Projects

Exercise 2 - Needs Assessment

During these tough times with the coronavirus, there are a lot of people that are looking for specific information regarding what they can and cannot do. This get even more specific when it comes to what state you are in and what your local government has said. My idea is to make a source of news that only has to do with this virus. This can provide specific info on a state by state basis on what is and isn't allowed. This can also provide what the CDC is saying for a national level and basic tips to stay safe. I see this as something that can be extremely beneficial to the entire country during this incredibly unique and brutal time.

Why?

The country is desperate for correct information completely dependent on where you reside currently. Providing quotes and correct info from national and state officials is crucial.

Who? Where?

Anyone in the country that wants reliable information for their state, county, and of course national guidelines

How? When?

Develop either a phone or web app and use location services from mobile and computer devices to accurately send information. ASAP as the coronavirus is 2 months into its spread and no one really knows how long until the pandemic ends

What (Expected results)?

Provide up to date and accountable information only from government sources to insure the most accurate information available

Costs

Very little as we need to create an app. Using location services may have a hidden cost that we may need to endure in the future

Exercise 3

Problem: There is a lot of information surrounding the COVID-19 that the general public desperately needs to know to stay safe as well as keep everyone around them safe as this disease can have no symptoms to some. This means carries of the disease may not know that they are carrying. Our solution proposes an idea for an application (web or mobile) where we use location services to deliver specific information for people in specific areas. For example, New York City is still under stay at home orders while other states are opening up again. The national media is covering all these decisions and discussing them. Our app would understand where you are located and give you info that pertains to you.

Situation analysis

This is quick timing and high urgency as the pandemic is running through the US still and people need this information

We know there is alot of information out there that needs organization. We need to start designing the app but start by getting the preliminary code started and organized before designing the UI of the application

Problem analysis

The cause of this problem is the lack of a localized hub for location specific information. National media outlets are pumping information they hear from the federal government and local governments. Citizens are getting confused about what info belongs to them and what does not. Fake information is also rapidly getting spread around which could be detrimental especially during this time.

Decision analysis

We need to collect valuable information and user locations to sort and pair them together so that the information we share is shared to people who live in those regions. We need to filter the fake news from the real news to ensure our information comes from reliable sources and can be trusted.

Potential Problem analysis

This problem can keep happening out of our control but we can provide a viable option to get your valuable guidelines that could save your life.

Exercise 4

We first need to research how easy it is to acquire location from users. This may be very easy to do and only require permission from the user. Because the whole app revolves around the fact that we need your location, users may be required to share that we us. After this, we need to set up a database of information to be passed to the users and then sort that information based off factors. These factors could be: county, state, region, urban or rural, etc. We need to determine these factors to properly share our info to the correct users in their proper categories.We do not need to include national news to everyone as this may be an abudance of information. We can still share it, just maybe in its own part of the app.

Exercise 5

The biggest problem we see in terms of intellectual properties is that we must source all our information. We are dealing, sorting , and displaying news which is a type of intellectual property that is being reported on and talked about. We must say where we got the information from and give people the proper credit for it. If we share anything that later turns out to be false, it is in our best interest to apoligize and consider not using that source again on our application. We should never create our own stories to gain popularity and stick to using mostly government and trusted medical news.

Exercise 6

Our process model would be:

Acquire location -> Sort information -> give user options for what information to be shown -> Display info with sources

Exercise 7

Exercise 8

Results:

• The potential hazards are minimal for App creation

• Misinformation is one key issue the team must focus on during development

• Accurate location and news presentation will be another key focus

Useful life:

• This products useful life would be short

• the team was looking at only the months during the pandemic, which actually could end up lasting longer

• while the main focus is to ensure accurate and timely local pandemic news, this App could be further developed for other uses like basic local news, but that could be explored at a later date.

• The main focus however, will remain as a sort of aid towards people struggling now

Exercise 9

Results:

The best solution to miss information is proper information vetting

to Solve this, our group decided to focus on mainly reliable sources.

Some sources that the group discussed:

• Wall Street Journal

• New York Times

• Some Local Newspapers (Staten Island Advance)

The groups overall approach to the problem of misinformation was that some kind of screening method would be needed to prevent the wrong information to be presented.

This could result from proper vetting, as mentioned above, but also consistent updating of the news. This presented a difficult task for the group to work through.

Exercise 10

Important links bookmarked:

https://sites.google.com/view/ece322/projects/2020-spring?authuser=0

https://www.wsj.com/

silive.com

GitHub: https://github.com/kevinwlu/iot

Our links:

tpinto@stevens.edu

jboyd@stevens.edu

Overall aspects review:

• we formulated many ideas on the topic and spoke on what was actually doable

• lots of out work was going to involve the use of raspberry pi and other labs completed during school

• Corona has prevented much of work from being done together and online meetings are being used to discuss further development

• We hope to at least get a functional App before the end of senior year

• This has been a good layout for the expected design process to come

• Corona has been a global pandemic and the potential solutions offered by our design will hopefully aid in combating the spread of misinformation and knowledge to those looking to access it

Some Decision matrices on importance of aspects of creation: