Guest Editorial: The 2014 Capstone Design Conference

The goal of the 2014 Capstone Design Conference held in Columbus, OH was to build upon the success of three previous conferences (2007 and 2010 in Boulder, CO, and 2012 in Champaign, IL) and expand the community of educators, students, and industry members engaged in discussing, analyzing, and improving capstone design education. Sessions at the 2014 Capstone Design Conference were designed for vibrant sharing of ideas and experiences across the capstone community via interactive panel sessions, poster session socials, and hands-on workshops. This editorial discusses conference planning, structure, and feedback. Technical papers that follow in this issue document scholarship surrounding noteworthy capstone course innovations. Most of these began as four page peer-reviewed papers included in the conference proceedings

Benefits of Industry Involvement in Multidisciplinary Capstone Design Courses

Opportunities for industry involvement in capstone design courses go beyond industry sponsorship of capstone design projects. Representatives from industry can serve as guest lecturers, curriculum advisors, and design project sponsors and team mentors. Since 2000, industry participation has been a core part of the capstone design course at Marquette University. Practicing engineers provide a relevant, practical real-world perspective of their topic, reinforcing its importance to professional engineering practice. Students and faculty benefit from the up-to-date treatment of the topic provided by guest speakers from industry who have expertise in the topic and are willing to share their experiences with students. Students benefit from industry sponsorship of senior design projects through the opportunity to work on realworld problems of importance to industry, exposure to industry and company-specific project management and product development processes, and familiarity with economic, legal, and regulatory design constraints. This paper provides a brief description of the Multidisciplinary Capstone Design course at Marquette University, examples of industry involvement in the course, and the observed benefits of industry involvement to students, the university, and industry participants. It presents examples of current practices used at other schools as well as helpful recommendations for managing industry participation in capstone design courses

Virtual Capstone Design Teams: Preparing for Global Innovation (Conference proceeding)

Global innovation requires collaboration between groups of people located in different parts of the world, and is a growing trend in industry. Virtual teams are often used to manage new product development projects. These teams are similar to traditional teams but are geographically separated and rely heavily on virtual methods of communication (email, Skype, teleconferencing, etc.) instead of regular face-to-face meetings. Experience working as a member of a virtual capstone design team can help prepare students for this growing trend. To begin preparing students for work on virtual teams in industry, we co-advised two virtual capstone design projects with students from Marquette University and Smith College. This paper describes our experience with managing two virtual capstone design project teams across institutions. Presented here are the challenges we encountered, the lessons we learned as a result of this experience, as well our recommendations for others who might want to include virtual project teams in their capstone design courses. We also include retrospective feedback from the students on these teams regarding their perceived value of their virtual team experience to their careers in engineering

Virtual Capstone Design Teams: Preparing for Global Innovation (Journal article)

Global innovation requires collaboration between groups of people located in different parts of the world, and is a growing trend in industry. Virtual teams are often used to manage new product development projects. These teams are similar to traditional teams but are geographically separated and rely heavily on virtual methods of communication (email, Skype, teleconferencing, etc.) instead of regular face-to-face meetings. Experience working as a member of a virtual capstone design team can help prepare students for this growing trend. To begin preparing students for work on virtual teams in industry, we co-advised two virtual capstone design projects with students from Marquette University and Smith College. This paper describes our experience with managing two virtual capstone design project teams across institutions. Presented here are the challenges we encountered, the lessons we learned as a result of this experience, as well our recommendations for others who might want to include virtual project teams in their capstone design courses. We also include retrospective feedback from the students on these teams regarding their perceived value of their virtual team experience to their careers in engineering

On the Struggle To Attain Universal Competence in a Complex Skill: The Case of a Senior Capstone Experience

Seventeen years ago, a blue-ribbon committee of economists asserted that the “ideal” program for an economics major should include “a capstone experience, whereby students apply their knowledge and skills in creative and systematic ways through research and writing.” (Seigfried, Bartlett, Hansen, Kelley, McCloskey, and Tietenberg (1991)) Yet we are not aware of a data-driven assessment of an implemented senior capstone experience in the economics education literature. We have been experimenting with a senior capstone experience – based on research and writing – for more than a decade. In this paper we describe the history of our senior capstone experience, and provide a data-driven assessment of student performance in this experience. Our primary objective for this senior capstone has been to create a system that will result in all of our majors writing a competent senior thesis. In other words, we want to attain universal competence in a complex skill. This simple objective has, however, been very difficult to achieve. We will argue that undesired variation in student motivation has been our primary obstacle in attaining universal competence.

Home Energy Capstone

This capstone activity uses the results of the Home Energy Audit and the Home Energy Analysis activities to investigate how changes in lifestyle affect the amount of energy used in the home. Students will listen to a National Public Radio show that discusses the energy efficiency of home appliances and their sales to see if any of the issues mentioned relate to their willingness to make similar investments. Then, they will examine the costs and benefits of making changes to their homes to improve energy efficiency by performing an economic analysis of three home improvements to determine how many years it would take to pay off the investment and decide whether these scenarios would be economically feasible. Educational levels: Undergraduate lower division, High school

An Economics Capstone Course from Creation to Presentation

This paper details a methodology used to construct a capstone course for the economics major. The capstone course should require students to utilize key concepts that they have learned. The lack of a meaningful topic, however, detracts from a showcase for student understanding. The author details the use of Michael Porter's (1998) location quotients and competitive cluster theory in a capstone course. Applying these concepts increases student understanding of state industries as well as exposing them to an alternative theory of competition not necessarily included in intermediate microeconomic theory.

Agribusiness Capstone Courses Design: Objectives and Strategies

This paper discusses the benefits of using strategic management principles as the cornerstone for building the agribusiness capstone experience. The necessity for agribusiness firms to create and implement strategies that build a sustainable competitive advantage in turn necessitates the development of strategic management skills in the leaders/managers of the future. As such, the objectives of a capstone course lean heavily toward the integrative development of strategic decision-making competence. This has a number of implications for the capstone professor in terms of course content, pedagogies, and subsequent measurement of student performance.Agribusiness, Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,