How can I find it?

You Killed It

by samoore (30 Aug 2009 15:07; last edited on 30 Aug 2009 15:07)

Yes, I'm sure you were responsible:

Project Information

by samoore (30 Aug 2009 15:07; last edited on 30 Aug 2009 15:07)

There's nothing new in this announcement — I'm just clarifying some instructions. Again, there's nothing new here.

In general, throughout the information sources section of the wiki, the more you can instruct the reader, the more useful you can make it to your "successor", the better your evaluation will be.

• Where did you get such useful information about this topic?
• How might a person be able to stay on top of any new developments?
• Where can I find good sources of background information on this topic?
• Finally, and probably most difficult:
  • How might a person find new sources of information that crop up in the next year or two?
  • What types of queries should be done to look for these new sources?
  • Are there specific bloggers that are to be most trusted?
  • Are there specific collections of resources that seem to be updated most frequently and diligently?

You are instructing the analyst who is taking over your position at the end of December. It is your responsibility to not only prepare a good report (i.e., wiki) describing the status of the topic at the end of December, but it is also your responsibility to ensure that he/she will be able to carry on your tradition of excellence (that you are helping to establish with this wiki). You are informing and instructing with this wiki.

Student Blog Entries Added To Site

by samoore (30 Aug 2009 15:07; last edited on 30 Aug 2009 15:07)

Now that you are turning in blog entries and I'm actually grading them, I have had students who have gotten 10/10 grades on their blog entries to add them to this site. If you have gotten a grade lower than you would have liked, you might spend a few minutes reading them as a way of seeing what type of work I am rewarding with these exceptional grades.

How To Organize Your Project Wiki

by samoore (30 Aug 2009 15:07; last edited on 30 Aug 2009 15:07)

In this announcement I address questions I have gotten from a few students related to how they should organize the project wiki.

Think about the context of this wiki. It is being used as an educational resource for an incoming analyst; you, the author, is the outgoing analyst who is instructing the incoming analyst about this topic. So most of the content will be organized in a way that you think would help the incoming analyst learn about the topic. At the same time, this is a class and you want to impress me about your knowledge about the skills, techniques, and technologies that you have learned during the semester.

Here are some insights into how I think you should think about organizing your wiki:

• The wiki home page should provide a guide as to what can be found on the site. It should be easily scannable. It should also provide links into the various parts of the site.
• Your site should probably have the following sections:
  • Background information
    • An evaluation of the resources you used
  • Recent current events — something like a timeline, a series of blog entries; something that gives the incoming analyst an idea of what's been going on with the company recently.
  • Instructions on how to keep up with ongoing current events
    • Your blogroll will be accessible within the site
    • An evaluation of the RSS feeds that are in the blogroll, including reliability but also what the user can expect to find in each of the feeds
  • Descriptions (for me, the professor) about what techniques and technologies you used, how you used them, what they resulted in
• The menu system should help the user navigate the site.

Don't forget that this site will be made public at the end of the semester.

I will write about this more as the semester goes on, but I've already gotten some questions about this so I thought I'd put in my two cents. (BTW, I am adding this information to the project page.)

Term Project Status Report 1

by samoore (30 Aug 2009 15:07; last edited on 30 Aug 2009 15:07)

The status report is due on September 29. None of this is new, but I want to be sure that you understand what is required:

• I met with most of you (but not all; this was a requirement).
• Be sure to read the term project page, especially under Status Report.
• Change the title of your wiki on the list of wikis.
• Change the title of your wiki on your wiki's Site Manager page.
• Your wiki start page should have a description of your research topic.
• You do not need to turn anything in for this assignment. I will check it all online. The only page on your wiki that I will look at is the start page (and the title of the wiki).

See you in class!

Extended Office Hours For Projects

by samoore (30 Aug 2009 15:07; last edited on 30 Aug 2009 15:07)

This week I will be having extended office hours so that you can meet with me about your project. I have set up a sign up sheet on this wiki. Go to this page and sign up for a 15 minute block of time. Come prepared with a possible topic and questions that you might have as well as comments/questions about the class. See you soon!

Term Projects From Last Year

by samoore (30 Aug 2009 15:07; last edited on 30 Aug 2009 15:07)

I found the page that lists last year's term project topics. You should ignore the "Personal" topics and focus on the "business" topics. The particularly good topics that I remember were

• Education
• Gold
• Ethanol
• Uranium
• Oil
• Commercial Real Estate
• Wind/Solar Power
• Carbon Trading
• Sovereign Wealth Funds
• Pharmaceuticals

Spreadsheet For Analysis Assignment

by samoore (30 Aug 2009 15:07; last edited on 30 Aug 2009 15:07)

I have finally put together the data from both of the data-gathering exercises that you have completed. The data can be found in this Excel spreadsheet. Note that there are three tables of data on two sheets. Post any questions about this data on the forum. As stated in the assignment page, don't talk to anyone about this assignment.

Putting An Image On A Web Page

by samoore (30 Aug 2009 15:07; last edited on 30 Aug 2009 15:07)

If you are a UM student, you should be able to upload images onto your personal IFS space and then make those images appear in your wiki (or this wiki).

Instructions for making images available are on this page. You only need to use MFile to set this up.

After going through the above steps, I would make a subdirectory named classes within the html directory, and then I would make a subdirectory named bit330f08 within the classes subdirectory. For any images that you want to publish somewhere on the Web (for example, on a wiki), put it in this subdirectory. The URL of this file would be

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~uniqname/classes/bit330f08/FILENAME

As an aside, after going through all of the above steps, you should move all of your class-related files (from all classes) out of the subdirectory ~uniqname/ and put them into the subdirectory ~/uniqname/Private/. If files are in the ~/uniqname/ subdirectory and not within the ~/uniqname/Private/ subdirectory, then anyone who has a uniqname can see those files; once you have put them into the ~/uniqname/Private/ subdirectory, then you will be the only one to be able to see those files. You might also think about making separate subdirectories within ~/uniqname/Private/ for each of your classes.

What This Class Is About

by samoore (30 Aug 2009 15:07; last edited on 30 Aug 2009 15:07)

I have come up with a graphic that — I think, anyway — helps show the relationship among all the topics covered in this class

A full-page PDF of this file can be found at this page.

For Class On Sept 10

by samoore (30 Aug 2009 15:07; last edited on 30 Aug 2009 15:07)

Three quick notices for Wednesday's class:

• If you have a pair of small headphones, please bring them to Wednesday's class.
• You will receive a 20% deduction from the class notes (or test questions) assignment if you have not signed up by the beginning of Wednesday's class (as requested in the first two classes).
• You will receive a 20% deduction from the industry update assignment if you have not signed up by the beginning of Wednesday's class (as requested in the first two classes).

Questions Are Now Set Up

by samoore (30 Aug 2009 15:07; last edited on 30 Aug 2009 15:07)

I got a question in class today about links to the possible test questions.

I had already set up a link for daily student notes, but I had not set up links to the test questions. I have now changed the template for the schedule pages so that it shows the link to test questions right next to the link for the daily student notes.

You can see the links at the top of this page.

I have also set up two additional menu items found under “Content”:

• Notes list: this contains a list of every “notes” page that has been created. There will still be links on each schedule page, but this pulls all of the notes pages into one place.
• Questions list: this does the same thing for “questions” pages.

Blog Entries

by samoore (30 Aug 2009 15:07; last edited on 30 Aug 2009 15:07)

I've begun to post blog entries; you can see them at the bottom of the start page.

I read lots of technology news. Lots. I will post links and short comments about these in blog entries that I will post irregularly. You will also be posting blog entries soon (about search, google, and yahoo) but I figured I would get us started. Further, yours will be cover more than just one article as mine most likely will.

Anyway, these entries that I post aren't for a grade — they're just in case you might be interested.

First Day

by samoore (30 Aug 2009 15:07; last edited on 30 Aug 2009 15:07)

So, we've had our first meeting.

After you have signed up for the class, you should go to this page —- you can find a link to it either from the start page or the schedule page. In any case, look through it and do what you're asked to do.

One thing I forgot to mention. If you have a laptop, you should probably bring it to class so that you can set up software and do your work on it. No problem if you don't, but I thought I'd at least mention it. Talk to me about it if you have any questions.