Relating Student, Teacher and Third-Party Assessments in a Bachelor Capstone Project (original) (raw)
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Relating Student, Teacher and Third-Party Assessments in a Bachelor Capstone Project (short paper)
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2017
The capstone is arguably the most important course in any engineering program because it provides a culminating experience and is often the only course intended to develop non-technical, but essential skills. In a software development, the capstone runs from requirements to qualification testing. Indeed, the project progress is sustained by software processes. This paper yields different settings where students, teachers and third-party assessors performed [self-] assessment and the paper analyses corresponding correlation coefficients. The paper presents also some aspects of the bachelor capstone. A research question aims to seek if an external process assessment can be replaced or completed with students' self-assessment. Our initial findings were presented at the International Workshop on Software Process Education Training and Professionalism (IWSPETP) 2015 in Gothenburg, Sweden and we aimed to improve the assessment using teacher and third-party assessments. Revised findings show that, if they are related to curriculum topics, students and teacher assessments are correlated but that external assessment is not suitable in an academic context.
An Assessment Strategy For A Capstone Course In Software And Computer Engineering
2009 Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings
The assessment of individual student work on team projects is challenging. Ideally, every student would work toward the project goals with an equal level of effort resulting in all students in the course sharing the same final grade for the project. Unfortunately, this is not realistic. In this paper, a number of approaches to student assessment including peer and leader evaluation, ranking systems, etc. are discussed. Based on some of these ideas and the goal of providing students with frequent feedback, a new assessment approach for the computer and software engineering senior design course at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University is presented, which utilizes rubrics to judge each student's personal contribution and frequent delivery of the assessment so that students may iteratively improve their performance. This approach is evaluated versus the previous, a more highly subjective, assessment approach for this course. The paper concludes with a discussion of how this process will be implemented for later years.
Ac 2009-1603: An Assessment Strategy for a Capstone Course in Software and Computer Engineering
The assessment of individual student work on team projects is challenging. Ideally, every student would work toward the project goals with an equal level of effort resulting in all students in the course sharing the same final grade for the project. Unfortunately, this is not realistic. In this paper, a number of approaches to student assessment including peer and leader evaluation, ranking systems, etc. are discussed. Based on some of these ideas and the goal of providing students with frequent feedback, a new assessment approach for the computer and software engineering senior design course at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University is presented, which utilizes rubrics to judge each student’s personal contribution and frequent delivery of the assessment so that students may iteratively improve their performance. This approach is evaluated versus the previous, a more highly subjective, assessment approach for this course. The paper concludes with a discussion of how this process will ...
2011
Software engineering and computer science students conduct a capstone project during the final year of their degree programs. These projects are essential in validating that students have gained required knowledge and they can synthesize and use that knowledge to solve real world problems. However, the external requirements on educational programs often do not provide detailed guidelines for how to conduct or support these capstone projects, which may lead to variations among universities. This paper presents the results from a survey conducted at 19 different Pakistani universities of the current management practices and assessment criteria used for the capstone project courses at Undergraduate level. Based upon the results of this survey and similar work on Master Thesis capstone projects in Sweden, we present assessment rubrics for software-related undergraduate capstone projects. We also present recommendations for the continuous improvement of capstone projects.
Teaching Software Process Improvement and Assessment
In order to prepare students for careers as software process engineers, software engineering education needs to adopt innovative instructional designs to support effectively the learning of required knowledge and skills. In this paper, we propose a cross-course design for teaching software process improvement and assessment in a graduate course in combination with an undergraduate capstone project course adopting a constructivist approach. We applied the proposed course design and investigated its impact on learning effects, its adequacy and strengths and weaknesses by administering a pre-and post-test and applying a questionnaire at the end of the course. First evaluation results indicate a positive learning effect on students to develop competencies required for software process engineers as well as it successfully engaged both graduate and undergraduate students while providing a beneficial experience through their interactions.
Does Process Assessment Drive Process Learning? The Case of a Bachelor Capstone Project
2017 IEEE 30th Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training (CSEE&T), 2017
In order to see if process assessment drives processes learning, process assessments were performed in the capstone project of a Bachelor in Computer Science. Assessments use an ability model based on a small subset of ISO/IEC 15504 processes, its main Base Practices and Work Products. Students' point of view was also collected through an anonymous questionnaire. Self-assessment using a competency model helps students to recognize knowledge, skills and experience gained over time and in diverse contexts. The capstone project offered a starting point. Students' self-assessment and external assessment are correlated to some point but are not correlated for topics unaddressed in the curriculum or unknown by students.
Software engineering assessments and learning outcomes
Proceedings of the 8th …, 2009
Learning outcomes of software engineering-based courses require assessors to design assessment questions matching defined cognitive levels. This is to ensure students who take software engineering courses are assessed effectively and are imparted with the right level of knowledge and skill-sets. This paper outlines the application of Bloom's Taxonomy in software engineering assessment and the matching of assessments with learning outcomes. Sample questions are given and categorized according to the relevant Bloom's Taxonomy levels. This paper aims to assist software engineering teaching and learning; and improve the quality of software engineering assessment.
On the assessment and self-assessment in a students teamwork based course on software engineering
Computer Applications in Engineering Education, 2011
For the previous 7 years, under the auspices of a ''Stability Pact of South-Eastern Europe'' and DAAD, a joint project for developing an undergraduate course in ''Software Engineering'' has been conducted. The intention of the project was to enable a usage of shared materials for software engineering courses at wide range of universities in countries participating in the project. During school year 2004/2005: for the first time the same course; with the same case study; and the same assignments; have been conducted at the Humboldt University Berlin and University of Novi Sad. In this article, we share some of the experiences obtained during conducting the same course for the last several school years.
Assessment of Student Learning in Capstone Project
EDULEARN Proceedings, 2019
The Senior Development Project as a capstone research project was already introduced in [1]. Our institution, with its international campuses in USA, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East, is setting a new level of distance and collaborative education that enables students to form different cultures and time zones to work together on real projects in a controlled, academic setting, but in a manner that mirrors business and industry projects to a very significant degree. Three instructors are delivering this course jointly on three continents. This remote, synchronous delivery has both advantages and disadvantages. Students are more aware of one another and fully understand, subconsciously, that they are being taught the exact same material to the exact same standards. However, the technology still does not provide a smooth interface that provides the same immersive experience as face-to-face communication. There are also issues with motivating the students who are sitting alone in the classroom while the instructor is physically at the other campus. Students form joint teams of 6-7 team members that are not just international, but also multidisciplinary-Web and Mobile Computing (WMC) students work together with Computing and Information Technologies (CIT) and also, more recently, Human-Centered Computing (HCC) students. This creates a real need for the students to deal with the many issues of distributed teams, project coordination, and customers to give feedback through assessment of students projects. Each year students work on different projects and over the last four years we offered multiple projects randomly divided on teams-each team works on a single project, but about four teams on average work on any particular project, competing with each other. In order to assess projects, it is crucial to set the benchmark for assessment of their project work and learning outcomes. In this case, the classical way of student evaluation through exams and in-class work is not applicable due to project specifics. That's why we introduced innovative assessment tools like writing intensive papers, project and user documentation, gate reviews, sponsor input, and at the end heavy dose of peer evaluations. This paper will describe this assessment factors in order to achieve better student experience and feedback. The key aspect, however, is that the course exposes our students to the typical projects, as well as the cultural and technical problems, that they will encounter in the workplace and it is important to assess that work in a comprehensive and innovative way. This is in sharp contrast to most other schools where this capstone work is purely hypothetical and the projects exist only on paper.
Analyzing Challenges in Software Engineering Capstone Projects
2020
Engineering complex software systems is a very delicate and challenging task, which involves a variety of technical, general non-technical, and context-specific nontechnical challenges. Getting better insight into the nature of these challenges is of paramount importance for aligning intended learning outcomes and didactical setup in software engineering capstone projects that aim at exercising and extending these competences. In order to obtain a fine-grained understanding of perceived challenges in capstone projects, this work presents results of a qualitative analysis of self-reports which students wrote as post-mortem documents after being part of such a capstone project. As a main contribution, the qualitative analysis substantiates results in earlier work that technical issues tend to be less challenging than non-technical ones, e.g., collaboration within the team and beyond, issues of project management and organisation, and methodological issues related to requirements engin...