Developing the Systems Project Course

The 1986 and 1990 DPMA model curricula both include a Systems Project course (CIS/86-8 and IS-8). This course places emphasis on systems theory and user requirement- based problem solving. This paper describes the development of the Systems Project course. Initially, it addresses the definition of the course, including the selection of projects, the creation of teams, development and tracking of a project plan, the analysis and design of the system, and the completion of the project. It then discusses the software tools needed and the major problems that are encountered in teaching the Systems Project course. If developed and taught well, the Systems Projects course may very well be the most important class any information systems student could take

Capstone Design Project Course Pathways

Capstones are open-ended undertakings where students are expected to creatively analyze, synthesize, and apply a wide-variety of learning outcomes from prior coursework. This paper discusses the structure, approach and evolution of the capstone project pathways within our College. Specifically two programs, MET and EET, have adopted different solutions towards the planning, organizing and execution. The areas of contrast among projects are: 1) sourcing, 2) type, 3) feedback and evaluation, 4) assessment methodology, 5) supplemental resources and 6) curricular strategy. For the first five, the advantages and disadvantages of different approaches are discussed along with the issues and benefits experienced by students, faculty and industry sponsors. In the sixth, a means to improve capstone readiness and performance is presented in which experiential courses within a topical area sequentially introduce challenging and open-ended assignments that foster cognitive learning

Paired Programming in a Clayton’s Capstone Project Course

In this paper the authors describe an Information Systems course where paired programming was trialled in the hope of improving both the assessment outcomes and the resourcing of an existing systems design course which incorporated a capstone project. The authors found that it did offer a significant improvement, but the improvements did not match the predicted outcomes, with a number of weaknesses to the model being highlighted. In particular, it was found that paired programming did not reduce teaching load when the group size was reduced

Water self-sufficiency with separate treatment of household rainwater and greywater

This paper is based on an academic work conducted by a group of students of the Engineering Project course within the Chemical Engineering Degree at the Engineering School of Barcelona. The objective of the exercise was to design a rainwater harvesting and greywater recycling system for a detached house and calculate the number of people that could be self-sufficient. Local rainfall, roof area for collecting rainwater and daily water consumption per inhabitant were considered. The effective amount of rainwater and purified greywater was also obtained. In this design, the rainwater is filtered, stored and preserved in a tank, and disinfected with UV light. A small quantity can be made drinkable. The greywater is filtered, treated in a biological reactor, flocculated, sedimented and finally disinfected with UV light.Postprint (published version

Use of Role-play and Gamification in a Software Project Course

Soft skills are increasingly important to the engineering profession and course modifications are often needed to ensure students have opportunities to practice them prior to graduation. This suggests that engineering programs need to go beyond simply offering industry-based capstone courses and internships. Role-play has a long history as a tool for learning. It can be used to simulate real world practices in environments where consequences can be mitigated safely. In this paper, we discuss the use of team role-play activities to simulate the experience of working in a professional, game development studio as a means of enhancing an advanced undergraduate game design course. In conjunction with the role-play, a gamification framework was used within the course to allow students to customize their course participation. Gamification was used to reward students for compliance with software process steps and for taking the initiative to improve their “soft skills”. In this project, allowing students to negotiate the nature of their activities and rewards helped them develop those skills. We are using student feedback and our own lessons learned to plan the next iteration of this course

Mission 2 Solution: Requirements Engineering Education as a Central Theme in the BIT Programme

Design of integrated business-IT solutions is the main theme in the Business Information Technology programme (BIT) at the University of Twente. Our mission is to teach students to design solutions that are needed instead of solutions that are asked for. This makes requirements engineering an essential part of our education in business-IT alignment. Integration of requirements engineering (RE) in several courses is combined with challenging the students by authentic cases, taken from business practice, in which they have to apply theory and train their competences. This combination results in reflection as well as in RE experience and insight in the importance of requirements analysis. \ud In this position paper we outline how RE is integrated in the BIT programme and we discuss the project course BIT Ltd in more detail

AS-860-19 Resolution on Senior Project Policy

The current designation for senior project courses is non-standardized; therefore, be it that the attached policy supersedes AS-562-01, AS-594-03, and AS-683-09; and be it further that the university adopt a standard designation for senior project courses across the curriculum, either by returning to the former practice wherein the second course digit of 6 or 7 indicates a senior project course or by requiring that every senior project course has Senior Project in its title