SHAREPOINT CLUSTER PROJECT

Team 6Bright Amadi

Teja VadlamudiLin Yuan

November 15, 2010

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Executive Summary…………………………………

3 Problem

Statements………………………………...4 Stakeholder Analysis…………………………….

….5 Objectives……………………………………………..

6 SharePoint SWOT Analysis……………………..…

7 Pros and Cons of

Blackboard………………………8 Costs of

SharePoint………………………………….9 Recommendations…………………………………..

10 Conclusion……………………………………….

…..11 Appendices…………………………….………...12-

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARYSharePoint, according to Microsoft, is a collaboration tool that “makes it easier for people to work together.” Additionally, using SharePoint, it is possible to “share information with others, manage documents from start to finish, and publish reports to help everyone make better decisions.”Within the scope of our final project for this class, we were asked to determine whether SharePoint is an ideal collaboration tool for usage in College of Business, more specifically within the Integrated Cluster program. After having done a thorough analysis, we have determined that SharePoint is indeed the ideal tool and have even developed an implementation plan along with recommendations to ease the process of implementing it.Using our SWOT analysis, we have developed three recommendations for our MIS department to best implement SharePoint as the primary collaboration tool and best receive value from it. These recommendations include: First and foremost, actually adopting SharePoint as the primary collaboration tool for Cluster classes. If the initial response is positive within Cluster, look to expand SharePoint to the rest of College of Business. Finally, to save costs, forego hiring external SharePoint consultants as we have several professors and students who have thorough knowledge in SharePoint.In conclusion, by implementing SharePoint as the primary collaboration tool, we are looking to make it easier for students to work together, share information, manage documents, and publish reports. We thoroughly advocate using SharePoint over Blackboard or ISMS for collaboration purposes.

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PROBLEM STATEMENTSBusiness Problems: The primary reason in implementing SharePoint as the collaboration software platform for the College of Business lies in the fact that it is an extremely powerful. Provided it is used to its potential, SharePoint could essentially combine features that exist in Blackboard and ISMS into one central platform.

Functional Problems: On a technical level, aside from ISMS, Blackboard isn’t central to Ohio University. Blackboard currently runs on third party servers, while this does save space in terms of server usage, it also means any outages are out of our control. SharePoint on the other hand, could be run centrally as well as externally if we feel the need to use third party services.

Security Problems: SharePoint is a well-established platform that is consistently maintained by Microsoft, similar to Blackboard. Having said that, the same expectations don’t necessarily apply to ISMS. Combining these two collaboration platforms into one would greatly reduce security risks, since you would only have to worry about risks associated with one platform.

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STAKEHOLDER ANALYSIS

The stakeholder who has the final decision and are in position to benefit

from the deployment of this 491 SharePoint site would be the Ohio

University’s College of Business. The implementation of SharePoint as the collaboration software platform could

essentially combine multitude of features that are separate from

Blackboard and ISMS into one platform. Additionally, allowing students to have

experience using SharePoint would allow them to differentiate themselves with a more unique set of skills that are well

applicable to the job market today.

Since the MIS faculty members have decided to pilot SharePoint for the cluster class, the initial stakeholder would be for the cluster students as well as the professors involved

with it. The challenges lie in initial skepticism held by the professors who aren’t fully aware of what SharePoint is and what it can do as a

collaboration tool. It is our responsibility to educate the

professors on SharePoint on what it is, and what it can do to better add to CoB’s tools for collaboration. From both student and faculty

perspective, maintaining one standard collaboration tool would be much more

feasible. Faculty wouldn’t have to make the decision whether to use Blackboard or ISMS for their class. In addition, students wouldn’t need to have to switch between the two from

class to class.

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OBJECTIVESThe objective of this team project can be broken down into the

following:

Implement SharePoint as the collaboration software platform for

CoB in the future

Pilot SharePoint with the cluster classes

Educate the professors on what SharePoint is and the capabilities of

SharePoint

Develop a concrete business case about

implementing SharePoint in the

college

Develop a prototype on the intranet (virtually)

Deliver the schematic report along with prototype to the

professors

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SHAREPOINT SWOT ANALYSIS

Strengths- Microsoft enterprise level product

- Multiple out of box tools- Widely used

-Intuitive web-based tool

Weaknesses- Expensive upfront costs

-Need a subject matter expert-System requirements are high

Opportunities- Easy to organize and search for

documents- Easy to extend SharePoint using

InfoPath

Threats- Requires extensive planning in

order deploy- Many other alternatives

SWOT

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PROS AND CONS BLACKBOARD

- Easily tailored to academic purposes- Widely used at Ohio University- Simply out of box functionality- Security is not CoB’s concern

- Remotely stored (not centralized)- Not all out of box functionalities are suitable for CoB needs- Collaboration tools are not up-to-par

PROS

CONS

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COSTS OF SHAREPOINT

Other Costs Hardware Costs:

Microsoft suggests customers to use multi-processor 64 bit servers with 2 GB of RAM

Consulting Costs: Optional because the MIS department has several

professors who have prior experience working with SharePoint

Licensing Costs PriceSharePoint 2010 Server $4,200SharePoint 2010 Internet Sites Standard

$10,200

SharePoint 2010 Internet Sites Enterprise

$37,000

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RECOMMENDATIONS Adopt SharePoint as a main collaboration tool

for cluster classes. If the response is positive, implement for the

rest of the College of Business. Have professors who have experience with

SharePoint act as subject matter experts in the event of any problems that may arise.

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CONCLUSION Ohio University is experiencing

many functional problems related its current usage of Blackboard. In order to eliminate these problems, we recommend implementing SharePoint 2010 as the main collaboration tool. Some of the costs of SharePoint include licensing costs, hardware costs and consulting costs but we feel that the pros of this SharePoint outweigh both the implementation costs and the costs of sticking with the current system.

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APPENDIX A: SITE COLLECTION PROTOTYPE

In order to create the Business Cluster homepage we used the SharePoint designer. We removed the recycle bin and all site content links because they are unnecessary to the usability of this site. We also added a description so that visitors know exactly what this site is for. Most of the pages within this site and in the images below will only be able to be edited by the site administrator.

We also customized the home page of the Mis202 site by putting the calendar and the announcements on the homepage. Available in SharePoint is the ability to see the Calendar in the left web part and the announcements in the right.

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APPENDIX A CONTINUED

When a user clicks on the announcements link on the Mis202 homepage, this announcement page is what shows up.

When the assignments link is clicked, this Mis202 assignment page shows up. It would show every assignment that has been added to this Mis202 page.

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APPENDIX A CONTINUED

The image above shows the Mis202 grade page. This page shows the assignment title, the grade received, the average grade, possible points, the due date and others (meaning comments).

On the Mis202 course material page, documents can be uploaded by the administrator.

When the Exam/Quiz link is clicked, the page above shows up. The user can see a graphical summary of responses and also all of the responses that were given. The user will see the name, description, time created and the number of responses.

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APPENDIX A CONTINUED

Above are the results of a sample Exam/quiz. The user will be able to see all of the questions and the percentage of people that choose each response. The user will be able to compare their answers to those of the rest of the class.

When the course discussion board is clicked, the page above will show up. All users and Administrators will be able to add content to this page. Each discussion shows the subject, who it was created by, the number of replies, and when it was last updated. Above is a sample discussion on the Mis202 discussion board. This page has the picture of the person who posted the discussion and with the topic and the replies.

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APPENDIX A CONTINUED

This image shows the Cluster project tasks page. Half of the page shows the tasks in a list while the other half shows when these tasks should be started and completed.

This is the Team 1 site (under project 1a). Each of the 8 teams will have their own site and will be able to edit the content on the site. On the homepage there are four web parts; File exchange, Calendar, Group discussion board, and the group members.

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APPENDIX A CONTINUED

Above is the Team 1 site group member page. This page shows the name, email address and telephone number of each group member.

This is the Team 1 site instructor site. This page shows all of the information about the instructor.

The image above shows the templates we created and used to make this site.

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APPENDIX B: SITE COLLECTION DESIGN

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APPENDIX C: REFERENCES Bakker, A. (2010, May 27). Indicative SharePoint

2010 licensing costs. Retrieved from http://www.sharepointconfig.com/2010/05/indicative-sharepoint-2010-licencing-costs/

Evans, M. (n.d.). What is SharePoint. Retrieved from http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint-foundation-help/what-is-sharepoint-HA010378184.aspx

Welfer, J. (2009, April 14). SharePoint deployment SWOT analysis. Retrieved from http://shareperl.blogspot.com/2009/04/sharepoint-deployment-swot-analysis.html