Course:LFS350/Projects/2014W1/T23/Proposal

Version Control

The need to amend and change the project charter will inevitably be present. These changes should be well communicated between all project stakeholders and documented with a version control chart.

Version	Author	Role	Changes	Date
3.0	Karen Cheung	n/a	Revision of Proposal	Saturday, November 1st
2.0	Karen Cheung	n/a	Changed due to shift in main focus of project	Saturday, October 4th
1.0	Karen Cheung	n/a	Initial version	Wednesday, October 1st

Project Background (__ / 10)

Group 23 will be working with the South Vancouver Neighborhood House (SVNH), which is a volunteer driven community and social services agency in South Vancouver. The vision behind SVNH is to empower its residents to improve the quality of life through different projects and services, issue advocacy, and build community capacity and community development initiatives (T. Findlater, personal communication, September 29, 2014). The proposed strategy is to work with residents, community organizations, and all levels of government and business to acquire pertinent information about the changing needs of the diverse community it comprises. Specifically, there is a rooftop garden at SVNH, but it is underutilized. The SVNH rooftop garden has multiple garden boxes, each assigned to different departments and programs, and have been periodically checked upon and maintained by several volunteers and department staff (T. Findlater, personal communication, September 29, 2014). However, due to the lack of knowledge in maintaining a garden and what is suitable to grow on rooftop gardens in Vancouver in the different seasons of the year, the garden boxes have not been producing favourable harvest. By conducting focus groups with different groups in SVNH community programs, Group 23 hopes to incorporate ideas and feedbacks from the participants in various SVNH’s community programs into revitalizing the garden. The concept of food security will be introduced by informing participants about the benefits of having a rooftop garden and having produce from the revitalized gardens.

This project aims to improve the quality of utilization of the currently underutilized gardens. The rationale is to bridge the connection between people and their food, and also, by having a garden plan which will eventually be used to start a gardening program specifically at SVNH rooftop garden, there is a potential of increasing interactions between staff members, volunteers and community members. Through this plan, the community partner can teach and involve their volunteers and community members in gardening as well as the usage of the garden's produce, with the underlying concept of food security as their end goal. By providing a plan for better usage of the gardens, the community members will have an easier access to nutritious and affordable foods. They will also learn the knowledge of growing and maintaining of the gardens, which they can potentially bring home to start a garden by themselves.

Stakeholder Summary (__ /5)

Name, Role & Organization	Responsibilities
LFS 350 Group 23: Seyhoun Fardhadjian Karen Cheung Nathaly Uribe Sadaf Hashemi Ariel Xiang Chuin Shelly Lu Carrisa Li June Jiao	To lead all project phases; To visit the rooftop garden on site when needed; To keep constant communication with community partner to ensure objectives are in line and to update on recent development of project; To create and develop project documents; To reach out to various resources for necessary and helpful input to project; To work towards the planned output of project; and To generate a report at the end of project.
Community Partner(South Vancouver Neighbourhood House): Tanya Findlater Michelle Lui	To provide LFS 350 Group 23 with information on SVNH and the gardens to be worked on and to provide guidance to ensure that the work is being done in accordance with the objectives To ensure objectives of both parties are in line by engaging in constant communication with Group 23 To provide connections and linkage to community when necessary, e.g. by providing resources and assistance for any survey or focus group that is to be conducted for data collection To advise on the scope, budget and schedule for the project To sign off project charter and plan To sign off on changes to project charter and plan
UBC:	To connect LFS 350 students to the community partner; To reimburse LFS 350 students on project’s cost; and To provide assistance and knowledge through TA and course instructor.

Purpose and Research Question (__ / 20)

Project Purpose:

The purpose of this project is to improve the utilization of the currently underutilized rooftop garden, and through it, bridge the connection between people and their food. The project will assess the current conditions and needs of SVNH community through focus groups; and with the information collected from the focus groups we will devise a feasible and adequate garden plan to provide assistance in developing related programs and projects for the neighbourhood house. At the end of this project, we hope to develop a plan providing the knowledge and responsibilities of growing and maintaining SVNH’s rooftop garden. A pamphlet will also be made to outline our plan for the view of the community members in SVNH.

Research Question:

What can be done to effectively improve the rooftop garden to make it functional for the use of SVNH community?
How will the improvement of the rooftop garden affect food security within the community?

Sub-Questions:

What are the existing problems that are preventing the effective use of the rooftop garden?
What can be done to resolve these problems?
What are the potential problems that may arise in the process of revitalizing the garden and what can be done to prevent/tackle these problems?
What are the needs and preferences of the SVNH community with regards to the rooftop garden?
What are the information or resources needed to revitalize the garden?
What are the actions to be taken to effectively revitalize and maintain the garden?

Methods (__ / 20)

Our main research method for this project will be qualitative research. As described by Creswell (2003), “qualitative approach is one in which the inquirer often makes knowledge claims based primarily on constructivist perspectives...researcher collects open-ended. emerging data with the primary intent of developing themes from the data”.

Our research can be broken down to primary and secondary research. Lombard (2010) describes primary research with regards to the research/source relationship, in which researchers have direct, first-hand access to the source that is “without report and analysis”, and carry out steps for knowledge inquiry directly on the source. On the other hand, secondary research involves the investigation of material that are primary sources (Lombard, 2010). In this project, our primary research involves a focus group with the SVNH community, and concurrently, secondary research involving the search, collection and analysis of existing research and other resources is conducted.

Primary research: Focus groups will be conducted with the assistance from community partner to gather the interest, needs and availability of the target group (South Vancouver community), for the rationale of tailoring the garden plan and pamphlet to the target group; and
Secondary research: Online resources will be used for gathering information about gardening techniques and ideas.

Primary Research: Focus Groups

A focus group is a type of qualitative research in which a group of people are gathered together and are asked about their opinions, interests, and needs towards the interest of the researcher. A focus group presents a more comfortable environment than interviews because the participants are influencing and influenced by others (Krueger, 2009).

The process of conducting the focus group involves: communicating with community partners to determine focus group’s date, time, venue and how to recruit participants; and creating a detailed focus group plan which includes the questions to be asked, roles and responsibilities of members conducting the focus group, etc.

Advantages of Focus Groups

Limitations of Focus Groups

Simulates participants individual experiences and opinions;
Creates openness, participating members could expand on their responses that can open up new topic areas not initially considered;
Interviews are not restricted to specific questions and can be guided/redirected by the moderator in person;
Data collected are based on human experiences, therefore may be more compelling than quantitative research (Creswell, 2003).

Our research method is time consuming because we have to communicate with different fields of people. We also have to spend lots of time gathering information and data analysis;
Information found might not generalize to other people or other settings; findings might be unique to few people because it does not include the whole community;
Presence of researchers (Group 23 members) during interviews might influence participants’ responses (Creswell, 2003).

Secondary Research: Searching and Extracting Information from Existing Research/Resources

Each member of the group is assigned a specific topic to perform secondary research on. The data collection can then be included in the garden plan and pamphlet. The garden plan and pamphlet are to be reviewed by the community partners and our Teaching Assistant, the feedbacks received will be used to improve on the plan and pamphlet, and further secondary research will be performed if required. We have identified the advantages and disadvantages of secondary research specific to our project, and they are as follow:

Advantages of Secondary Research	Limitations of Secondary Research
Information can be easily accessed online and in libraries; No cost to obtaining information through the secondary research we do.	Source may not be reliable, because we may need to rely on non-peer reviewed sources (which are more likely to be unreliable compared to peer reviewed sources) for parts of our project; Source may not be applicable in terms of specifics to geographical location and demographic.

Post-data collection

To formulate a suitable and feasible garden plan and make revisions with feedback from community partners and gardening experts; and
To develop a pamphlet on gardening knowledge.

The garden plan will include suggestions of types of plant to plant in different seasons and types of soil and fertilizer to use, information on how to maintain the gardens, etc.

Key Sources of Information

Online resources (databases, websites, etc.);
Community partner;
Community members; and
LFS 350 teaching team

Team Responsibilities

Group 23 will be divided into two teams (“Research Team” and “Outreach Team”) of four people each to facilitate the garden designing/planning of gardens in SVNH.

Team	Responsibilities	Members
Research Team	To communicate with group members(i.e. Facebook, Skype, Email, Phone calls, meetings etc.); To update documents and project progress; To report status reports on the project; To edit and proof-read written documents; To make “to-do lists” after meetings; and To do research on gardening knowledge.	Karen Cheung Carissa Li Sadaf Hashemi Shelly Lu
Outreach Team	To find help that has knowledge of and expertise in gardening; To decide on detailed ways that experts can help with the project; To communicate with community partners (i.e. meeting face to face, through email, phone calls, etc.); and To provide detailed steps of the project and communicate back to the group.	Ariel Seah Seyhoun Fardhadjian Nathaly Uribe June Jiao

Ethical Considerations

Confidential data such as SVNH’s available funds and program participants’ personal information, if provided, should not be released to any third parties and to be kept with additional security; and
Media material obtained at SVNH, e.g. photos and videos, can only be released after consent is given.

Resources needed

Information on SVNH’s programs and gardens that will be worked on;
Access to the gardens for data collection if required; and
Physical space for focus groups to be collected.

Deliverables (__ / 5)

A gardening plan tailored for the SVNH community in order to maintain their garden all year round;
A pamphlet about basic gardening know-hows; and
Final report will be presented at the end of the term. A presentation, as well as a written report will outline the project from initial planning to the results at the end of the project. The group's reflection as well as any complications during the project will be mentioned in the report.

Success Factors/Criteria (__ / 10)

The responsibilities of LFS 350 students will aid SVNH in the building of knowledge in urban agriculture in the community by revitalizing their rooftop garden. To measure our success, we will compare the conditions of SVNH’s rooftop garden in the beginning of the project to the results LFS 350 students accomplished at the end of the project.

We hope the end result of the report will provide a basis necessary for the continuation of rooftop gardens. The project will, if successful, provide SVNH new knowledge regarding the obstacles they will face in growing plants in the rooftop gardens throughout the year but also knowledge in maintaining garden boxes. In addition, it will give feedback that will help SVNH develop new information/ programs for members of the community. By doing so, we hope that our findings will aid SVNH in spreading the knowledge of gardening and in bridging the connection between people and their food through the use of their gardens.

Scope Change

Scope changes requested by any stakeholder of the project must be agreed upon, approved and signed by all stakeholders. The agreed format is to revise this charter with version controls. Because this is critical to keep track of, the version control is displayed at the beginning of the charter.

Communication Plan (__ / 5)

Action Item	Deliverable	Dates	Accountable
Weekly Updates	Facebook group (bullet points)	Sundays	All team group 23 team members
Technical Meeting Attendance (in person where possible)	Facebook group, Google Doc, Prezi, Skype	Monthly(more often as deadlines approach)	All team group 23 team members
Information sharing as it becomes available	Project Specific Information	Ongoing	All stakeholders to provide information in a timely manner and to provide prior and reasonable notice of dates when they will be unavailable. Update sent via email with Tanya.
Focus Group interviews	Face to face	Ongoing	Available Team 23 members
Communication with community partner	Email or Phone call	Weekly	Ariel Seah
Communication with TA Nicolas	Email	Ongoing	All group 23 team members

Milestones (__ / 5)

Milestone	Event or Deliverable	Target Date	Responsibility
Milestone1	Proposal Presentation	Monday, Sept 29	All team members
Milestone 2	Written Proposal/Charter	Monday, Sept. 29	All team members
Milestone 3	Early Findings Report Established relationship with gardening experts? Current condition of gardens Target group’s expectations of gardens	Wednesday, Oct. 15	All team members
Milestone 4	Community Service Learning Opportunity: Harvest Festival	Saturday, Oct. 18	Available team members
Milestone 5	Brainstorm of the components of the garden plan	Wednesday, Oct. 29	All team members
Milestone 6	Revised Charter & Proposal	Wednesday, Oct. 29	All team members
Milestone 7	First Draft of Garden Plan (Send to Tanya at night)	Monday, Nov. 11	All team members
Milestone 8	Revised version of Garden Plan ---draft of pamphlet	Sunday, Nov. 16	All team members
Milestone 9	Final garden plan and pamphlet	Wednesday, Nov. 19	All team members
Milestone 10	Final Presentation	Wednesday, Nov. 26	All team members
Milestone 11	Final Report	Thursday, Nov. 27	All team members

Approvals (__ / 5)

The following individuals hereby approve this Project Charter:

Role or Title	Name and Signature	Date
Team 23 Member	Karen Cheung	November 1st, 2014
Team 23 Member	Carissa Li	November 1st, 2014
Team 23 Member	Shelly Lu	November 1st, 2014
Team 23 Member	Lijun Jiao	November 1st, 2014
Team 23 Member	Sadaf Hashemi	November 1st, 2014
Team 23 Member	Seyhoun Fardhajian	November 1st, 2014
Team 23 Member	Xiang Chuin, Seah	November 1st, 2014
Team 23 Member	Nathaly Uribe	November 1st, 2014

References (__ / 5)

Creswell, J. W. (2003). Research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method approaches. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications

Krueger, R. A. (2009). Focus groups: A practical guide for applied research. Sage.

Lombard, E. (2010). Primary and Secondary Sources. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 36(3), 250-253. doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2010.03.008

"South Vancouver Neighbourhood House – Building Better Neighbourhoods." South Vancouver Neighbourhood House – Building Better Neighbourhoods. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Sept. 2014.

Writing Quality (__ / 10)

For a proposal report to receive full writing quality marks, it should be well organized and easy to read. It should address all of the topics articulated in the assignment details above, and it should be free of grammar, punctuation, and spelling mistakes.