What is a statement that summarizes the “macro” version of your problem? What is a statement that summarizes the “micro” version of your problem? In both cases think of an “elevator pitch” version of your problem statements.

 

• A statement that summarizes the “macro” version of our problem is “people do not understand the effects and quantity of their energy usage.” By focusing on this statement, we are focusing on our long term goal of inspiring interest in reducing energy usage. We will ensure our Water and Energy Dashboard has features that allow users to see how much energy they are using, as well as the resources for them to understand and take action on it. The “micro” version of our problem is “there is no resource for Lehigh students and the sustainability and campus operations committees to view data on energy usage.” This focuses on our goal of a tangible product and features of a webpage that will allow individuals and committees to view the energy data.  

Based on your life experience, skills and interests, what would a design process that is both uniquely yours and effective look like?

 

• Based on our life experiences of being CSB majors, we will use the AGILE design process in developing our webpage. The agile design process focuses first on general idea generation, then more detailed ideas, implementation, constant testing, and revisions as the process goes along, as well as check-in meetings. The whole goal of AGILE is for a straightforward, efficient, and ever-changing process to meet the end product. 

You have begun to talk to stakeholders for your project, and will continue to do so going forward. For these conversations, list 10 hypotheses for your project that you will need to validate, and 10 assumptions your project is making, and the basis for those assumptions.

 

• Hypotheses:

• The dashboard will encourage students to use less energy
• The dashboard can be help lehigh be more sustainable
• Lehigh organizations, such as the sustainability office, could use the dashboard to access energy information more easily
• Money will be saved because Lehigh could easily see where energy is being wasted
• Students will use the dashboard if there are incentives
• The dashboard will teach students the importance of saving energy
• Making the dashboard user friendly and accessible will increase the use of the dashboard
• The dashboard could be used to identify leaks and energy failures
• The dashboard will allow the lehigh community to monitor lehigh’s energy consumption in real time 
• The dashboard could spread awareness for lehigh’s sustainability efforts

• Assumptions:

• People will care about sustainability

• • People would only be interested in our project if they care about reducing the energy consumption at Lehigh

 

• Lehigh organizations will use the dashboard

• • We expect organizations, such as the sustainability office and eco reps to use the dashboard to help pursue their sustainability goals around campus

 

• Having energy information be accessible will change behavior

• • Students looking at the amount of energy wasted should encourage them to use less energy

 

• The dashboard will be well marketed and advertised

• • Lehigh should spread awareness about the dashboard to students around campus so it’ll be used by students and can make a difference

 

• Incentives will be provided by Lehigh

• • Incentives encourage students to use the app and we expect lehigh to provide them

 

• The website will work correctly even when the original developers aren’t maintaining it

• • The capstone students can’t maintain the project forever, so we hope other students or a lehigh organization can maintain it

 

• Information collected is correct

• • Meter data needs to be correct and accurate for the site to work properly

 

• Lehigh will use the dashboard for sustainability efforts

• • We expect Lehigh to use the dashboard to view where lehigh can be more sustainable and also where money can be saved

 

• The app will work as intended

• • The app is still in development and it’s unknown when the app will be able to be used by the community as a whole

 

•  Nobody will use the app maliciously

• • Students could purposely try to increase energy usage in buildings around campus as a “joke”. For instance, a greek life house could try to increase their energy usage to “brag” that they are the highest energy consuming house

https://sustainability.lehigh.edu/sites/sustainability.lehigh.edu/files/accessible_LSPLAN_Final_0.pdf

Blog #4

1. Review the six focus areas in the Sustainability Strategic Plan 2030. Identify and describe in detail how your project aligns with one or more of the focus areas. Be sure to think outside of the box. Each project aligns with more than one focus area, although it might not be immediately obvious.
2. Identify the key Lehigh University-based and external stakeholders for your project. For each stakeholder:

• Describe what their interest in your project might be.
• What resources might they provide?
• How does your work further their goals?
• How might you engage with them?

1.  The six focus areas in the Sustainability Strategic Plan are climate action, educational experience, campus operations, culture & engagement, health & wellness, and focus leadership. While the Water & Energy Dashboard can definitely contribute to all of these, it aligns the most with educational experience and campus operations. The Water & Energy Dashboard aligns heavily with the educational experience of all of Lehigh University because it allows the unique opportunity for users to learn about energy consumption and units of energy consumption with our equivalencies feature. Our dashboard will make learning about sustainability and energy fun, encouraging education across campus. Additionally, it heavily affects campus operations because normally the entire campus has no idea how much energy each building is utilizing, but with successful implementation of our public dashboard, buildings will be held accountable for their energy usage and stakeholders will be informed of it for the first time.
2. External stakeholders are campuses nationwide. With UC Davis being the only college with a sustainability dashboard as of now, Lehigh can also be a trailblazer for energy consumption transparency for college campuses, which is very important because dashboards like these can hold colleges accountable to their big sustainability goals. Likewise, Lehigh’s Office of Sustainability can be held accountable through this dashboard and it will inform students, families, etc. of their progress. Internal stakeholders can be students who want to track the energy usages of their buildings, campus operations directors, and maintenance-people who can use this to examine and resolve energy spikes.

Alyssa Milrod

1.List the top 20 questions your team needs to answer to advance the venture forward. Categorize the questions if necessary.

2.Develop and Visualize the Theory of Change (Logic Model) for your venture.

3.Develop a M&E plan for your venture.

Clearly list all assumptions.

Identify short-term and long-term success metrics.

(Optional) identify specific methods to measure the metrics.

 

1. How do we run it locally?
2. How do we deploy to a server?
3. What types of filters should be on the website?
4. What do we do about the buildings with no shark meter or meters that must be replaced?
5. When do aesthetic front-end changes happen?
6. Can we add new features, such as a leaderboard?
7. Is the website part of a Lehigh website or its own webpage?
8. How do we compile data?
9. How do we handle invoices?
10. How do we make the Lehigh community aware of the dashboard?
11. What can we accomplish in 4 months?
12. What has been accomplished up until now?
13. How can LTS help us?
14. What changes when Katherine is replaced?
15. Who will be maintaining the website?
16. Can we develop a mobile app?
17. How do we add Mountaintop and Goodman campuses?
18. How do we determine if a leak occurred or if a meter stopped reporting?
19. How often is the data collected, updated, and presented?
20. What is the bare minimum needed to make the dashboard operational?

 

 

Program: Energy and Water Dashboard Logic Model

Situation: 

Inputs		Outputs			Outcomes — Impact
		Activities	Participation		Short	Medium	Long
Shark meters & meter data   Money for additional meters   Web server   LTS Staff		Energy Competition – partnership with EcoReps   Dashboard    Media feature   “Do Your Part” Section of the dashboard   User feedback surveys	Student Body   Faculty   Facilities & Services Staff   LTS Technicians   Brown & White writers, Brown & White audience   Office of Sustainability   EcoReps		Generate more interest in sustainability   Small fluctuations in energy consumption	Professors conduct more research on Lehigh’s energy consumption     Students create and start more projects related to Lehigh’s energy and water use		Major sustainable changes in lifestyle and operations at Lehigh   Reduced energy and water consumption

 

 

Assumptions		External Factors
Dashboard is live and running, students are interacting with the dashboard without system or meter errors   EcoReps partnership has been successfully established   Every Lehigh building is metered and reporting data		Timely responses from LTS and Facilities & Services staff   Funding for additional shark meters

 

 

3. ideas for metrics

Until the Energy & Water Dashboard is live and running, our metrics of success will consist of tracking progress in Trello and completing weekly Sprint reports. Trello logs all of our project requirements and backlog items in order of priority. This week we are starting with the first three priority items, and, depending how the semester progresses, we aim to complete 1-2 Trello backlog items each week. Each week we also complete weekly Sprint reports that log what we did that week and what we could change for next Sprint. These two methods of recording what short-term goals we complete will keep us on track for the semester.

Our most important long-term goal is to reduce Lehigh’s energy and water consumption overall. An indicator of reduced overall consumption would be a general downslope of the long-term energy and water consumption graphs that our system generates. Currently we aim to store data up to one year’s worth of data, but a more effective long-term evaluation of consumption would be to store data back 5 -10 years. Other indicators of impact we make via the dashboard will come from user feedback surveys implemented into the site. We also aim to track the number of students or faculty using the website in order to determine whether the dashboard has generated more interest in sustainability. Other long-term goals include partnering with other student organizations like EcoReps and the Brown & White in order to help generate more interest in sustainability at Lehigh. A collaboration with EcoReps would ideally lead to starting an energy use competition between dormitories at Lehigh, and students could track their building’s progress using the dashboard.

 

M&E Plan:

• Objectives:
  • Create a user friendly dashboard
  • Raise awareness about the dashboard
  • Get more people engaged in environmental competitions
  • Reduce energy and water usage
• Indicators:
  • User feedback surveys
  • Record of number of students logging on to the site
  • Graphs of energy and water consumption over time 
• Responsibilities: 
  • Figure out who will be monitoring the website after it is finished (who keeps track of # of users, and user input?)
  • Working with other student organizations (EcoReps, Brown & White) to create awareness about the site
  • Gathering data/recommendations for the website through surveys
  • Adjusting the website

I wanted to join this class, CINQ388, as part of my Computer Science and Business major’s capstone project. I got to select one project to work on from more than 40 projects, and I chose the Lehigh Sustainability Water and Energy Dashboard because it offered the unique opportunity to not only work on web development, but to work on sustainability efforts and bettering the Lehigh community through them, too. CINQ388 will allow me to gain new knowledge regarding sustainability so I can help make the dashboard the best it can be, and I am also very interested in environmentalism so I am looking forward to the learning experience it offers. 

 

I believe that this course and project will make me a better Computer Science and Business student and professional because it will give me the opportunity to work on my first long-term project. Additionally, it will allow me to see how I can incorporate causes such as environmentalism into my computer science projects to benefit the greater good.

 

Over 50,000 mattresses a day are discarded throughout the US. This can be solved through recycling programs. For instance, Sleepy’s, or any other mattress store chain, can set up an initiative where people can donate their old mattresses and they will be refurbished. This will work because there are various mattress chain locations near every city, making it easier than ever for people to recycle their mattresses. 

While our team has finally met this week with our faculty mentors for the first time, there is still much more for us to learn about the project. Once we learn more about the official status of the dashboard, we will be able to set feasible goals. Until then, our approach for setting our goals (awareness & vision) will be collaborative and positive. We plan to set goals that mark positive, measurable, and concrete progress. Just recently we have gained access to the previous team’s set of project requirements and backlog tasks, which we will be using to identify our vision and goals. After we have begun to pick up where the previous team left off, we will come together as a team in an open-minded space of discussion where any conflict of ideas will inspire creative solutions. 

 

Our main priority for the dashboard will be conveying accurate data to the student body and faculty. The dashboard should also be accessible and easy to understand for anyone viewing it, regardless of their working knowledge of the university’s energy and water usage. As we begin the onboarding process, our baseline analysis of the project will mostly come from a series of kickoff meetings and asking lots of questions. Professors Kreider and Yeakel will be incredibly important during this phase since they have worked with the dashboard already, so we plan to utilize their knowledge of the current state of the project to begin our work and to build upon previous progress. 

 

Creative solutions for this project will most likely be the greatest challenge of the semester. Our project is still in the early stages of development, so we will have to be able to adapt and pivot when necessary, while also keeping our goals of accessibility, data accuracy, and sustainability in mind. No idea or proposal should be left off the table; sharing all ideas, no matter how big or how small, will lead us to developing creative solutions. As of right now, one possible idea for improving the dashboard would be to incorporate energy and water usage over time, so that users can observe trends and fluctuations as opposed to just current usage. Another important aspect of the site is the ability to post additional dashboards; Professor Kreider is specifically interested in adding energy competition progress to the current dashboard. We need to anticipate what features the competitions will require. For example, leaderboards will be added to display the lowest consumption and surveys or quizzes will show who has the best understanding of sustainability. 

 

As the semester progresses, our dashboard will change, but hopefully, our main priorities will stay constant. Again, we may need to reevaluate as we work on the dashboard, but for now, we have identified sustainability, accessibility, and accuracy as our highest priorities. If these must change, we will use these ideas as inspiration for developing more relevant goals.

 

The most important metric of success for all three pillars of sustainability will stem from a decrease in energy consumption. Since the dashboard will track the use of energy over time, data showing a decrease in energy usage will show that Lehigh is being more energy conscious. On the other hand, if Lehigh’s energy usage is high, the dashboard could provide an additional incentive for the university to transition to renewable energy and save money, since rising gas prices will be less and less relevant throughout the transition process.

 

The dashboard will also bridge a social gap between people who have the means to accumulate knowledge on energy and the environment and those who are not as fortunate by providing simple, relevant analogies so anyone can understand the impact of our energy usage. 

 

Decreasing energy consumption or circularizing energy and water use will allow Lehigh to save money that can be reinvested in more productive directions. Economic prosperity requires long term systems. The dashboard should be adaptive and easy to update so that it can be used with whatever new technology Lehigh implements in the future.

 

The design strategies are most pertinent to our project because we want the dashboard to be user friendly. Designing for flexibility will be important because we want the project to have a lasting impact. The website should be able to adapt to changes in technology. In particular, with Lehigh’s efforts to shift to green energy, we want to ensure that the site can track the renewable energy usage and still properly report data from our shark meters. If at any point in the future those meters are replaced with a different system, we want the dashboard to still be functional and easy to edit. Our code and data should be simple to understand for the next CSIF members as well as any faculty that may be involved in the project in the future.

 

Standardization is another useful strategy because we need the data to be easy to read. Colors schemes and units will be important for users to understand their consumption rates. We also want our dashboard to be consistent with Lehigh’s branding and visual identity guide where appropriate. 

 

A strategy relevant to our coding and computing power is resource efficiency. We want to minimize the number of steps between data collection and final display on the dashboard. The previous dashboard team had developed a process for this, so once we learn more about how their process works, we will determine any opportunities for optimization.

 

These strategies together, if implemented correctly, will amount to an additional strategy that is eco-design. Flexibility, reparability, and resource efficiency are all important facets of designing for the environment. By focusing on these individual aspects of eco-design via the ideas listed above, we will ultimately produce a virtual product that is both environmentally conscious and informative. 

 

The last strategy we have identified is the integrated design process. While we plan to divide into subteams to tackle different issues with the dashboard, coming together as a whole team to collaborate and refine ideas will still be an important part of our meetings. Establishing open communication with each other and with our professors, mostly through Slack, groupme, and email, will create an open and safe discussion for idea synthesis. We also are going to establish a set of team expectations to help create this environment.