DePaul students taking “Software Projects for Community
Clients” help fill that gap by working with nonprofit organizations to
build, rebuild, or improve their websites. Students benefit from the
experience of solving a real-world problem for organizations that
are working on critical issues, while nonprofits boost how they use
essential communication tools. Students sign-up for two classes
– one in the winter quarter and one in the spring. This winter and
spring terms forty students are taking the class and are working on
a total of eight projects. Along the way, students keep a journal in
which they reflect on their experience and ethical issues related to
accessing technology.
This year, the course is taught by Terry Steinbach, Associate
Professor in the Jarvis College of Computing and Digital Media (CDM).
Steinbach has considerable experience in meeting the technology
needs of organizations. For fifteen years, she owned her own
information technology consulting company in Chicago where she
worked primarily in the financial and private sector. She taught
part-time at DePaul– and earned four degrees from the university
-- including a Ph.D. in computer science from CDM. After taking the
professorship position at DePaul, Steinbach went on a Vincentian
Heritage Tour for faculty and staff in France which, she notes
“was fantastic -- and it strengthened my commitment to service
learning.”
Learning New Skills
Students in the class, Steinbach says, use software applications
that are new to them. “They learn it on their own,” she says. “That
fits in with the idea that students should be lifelong learners.” The
course doesn’t only require that students learn, develop and apply
technical skills to improve an organization’s website, however It also gives them an opportunity to practice
intercommunication skills. “How will they
participate on a team? How will they listen?”
she asks. “These skills, of course, are very
important.” Steinbach says students in this
class learn how nonprofits work and the challenges they face. “Generally, the people we
work with in nonprofits wear so many hats in
their organization. Because their budget goes
to services they provide to the community,
they don’t have the resources or time to do
everything they want to do. They do good
work – but it’s often on a shoestring.”
Focus on Improving Websites
Grace Canavan, a senior majoring in
information systems, praises the real-world
nature of the class – and her professor’s
commitment to service learning. “You can tell
this professor really cares – she really wants
us to learn about things we’ll need to know
after we graduate. We have to arrange meetings, work outside the classroom and take
things into our own hands. Instead of writing
a one-page homework assignment, we work
with our client. It’s real experience.” Canavan
is project manager for a team that includes
four other students. One of her responsibilities is to manage communication between
the client and the student team.
Canavan and her team are working with
First Defense Legal Aid, which runs a hotline
and provides free legal services to anyone
when they get arrested. “I am learning that
not everything goes as planned,” Canavan
says. “It’s a big eye-opener – this group is so
busy, doing a million things at once.”
Through
this organization, attorneys also go to police
stations to interview clients – sometimes in
the middle of the night.
Students in the class are building a
website for First Defense; the website will
feature a volunteer database and a
database to run analytics about the population the organization is serving. In addition,
one of the team’s projects is to address the
organization’s need to enhance its search
engine optimization. “When someone types
a phrase like ‘free attorney,’ you want this
group to come up on the list,” says Canavan.
Jessica Schreiber, staff attorney and executive director of First Defense Legal Aid, says
that “Right now, we don’t have anyone in the
office who handles information technology.
To have DePaul students figure it out is such
a blessing. A lot of the work we need done is
not particularly complicated for someone who
is studying it. To us, it’s a monumental task.”
Schreiber says that it is “especially important
that the organization improve how it quantifies the impact of its services.”
“In order to staff a hotline of one hundred
volunteer attorneys,” she adds, “we want to
make the website accessible to them. Volunteers can use it to answer questions – and
ask them. We also need to make the website
more informative for funders. It’s important to
provide content on new developments in the
organization.”
Ryan Quinn, a senior majoring in interactive media, is project manager with a team of
students that is working with St. Joseph
Services, an outreach ministry serving
families and individuals at risk in Chicago’s
Humboldt Park/West Town and Austin communities. He says of the class that “it is
real-life experience mixed with service. It’s a
unique opportunity – you are doing something that will go live.” Quinn suggests that
there is an added benefit for students who
take this class – they get real-world business
experience by working to solve problems that
impact an organization. “You take on the role
of being your own organization, as if you were
your own web design firm,” he says.
Lisa Sullivan, executive director at St.
Joseph Services, says the organization has
worked with the Steans Center and students
engaged in various service learning activities
on numerous occasions - including students
who were majoring in education, theology
and accounting. “Student get hands-on
experience from working with a nonprofit,”
she says.
“Overall, this project has provided a lot of
positive interactions on both sides. I was also
initially impressed by the questions students
asked,” says Sullivan.
Daniel Rosenberger, a senior majoring in
information systems, was project manager
for a project with the Coalition of Asian, Arab,
African, European and Latino Immigrants
(CAAAELI). The group is a parent organization
for seventeen smaller organizations. “The
biggest challenge they have is juggling information from all of these groups, including
pre- and post-test information from immigrant
efforts to learn civics, English and become
citizens,” he says. “There’s just a world of
information they need to collect.”
The organization, says Rosenberger, has
been using spreadsheets to update information, which has been increasingly difficult and
time-consuming to track. “Our goal is to develop a web-based application to help make
their work more streamlined, so they don’t
have to spend as many hours staying
up to date,” he says. “As for students, we
want to take away the experience of a
start-to-finish experience that has us ready
for different experiences in the workplace.”
Rosenberger says he has learned something through this experience that can only
result from working with others. “The more
communication, the better,” he says. “It’s so
important to get a strong understanding of
what the organization you are working with is
doing.”
Students on these teams also train clients
so they are able to make changes to their
websites. “When we finish developing the
site, we teach their staff how to use it,” says
Quinn. Another benefit of the class for nonprofits is that once student complete it, nonprofits can access help from the university.
“We are a very small organization, and we
were assured that ongoing help would be
available,” says Sullivan. “That’s very meaningful to us.”