Effective approach in making capstone project a holistic learning experience to students of undergraduate Computer Science Engineering program

Abstract

Final year or Capstone Project is the final and important phase of the undergraduate curriculum in a Computer Science Engineering program. Final year project is a course where all the skills learnt by the students in the course are applied and evaluated. The important aspects in the delivery of this course are (i) developing a model to train the students to deliver quality project work and documentation, (ii) effective evaluation of the student based on rubrics which are mapped to the course outcomes (iii) Calculate program outcome and course outcome attainment and make necessary changes to improve the delivery of the course (iv) Map the feedback from stakeholders as per graduate attributes and measure performance. This paper discusses the approach followed for three academic years 2014-2017 on a batch of 180 students per year. Training sessions, evaluation rubrics, usage of project management tools, mapping performance of the students with the outcomes of the course and program, feedback from the stakeholders like companies and students themselves gives a clear view of improvement of the performance of the students during the Final Year Project course in three years.