you will complete
it. Reports that are only outlines or scripts of your presentations are not acceptable.
Report structure and guidelines:
1. Organization. A proper, business-like document with headers and sub-headers and page
numbers. It should start with an Executive Summary of 200-300 words, followed by Technology
Description, Business Impact, Appendices, and Bibliography. The target length for the first two
sections should be 1,500-1,800 total words (appendices and bibliographies will vary in length
from team to team).
2. Writing should be smooth and elegant.
3. Technical Description – describe the WHAT it does and HOW it works. Provide historical context
where appropriate.
4. Business Impact – what is the business currently not doing (or not doing well) that this IT
addresses – that is, what is the problem your IT solves? Be sure to consider the context of your
company or industry. Ultimately, all IT decisions must make good business sense – a company
does not invest in IT for its own sake. What is the business value associated with implementing
this IT? Does this solution make sense (e.g., should the solution be an app or a standalone
device)? Business value needs to be assessed quantitatively one or more of the following ways;
this is not an exhaustive list and you will need to work with your instructor to ensure the
business value for your idea is properly measured:
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Increased revenue
Decreased costs
Increased productivity
Return on Investment (ROI)
Increased market share
Balanced Scorecard
5. Appendices – these should include additional details that are not central to your argument (e.g.,
detailed support for your Technical Descriptions or how you calculated Business Impacts). They
are not a place to put "filler" or any information (including charts and graphs) that is central to
your argument (i.e., don't make the reader scroll to an appendix for a visualization that belongs
in the body.) There is no word or page limit associated with the appendices.
6. Graphics and Illustrations – Teams are expected to include at a minimum of 3 illustrations or
graphics related to the topic and one of them must be a Visio diagram that you create (the
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diagram can be a process flow, a technology interaction diagram, a timeline, an implementation
plan, or something similar; please ask your instructor for guidance on your particular situation).
7. Bibliography – Research on the IT must include at least 5 quality references, which can include
journal articles, IT reviews from credible sources, company case studies. Marketing materials
from an IT vendor might provide you with some background but are not considered the
strongest sources.
8. Citation style – use APA-style.
Grading criteria for the Paper:
Category
Technical Assessment
Business Assessment
Proper use of citations
Depth of Research
Initiative and sparkle
Writing Style and organization (e.g., subheadings)
Use of Appendices
Pictures/graphics/charts inside the document
Total
% Grade
20
25
5
15
10
10
10
5
100%
In-Class Presentation (In Teams): will take 10 minutes with 5 additional minutes for questions and
answers; each student must speak for approximately the same amount of time. The grading criteria are:
Category
Quality of Visuals
Delivery of presentation – clarity, persuasiveness, style
Content – information about the technology and its business value
Total
% Grade
20
40
40
100%
Contribution Rubric
In lieu of peer evaluations, Instructors will award points to each student based on their subjective but
not arbitrary contributions to the team effort using the rubric below. That is, whatever the team score is
on a given deliverable, you will earn the percent of points corresponding to your contribution. Evidence
of engagement are things like how you conduct yourself during class time dedicated to the project, team
meetings with the instructor, and the amount of time you speak during final presentations.
% Points
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
Rubric
Demonstrated full engagement and strong contributions to deliverables.
Demonstrated good engagement and good contributions to deliverables.
Demonstrated some engagement and some contributions to deliverables.
Demonstrated limited engagement and contributions to deliverables.
Demonstrated minimal engagement and contributions to deliverables.
Did not demonstrate any engagement.
References, citations, plagiarism and integrity
How to write References:
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URLs are not references per se, but part of a reference – you need to cite the specific source (e.g.,
Computerworld) and the source must be verifiable (volume number, issue number, date, etc.). All
URLs must be hyperlinked so the reader can easily click on them for more information;
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References need to indicate list the author, source and date of publication, unless these are not
available in the source;
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References can be listed as footnotes in the appropriate page, but the most popular format on
paper is to list all references at the end of the paper.
Citations: References alone are meaningless. They need to be matched to citations throughout your
text. Citations support your arguments and discussions. Every citation must have a corresponding
reference and every reference must have at least one citation. Orphan citations or references are
misleading and confusing. Citations need to list the author's last name and year. If there is more than
one author you can list the first author with et al (e.g., DeLone et al, 2005). Use APA style citations.
Integrity and Plagiarism:
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Don't be tempted to cut & paste. Blackboard will find it.
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Write the paper in your own words and use verbatim text extracted from external sources to
support your arguments with quotes and citations. Verbatim text extracted from external sources
needs to be used sparingly and needs to be enclosed in quotes with the corresponding citations and
references. Verbatim text without quotes, citations and references will be considered as plagiarism.
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If you borrow a graphic a proper citation must be used. For example: "Graphic is from the Intel
website".
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