CS 501
Software Engineering
Spring 2008

Project Suggestion:
Department of Natural Resources and Cooperative Extension


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Client

Raj Smith, Academic Consultant and Information Architect, Department of Natural Resources and Cooperative Extension
Email: raj.smith@cornell.edu
Telephone: 607-257-4578

Project concepts

Raj Smith of the Department of Natural Resources and Cooperative Extension has been the client for several good CS 501 projects. This year he sent a list of possible projects.

  1. A grant from the National IPM Special Projects Program provides an
    exciting opportunity to use asp.net tools to create XML schemas of common
    pests and pesticide information and to create meta relations between them
    using SQL tables. The goal is to create a system that helps farmers learn
    more about pest management by integrating biological information with
    pesticide information. We will be using MS asp.net, visual studio, SQL
    server, and MS SharePoint to create an effective solution.
     
  2. A second part of the project is to developing a citizen science website
    for pest management that will allow non-professionals to upload content to
    an expert panel. With the advent of web 2.0 a key question is whether
    extension information can be generated by public input or if it must be
    created by a panel of experts. Non-professionals will develop content based
    on the above mentioned XML schemas. This project involves developing web
    forms and work flows and deals with authentication and security issues. We
    will again be using asp.net and other assorted MS tools.
     
  3. Using MS SharePoint V.3, we are creating a collaborative authoring
    environment for Cornell Cooperative Extension. It is both a content
    management and content publishing project with the added caveat that the
    material (stored in XML) must have both an XSLT and CSS for the web and for
    print. For this project we will be using Office Collaboration server,
    content lists and content types, a variety of databases, asp.net and other
    tools to create an academic version of a social networking site.
     
  4. A critical component (for cost recovery) of the content management
    project is to take content stored in SQL and XML files and make new
    publications on the fly that will "print on demand". Here we assess document
    hierarchies and metadata and combine content using the CSS and XSLT
    mentioned above. There is an ecommerce component and legal questions to be
    answered concerning the use of derivative works based on multiple content
    sources. This is a fascinating extension of a content management system and
    will require the use of asp.net and tools to create PDFs on the fly and pass
    them to an ecommerce gateway.
     
  5. Yet another project is to develop a national pesticide safety web site
    that provides targeted information to both home owners and professionals.
    This web site must make use of web services and RSS to make information
    available to both users, via a browser, or to web sites that use news readers
    or other tools to consume published data streams and (re)display them on
    another website. Once the information is in a content management system, it
    can be passed to a browser, printed on demand, and licensed and distributed
    using web services or news feeds. This project will requires knowledge of
    asp.net, XML, CSS, RSS and web services. The content must interface with
    open source technologies.

Detailed information on any of these projects is available upon request. All
of the work performed will be incorporated into the Cornell Cooperative
Extension system and will help to provide outreach services on both a local
and national level. Our team looks forward to your enthusiasm, competence,
and insight. Contact raj.smith@cornell.edu for more information or call
607-257-4578.


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William Y. Arms
(wya@cs.cornell.edu)
Last changed: January 26, 2008