Abstract
To improve the Information Technology (I.T.) graduate skill set, students need to be immersed in as realistic a software development environment as possible. In continuing our work on integrating Agile Methodology into the Capstone Program of our Bachelor of Science in I.T. (BSIT) degree program, this paper discusses the student challenges and difficulties during the software development project, and provides recommendations on improving the student overall learning process in such a program. We collected survey data from the whole population of 90 BSITstudents across four academic years about their experience with their client and the Capstone Program itself. Conceptual content analysis was then applied to discover and describe underlying themes. Also, faculty advisers were tasked with writing about their interactions, thoughts, and observations on their respective student group advisees. These showed issues with time management, communication, and competency. Also, groups that excelled exhibited better team coordination and a complete grasp of the Agile methodology. For future implementations, clearer task definition and reducing the skill gaps are necessary for better execution.
Highlights
Previous works have established that Information Technology (I.T.) graduates lack sufficient practical skills for I.T. industry work [1][2][3]
To help address this problem of the lack of skills, the Bachelor of Science in Information Technology (BSIT) program required its students to undergo a Capstone Program designed to have project-based approaches with direct hands-on experiences so that students can be exposed to real issues and can pick up valuable industry experience [1][4]
As the capstone program is designed with Agile methodology in mind, student groups adopted this framework as a requirement of the program
Summary
Previous works have established that Information Technology (I.T.) graduates lack sufficient practical skills for I.T. industry work [1][2][3]. In the University of Asia and the Pacific (UA&P), our ongoing study into integrating Agile Methodologies into the BSIT Capstone project course has already shown positive effects on product output from the point of view of the clients [15]. Agile Methodologies is seen as a way of building and releasing software through an incremental and iterative form of development and release [16] This is achieved through close client collaboration and focusing on the software product, as emphasized by the Agile Manifesto [16][17][18]. What recommendations can be made to improve consistency of student performance in capstone?
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