After eight successful years, a once-experimental project designed to give computer science students experience with solving real-world problems is now an established USC campus information tech resource.

So, says Barry Boehm, “Bring us your problems.” He invites interested faculty and staff to do so at a special orientation meeting Sept. 7, at 1:30 p.m., in the Leavey Library Auditorium.

His team, the researcher said, specializes in organizing, displaying, accessing or archiving digital information more effectively.

Boehm is director of the USC Viterbi’s Center for Software Engineering, a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a nationally known figure in the field of software design and implementation. He also teaches a graduate class, Computer Science 577.

It’s here that the problems get solved.

Boehm’s course includes topics such as “software life-cycle processes.” The centerpiece, though, is referred to as “Application via projects.”

Since 1996, the “projects” have been ones brought to Boehm’s class by USC users of computer software - about 20 a year, nearly 200 to date.

The program works in a two-step process. In the fall semester, a large number of possible projects are “scoped.” In the spring semester, a select few are attacked.

Some examples include:

• creating an online collaborative work engine for USC computer system users;

• laying the groundwork for a Web-based encyclopedia of Los Angeles;

• archiving and disseminating geotechnical data for civil engineering classes;

• building a customer relations management tool to help small businesses manage customer names, preferences and other information;

• engineering a library notification system to let faculty know about significant new books acquired by one of the libraries in the USC system; and

• creating a database system that indexed and analyzed a remarkable collection of Chinese literary texts given to the East Asian Library.

“We have two types of ideal projects,” said Boehm, who holds the TRW Chair in Software Engineering in the USC Viterbi School. “One type involves a client who has an idea for a Web-based product or database that could provide a useful service to the campus community and that could be maintained by the client - but a service that can’t be provided without specialized programming.

“The other involves a client who would like to better understand the feasibility of a potential application and would like a team of developers to help explore its feasibility via prototyping and commercial software product analysis. The client’s time investment is about one to two hours per week for 12 weeks in the fall [and 12 weeks in the spring for continuing projects].”

Comments from past users have been positive.

Students were “very flexible and responsive to changing needs and information,” said one client. “Their ability to beef up a deliverable in such a short time is rather impressive,” noted another. “I would participate again,” said a third. “Thank you for your flexibility in my non-standard project.”

Boehm’s CS 577 courses offer clients substantial talent. Boehm said that he expects to be able to do fall scoping on about 25 projects and follow through in the spring on 10.

He urged faculty or administrators with possible projects to contact Robert Doiel to discuss suitability, or visit the program Web site at http://sunset.usc.edu/classes/cs577a_2004/. And then come to the Sept. 7 meeting in the Leavey Library Auditorium.