Project-based Capstone Course Research Articles

Issue on Teaching and Training Future Health Informaticians:Partnering with Students to Develop a Capstone for a Graduate Health Informatics Program.

To assess the desirability, feasibility, and sustainability of integrating a project-based capstone course with the course-based curriculum of an interdisciplinary MSc health informatics program guided with a student-partnered steering committee and student-centered approach. We conducted an online cross-sectional survey (n=87) and three semi-structured focus groups (n=18) of health informatics students and alumni. Survey data was analyzed descriptively. Focus groups were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim and then analyzed using a general inductive and classic analysis approach. Most students were supportive of including a capstone project but desired an option to work independently or within a group. Students perceived several benefits to capstone courses while concerned over perceived challenges to capstone implementation, evaluation, and managing group processes. Themes identified were: 1) professional development, identity, and career advancement; 2) emulating the real world and learning beyond the classroom, 3) embracing new, full circle learning, 4) anticipated course structure, delivery, and preparation, 5) balancing student choice, interests, and priorities, and 6) concerns over group dynamics, limitations, and support. This study demonstrates the value of having students as partners at each stage in the process from methods conception to course curriculum design. With the steering committee and the curriculum developer, we codeveloped a student-centered course that integrates foundational digital health-related project knowledge acquisition with an inquiry-based project which can be completed independently or in small groups. This study demonstrates the potential benefits and challenges that health informatics educators may consider when (re)-designing capstone courses.

Transformative but Not Easy: Students’ Experiences of an Interdisciplinary, Project-Based Capstone Course

In this study we explored the experiences of students who completed a project-based, interdisciplinary capstone course that was offered at a large university in Southern Ontario, Canada. To do so, we interviewed students after they completed the course, adopting a constructivist perspective and a phenomenological approach. Interview transcripts were analyzed, resulting in four themes: (1) communication, (2) group dynamics, (3) successes, (4) differences between program requirements. In addition to revealing tension between fostering student autonomy and providing students with support, our findings also demonstrate that students valued the capstone course for the knowledge and experience gained from learning to work as an interdisciplinary unit rather than the tangible output of a given project.

Flipping the Script on Project Management Practices in Education: Outcomes of Applying Agile Development Methodologies in a Classroom Setting

In this paper, an application of Agile Devel-opment Methodologies (ADM) to university project ori-ented courses is presented. A multidisciplinary student team applies Waterfall and Agile (Scrum) project man-agement strategies over a period of 10 months to a pro-ject based capstone course. The study primarily focuses on evaluating the two methodologies across five catego-ries – student confidence, student awareness, stakeholder confidence, stakeholder awareness, and project success. Results suggest that overall Agile can be more effective than Waterfall. Due to practices such as daily standups and frequent sprint planning, the student team and stake-holders found they were not only able to stay up to date with the progress of the overall project but also found there was enough time allocated to address the ever-changing nature of requirements brought on by the pro-ject. The lessons learned and recommendations provided in this study are generalized such that they can be applied in other project based courses as well.

Challenging the Traditional Graduate Information Systems Program

How do you make a graduate program more relevant? Develop a project-based capstone course that combines theoretical knowledge with practical application to offer students - even those enrolled only part-time - a more comprehensive, integrated experience.

Business and Industry Project-Based Capstone Courses: A Reflection on the Performance of Student Teams

This is the second of two articles in which the author shares experiences gained from the development and delivery of a business/industry project-based capstone course. The course integrates research, proposal development and design experience based on knowledge and skills acquired in earlier coursework. It also incorporates standards and realistic constraints and draws on combinations of all intended academic knowledge and skill outcomes. To succeed in this course, students must demonstrate professional competence through the accomplishment of work activities for business and industrial clients. They are required to collaborate as a team to apply their knowledge, think critically and complete activities. They face many of today's competitive challenges to industry, business and government. This second paper addresses the challenges and rewards of working in a team setting and the ways in which the capstone course structure contributes to students' enhanced learning. The first paper, also included in this issue of Industry and Higher Education, examines the processes of project selection and assessment.

Business and Industry Project-Based Capstone Courses: Selecting Projects and Assessing Learning Outcomes

This is the first of two articles in which the author shares experiences gained from the development and delivery of a business/industry project-based capstone course. The course integrates research, proposal development and design experience based on knowledge and skills acquired in earlier coursework. The course also incorporates standards and realistic constraints. Preparing students for ‘real world’ practices is an integral part of the curriculum for many engineering and technology programmes. Such preparation can involve numerous approaches to simulate realistic experiences, including engaging students with real-world external clients who might use their work. These practices offer the challenge of identifying and selecting suitable projects as well as developing the means to evaluate effectively the learning outcomes related to students' participation in such projects. This paper has two main parts. Part 1 concerns the process of project solicitation and communication with clients during different phases of the capstone project life. The difficulties encountered and the means of reducing their negative impacts are also addressed. Part 2 includes the development of the students' learning outcomes and the tools used to measure them. The second paper, also published in this issue of Industry and Higher Education, addresses some of the key factors in enhancing student learning in teams.

Enhancing Student Learning across Disciplines: A Case Example using a Systems Analysis and Design Course for MIS and ACS Majors

Background Information Systems analysis and design is a course that focuses on the development and maintenance of new and existing systems in an enterprise (Misic & Russo, 1999). This course is usually taught in an MIS program in a business school or in a computer science program in the liberal arts or engineering school. The MIS curriculum includes a course in Systems Analysis and Design (SAD Gorgone, et al., 2003). The SA&D course focuses on the earlier phases of the System Development Life Cycle (SDLC), and the course is typically delivered using either or both the procedure-centric and object-oriented paradigms. In the Applied Computer Science (ACS) Curriculum, a two-part Software Engineering (SE) course is usually offered, which consists of analysis and design in the first semester and a system development project (a capstone course) in the second semester. The College of Business established the MIS program that is discussed in this study in 1999 following an extensive review by both the faculty and IS practitioners. As part of the development of the MIS program, a focus group comprising of MIS faculty and IS practitioners was conducted to review a proposed curriculum for MIS. The idea to leverage the expertise of the well established computer science program to support the newly developed MIS program was echoed by the IS practitioners during the focused group discussion (Ehie, 2002). This viewpoint was made known to the provost of the institution by a consultant hired to review the new MIS curriculum. Based on the review, a new joint faculty position was approved for the MIS and the Computer Science departments. One-quarter of the new position was devoted to the MIS program and the new faculty member would be resident in the computer science department. The joint appointment will allow two programming courses to be taught by the ACS faculty for the MIS program. The department heads from the ACS and MIS programs, upon consultation with their respective faculty members and students, decided to offer a cross-listed course in SA&D in which both MIS and ACS students will be combined in one class. Such an unusual collaboration between two competing departments offers both challenges and opportunities. The main challenges were to ensure that the course design, bearing in mind the respective prerequisites, meets the curricula requirements to prepare both majors adequately for their subsequent system development and implementation courses and to diffuse the possible cultural tension between the two differently focused majors (Business and IS) during the class sessions. The main opportunity lies in constructively using the diversity to simulate the real-world situation, where students with different academic background work together to achieve the common course objectives. The SA&D course under the MIS program is followed by a capstone project course called Systems Implementation and Practice, which essentially caters to the curriculum requirements specified for implementing databases and distributed applications. The Applied Computer Science majors specializing in information systems in the University have a core course titled Information Systems Analysis and Design (ISA&D) in addition to Software Engineering, a project-based capstone course required by all ACS majors. Just as in SA&D, primary workflows in software development form the core of ISA&D. A second-level Information System course emphasizing the use of databases serves as the prerequisite for the ISA&D course, along with an in-depth four-semester programming knowledge. The ACS department, with input from the MIS department, hired a new faculty member that had an extensive industry experience. …