Real-Time Collaboration to be Implemented with PolicyStat

During the 2010/11 academic year, our software engineering team was fortunate enough to secure a couple just-down-the-road Rose-Hulman juniors as part of their new multi-quarter junior project series in Computer Science and Software Engineering (CSSE). In the junior design series, student teams pick outside clients and spend three quarters working on a project with real-world constraints and challenges. They apply what theyre currently learning in their Software Requirements and Specification, Software Project Management, Software Construction and Maintenance and Software Quality Assurance classes. As a Rose-Hulman graduate myself, Im a little jealous of this improvement to the curriculum, and I think it is a real testament to the quality of the department and the teaching provided by Professors Steve Chenoweth and Sriram Mohan

For the project, we gave juniors Jimmy Theis and Kevin Wells the difficult task of creating an open source project to bring real-time web-based collaboration to WYMeditor. The resulting project enables multiple authors to interact simultaneously, editing and viewing others changes as they occur. Real-time collaboration makes it easier for authors to coordinate efficiently through the editing process, and we hope to take their work and bring it to PolicyStat in 2012.

The technical accomplishment of implementing real-time collaboration is impressive, but just as impressive is how enjoyable it was working with the student team. Even with the pressures of other classes, homework and projects, they consistently delivered, solved hard technical problems and were entirely professional in their communication. Its hard to believe they still have another year left of school. I would encourage any Indiana business to participate in both the Junior Project and Senior Project. Its absolutely a win-win opportunity.