12.1 Goals and Milestones

12.1 Goals and Milestones

The course project is a significant part of learning in this course. In this process, you are set to perform a detailed evaluation of a specific technology, design, or approach, and, as the next step, you explore the path of this technology to implementation in a specific setting or locale.

For your project, you will need to pick a topic – a specific technology for assessment. Here, by technology, we mean a concept, a process to produce or convert something, design, approach, or a device. It should be relatively innovative and promising from your point of view. You can choose something from the area of your professional experience or a new area that you’d like to explore. The work you do on the project will surely push you to learn more about the topic you choose, so it is good to link it to your current or future professional interest.

By locale, we mean the geographic location, but not only that! Location of the project will also dictate a variety of conditions, such as climate, terrain, available infrastructure, local market and economy, political situation, policy landscape, population, cultural aspects - all those things, in fact, will have a profound impact on how a specific technology is perceived by stakeholders and how effective its implementation may be. In other words, building and implementation of a project should always be specific to the locale to ensure maximum benefits and economic success.

To ensure successful technology implementation, you will need to look at your subject from different angles - technical performance, environmental impact, marketability, social impact - and recommend metrics for such evaluation. You will need to investigate your subject thoroughly, identify pros and cons, assess opportunities and risks. An important aspect of the project will be to apply your assessment to a specific setting and, based on your findings, propose an implementation scenario for your case.

Technology assessment report should be a competent and clear communication to inform various classes of stakeholders, including (i) policy makers, (ii) investors, and (iii) general public. If you believe that your chosen technology is a valuable piece of the sustainable local development, this is the chance to make your case! 

To develop such a compelling and well-justified communication, we will start early in the course and go step by step. The table below lists the key milestones for the EME 807 Course project development through the semester along with submission requirements and the portions of the grade assigned for each step. The specific due dates for submissions can be found in Canvas; please look them up and plan ahead.

Note: More guidance on these submissions is provided in the following sections of this Lesson.