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Web Project Process

A component of Departmental Consulting and Application Development (DCAD)

DCAD understands MIT - its culture, resources, and IT standards. With this knowledge and its commitment to best practices, DCAD can assess your needs and guide your projects. The team can work with you on all phases of a project or on focused tasks; we can also serve as a liaison with preferred vendors.

DCAD will:

• Bring experience from its work with other departments to design and build your database system
• Prepare goals and requirements to ensure accurate estimates for your project
• Use an agile development process to build scalable solutions
• Integrate web applications and databases with MIT's IT infrastructure
• Keep costs in line from initial assessment through project delivery

DCAD saves you time and money by helping you pinpoint your project goals and ensure they are met. We offer MIT experience at below-market rates.

All initial consultations are free. Other services have an associated fee. Contact us for details.

For guidelines, best practices and resources for FileMaker, please visit our FileMaker and Departmental Database Applications site.

Our Services

Project assessment including needs analysis to determine project goals and objectives.

Requirements gathering to define how users will interact with your web site or database. Includes facilitating focus groups, auditing content, site mapping, wireframes, prototypes, data inventory, plus security and hosting recommendations.

Project management providing guidance and oversight for all stages of your project. Includes managing resources and scheduling.

Partner selection assistance assistance to help find the right developers and designers for your project from the DCAD team or our preferred MIT vendors list.

Coordination of MIT resources to ensure your project benefits from the resources MIT has to offer.

Technical guidance on implementing IS&T technologies such as Data Warehouse integration.

FileMaker design and development of database systems to support your office's business process or operations.

Design & code compliance reviews to ensure your project meets MIT programming, usability, and accessibility guidelines.

Web application development for database-driven web sites including blogs, wikis, and content management systems.

Database maintenance contracts for scheduled site updates and database upgrades.

System audits to determine if programming, design, or security changes would be beneficial.

The Database Project Process

Many elements are essential to a successful database project. Databases require a well-developed data model, clean user interface, and scalable design. We believe the most important elements are planning and analysis. To ensure success, we follow the process below for all our database projects.

Define clear project goals, objectives, and scope.

Discover project requirements by defining how users will interact with your system.

Partner with professional talent who match your project's needs.

Design the user experience through an iterative user interface design exploration.

Develop your design into a into a fully functioning system.

Deliver a final system that meets all of the project's goals