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Topic Ideas for Theses

Topic Ideas and Suggestions

Context: Existing Software Projects

I’ve collected a range of projects that tackle processes and functionality needed at the HTW - with the aim of developing against a real use case which is accessible for students.

The first version of the IMI-Map supports the Administration of Internships in our Bachelor’s Program since the Summer Term of 2013 and has been developed and extended in various bachelor’s theses and three practice projects.

The Module-Handbook was the basis of a the collaborative editorial process between several universities to create the initial curricula for the 12 study programs for the newly founded German International University of Cairo. It is currently both beeing ported into the IT of the GIU in Cairo in order to be the basis for further content maintenance as well as the data source for information on the website. It was supplemented with the Study Plan to plan a individual’s student studies and manage registration for elective courses.

See my List of Software-Projects for all projects and more info.

Ideas to extend the projects in any way are always welcome.

The extensions of the existing projects- as well as maybe new projects - can have a focus either on functional extensions and technology, on usability, (either user centered design or usability evaluations and improvement) or on process design and support.

Module Handbook

Student Record

Reusable and uniform course descriptions - as provided by the Module Handbook - can be the basis of a comprehensive student record: a nicely formatted list of all classes taken including module and content descriptions, which can be included by students in their CVs, e.g. for job or grant applications. This should be combined with the “Study Plan”, a Mevn-Based Application that allows for planning. Possible focus could be on technical solutions for verifying the reports, and integration of semester content and versioning thereof.

Markdown Editor and Wysiwig Editing

While content in the module handbook can be provided using markdown, no support for markdown editing exists. How can (some kind of) wysiwig editor be included in the module handbook? What needs to be done to generalize this approach? How can editing of module descriptions be made more intuitive? (here’s a page where I tinkered a bit which might be a possible starting point: Markdown Editor)

Markdown Editor)

Module Handbook Interface Overhaul

A great part of the current Interface still consists of views generated by the rails scaffolding, including a direct access to the link table (CourseProgram). While this simple draft turned out to be quites useful, this can be done better. This Thesis can be done with a user centered design approach, detailing and differentiating various use cases and their requirements, or a have a focus on a systematic usability evaluation.

Module Handbook: Growing Faculties

Since it’s initial start in 2020 the GIU has grown, and the Module-Handbook needs to grow accordingly: Editorial Processes become more complex, and a layer of faculties needs to be built in.

IMI-Map Migration and Data Mining

The IMI-Map has been ported to MEVN. The next step is to put the MEVN Version into Production, without

Word Wide Web

Homepage for All

30 years after the invention of the WWW publishing own content on web has actually become somewhat difficult: expectations of a high visual standard, legal reasons and pricing legal reasons, partly to pricing. While publishing a web site for free can be easy and fast (e.g. with github pages, Hugo and a free hosting service), these solutions are not really accessible without some coding background.

Content Management Systems like Wordpress are often the go-to solution, but are overly complex for most use cases. Commercial solutions exists, but will often lock in your content in a proprietary system.

How can this gap be closed? How can web publishing be made accessible again?

Providing a Front-End for the static web site generator Hugo may be a solution, similar solutions are out there, like HokusCMS but without local installation. (Here’s a list of Hugo frontends)

Former Topics

Module Handbook

• curricula and module descriptions underlie a complex versioning: part of the module description as the actual contents change each term and depending on the teacher, some information may only change with the official regulations. If you need to prove what you’ve already done in your studies - e.g. in order to get courses approved at another university - an exact record of your studies would be helpful:

  - How can the different regulations be modelled?
  - How can a versioning be implemented in the most simple and efficient way?
  

IMI-Map

Currently, the IMI-Map is migrated to MEVN. There most probably will be topics open which can be addressed within a Bachelor’s or Master’s thesis.

Online Group Building

The Missing Tool/Onboard offers the opportunity to create topics- based groups based on brain-storming with post-its. How usable is this approach? How can it be integrated with other collaboration/communication tools?

Web Applications

• Git as Versioning Backend: How can the power of Git be used as backend - e.g. for Versioning - within another app?

• Operations and Monitoring concept for the Software Projects and similar

Gender Automation

• Der Artikel Belohnungen und Lob: Das vergiftete Zuckerbrot enthält einen Switch (das runde “G” rechts) mit dem die Art des Entgendern des Textes frei gewählt werden kann. Die Idee stammt von Sören Kirchner, der diese und das zugehörige Script hier vorstellt. https://github.com/soeren-kirchner/gendy In Kooperation mit ihm könnten folgende Fragen bearbeitet werden:
  • wie kann ein Editor für diese Seiten aussehen, der mit speziellen oder möglichst vielen Veröffentlichungsmöglichkeiten zusammenarbeitet?
  • wie könnte ein Dictionary für das Entgendern aufgebaut werden?
  • und Sarah Bosetti: Lasst uns nie wieder übers Gendern reden!