Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has the lowest primary education enrollment and youth literacy rate of all the regions reported to the United Nations. In fact, more than half of the world’s out-of-school children live in SSA and one out every four children who actually enter primary education will leave before completing the last grade (United Nations 2013). This study examines the design and planning stages of a project known as the Namibian Library Development Program (NLDP) to identify if it has the potential to support primary education in SSA. It uses documentation provided by consultants to the project as well as literature, multimedia, and empirical data to examine relationships between stakeholders and possibilities for school improvements. Ultimately, the study illustrates how NLDP’s innovative and thorough approach could assist primary education in SSA but only if issues surrounding its sustainability are accounted for. 

Shrinking Department of Defense budgets have resulted in a greater focus on IT project expenses. The Defense Integrated Military Human Resource System (DIMHRS) was cancelled after seven years of development and expenditures of approximately a billion dollars. My project is a case study examining the risks faced and encountered by a major Department of Defense ERP project. Through interviews and examination of relevant documents, the identification of three primary risks emerged focusing on the complex stakeholder requirements, service resistance, and an inadequate management structure resulting in the project’s failure. Lessons learned from the DIMHRS failure can benefit other IT projects through the identification of show-stopper risks that prevent systems from being developed on time and within budget.

Alaska Airlines has a large pool of 3300 flight attendants. To improve the work efficiency and lower down the labor cost, there is an immense need for supervisors to measure the performance of flight attendants on the basis of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). It is also very important for every flight attendant to be able to track his performance under different performance categories as well as view the average peer score for comparison. There should be an easy, efficient, and less time-consuming way to do this task as the major problem is that the data is scattered at different places. Our Project: It involves researching and refining the data available from different sources. It also involves designing a prototype of a user friendly flight attendant performance measurement dashboard which will be able to fetch relevant data from different places and show the processed information (performance scores) at a single platform.

The University of Washington (UW) Libraries, like many organizations, are facing a large number of retirements in the next 5-10 years. This could result in a massive loss of experience and institutional knowledge, which would be detrimental to UW as a whole. This is because the UW Libraries holds a central position in the success of the University as an academic research university. As the intellectual commons of the University, both physically and virtually, the Libraries address the information needs of the whole University community. By combining a literature review, interviews with staff, and case studies, I investigated current and future trends in academic libraries and higher education, identified necessary leadership competencies, and recommended best practices to help create an effective succession plan that will ensure a smooth transition to new leadership. 

Despite the Jefferson County Jail’s proximity to the city’s public library, no formal relationship currently exists between the two organizations. In order to better serve a currently unserved population, a user needs analysis was conducted on the jail for the purpose of informing the library about possible outreach opportunities. This analysis identified the scope of programs and services currently available to inmates while they are incarcerated and upon release, as well as community organizations that are currently providing programs and services at the jail. The analysis also discovered gaps in the current services and programs being offered to inmates. Identifying these gaps better enables the library to develop an outreach program that is relevant to the jail population.

There was a time when an academic degree was earned on a physical campus, but those times have changed. As the mode of educational delivery has shifted to satellite and online campus options, the academic library system has had to adjust in order to meet the needs of their students and instructors. My project looks at the challenges and possibilities of a library presence for online students at Northeastern University Seattle. Realizing the strength of academic programs is found in the strength of its library system, I used existing scholarship and models to imagining new library possibilities and create recommendation that will equip NEU Libraries to be the information core for their online and satellite students.

Any major business shift, be it an acquisition, a new technology or strategy, require an organizational response.This necessitates the need for an organization transformation effort, in which the group, at any specific point of time, should have instant access to information they require relating to projects, tools, internal documents and reports. One of Intel’s leading design groups has undergone a major organization transformation effort. In order to consolidate multiple sites and provide information to the entire organization, the project’s main goal is to have an information rich integrated SharePoint site integrating operations, strategies and processes across multiple groups. This includes an external customer facing site and an internal site restricted to resources within the group. This site helps in effectively aligning to continually evolving changes in the group and increases the presence of this group in the organization roadmap.

Alaska Airlines, the 7th largest passenger airline in the US, employs around 1400 pilots and first officers. It requires extensive planning and forecasting to plan for flight trips by accommodating varying schedules of the pilots. Over- or under-estimation of pilot’s flying time impacts the overall costs, and it needs to be utilized efficiently as hiring pilots is expensive. After extensive research we came up with a solution in the form of a predictive analytics algorithm. It considers the pilot’s historical data comprising of variables such as vacation and training hours, and helps in predicting the open flying time for the pilots. This solution will automate the process of calculating open flying time and will assist the team at Alaska to prepare pilot’s monthly schedule in advance. The nearly accurate estimation will lead to elimination of superfluous costs resulting from over/under estimation of open flying time and will ultimately lead to heightened pilot productivity.

Our client, Test Innovators, provides practice curriculums for the Independent School Entrance Exam (ISEE) in an effort to address the gap in resources for adequate preparation. The biggest issue holding them back from success was a process that analyzed the standardized grading system which would give them insightful information to use and relay to their users. We tackled this problem by performing data cleansing, modeling, and analysis on data sets provided by the client which was collected from students who had already taken their practice exams. To gauge success and effectiveness, our user’s scores will be 10% higher than non-Test Innovator users and our system will also provide grade predictability within one grade level since the stanine grading scale ranges from level one to level nine. With this ISEE grading analysis process, we provide high levels of confidence and preparation for our client’s users in their test-taking careers.

Libraries of all types often need expertise and advice from outside of their institutions. Where do they turn? To consulting agencies. But finding the right agency can be a daunting first step for any undertaking. What if libraries had one consulting agency that could expertly advise them on any type of project? Through extensive market research, we have helped to lay the foundation for a consulting agency geared to serving libraries in any endeavor. This small business is set to launch in September 2014, and plans to serve libraries throughout Washington State, with long term goals of geographic expansion, as well as expanding service to other cultural knowledge institutions.