Capstone Project Handbook

CST Faculty

Contemporary Science and Technologies

Capstone Project - Handbook

Page

1. INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………………..2

2. WHAT IS A CAPSTONE PROJECT?………….......……………………………………..2

3. PLANNING YOUR CAPSTONE PROJECT …………..........……………………………3

4. SUPERVISION………………………………………………………………………...……..3

5. ASSESSMENT………............................…………………………………………………..4

5.1 ASSESSMENT PROCEDURE……………………………………………………………..4

6. MARKING SCHEME…………………...........................…..……………………………..4

7. EXAMPLES OF PAST CAPSTONE PROJECT TITLES……………..…..........………5

8. GUIDE TO CARRYING OUT RESEARCH………………………………………………..6

8.1 BEFORE YOU BEGIN…………………………………………………………………….…6

8.2 RESOURCES………………………………………………………………………………...6

9 SUBMITTING YOUR CAPSTONE PROJECT ……………….........………………...….9

10 PLAGIARISM……………………..……………………………………………………….…9

11 ADMINISTRATIVE DOCUMENTATION .....................................................................9

APPENDIX A
STAFF EXPERTISE FIELDS .…………………………...……………………………….11

APPENDIX B CAPSTONE PROJECT REGISTRATION FORM …..….……..................………..…12

APPENDIX C
CAPSTONE PROJECT PROPOSAL …….……………....………………………….…13

1 Introduction

This handbook is designed to help the final year students in the SEEU, Contemporary Science and Technologies (CST), to choose, plan, start and complete a successful Capstone project.

The SEEU regulations require that students studying for CST, Contemporary Science and Technologies, complete a CAPSTONE PROJECT worth 12 ECST credits for Computer Science degree, 12 ECTS credits for ICT degree and 6 ECTS credits for Business Informatics degree. A capstone project is a large piece of work selected from a suitable area of computing to reflect your chosen subject programme and must contain original material.

Your capstone project is a useful tool to advertise your capabilities to prospective employers. You should think carefully about the skills you wish to demonstrate.

The selection of a capstone project is normally carried out during semester 6.

Your choice will be done according to your own professional interests and within the frames of the areas CST Faculty. The areas you can choose within the CST Faculty are depending from the staff members’ proposals and in cooperation with the supervisor that you will choose. Please look at the staff proposals, Appendix A of this handbook.
2 What is a capstone project?

A capstone project is a scholarly work of at least 10000 words in length that reports the results of research and work in a particular area.

Please consider the credit value of capstone project in your track of studies to have an orientation of the amount of workload that it represents.

The capstone project should incorporate knowledge from at least one of the course modules you have already studied and preferably more. In general the capstone project may take one of the following forms:

Investigative: Research into a particular system with practical experiments;

Evaluative: An evaluation of a particular system;

Constructive: The design and implementation of a particular system or

Practical: Internship report.

All of the above forms of capstone project will normally contain the following features:

 An analysis of a practical problem
 A review and critical analysis of the relevant literature
 An evaluation of results

The capstone project should contain a balance between theoretical work and a practical project. Although there is no absolute necessity for the research to include application development, it would normally be expected that it would include at least a practical design exercise and an implementation at least to some extent.

The capstone project work may be carried out as part of a larger research project, in co-operation with an industrial organisation or on an individual basis.
You are strongly encouraged to make contacts with the ICT business sector in the country and in the region and to search ideas and problems.

3 Planning Your Capstone Project

Students will start to formalise their capstone project towards the start of semester 6. It is your responsibility to find a supervisor for your capstone project by registering on i-schedule. A list of staff areas of interest is also given in Appendix A. When you have decided on your proposed area of study, you should approach a member of staff who has expertise in your area with a capstone project proposal which weights 10% of the marks.

The request form for CAPSTONE (Appendix B) should be submitted to the chosen Professor not latter than February 1st, each year. Each Professor will announce the schedule for submission in front of their offices.
After the reviewing of the requests, each professor will announce the list of approved students (Capstone thesis) not later than 7 days after the submission period.
After approval each student will prepare the CAPSTONE project proposal (Appendix C) not later then one week after the announcement of approved thesis.

The Capstone project Proposal should be approximately 1500 - 2500 words long and include the following:

I. Working Title – You should have a working title for your capstone project

II. Abstract – normally 500 words long which briefly describes your capstone project proposal. You should include the proposed title of the capstone project and an overview of what you intend to do and how you intend to do it.

III. Objectives – You should state what the objectives are for your capstone project. These objectives may take the form of a list. If you are undertaking the capstone project work as part of a larger project or in conjunction with your employer you must separate your own personal objectives for the capstone project from those of the larger organisation.

IV. Planning and Methods – you should explain how you intend to meet the objectives and what this will involve in terms of time and resources.

V. Internship details – If you are planning your work to be connected with some local, national or international company in any way.

The capstone project proposal will be submitted as part of the whole capstone project and will attract 10% of the final mark.

Your Capstone Project layout should be as follows:

I. Cover Page and Originality statement – Available from the Dean’s office

II. Capstone project Registration form – The signed form of the registration

III. Abstract – normally 500 words long which briefly describes your capstone project. It serves as summary description.

IV. Acknowledgement – A chance to say something more about the project and its development

V. Table of Contents – The content of the project by page

VI. Table of Figures – Table of all used figures

VII. List of Tables – List of all tables used in the project

VIII. Capstone Project Proposal – you should include your signed capstone project proposal from your supervisor.

IX. Content – Your capstone project content

X. Conclusion – What is your conclusion

XI. Future Developments

XII. Appendix – All the data used and gathered in the project

XIII. References – Reference all your work. Explain in detail were you got the ideas and at which pages of the book or articles and were they can be found. List of URL visited and used in the project.

XIV. Bibliography – List of all resources used or recommended for similar projects given in Harvard style of citation.

If you want to propose a project you have to follow these guidelines and suggestions: A: What NOT to do: - Do not propose a project that will be ambitious in a beginning and for which you will not be able to give a complete solution / presentation (software that does not work correctly, too simple or incomplete data bases etc.) - Do not propose a subject for which it is not clear how much "ready" code you will use, and how much real implementation and programming you will do. The Computer Science aspect of your project must be strong part of the project. Projects that are designated to so call "state of the art" of a specific domain are not suitable for final project subjects. It is not enough just to present a specific area possibly not covered during your university curricula - you have to show the ability to develop applications and to develop in a engineering way: by stating clearly the problem, developing its model from the Computer Science perspective, proposing a solution, comparing your results with the known results and approaches. - Do not put the accent of your work ONLY on the development of the application from the programming perspective. Good software is needed along with the correspondent documentation, but it is not a sufficient condition. You have to put your practical work in the framework of one complete Bachelor of Sciences perspective, showing the theoretical model of the work and explaining the approach that gave the software as it will be in your work.

B: Here are some elements that HAVE TO BE a part of your project: • Technological pertinence: For the projects that does not have a specific research orientation, a complete analysis of the space of solutions should be given, and an argument discussion on the specific choice that was followed in the project is a must.

• Rigorous analysis: The project should contain a complete description of the problem, regardless of the specific approach that was chosen for its solution in your work. This is an important introductory part of the project and should be used as a guideline for the argumentation of the steps and decisions taken during the solution proposed by your project.

• Document research: The documents that were used during the realization should be clearly referenced and commented in the places of your work where they were used.

• Software engineering aspect: Your realizations should be completed with a correspondent set of texts and documents explaining the model, the practical realization, the limits of your realization, and a sort of user manual is necessary in order to complete the values of the software that you produced.

• Portability: Your product should contain an analysis of its portability on systems different from the system on which it was developed. This should clearly define the conditions and constraints that are caused from the platform / Operating system / environment of software development of your project. • Ambition and contents: Your project has to contain technical and/or scientific aspects. In the ideal case you should work on original problems and propose your own solutions. • Evaluation: Your work will be evaluated from three main aspects: Quality of the work from the beginning till the end, Quality of the textual presentation, Quality of the oral presentation. Each of these aspects is equally important for the evaluation of your work. Your final project reports (the text of the final project) will be keep at the SEE University and its quality should be at the correspondent level.

• The amount of work requested: Please note that your projects are normally with a load of 10 credits per a semester and consider the correspondent quantity of work load.

4. Supervision With the guidance of your supervisor you will set up a structure for your capstone project. Your supervisor will be able to tell you the level of work required and what should be contained in a suitable capstone project.

Your supervisor is there to help you but the ultimate responsibility for the capstone project rests with you.

Each supervisor will announce a schedule of Capstone classes (group meeting) which will be held in regular bases according to announced schedule. Also, each assistant will announce consultation hours with the Capstone students.

5 Capstone project Assessment
5.1 Procedure

Your capstone project will be assessed by your supervisor, together with at least one independent assessor, drawn from the academic staff. It may be also subject to moderation by an external examiner.

The capstone project mark is finalised at the CST Faculty Examinations Committee after a public presentation (announced at least 5 days earlier) will be done.

6 Capstone project Marking Scheme

The amount of work completed should reflect the work of three taught modules for Computer Science direction students. The mark distribution below is given as a percentage and is a rough guide for an average capstone project. The proportion of marks can be adjusted by your supervisor. For example if your capstone project is more research based with little technical content the research mark (1) would be increased and the technical content mark (3) would be decreased. Some of the sub categories will not be appropriate for every capstone project.

(1) Evidence of research into the background to the topic: 20%

- a demonstrated ability to absorb and evaluate an existing body of work
- a clear contribution of the references to the content of the capstone project (2) Analytical content: 35%

- evidence of analysis of the nature of the problem
- evidence of analyse of the methods used in the capstone project
- evidence of analyse of the findings of the capstone project
- possible comparison of methods or technologies used

(3) Technical content: 35%

- evidence of an ability to understand the nature of the technical problem and determine the tools necessary to solve it
- evidence of an ability to learn new techniques and technologies in order to solve a problem
- evidence of an ability to use techniques already learnt in the course
- evidence of an ability to tackle a technical problem and solve it with the necessary tools
7 Examples of Past Capstone project Titles
Previous capstone project Capstone Projects can be found at 305.19

Capstone project proposal Evidence of research in the background of the project Analytical content Technical content
10% 20% 35% 35%

8 Guide to Carrying Out Research

8.1 Before you begin Whatever type of capstone project you are embarking on, you will need to research the background of the subject. However, before you even start to carry out your literature search there are a number of things you will need to consider:
 Where might I find the information?
 What time span am I thinking of. How up-to-date must it be?
 Should I only consider what is happening in this country, or internationally?
 What sources could I use to begin my search?
 What help can I get (or shortcuts can I take)?

Having thought about these, you can now start to look for information. Remember, you don't have to make final decisions at this stage - you will develop your ideas, as your literature search and your research, develop.

8.2 Resources

Beginning your search Your capstone project is to a large extent a research capstone project and therefore needs up to date information. Current research, and even recent research, can be quite difficult to find out about. However, there are a number of ways to help make this easier: Using the SEE University Max Van Der Shtul Library

Textual resources
If you need advice about how to conduct a search, or how to look for primary sources, ask at the enquiry desk. For more information about the related catalogues, please refer to the relevant pages http://search.epnet.com and http://library.seeu.edu.mk
For the EBSCO-n http://search.epnet.com if you are using it inside the library you don’t need user id and password. For the University library web page (http://library.seeu.edu.mk) you do not need user id, you can search or browse directly for the existing titles.
Browsing
If you are beginning your research, you may want to browse the shelves of the relevant section in the Library; material is arranged by subject and guides to the subject classification scheme are available. If your area of study is more specific and you are looking for published sources, search the online catalogue to begin with.
For other published paper, such as ACM or IEEE proceedings and journals, CST faculty can provide access to download the content from these databases as well. Please contact the Deans office for details (if needed).

Specific references and subject searching
If you are searching for a known item, or want to find the full extent of our published holdings, it is best to check the Online Catalogue first. Please note the collection, shelf mark and whether the item is on open or closed access. All closed access material needs to be ordered.

Archives and manuscripts
For all unpublished material, it is necessary to consult the librarian on duty. Readers are required to complete and sign an additional undertaking, and are advised that, particularly when using archival material, they should make an initial appointment to speak to, an archivist.

Reviews A review covers the entire scope of a topic, outlining what has been done and what is known about it. If you are fortunate enough to find a recent review, then you can search back using the references it cites and find other papers on the same topic. This gives a historical perspective of what is known already. Many subject areas have annual publications which review specific topics. Typical names include: Advances in..., Annual Review of...., Current Topics in ... etc. Journals Most research is usually submitted for publication in journals.

Abstracts & Indexes Most subject areas tend to be covered by a variety of journals. To find out what has been written in a subject area, abstracting and indexing journals are published. An abstracting journal gives a short summary - or abstract - of the article as well as the bibliographic details given in an indexing journal. Frequently the abstract will give sufficient information to enable you to decide whether or not you need to see the original article. An abstracting journal usually has a broad subject arrangement and author and subject indexes.

Please use extensive Web search of available resources and pay special attention to the reliability of the resources, follow the common Netiquette and use correct citations.

Returning material

Return all closed-access material to the relevant enquiry desk at the end of prescription deadline. Please don’t keep the materials longer than you need to.
Reserving material: closed-access material can be held on reserve for up to two weeks. Please tell the duty librarian. Please inform them as soon as you have finished with reserved materials. Accessing information not held at SEE University Library As you search for information, you will almost certainly encounter references which are not held in the SEEU Library, in such cases the research falls on you to find the needed materials.

9 Submitting your capstone project

You must submit three bound copies of your completed capstone project to the Capstone project Committee. Capstone project front covers will be available on LIBRI.

All the material which is being submitted as your capstone project should be bound into the report. If it is impossible to include the material in the booklet (e.g. if part of the report is a disc/CD) then all supplementary material must be suitably packaged, clearly labelled and secured to the inside back cover (last page from the inside) but in the way that allows supervisor/assessor easy access.
For Practical/application it would be considered appropriate to prepare and submit:

- user manual;
- installation and maintenance guide;

All costs of production including typing, photographing, photocopying, the cost of the cover and binding, etc. must be borne by the student.

10 Plagiarism

Plagiary one who takes the thoughts, ideas or writings of others and gives them out as his/her own.
Writing a report is intended to make you express yourself. Your report must be based on your own thoughts and written in your own words i.e. any inappropriately used information or resource will be treated as plagiarism.

11 The Administrative Documentation All the administrative documentation like the Project Proposal document, and Capstone project Registration Form and other administrative documents can be found at Pro-Dean’s Office or on LIBRI > CST Undergraduate Issues.

APPENDIX A

The list of CST staff engaged in capstone each year is changing, please check the Online schedule for the updated list.

Please contact the CST Staff for their research areas of interest before choosing your capstone topic.

APPENDIX B

CAPSTONE PROJECT REGISTRATION FORM

SEE University - CST Faculty

Date: ______________

Student: _________________________________

Mentor of the project: _____________________

Title:

Further Explanations of the content:

Student: Mentor:

___________________ __________________
APPENDIX C

CAPSTONE PROJECT PROPOSAL

SEE University - CST Faculty

Date: ______________

Student: _________________________________

Mentor of the project: _____________________

Title:

Domain: Precise the technical / scientific area where belongs your project (approximately 100 words)

Abstract: Normally 500 words long which briefly describes your capstone project proposal. Give the idea of your project, the proposed contents and methodology of development as well as the wider context of the proposed study.

Internship details: If you are planning your work to be connected with some local, national or international company in any way.

Objectives: You should state what the objectives are for your capstone project.

Planning and Methods: you should explain how you intend to meet the objectives and what this will involve in terms of time and resources.

Development environment: Give the development environment in terms of programming language(s) and packets in which your project will be realized. Give the computing / operating environment previewed for the project.

Outcomes: Define the expected outcomes of the project.

Future Advances: Define what might be the future further advances of your project.