ITM 295 Portfolio Service Project engages students in service-learning opportunities to bless other lives by using the skills and knowledge they gained through their course of study in their degree program. It is designed to help students achieve the mission of BYU-Idaho to – “develop disciples of Jesus Christ who are leaders in their homes, the Church, and their communities” (University Mission Statement).
To register for the class, you will need to submit two documents:
The following paragraphs outline the requirements in greater detail .
Minimum of 39 Hours You are asked to find an IT related volunteer service opportunity that engages you in a semester-long service project with the minimum of 39 hours of service time (e.g. 3 hours/week on average). The volunteer service must be performed during the semester in which you are registered.
Finding Your Own Service Opportunity By design (see Course Learning Outcomes, students have the responsibility to find suitable service opportunities. The purpose here is to create, develop, and/or reinforce the habit of seeking out opportunties to put what you are learning into practice to help, benefit, and bless your “neighbors” (see Luke 10:29,36) Finding a person/organization needing your knowledge, skills, personality, talent, etc. requires an effort and inspiration. You are encouraged to pray. The service you provide should meet the needs of a specific organization or individual (referred to as the beneficiary).
Examples of projects that will NOT be approved
Degree Program Related Your volunteer service must be directly related to one of the disciplines of your degree program (web design and development, cybersecurity, cloud computing, networking, database administration, programming, system administration, systems analysis and design, project management, etc). The volunteer service may be with any public, government, for profit or non-profit organization, or individual with needs, with the exception of BYU-Idaho or BYU-Idaho students. Further restrictions apply to international students as described below. BYU-Idaho should not be the recipient of your service. It becomes a violation of the Fair Labor Stands Act when BYU-Idaho engages a student in a volunteer work while a comparable paid job exists (e.g. TA, web designer, programmer, tech support, student support, market research, SOC analyst, tutor, etc.).
Attestation for No Compensation Ask your project sponsor confirm the volunteer nature of your service along with their compliance with applicable laws in the United States or the country(ies) involved using the provided ITM 295R Attestation for No Compensation form or writing their own letter to that effect and send it to itm295@byui.edu. If you choose to find a project sponsor in your home country or outside of the US, you may volunteer for any type of organization, including non-government and for-profit organizations as long as the nature of your service follows any legal guidelines or frameworks in that country.
Proposal Using the ITM 295R Project Proposal Template document, submit your proposal to itm295@byui.edu prior to the beginning of the semester in which you plan to take the course. Upon approval, you will receive an authorization to register for the course. All students will be admitted to the class (no waiting list) so long as their project proposals are approved.
Consider yourself an IT professional and imagine you will be billing the client for the work you will do. The first task you have is to meet with your client, understand their needs, and create a contract. In your contract, you propose a solution which includes a concise description of what you will do for your client, how long it will take, and how much it will cost for each item you promise to deliver (e.g. add an online payment feature, 6 hours, $50 per hour). Your project proposal for this course should follow a similar pattern (except the cost estimate).
The first task you have is to meet with your project sponsor, understand their needs, and create a proposal document that outlines what you will do for the project sponsor. By the time you finish creating the proposal document, you should have at least a general idea of what you hope to be doing during the first week of the semester, the second week, the third week and how much time you plan to invest each week. Some weeks will likely be heavier than others and that is perfectly acceptable. Your action plan should be documented as “goals” and “tasks” under the “Weekly Plan” in the ITM 295R Project Proposal document. While the majority of the service projects students engage in require a detailed planning ahead of time, some don’t. If your service is such that you only provide labor without planning or design (e.g. respond to IT tickets as an IT helpdesk technician), your “goals” for the “Weekly Plan” for all 13 weeks may be a statement of general tasks you will perform (e.g. “Process IT tickets which will be assigned to me when I arrive at work”). However, be sure to have a backup plan of meaningful, technology-related work you can do during down times if you are planning such a reactive approach.