E-Liberate Project Overview

From apse

Project Name: e-liberate v2

Project Plan Authors: Nathan Taylor, Jodie Blaylock, Christopher Crameer

Project Participants: ibid;

Domain Objectives:

   We are trying to obtain an online deliberation tool that can accept a modular ruleset and is internationalization-ready.

Purpose: Why are we trying to do it?

   To get a better understanding of cutting-edge web 2.0 technologies while producing a useful piece of software that will get some use, and give us some programming credibility in the process.  Digression and inconclusion are pervasive in online discussion. In face-to-face meetings, parliamentary procedure is used to ensure decisions are made. Utilizing parliamentary procedure in online meetings will enable a civic participation model that can faciliate social change.

Description of main activities:

   Planning, programming, collaborating, debugging, testing, creating frameworks.

   * Learn project management skills
   * Leverage open-source tools to accomplish our goals 

Audience. Who will/ would/ should be interested in this project (on its follow ­ on projects) and why? How will the needs of the audience be taken into account? (BTW, you may be the audience for your own Project)

The audience for this project will be any computer user with basic computer skills that has a need for online meetings with colleagues. It will facilitate meetings with people who live great distances apart, and enable them to conduct their meetings in an organized fashion. The needs of the audience will need to be taken into account when designing the interface for the application. It will have to be straightforward and intuitive to use.

Project Evaluation:

Doug Schuler, the faculty and originator of the project, will evaluate. The evaluation will be based on acquisitin of practical knowledge and skills of developing a web application that the participants acquired during the course of the project. These include:

   * multiple-participant project planning and organization
   * web application development
   * marketing to community organizations
   * the Ruby programming language
   * the Rails web application framework 

Description of main deliverables

The final product of this project with be a functional chat room application which users can log into and conduct meetings with using Robert's Rules of Order.