15 Week Schedule

From BuildTheOpenMesh

Overview of Schedule

Each week's three (3) hour class will consist of:

• a lecture

• breakout sessions, project status and demo sessions

• software usage

Lectures will consist of theoretical and historical background information, relevant dashboard and on-line web technologies and real-world lessons and competitive analysis. Focus will be on providing compelling experiences to the residents of Hessler St. and researching the various subjects, technologies and opportunities made possible by enabling gigabit networking.

Breakout sessions will see the various inter-disciplinary groups (who were established at the beginning of the semester) work on their specific on-going responsibilities and deliverables.

Project status - each project's status will be closely monitored. Project Assignments. deliverables, specifications, resources usage and allocation and on-going communication with partner resources will be constantly monitored.

Demo sessions - on-going projects will be constantly asked to demo what they have - and progress reported to the class and partners.

Software Usage - it is imperative that all members of the class acquaint themselves with the usage of the system, the collaborative tools, the admin screens, end-user web based interfaces and other examples of our on-line platform. Only through using software can we truly understand what needs to be designed and built.

Here is the preliminary 15 week course outline

Week 1 – What is the Hessler St. project? What are our goals? Review dashboards, fiber optic provisioning, the open web. How to build the Open Mesh ( hi-res pdf, lo-res pdf ). How to build a Digital City ( hi-res pdf, lo-res pdf ).

How will the course be organized? Lectures, Presentations and software usage. Goals for the semester. Schedule, dependencies, anticipated issues.

Introduction to all the constituents. Who's missing? 12-18 month scenario. I'm gonna go for a Phd.

- we had a great intro class - not many registered students - but "Hey!" - yah gotta start somewhere!

Week 2 – Continue to assign specific tasks for specific students - to ascertain ability level. Video festival.

Do EOY pitch and modified AA pitch. Do usage scenarios - how all three paths might look like.

Demo PeopleAggregator and get everyone to sign up. Layout what we think the deployment configuration will be for May '10. Imagine what happens after that.

- fun video festival!

Week 3 – What it takes to run PeopleAggregator? How to be a sysop and system administrator. Go over PeepAgg. Dashboards and the external web services of the program.

- I'll be constantly assigning tasks to programmers all semester.  

Week 4 – 1st version of the dashboard up and running (vanilla PeopleAggregator.) The deployment system roughed out. All of the sub-systems and core services reviewed. More theory on how to get it all working together. Discuss what the start pages should look and feel like. Out of box experience.

- Thai night
- Final schedule revealed

Week 5 Continue to play with PeopleAggregator. Use Grokstar!

– Free Pizza night. 
- Pages Plus demo

Week 6 Go over what the course projects are and how they will all inter-connect together. Review the history of Hessler St. and the festival.

- eWeek projects reviewed
- PeopleAggregator played with
- Mantis bug reporting

Week 7 – Network admin tools learned. Usage simulations played out. Entire signal path of content, services and cloud people traced.

Pages Plus integrated with PeopleAggregator - tags, modules, SSO

How to be a community liaison with an on-line community. The inter-connection of hippies, the tech community and the Internet.

Interviews started. Footage reviewed.

iDEA Institute presented. Studying the phenomena of inter-disciplinary courses.

Freenet, early CWRU networking, the Connected Communities vision. Lev Gonick presentation.

Omega phase

Pages Plus played with......

Week 8 – We should have a good idea of what the partner’s external services will be. Our dashboard software will be deployed to support and complement these services (Health, Safety, Energy, Television, VoIP.) The nature of what a truly open network will be discussed.

– Initial interviews held, footage reviewed?  Schedule of regularly updated content, links, blog posts started.  Analytics criteria for study established, tags in place. 

New business models reviewed.

We should also be thinking about what the resident's council will be.

Week 9 – Surveys and IRB goals reviewed. "What does it take to get people to use on-line technology?” Compelling experiences, interesting content, exciting activities. Partner core services reviewed and integrated into admin and management procedures.

Gary Wnek presentation - polymers, science, medical devices, iDEA Institute projects

Community liaison setup. Resident's council in place.

Residents council formed – bi-weekly meetings. Interviews planned.

History of Digital Cities - where are we going? Digital Cities around the world - what do they mean by the term?

Week 10 – First edits of the documentary, new interviews, relevant links and feeds in place for a decent site on "The History of Hessler Street" - or is it really about Coventry?

Guest lecture on remote monitoring services?

Open network deal - what kind of television programming will we be able to offer?

Week 11 – Festival plans finalized, deliverables drafted, meet with Festival people – demo software. Dashboards refined.

Idealistic web services reviewed, Core services outlined.

Content plugged in. New unique content being developed on a daily basis.

Final 'Fair' configuration frozen.

Week 12 – Sysop and admin teams in place. Alpha House bureau setup.

Field trip to Alpha house.

Code meets content meets services. External services plugged in.

Testing/QA commences.

Week 13 – Contest launched – with sponsor. Goes viral.

All road point to the Festival.

Guest lecture from Jeff Gumpf and Dennis Risen

Week 14 – First accounts should be available - by now. Others clamor for access. Summer plans in place, program, expands. Final dashboard updates, new content plugged in.

First deployment of partner’s external services. Dashboard software deployed with some customization in place. Residents can now create “their own” start page interface.

Surveys conducted with residents.

Week 15 - Final demo of the system – to the public.

Course Final - "drop the needle" knowledge test!

Ribbon cutting ceremony - second week of May

May 22-23 - Participate in the Hessler St. Fair - premiere the documentary. And 'the making of' - as well.