Background

I teach a second-year college level course entitled IT285: Systems Analysis and Design. Using a 5-step proceedure called the Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC), students learn how to

1.) evaluate and define a technology request(a problem or changes to the information system);

2.) conduct needs analysis by researching the needs of the business, identifying data flow and modeling the system requirements needed for the new information system;

3.) create a logical design (a blueprint) of the new system based on the systems requirements defined in Step 2;

4.) implement the new information system(interconnectivity, hardware, software, configurations and training);

5.) manage and support the new system.

This is a 16-week course and the students only meet one day a week for two hours. Everything else is done online (a hybrid course).

During the last eight weeks of the course, the students are divided into project teams and are given the same project, called Midwest Grain. I have been working on this project for six years and it is about as real as I know how to make it. The problem has always been that the students are overwhelmed by the project and struggle to know what to do, even though we spent the first eight weeks of the course learning the procedures. The project requires that the students complete Steps 1, 2, & 3 of the SDLC. Each step requires a deliverable (documentation, a report and a presentation of their work and recommendations)

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Midwest Grain Website