Term Project Requirements

The purpose of the term project is to provide an opportunity for you to develop a further understanding of systems analysis. The modeling technique selected for the systems analysis should match with the problem characteristics. Since we have examined LP and will examine expert systems next, a project that utilizes LP and/or expert systems might be most appropriate. However, you are welcome to use other modeling techniques that we will discuss (neural networks, discrete event simulation, continuous simulation, combined simulation, or combinations of these and other problem solving techniques). Listed below are the minimum project requirements for an expert system application. If you choose other modeling techniques, comparable requirements apply. Keep in mind the term project represents 35% of your course grade and thus the problem selected should reflect this. Please see me if you have questions about the requirements.

If you develop an expert system for your term project, it should contain at least 40 rules (people generally end up with many more). Maintain a weekly diary of the work on the project (time spent consulting with the expert, time spent reading about subject domain, time spent coding rules, etc.). Each Friday you should email me a paragraph indicating accomplishments for the week and any difficulties encountered (save copies of these to be included as an appendix in your term project report). This is intended to keep you on track and to help me in knowing where you are in the development process. A final written report detailing the work of your term project will be due the last day of classes. The report should address the following: background information on the problem addressed, importance of the problem, objectives of your project, discussion of development and ES, future directions, example runs, file listings, how steps in systems analysis were used, etc.

To get the projects started, please select an appropriate problem (preferably one that is of interest to you and if it is an expert system application you will need an expert willing to work with you - major professors make good experts). A brief description/proposal of your project is due the end of week 6. I will review them and OK the projects so that you may begin work on them. The purpose of this review is to make sure that you have a project that you can complete within the time frame of this course. In most cases, the problem scope must be reduced so keep this in mind as you search for a problem.