Commonside D19: Team Blog

This past week we were able to learn about concept maps in class. With all the different types of concept maps, it is important to identify the correct one in order to communicate ideas accurately to the reader. We made the following concept map to better organize our thoughts of the structure of our background.  Although I had used a concept map in the past, it made me realize how useful they can actually be when trying to organize and structure information. As we start to develop the first draft of our background, we will certainly use the concept map developed to organize the large amount of information we could cover.   -Humberto 

Based on this study done on local Indiana hospitals, organizations that were already in the process of getting accredited got direct help from the accrediting organization. Other hospitals that were considering or had not made significant progress were attempting to get accredited without any assistance. A key point to this study is that local Indiana hospitals are now well funded yet they can still achieve accreditation and want to become accredited. Commonside is facing some of the same issues in regards to becoming accredited. As a local and small charity organization, becoming accredited is a difficult task that takes many resources, especially if they want to maintain their accreditation. -Noel Journal Source:  https://www.jstor.org/stable/43776203?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents Image Source:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Riley_Hospital_for_Children.jpg

This past Thursday we had our first presentation as a group in ID2050 on the Do's and Don't's of a good IQP. As a person who doesn't like to be the center of attention, I was sooooo nervous! However, I was up to the challenge, as I knew these practice presentations would only help us in the long run with our final project proposal presentation at the end of ID2050. I was internally kicking myself when I stumbled over my words, but I did my best to pick myself back up and finished relatively okay in comparison! With each presentation that comes up, I hope to become more confident in myself so that I can do it just like the pro's do! - Maggie

I really enjoyed meeting Naomi this morning. She had great energy - although it was the middle of the day there, so maybe we just weren't awake yet. We reviewed our problem statement and mission with her which she seemed thrilled about. She also clarified what we needed to focus on and the actual level of involvement that she expected the web application, Twine, to have on our project. After ending the call, I felt a renewed passion for the project and was so excited to move forward with our objectives and potential deliverables. -Emily

This week our team started to develop our plan of research and execution of our project. As a fun exercise in presentation skills, we evaluated 4 past project reports and presented to our ID2050 class an analysis of the Do's and Don'ts of a good IQP. This morning we were able to connect with our sponsor for the first time! We had a pleasant and very informative conversation with Naomi Martin, the Director of Commonside, about her vision and how we can effectively help her achieve it. We now have a more clear direction for our project and what areas we should focus on. We look forward to speaking with her again and to meeting her in person in March!

With our project being especially different from most of the other London IQP projects that work with museums, we have been trying to figure out for the past week what exactly is expected of us by our sponsors. Our assignment for PQP allowed us to analyze the original project description given to us along with the brief from our liaison. Also, we defined the problem we will solve over the next semester and the ideas that will help us achieve this. Finally, we made a list of topics that we believe are important to start writing our background research with both information known and unanswered questions. We are excited to finally meet our sponsor liaison, Naomi Martin, this upcoming Friday for a clear explanation of some issues like what our expected deliverables are for the project and where funding for the organization comes from.  -Humberto Leon Link to Analysis of Commonside Project: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1640-u_hoAksFzDGWLeLfiPt2E-x5aw65ds7I7WyCmxM/edit ...

Week 2 kicked off with a presentation from Jim Monaco on the do's and don't's of professional presentations. Later in the week, the team met with one of WPI's research librarians, Jess O'Toole. She reviewed our citations and helped us narrow down the keywords that would actually pertain to our eventual deliverable. Through her handout in ID2050, we identified a long list of background questions that we need answered in our paper and reviewed key points of background chapters. Through completing Assignment 2, we identified our Problem Statement and created a Mission Statement.  We are so excited to meet with our sponsor later next week and discuss further!

This week was a blast from the past - Jim Monaco visited our ID2050 class on Monday to present on how to become expert at giving professional and effective presentations. I was familiar with the content as he had presented to my Great Problems Seminar 2 years before. It served as a good refresher, and as he went through, I made notes about what aspects he was reviewing would benefit our team the most. - Emily T

This week I learned how to use Google sites, a service I didn't even know existed! It was tricky at first to reverse engineer the site from the example given, but after much googling (appropriate!) and experimentation, our site is coming together! For now we are leaving alone the sections that do not pertain to us yet, but we look forward to developing our site even further - Maggie Goodwin

Accreditation is a status symbol that shows an organization is up to the standards of the accrediting body. For most accrediting bodies, there is a lengthy process in order to get accredited.  Accreditation is important because it means organizations are using current best practices in all categories from employee management, financial management, and customer interactions. When an accrediting organization is recognized by other organizations or the government, the high standards that they keep become validated. -Noel Link:  http://coanet.org/accreditation/accreditation-overview/ Source:  https://www.shaw.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/664330/afrc-unveils-accreditation/