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Research Project Checkpoint 2: Development Sprint Deliverables

Deliverables

First Sprint – 130 points – due Thursday, April 18th, 11:59pm

Process & Implementation Snapshot (60 pts)

You should follow best practices for collaborative development such as using feature branches, pull requests, and code review. Individual changes should be committed to properly named branches for each core feature being implemented and make use of pull requests to merge changes together.

Be sure to review each other’s code - both from a quality assurance standpoint, but also so you have a better understanding of the codebase. Although code reviews can be done asynchronously, we encourage the first few to be done synchronously so you can discuss the changes with your teammates and learn more about the codebase.

Every member of your team must contribute to the implementation. One way we will evaluate this is that each team member must have at least one commit as a part of the solution. Failure to do so will result in a significant penalty to your grade.

You must commit all of your changes to the main branch of your team repository before the homework deadline. Unlike the previous assignment, you should not submit your changes to the parent NodeBB repository.

Submit a link to your repository and your Github Project board to Webcourses. For grading, we will take a snapshot of your repository and board right at the deadline and grade based on your progress there.

Checkpoint Presentation (50 pts)

Your group should prepare a 10-minute video presentation describing your progress.

Your slides should include the following information (the recommended slides amount is in parentheses):

  1. Title Slide (1 slide)
    Include your team name & the names of each team member

  2. Project Planning (~1-2 slides)
    What user stories did your team choose to focus on? What feature(s) did you plan on implementing to fulfill them?

  3. Development Progress (~1-2 slides per person)
    What have you changed so far? How did you test your changes? What have you learned about the codebase? How does this compare with your original milestone goals? If your team did not meet your goals, why?

    Each team member should describe the contributions they made. In this section, you must include a video demo of your current progress; if you were not able to make a working build, include screenshots that show your current progress and clearly explain what factors impeded your progress.

  4. Process Overview (~1-2 slides)
    What process strategies (i.e. meeting frequency, code reviews) did your team use for the first sprint? Was it effective? Did you encounter any difficulties or have to make any changes?

  5. Looking Ahead (~2-4 slides)
    What are some current risks and/or questions that your team has after completing the first sprint? Has your experience with the first sprint affected your planning of the second sprint? Do you need to rescope? Do you need to reevaluate your process?

    If you did not meet your development goals, you should outline what you plan to proactively change for this upcoming sprint.

A Note on Participation

Participation from all team members during the presentation is required.

The presentation slides should be exported into a PDF and a video recording of your presentation should be submitted to Webcourses by the deadline.

Pull Request to Artifact Repo (20 pts)

We would like you to create a mock pull request in your private repo that you might submit to the actual artifact repo so that we can see whether or not the team behind the artifact decides to accept your changes to improve the repo. Dr. Moran will review the pull requests and work with the team members to submit them in a responsible manner. If the pull request gets accepted, CONGRATS, you have a made a contribution to open source software!!

Pull Request Warning

**Do NOT submit the pull request to the original artifact repo before talking with Dr. Moran. Doing so will result in significant points lost. Simply use a mock pul request in your own private repo. **

Grading

To receive full credit for the implementation, we expect:

  • Fulfillment of implementation goals as outlined by the planned milestones, or a clearly written justification in the milestone description of why elements fell through
  • An updated Project Board for the current progress
  • Reasonable code structure and style, including documentation where appropriate
  • Coherent commits of reasonable size with meaningful commit messages by all team members
  • High quality usage of Git/GitHub tools, such as issues, milestones, pull requests, and commits

To receive full credit for the presentation, we expect:

  • All team members to contribute towards presenting their team’s progress
  • All of the material described above covered in the presentation
  • PDF Slides uploaded to Webcourses for grading & feedback

To receive full credit for the pull request, we expect:

  • A lengthy and well-written pull request that describes the different changes made.
  • Links to relevant commits and compliance with any automated tests that the artifact repo might have.