CS@NAU: Senior Capstone Design

Program Philosophy

The central emphasis of the Capstone course is to provide a semi-independant consulting experience that mirrors actual real-world practice in meaningful ways. Although specific software development practices will, of course, vary by employer, software domain, and problem type, we identified a number of core skills/outcomes that all Capstone projects should reinforce, centered around teamwork, communication, project management, and presentation skills. Specifically, the CS Capstone experience is driven by the following priorities:

• Realistic, independent projects.  Most projects done during their training in our program will, like school projects everywhere, typically focus on teaching them a narrow set of particular skills associated with the subject matter of the course in which the project takes place. Capstone projects are different: projects are drawn from the real world, with all of the complexity, variation of skills needed, and ambiguity that real-world software development entails. Faculty mentors are assigned to each team, but they in no way take on the "project manager" role; this is up to the students to organize and manage internally. The faculty mentor provides overall guidance, provides review of the team's plans/designs, and makes sure that progress is being made; and, of course, provides evaluation and grades for the process. Similarly, the sponsoring client is not expected to have technical expertise or provide guidance beyond domain-specific feedback on domain processes and needed functionality.
• Teamwork and  Project Management.  Learning to work on teams and manage a project has always been a core pedagogical goal of the Capstone program; this will not change under the new model, as embodied in the overall deliverables guidelines for all projects..
• Outcome-oriented.  Another hallmark of the Capstone program is the focus on producing actual, practical results.  Corporate sponsors should be able to rely on functional (about beta level) products that, depending on project goals, can be immediately deployed in the actual work environment.

On a practical level, there is one central reason that our CS Capstone Program has been so successful: it consistently provides tangible benefits to all participants: students receive invaluable experience and insight into corporate dynamics; sponsors receive custom-built solutions to specific corporate needs at minimal cost. In addition, sponsors are able to become acquainted with talented seniors; it is not uncommon for sponsors to subsequently hire Capstone team members.

As a Capstone sponsor, you can expect that we, as the CS faculty, will do our upmost to make sure that it is a positive experience, with a well-designed software solution in your hands at the end of the process. Many of our Capstone sponsors have been involved with the program for many years, submitting new projects every year. Our aim is to build and maintain a strong group of committed sponsors like this, who know what it takes to motivate and support a team to a successful product, and who enjoy working with students just crossing the threshold as peers in our professional world. Your satisfaction as a sponsoring "client" is a main goal for us.

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