GIS Co-operative Project

Bid Policies and Procedures

Sir Sandford Fleming College · Geomatics Institute at Fleming


1. Project Status

Each current project request is designated as one of the following:

  • Available - the project has been approved and is available for bidding by any student

  • Reserved - a project has been reserved for the originating students, i.e. those students who initiated the project request and have discussed the project with the client, and whose names are included in the client's project request.

  • Awarded - the project has been awarded to a student team and is no longer available for bidding; any existing bids by other students become void.

2. Student Bidding

Current students can enter and revise three ranked bids (i.e. '1' = first choice...) for available projects regardless of any existing bids by other students. Reserved projects are held for the designated originating students, although other students can place "tentative bids" to indicate their interest in case additional team members are required. Awarded projects are not available for bidding.

3. Bid Period

Bids can be made or revised at any time from early January up to the bid closing date in the second week of semester 2, at which time faculty will award projects and finalize project teams.

The bid closing date will be announced one week beforehand; however, the exact bid closing time will not be announced (in order to avoid last-minute bid revision).

4. Reserved Projects

Each student team can have at most one reserved project, which will be awarded to the team as soon as they inform the responsible faculty member that they accept the project. If additional team members are required, originating students should consider tentative bids placed on their project by other students and contact the responsible faculty member once they have agreed on enlarging their team. Any reserved projects that have not been awarded one week prior to the bid closing date will be made available to all students for bidding, pending client approval.

5. Student Teams

Project teams will typically consist of two or three students. The number of students in a team must be commensurate with the nature and complexity of the project.

Students should attempt to organize preliminary project teams, based on the consensus of all team members (e.g. a student can join a team only with the agreement of all team members). Projects will be awarded with preference naturally given to student teams over individual students.

Project Teams designations are composed of the surname initial of each team member, rearranged if necessary to be unique. They can be entered by each team member on their Alumni Information · Edit page.

Members of a project team should have at least one bid in common (i.e. on the same project). Teams can also choose to align all three of their bids, which indicates that the members prefer to work together and have arrived at a consensus on potential projects. On the other hand, a team with members that place one or two of their bids on different projects are indicating their willingness to work with other students and form a new team if necessary in order to be awarded a project in which they are interested.

Note that teams are considered tentative until projects are awarded to all students since membership may be adjusted by faculty if necessary.

6. Awarding of Projects

Projects are awarded by a committee composed of the faculty serving as advisors for the Project Planning and Management course. Best efforts will be made to award projects to students based on their ranked bids. The goal is to award projects such that each student will get one of the three projects on which they had bid. (In other words, it would be more desirable to award all projects to students who had a "third choice" bid on them, rather than to award projects to most students with a "first choice" bid if remaining students do not get any of the three projects on which they had bid.)

In cases where teams and students are competing for the same project, priority will be given to those who are deemed to have the greatest potential for success, based on their previous education and/or experience in the project area (including related courses in semester one). In these cases, each competing student or team should provide a brief summary of related education and experience by email to the responsible faculty member. Note, however, that the best qualified student or team may not always be awarded their first choice since projects are awarded based on the greatest benefit to the greatest number of students.

The awarding of projects may occur in an iterative manner: initial awarding of projects in no-contest and clear-cut situations, after which bidding on the available projects is reopened for the remaining teams and students.

A faculty advisor will be assigned to the project team by the same committee at the same time that the project is awarded or shortly thereafter.




Updated: 11 Dec 2006