UW Capstone Project: Accendo

Sponsored by Foundry10 with an objective of providing a low-cost database solution that caters to the organization's information system needs.

Foundry10 is an education research organization with a philanthropic focus on expanding ideas about learning and creating direct value for youth.

In collaboration with diverse partners, they surface, evaluate, and share opportunities to better support youth learning both inside and outside the classroom.

From the start, foundry10 has aimed to work more effectively by simultaneously engaging in dynamic research, youth programs and collaborative philanthropy.

Expanding the way people think about learning is a formidable challenge, and Foundry10 approaches it in three ways: research, programs, and philanthropy. While each of these is distinct, they are all interconnected parts of a whole. Many programs they run involve aspects of research, and many of our studies inform our program design. Philanthropy is present in almost all of their work, as they do their best to remove fiscal concerns for their partners to give them the freedom to engage with interesting ideas around learning.

Sponsor Problem Statement

Scattered Organizational Data

With no structured information system in place, the organization's data was spread across different platforms. A lack of normalization or centralization made it difficult to access the data and analyze or use it for business decisions.

Non-Collaborative Information System

Without set vocabularies or normalized methods of data retention, there was a lack of cross-functional visibility or collaboration. This created missed opportunities, repetitive efforts, and a lack of internal combination when it came to external projects. This also leads to a lack of understanding of past work, the potential for future work, and transparency over current work.

Expansion Solutions

As the organization expands, it goes without saying, projects will expand too, both in quantity and quality. This implies that any problem being solved needs to be looked at with a long term perspective, allowing for the information system to be built upon over the years, catering to any data needs that may arise in the future.

Project domains

User/Business Requirements

To understand the need for this project, we conducted interviews with different teams and created use-cases to map the various purposes that need to be fulfilled.

These exhaustive interviews covered topics such as user interaction, data requirements, future expansion potentials and internal data security.

Research and Design

Keeping in mind various constraints such as time, budget and internal resource availability, potential solutions were scoped and evaluated. Based on this research, combined with the user/business requirements, the project was initiated with SQL Azure database and an MS Access API for integration.

Development and Testing

Utilizing the course content from the iSchool's various courses, our team developed an SQL relational database that covered different entities within Foundry10's operational framework. To utilize this database, we developed a front-end API using MS Access, creating user-friendly forms for insertion and modification of data.

The product was tested internally for functionalities, limitations and instances of failure. An iterative change loop was utilised to fix errors that were discovered.

Documentation

In an effort to allow Foundry10 to be able to build upon our provided solution, we documented the entire process extensively, ensuring all technical aspects were outlined and explained.

The documentation also included suggestions for alternative tools that can be used in the scenario where current tools could not handle the scope of requirements. This allows Foundry10 to keep their choices open for scaling this framework as the company expands.