How Student Written Communication Skills Benefit During Participation in an Industry-Sponsored Civil Engineering Capstone Course

Because many engineering programs use capstone design courses and value strong communication abilities, authors sought to identify how student written communication skills changed because of industry-sponsored capstone design projects. A student exit survey was collected at the end of the capstone design course during faculty-led projects and projects led by practicing engineers in industry. These results led the researchers to subsequently evaluate two semesters of before-andafter writing samples using a rubric. Student surveys suggested a statistically significant increase in learning about professional issues, problem solving, and written/oral communication. Evaluation of student writing samples suggests that the students significantly improved their grammar/spelling and their organization of content during the course. These findings suggest that industry-sponsored projects help students recognize the relation between professionalism and correspondence that is organized and void of grammar and spelling errors

Industrial Sponsor Perspective On Leveraging Capstone Design Projects To Enhance Their Business

Capstone design projects have become commonplace among engineering and engineering technology programs.  These projects are valuable tools when assessing students, as they require students to work in teams, communicate effectively, and demonstrate technical competency.  The use of industrial sponsors enhances these projects by giving these projects more of a “real world” feel.  Most of the research into capstone design projects focuses on student learning as well as the overall design process.  However, very little research has been performed from the perspective of the industrial sponsor.  In this paper, an industrial sponsor who has sponsored several large-scale capstone design projects presents their perspective on working with students on these projects.  These projects serve as training systems for their existing employees and clients, and offer the sponsor the opportunity to evaluate the students as prospective future employees

Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate: Developing Technology to Protect America

In response to a congressional mandate and in consultation with Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T), the National Academy conducted a review of S&T's effectiveness and efficiency in addressing homeland security needs. This review included a particular focus that identified any unnecessary duplication of effort, and opportunity costs arising from an emphasis on homeland security-related research. Under the direction of the National Academy Panel, the study team reviewed a wide variety of documents related to S&T and homeland security-related research in general. The team also conducted interviews with more than 200 individuals, including S&T officials and staff, officials from other DHS component agencies, other federal agencies engaged in homeland security-related research, and experts from outside government in science policy, homeland security-related research and other scientific fields.Key FindingsThe results of this effort indicated that S&T faces a significant challenge in marshaling the resources of multiple federal agencies to work together to develop a homeland security-related strategic plan for all agencies. Yet the importance of this role should not be underestimated. The very process of working across agencies to develop and align the federal homeland security research enterprise around a forward-focused plan is critical to ensuring that future efforts support a common vision and goals, and that the metrics by which to measure national progress, and make changes as needed, are in place

A systematic literature review of capstone courses in software engineering

Context: Tertiary education institutions aim to prepare their computer science and software engineering students for working life. While much of the technical principles are covered in lower-level courses, team-based capstone courses are a common way to provide students with hands-on experience and teach soft skills. Objective: This paper explores the characteristics of project-based software engineering capstone courses presented in the literature. The goal of this work is to understand the pros and cons of different approaches by synthesising the various aspects of software engineering capstone courses and related experiences. Method: In a systematic literature review for 2007–2022, we identified 127 articles describing real-world capstone courses. These articles were analysed based on their presented course characteristics and the reported course outcomes. Results: The characteristics were synthesised into a taxonomy consisting of duration, team sizes, client and project sources, project implementation, and student assessment. We found out that capstone courses generally last one semester and divide students into groups of 4–5 where they work on a project for a client. For a slight majority of courses, the clients are external to the course staff and students are often expected to produce a proof-of-concept level software product as the main end deliverable. The courses generally include various forms of student assessment both during and at the end of the course. Conclusions: This paper provides researchers and educators with a classification of characteristics of software engineering capstone courses based on previous research. We also further synthesise insights on the reported course outcomes. Our review study aims to help educators to identify various ways of organising capstones and effectively plan and deliver their own capstone courses. The characterisation also helps researchers to conduct further studies on software engineering capstones.Context: Tertiary education institutions aim to prepare their computer science and software engineering students for working life. While much of the technical principles are covered in lower-level courses, team-based capstone courses are a common way to provide students with hands-on experience and teach soft skills. Objective: This paper explores the characteristics of project-based software engineering capstone courses presented in the literature. The goal of this work is to understand the pros and cons of different approaches by synthesising the various aspects of software engineering capstone courses and related experiences. Method: In a systematic literature review for 2007–2022, we identified 127 articles describing real-world capstone courses. These articles were analysed based on their presented course characteristics and the reported course outcomes. Results: The characteristics were synthesised into a taxonomy consisting of duration, team sizes, client and project sources, project implementation, and student assessment. We found out that capstone courses generally last one semester and divide students into groups of 4–5 where they work on a project for a client. For a slight majority of courses, the clients are external to the course staff and students are often expected to produce a proof-of-concept level software product as the main end deliverable. The courses generally include various forms of student assessment both during and at the end of the course. Conclusions: This paper provides researchers and educators with a classification of characteristics of software engineering capstone courses based on previous research. We also further synthesise insights on the reported course outcomes. Our review study aims to help educators to identify various ways of organising capstones and effectively plan and deliver their own capstone courses. The characterisation also helps researchers to conduct further studies on software engineering capstones.Peer reviewe

A Mixed Method Analysis of Factors Influencing Success and Failure in Undergraduate Engineering Capstone Design Experiences

The engineering undergraduate curriculum presents substantial opportunities for improvement. Society is calling for a transformation. As the culminating experience for undergraduate engineering students, capstone design team projects represent a window on the curriculum and a particularly fertile ground for understanding these opportunities. However, the factors that influence success and failure in capstone remains an area of inquiry. The work presented here proposes to help us develop a deeper understanding of these factors. The research presented here uses a mixed methods analysis approach for identifying the critical factors impacting capstone design team success, where success is defined from both student and faculty perspectives. The framework for the research includes factors and their interactions in three fundamental areas: faculty mentorship, student backgrounds, and various contextual influences. The research capitalizes on the use of survey tools and course data to conduct a mapping of faculty mentor beliefs and practices against student perception and recognition of those practices. In conjunction with student reflective memos containing self-evaluations of their project and team experiences, interactions with faculty mentors, and overall satisfaction with their educational experience, the data will combine to provide a multifaceted assessment of which factors are influential and are value-added to capstone courses. The mixed methods approach will include statistical analysis of programmatic data, student perception of instruction surveys, social network analysis of peer evaluations, faculty teacher belief self-assessments and case-study triangulation with student-authored reflective memoranda. The ultimate objective of this work is to provide an in-depth understanding of the capstone design experience and insights based upon careful analysis and observations of engineering students working on real-world projects. It is envisioned that the results of the research will provide meaningful guidance to students, instructors and stakeholders for improved preparation of young engineers for the profession

Integrating Design Throughout The Mechanical Engineering Curriculum: A Focus On The Engineering Clinics

At Rowan University, we have infused design into the curriculum through an eight-semester course sequence called the Engineering Clinic. Through this experience students learn the art and science of design in a multidisciplinary team environment. While many engineering programs currently include a Capstone Design course taken near the end of the college career to meet the design needs, Engineering Clinic at Rowan allows students to hone their design skills throughout their four-year career. This paper will describe in further detail the objectives and execution of each year in the design sequence, types of projects and how the Clinics complement traditional core courses in the curriculum. Impacts and benefits of the Clinics on students and faculty are discussed, as well as comparative data of Rowan Mechanical Engineering students and their peers nationally

A systematic literature review of university-industry partnerships in engineering education

Over the last few decades, a wide range of works have featured studies documenting successful pedagogic collaborations in the form of university-industry partnerships in engineering education. In light of this, we conducted a systematic literature review of these studies centred around five key research questions: (a) purposes of universityindustry collaborations, (b) theories used to guide such work, (c) types of methods employed, (d) evidence-based best practices identified and (e) areas of future work to be explored. Publications were selected for inclusion by screening and appraising results obtained from databases and keywords refined through a scoping study. We conclude from our findings that future studies would benefit from better alignment with literature or theoretical frameworks and specific robust methods. Additionally, early and middle years of undergraduate engineering programs offer underutilised opportunities for partnership, in line with designing a more futures-focused educational curriculum

Opiskelijoiden valmistaminen työelämään yliopiston sisäisen ohjelmisto-startupin avulla

Tertiary education aims to prepare computer science students for the working life. While much of the technical principles are covered in lower-level courses, team-based capstone projects are a common way to provide students hands-on experience and teach soft skills. Although such courses help students to gain some of the relevant skills, it is difficult to simulate in a course context what work in a professional software engineering team really is about. Our goal is to understand ways tertiary education institutions prepare students for the working life in software engineering. Firstly, we do this by focusing on the mechanisms that software engineering capstones use to simulate work-life. A literature review of 85 primary studies was conducted for this overview. Secondly, we present a more novel way of teaching industry-relevant skills in an university-lead internal software startup. A case study of such a startup, Software Development Academy (SDA), is presented, along with the experiences of both students and faculty involved in it. Finally, we look into how these approaches might differ. Results indicate that capstone courses differ greatly in ways they are organized. Most often students are divided in teams of 4–6 and get assigned with software projects that the teams then develop from an idea to a robust proof-of-concept. In contrast, students employed in the SDA develop production-level software in exchange for a salary for university clients. Students regarded SDA as a highly relevant and fairly irreplaceable educational experience. Working with production-quality software and having a wide range of responsibilities was perceived integral in giving a thorough skill set for the future. In conclusion, capstones and the internal startup both aim to prepare students for the work-life in software engineering. Capstones do it by simulating professional software engineering in a one-semester experience in a course environment. The internal startup adds a touch of realism to this by being actual work in a relatively safe university context