CapStone: A cloud-based platform for multi-party collaboration on capstone projects

Xiaocong Fan

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

Many undergraduate engineering programs require senior students to take capstone design courses to work on industry-sponsored projects. Such a project often involves multiple parties of people playing various roles: students as project workers, faculty members as coordinator or advisors, as well as mentors from the sponsoring industry. In order to promote student success, highly demanded are platforms that can effectively facilitate multi-party collaboration during the development process of capstone projects. CapStone is such a platform that has been developed and deployed at the Behrend College, Pennsylvania State University. In this paper, we present the design rationale of CapStone, explaining the responsibilities of different roles involved in a capstone project and how those responsibilities are meshed into one common platform such that all parties could effectively orchestrate their activities. We have also conducted a study on how well CapStone could help student users in their project development. The responses showed that the adoption of CapStone has significantly improved student success in many ways. Particularly, over 80% of the students found CapStone helpful in project planning/scheduling, reporting weekly progress to advisors, collecting feedbacks on project works, and in writing their project reports.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationFIE 2016 - Frontiers in Education 2016
Subtitle of host publicationThe Crossroads of Engineering and Business
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
ISBN (Electronic)9781509017904
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 28 2016
Event46th Annual Frontiers in Education Conference, FIE 2016 - Erie, United States
Duration: Oct 12 2016Oct 15 2016

Publication series

NameProceedings - Frontiers in Education Conference, FIE
Volume2016-November
ISSN (Print)1539-4565

Other

Other46th Annual Frontiers in Education Conference, FIE 2016
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityErie
Period10/12/1610/15/16

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Software
  • Education
  • Computer Science Applications

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