ISECON 2011

A Decade Review of a Masters-Level

Real-World-Projects Capstone Course

Charles Tappert and Allen Stix

Pace University, New York

ISECON 2011

Real-World Student Projects

Conducted in capstone courses for 10 years

Student teams build real-world computer information systems for actual customers

Project systems serve the community internal university community at Pace greater university community external non-profit local community

ISECON 2011

Real-World Student Projects (cont)

Real-world projects are a stellar learning experience for students

Win-win situation for all Students Customers Instructors and other involved faculty School of CSIS University

ISECON 2011

Migrate to Online Format

Migrated from traditional face-to-face format to online format in Fall 2006

To be progressive Technology for online courses adequate Online preferred by employed students –

no scheduling conflicts & no commuting To expand the population of students

beyond the greater NYC area

ISECON 2011

Challenges of Online Format

Uncertainties of how traditional course methods port to the online environment and what new methods might be required

Teams lacking co-presence require higher level of organizational and process skills

No weekly classroom meetings as safety net for teams’ interaction and functioning

ISECON 2011

Team Projects – Categories

Project Category NumberProjects

ProjectSemesters

ProjectRelated

Pubs

OffshootPubs

Web Applications 21 25 21Pervasive Systems 15 25 18PC Applications 11 18 13Artificial Intelligence 9 11 12Pattern Recognition 9 12 34 19Biometric Systems 32 35 39 19Quality Assurance 5 9 5 5Totals 102 135 142 43

Table 1. Summary of projects and publications.

ISECON 2011

Team Projects – Sources

Project Source NumberFaculty Ideas or Research 42Student Ideas or Research 36External Community 13Internal University Needs 11Totals 102

Table 2. Project sources.

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Team Projects – Publication Types

Publication Type NumberExternal Conference Papers 53Journal Articles 7Book Chapters 2Doctoral Dissertations 17Masters Theses 4Internal Conference Papers 98Internal Technical Reports 4Totals 185

Table 3. Publication categories.

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Team Projects – Examples

Course website “Projects” page Spring 2011

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Team Website

Project title and description Project members and customers All deliverables posted

Weekly status reports Midterm & final presentation slides User manual Technical paper

ISECON 2011

Team Project – Example Website

Team Projects – Example Systems

Handwriting Forgery Quiz System Rare Coin Grading System Keystroke Biometric Experimental Sy

stem

Biometric Authentication

A robot identifies a suspect, from the movie “Minority Report.”

Man

Woman

Train

Test

Train

Test

Left Right

Iris Authentication: Data

Iris Authentication: Image Processing

Fingerprint Verification

Each person has a unique face?

Face Recognition

?Query

Face DB

Face Recognition: System

Inspirational Portrait of Individuality

Face Recognition: National Security

Speaker Individuality: “My name is …”

“My name is” from Two Different Speakers

Speaker Individuality

“My name is” divided into seven sound units.

Speaker Individuality

biomouse Fingerprint scanner

DigitalCamera

LCD Pentablet Microphone

Multi-modality Biometric Authentication

Embeded & Hybrid User Verification system

System that requires user verification

ISECON 2011

Issues/Solutions Stemmingfrom Scattered Teams

Project stakeholder communication Issue – communication gets difficult

For example, scattered team members more likely to feel isolated and want to communicate directly with instructor or customer

Solution Communication between team and instructor/customer

must be through team leader Email distribution lists for whole class and for each team Project team leaders must be local to facilitate

communication/meetings with instructor and customers Course website provides central source of course

information Blackboard discussion forum for each project (see below)

ISECON 2011

Issues/Solutions Stemmingfrom Scattered Teams (cont)

How to handle quizzes, deliverables, etc. Issue – classroom meetings not available Solution – use Blackboard educational

software Quizzes Collecting digital deliverables Discussion forums

Forum for archiving instructor email Forum for student introductions Forum for textbook and other course material Forum for each team project

ISECON 2011

Issues/Solutions Stemmingfrom Scattered Teams (cont)

Provide some face-to-face interaction Issue – no weekly classroom meetings Solution – three classroom meetings for

local students/customers1. Near beginning of course

1. Face-to-face introductions, nature of course, specifics of course, student team project meetings

2. Midterm1. Project status presentations

3. End of semester1. Final project presentations

ISECON 2011

Current Assessment of Online Students

Individual quizzes (20%) Blackboard educational software system

Team initial assignment (10%) Students learn to function as a team

Team project midterm checkpoint (20%) Team project final checkpoint (20%) Team technical paper (30%) Strong emphasis on projects

No midterm/final exams (used in two-semester course)

ISECON 2011

Team Member Self and Peer Evaluations

Issue – lack of classroom meetings makes it difficult to determine individual team members’ contribution to the project work

Peer evaluations critical for distributed teams

Some minimal team member/customer contact

Some minimal team member/instructor contact

Literature indicates Various granularity levels in peer

evaluations Some automated systems reported

ISECON 2011

Team Member Self and Peer Evaluations

Three times during the semester After initial assignment to learn the process At the midterm checkpoint At the final end-of-semester checkpoint

Process for a graded team event First assign a team grade Adjust individual grades up/down based on

self/peer, customer, and instructor evaluations

ISECON 2011

Example Team Peer Evaluationand Grade Chart (4 member

team)

Team Member

Eval 1 Eval 2 Eval 3 Eval 4 Summary

Grade

1 + = + ++ + + + + 93

2 = = – – – – – – 79

3 – = + – – 83

4 = = – + = 85

Average = = = = = 85

+/- 2% for each summary +/- sign, showing only peer evaluations.

ISECON 2011

Pedagogical Course Evaluations

Issue – lack of classroom meetings makes it difficult for instructor to determine relative value of the course methodologies

Solution – semester-end survey (Survey Monkey)

Procedures/methods that worked well, or did not work well, and why

ISECON 2011

Pedagogical Customer Evaluations

Issue – instructor is often not aware of the quality of team-customers interactions

Solution – semester-end survey Obtain student feedback on customer

interaction Were customer requirements clear? Was amount of contact/interaction adequate? Was help on the project work appropriate?

ISECON 2011

Case Study - Agile Methodology Extreme Programming (XP)

First rigorous test of XP method Instructor posted deliverables on that

project’s page on the course website Deliverables intended as ~2-week duration

Results Instructor overestimated ability of team Often had to provide pseudo code However, first deliverable caused team

frustration Re-running experiment of previous team Not possible because not documented properly

ISECON 2011

Conclusions

Over five year’s experience in face-to-face mode

Over five year’s experience in online mode

Techniques for managing and assessing distributed teams have been successful and they continue to evolve