Local scene, global stage.

The goal of this project was the creation of a beverage and flavor taxonomy and ontology to allow the Starbucks Business Intelligence Team to successfully complete analytics and pick up trends. Terms, definitions, and structures were developed through a combination of current-state domain research, stakeholder interviews, and use case scenarios. Our ontology will enable Starbucks to better understand the relationships between their products and the metadata around them. The taxonomy and controlled vocabulary we have established will aid the analytics team by demonstrating hierarchies and relationships so that their is data more organized so it can be effectively used.

OCLC claims that the Dewey Decimal System is “continuously revised to keep pace with knowledge (1)," but what pace is that, and which knowledge? Following through with inaccurate ideas about the public, using language that supports pervasive socio-cultural hierarchies, has violent cultural implications that our public library stacks express linguistically and structurally. This project sought to apply alternative cataloging methods to a small collection of Black Feminist works in attempt to eliminate these biased practices and rectify issues the that arise, such as misinformation and access. 1. (goo.gl/VmwtNe)

Creating a video game is an arduous process, especially in an ever-growing billion-dollar industry. Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 4 gives users the opportunity to develop their own games. However, their documentation often faces challenges of discoverability and usability due to non-standard tagging vocabulary. Our project solves this problem by creating a taxonomy, which allows users of different backgrounds and skill levels to easily search through documentation. It produces significant commercial implications by improving accessibility for new users, and serving as a foundation for future work, such as ontology development and Documentation as a Service, increasing developer participation and diversity.

The Woodmark Group is a not-for-profit organization that links children’s hospitals across the United States and Canada. They provide a platform called the Woodmark Exchange to manage communication and resources with over 2,000 fundraisers across 26 hospitals. Through an iterative user-centered design process, we built features such as email integration, user engagement, search optimization, and a master library to empower fundraisers to do their best work. The new platform enables fundraisers to discover, share, and implement best practices to ensure resources are used effectively and efficiently to lead the development of philanthropy, to improve the health of children everywhere.

Actively Me is an app that centralizes outdoor activity discovery, selection, and planning. A major element of the app is the ability to match users to activities based on individual preferences and temporal factors. The goal of this project was to construct a functional and scalable taxonomy that successfully addresses the information architecture and user needs of the app. Facets,terms, and structure were identified through combination of domain research, user surveys, and card sort testing.

With the increase in internet connected devices, the number of unprotected and compromised devices is on the rise. While many corporations can afford security systems, homeowners and small businesses are left with traditional host-based antivirus that is limited to specific devices and operating systems. IC3 represents a prototype of a consumer-grade network intrusion detection system, providing users with enterprise-grade network security at an affordable cost and entry-level technical capability requirements. IC3 comes in the form of a router, with a built-in web interface for accessing detections and steps on how to remediate them.

People often fondly talk about their unique experiences at college but more often than not they also speak of the missed opportunities and things they should have done. Universities however big or small are complex entities bustling with life and activity and it seems fairly impossible to be able to make the most of these opportunities. We at Team Milo decided to create a University wide personalized social media platform to help students, faculty and employees to meet new people, make plans and mobilize!! Our team name and motto is ‘Milo’, a Hindi word which does not simply mean ‘to meet’ but adds the much needed dimension of ‘willingness’ to its meaning. In this age, where our virtual presence is taking over our social presence, we felt it was time to take advantage of the very fact and promote interaction & collaboration on campus and to simply make some new friends and have some fun!

STEM education in the 21st century continues to grow. Few online resources focus on teaching K-12 students and often circumvent instructors. MSR, a leading innovator and manufacturer of field-proven technologies, is working to create an extensive curriculum that will help both students and teachers. There are two parts to our project; teaching students with our online platform and aiding teachers by providing them with the curriculum and documents used for the platform. Students can learn on their own using the platform while instructors can create more interactive lessons and activities with the documents provided.