Graduate Aid Redesign Project (GARP)

GARP Mission Statement:

The Graduate Aid module has been in place since the summer of 1996. Even though this project provided Graduate Departments the ability to enter their own graduate awards and appointments, the process is still complicated and involves manual processes that can be streamlined. The goal of this project is to look at the current Graduate Aid business processes and come up with a viable solution to this problem. More specifically, our goal is to:

  1. Improve the user interface
  2. Speed up the data entry process
  3. Improve integration with Graduate Departments
  4. Integrate with other systems (Payroll, SAP, Student Accounts, Who's Teaching What)
  5. Improve Appointment management process by:

GARP Benefits:

  1. Reduce paperwork and manual input
  2. Support required by ODSUE-IT staff will be reduced
  3. Data will be more accurate
  4. Single point of maintenance which will eliminate data discrepancy among different systems
  5. Training will be simpler

Project Methodology:

Because this project will involve a broad group of users, the project’s success depends on the involvement of key people since the beginning. The core team will include members from ODSUE-IT, Payroll and FSS (Financial Systems Services). In addition to the core team, we will have a project team whose membership will include key representatives (end users) from the five schools at MIT. Good communication between the project’s core team and the team members from graduate departments will be essential. To facilitate this process we have established a project web site that will include key information about the project. Updates to this web site will be announced by e-mail.

The first step in the process is to develop the system’s functional requirements. This process involves the following steps:

  1. Identifying and selecting the Project Team members
  2. Interviewing the team members to create a set of preliminary requirements
  3. Use the information learned from the users to build a simple prototype of the system. This prototype will facilitate the discussions with our end users and will give them the opportunity to give us feedback during the process.
  4. Prepare the Functional Requirements Document.

The next step in the process is to evaluate possible technologies that will result in the Technical Specification document. At this point, the core team will be able to produce a more detailed project plan with estimated levels of effort for the implementation phase.

Project Risks:

  1. Aggressive time frame
  2. Staffing
  3. Getting stakeholders commitment to participate in the project
  4. Possible use of new technology which will involve learning curve period by developers

Project Sponsor:

GARP Core Team:

GARP Team Members:

The success of this project depends on the involvement of a representative set of Graduate Departments. The following departments are part of our project team:

  1. Sloan School of Management (Course 15)


  2. School of Engineering



  3. School of Science




  4. School of Architecture and Planning


  5. School of Humanities and Social Sciences

GARP Technology:

GARP Communication Process:

To facilitate the communication process among our team and stakeholders, our team will establish a web site that will include the following information:

GARP Schedule:

Our expectation is to finish this project by the end of the 2000-2001 Academic Year, in time for the next data entry crunch.

GARP User-Interface Design:

Here are some basic mock-up screens of what we're planning for the interface to look like.

GARP Main Page || GARP Team Members || SSIT

MIT Date last modified : 10/03/2000; by the GARP Team