Community Partners

Benefits

Student Consultants work, as a team, with community partners throughout the semester to identify, plan, and implement ways in which technology can help the organization better fulfill its mission. Teams act as consultants working 'with' and not 'for' their project clients. At the completion of the project, each team must provide a sustainable solution that fits the client's objectives, organization constraints and capabilities.

Expectations

There is no fee to participate, but organizations must invest significant time and effort during the semester-long partnership to achieve sustainable technology improvements.

  • Invest your time
  • Attend the mandatory Community Partner Orientation Meeting at the Carnegie Mellon University campus.
  • Make a required brief presentation with the student team at the end of the semester at the Community Technology Forum at the Carnegie Mellon University campus and stay for the entire session to hear about and celebrate all partnership presentations.
  • Your presence at these meetings is very important. Please advise us if you have a constraint on these days.
  • Meet and work with the team each and every week for at least 1 hour. Provide timely feedback to the student team on progress, proposals, deliverables, technology demos, etc. as requested.
  • Provide biweekly brief feedback on the team and the project progress via a short online form and periodic conversations with the supervising faculty member.
  • Read the final report, providing feedback to the student team within 2 days, and submit Feedback Form to the faculty instructor giving approval to publish the report.
67-373: Get a fully working sustainable technical solution for your system (Fall semester)

67-373 is the Capstone experiential learning course for CMU’s undergraduate Information Systems (IS) majors. The IS program is a top-rated undergraduate major that combines technical skills like computer science, software engineering, database design, web and mobile app programming with a humanities and human centered approach to solve real-world problems using technology.

67-240: Redesign your website and getting a working prototyp (Spring semester)

67-240 teaches students how to design and build a responsive web page for a client interested in a well-designed site. In this course students leverage a user-centered approach to design wireframes, capture client feedback, and implement a prototype. Through this process, community partner clients gain clarity about the direction and priorities for their website or app interface.

CMU Qatar

CMU’s campus in Doha, Qatar also offers the undergraduate Information Systems major. The CMUQ 67-373 has similar requirements and outcomes to the Pittsburgh offering. For a small business or mission-focused organization in Doha, this can be a meaningful way to engage with CMU students and gain valuable technical consulting to further the organization’s mission.