EFFECTIVE APPROACH IN MAKING CAPSTONE PROJECT A HOLISTIC LEARNING EXPERIENCE TO STUDENTS OF UNDERGRADUATE COMPUTER SCIENCE ENGINEERING PROGRAM

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.


Introduction
Final year project (FYP) is where undergraduate students of engineering courses undertake a project work as a part of their final year academics.These projects can be of 2 types, they can be live projects carried out at an industry on one of the real time industry problems, or they can be in-house projects which are carried out within the department over one of the research topics in any subject.Every project is an extensive learning experience for the student and a platform to apply everything that he/she has learnt throughout the course.The importance of a final year project in the program is summed up in the following points: a. Final year project is the only major course in a complete semester spanning for six months.b.Final year project alone fetches 18 credits to a student.c.Students carry out the project individually or in groups containing up to four students.d.Students get an opportunity to execute live projects in the industry.e. Programming Languages like C++, Java, Python etc., and subjects like Data Structures Computer Networks, Software Engineering and varied electives learnt in lower semesters are put into practical application.
f. FYP is one of the major criteria to calculate the outcome of the engineering program.
Over the delivery of the course in the previous years, many observations were made which needed modifications to increase the effectiveness of the course.Following are the observations that were modified for improvement from academic year 2014-15 onwards: a. Rubrics for the projects were not exhaustive and required changes based on the attainment of outcomes.
b. Clearly defined course and program outcome was required to map the rubrics and feedback to evaluate the outcome and to improve the program.
c. Incorporation of continuous evaluation of project progress and emphasis on product development cycle (PDC) at each phase was necessary.
d. Students tended not to consider society, environment and interdisciplinary projects unless emphasized.Hence changes were to be made in the rubrics and training.
e. Conduction of workshops at different phases to motivate and train the students about synopsis writing, project management (Gantt chart), project design and effective report writing for the project was additionally planned.
f. Industry-academia relationship needed improvement which could be achieved by extensive feedback from the industry and the students.
g. Effective documentation and storage of project reports was essential for future reference.
h. Continuation of project titles for the next academic year was crucial for completion of long projects.If students have worked on a particular topic for first year, the next batch continues the work based on the scope for future developments in the topic.

Literature Review
Problem based learning and project based learning are two popular learning mechanisms in higher education.In problem based learning, students solve open ended problems to understand the concepts.
On the other hand, project based learning is a learning mechanism where the course goes on for a specific duration with the outcome of a product or presentation with some analysis.Blumenfeld, Soloway, Marx, Krajcik, Guzdial and Palincsar (1991) explain how to motivate students to investigate and solve non-trivial problems, the difficulties faced in problem based learning and how they can be solved.The role of teachers and technology in motivating students, assessment of the project work and management of project are discussed.Mills and Treagust (2003) discuss the application of problem based and project based learning to engineering students.They stress on the importance of project based learning compared to "chalk and talk" method.Many institutions that incorporate traditionally taught courses mixed with project based components are reviewed and it is concluded that this method is readily accepted by students, industry and accreditors.
Bell brings out the importance of project based learning in the 21 st century in Bell (2010).Learning responsibility, independence and discipline are the three important outcomes of project based learning.
The author further discusses how project based learning enhances creativity, real world connections, collaboration skills and technology.Krajcik et al. discuss the steps in carrying out a project based learning process in detail (Krajcik & Blumenfeld, 2006).According to the authors, the key features in project based learning are driving questions, situated inquiry, collaboration, learning technologies and artifacts.
Engineering final year projects have been studied in detail in many papers.Ku and Goh (2010) emphasize that individual project were more effective in Europe and Australia.More students published papers in case of individual projects.Healey, Lannin, Stibbe and Derounian (2013) explain ways to enhance final year project and dissertation work.Stages and processes involved in final year project assessment in the University of Bath were discussed in Harris and Smith (1983).
Impact of program outcome, implementation and the factors that affect the outcome are discussed in Durlak and DuPre (2008) and Darling-Hammond (2006).Importance of rubrics and its effect on evaluation has been studied in detail in Stevens and Levi (2013).Outcome based evaluation and assessment of capstone project are discussed in Vijayalakshmi, Desai and Joshi (2013) and Dunlap (2005).
The studies and suggestion in all these reference articles have been applied into the curriculum execution and results of these observations are discussed in this article.

Continuous Evaluation of the Project Work
A project work involves many tasks, beginning from the inception of a topic to the final submission of the dissertation.It is necessary to introduce a process of continuous evaluation of the project to ensure effective progress of the project work and its adherence to schedule.The student evaluation is carried out based on rubrics which are mapped to the course outcomes.Conduction and evaluation of the project is split into five phases.Each phase covers an important part of the Product Development Cycle (PDC).A committee is set up for the evaluation process.During the three academic years 2014-2017 the total number of projects is given below in Table 1.

Project Topic Collection and Dissemination
Project topics allocation is done in two ways.For in-house projects, the topics are collected from the faculty members and communicated to the students through group email in the previous semester.The students then make groups and select topics from the list.On the other hand, if the student opts for a live industry project, the industry assigns the topic to the students which they then communicate to the department.Once these processes are done, the students finalize their topics by submitting a topic finalization form and a synopsis.
After the finalization, these topics are evaluated by the committee for approval where the students submit their project synopsis.Approval of the topic by the committee is a necessity for further continuation of the project.Once the approval is initiated, guides are allocated to the individual students and student teams based on the topics and the subject expertise of the faculty in those topics.

Project Phases and Rubrics
Project Phases are related to Product Development Cycle (PDC).The phases and their main tasks are shown in the Figure 1.

Phase 1
Phase 1 is the initial phase where the project teams will finalize their topics, submit a synopsis presenting the methodology, objectives and scope of the project.Rubrics are defined for the marks allocation.Contribution of the project towards the society, environment, interdiciplinary scope are considered during the evaluation.Further, a training session is organized for the students on the selection of a topic, during this phase.

Training 1: Workshop on "Selection of Project Topic"
This first training session is conducted at the beginning of the semester to explain the importance of taking projects related to society, environment and also motivate students to take up interdisciplinary projects.The topic of synopsis writing is also explained to the students in this session.Conduction of project work through phases, importance of project management, team structure, etc. are explained to the students.The students are also trained in the usage of tools like Gantt chart.The details of the rubrics for Phase 1 are listed below in Table 3.

Phase 2
The details of the rubrics of Phase 2 are listed in Table 4.
In Phase 2, the students present a detailed methodology of the project to the committee.If the committee believes that the methodology is not appropriate or there is a better way to conduct the experiments, the teams are advised about the changes.Emphasis is given on the study of literature and gaps in the research.Phase 2 also encourages the students to demonstrate project management skills in the form of project planning and team structure.Students present the project planning in the form of a Gantt chart, i.e. a pictorial representation of the project plan with milestones and the planned dates of completion of each milestone.Both the guide and the committee evaluate the presentation given by the project teams based on the rubrics.A sample of a Gantt chart is as shown in Figure 2. b.

CO1
-Justifies the project topic with a brief survey of the existing systems and their limitations with its business value.
-Justifies the project with a brief survey of existing systems without proper justification of their limitations and business value.
-Partial justification to the project topic with improper explanation of existing systems, their limitations and market value.
-Incomplete justification to the project topic with improper explanation of existing systems, their limitations and market value. c.

CO2
-All objectives of the proposed work are well defined and justified.-Steps to be followed in the form of methodology to solve the defined problem are clearly specified.
-Most of the objectives are defined and justified.-Methodology to be followed to solve the problem is mostly defined.
- -Partial understanding of the concepts related to the project and its scope.
-Not an interdisciplinary project and limited contribution of the project to the domain.
-Minimally understands the concepts related to the project.-Not an interdisciplinary project and limited scope of the project in the given domain. e.

CO1
-Objective related to environment or society is mentioned in the project objective and is of higher significance.
-Objective related to environment and society is defined in the objective but is of lesser significance.
-No defined objective related to environment or society in the project work.

Training 2: Workshop on Writing Design Document
A second training session is conducted in the middle of the semester to explain the importance and method of designing a product.Importance of Data Flow Diagrams (DFD), structure charts, UML diagrams, flow charts, etc. are explained to the students.Open source tools like ProjectLibre (Tsvetkov, 2015) for project management, GIthub (https:// github.com/) for project sharing and starUML (StarUML, U.M.L., 2005) for drawing diagrams are introduced.Software design is already learnt in software engineering subjects in lower semesters, but students usually find it difficult to apply the concepts to real-time project.Correct representation of modules in the project in the form of diagrams and depiction of control and data flow requires training and feedback from the faculty.

Phase 4
In Phase 4, the project teams demonstrate the complete implementation of the modules, unit testing and integration testing with relevant result analyses.Students present the implementation of the project to the committee with the results of the testing.If any modifications are required in the implementation, students are given a week time to make these modifications.Students show a demo of their project during the presentation.Both the guide and committee members evaluate the work carried out by the students based on rubrics.These rubrics are listed in Table 6.e.

CO4
-Demo shown and complete.
-Demo shown but incomplete.
-Demo shown but with mistakes.
-No demo shown.
Table 6.Rubrics for Phase 4 with CO mapping

Phase 5
Phase 5 is the final phase, where the students document the project in the form of a project dissertation report.
The student has to get the report verified by the guide initially and later by the committee.Finally, the project report with all the modifications completed, is checked for plagiarism and submitted to the department to be stored in the department library.These project dissertation reports are maintained in the department library for any future reference for the faculty and students.The rubrics for Phase 5 are listed in Table 7. b.

CO4
-Report is well organized and formatted.-References are according to IEEE publication standards.
-Report is not well organized and formatted.-References are not according to IEEE publication standards. c.

CO4
-The figures and tables are complete, detailed and formatted.
-Figures are not clear but tables partially formatted and detailed.
-Figures and tables are partially complete, detailed and formatted.
-Improper representation of figures and tables.

CO4
-Report is plagiarism checked and acceptable.-All the instructions related to project given throughout the semester were followed.
-Report is plagiarism checked and acceptable.-Instructions given throughout the project course were partially followed.

Training 3: Workshop on Report Writing
A final workshop is conducted at the end of Phase 4 to explain the importance of documentation and the procedure to write a good project dissertation report.Importance of plagiarism check and documentation ethics are also explained to the students.

Program and Course Outcomes
Computer Science and Engineering is a program of undergraduate studies in engineering.This program consists of courses that are spread across multiple semesters.The outcomes of the program and its involved courses are the metrics necessary in quantifying the learning of the student.A program outcome depends on course outcomes.Final year capstone project as a course, is a major contributor to the achievement of the program outcomes.
Program outcomes are defined as per the graduate attributes which adhere to Outcome based Education of Washington Accord.These are important criteria in the accreditation process of the institution.The program outcomes defined in the accord for Computer Science and Engineering are as listed below: • PO1: Engineering Knowledge The outcome of the course, final year project (FYP) is calculated by mapping the rubrics to the course outcomes.The course outcomes for final year project are defined as: • CO1: Perform literature review; identify state of the art in technology and research in that field and use the literature study define the problem.
• CO2: Establish a methodology using advanced tools / techniques for solving the problem including project management and finances.
• CO3: Design, develop analytical models, perform numerical analysis and interpret the results • CO4: Prepare quality document of project work for publications, patenting and final thesis.
The presentation given by each team in all the phases is evaluated by the committee and the guide.The final marks of each phase are calculated by taking 50% of the total marks from the committee and 50% from the guide marks.The evaluation structure and marks are as shown in Figure 3.

PO6 Engineer and Society
Projects related to society were given importance by adding it in the rubrics and motivating students to take up topics related to society.Hence the relevance mapping is also increased from Low (1) to Medium (2).

PO7 Environment and sustainability
Projects related to environment were given importance by adding it in the rubrics and motivating students to take up projects related to environment.Hence the relevance mapping is also increased from Low (1) to Medium (2).

PO8 Ethics
Explaining students about the importance of plagiarism check and made it mandatory by including it in the rubrics.Hence PO8 was increased from Medium (2) to High (3).

PO9 Individual and Team work
Students were motivated to take up interdisciplinary projects and team structure was made mandatory by including in the rubrics.Hence the relevance of PO9 was increased from Low (1) to Medium (2).

PO10 Project management and Finance
Project management was made mandatory by motivating students to plan finance and project scheduling using Gantt chart and was added in rubrics for evaluation.Hence relevance was raised from Low (1) to Medium (2).It can be observed that after action taken, the attainment of PO6 to PO10 in academic year 2016-17 has improved.

Industry Feedback for Industry Projects
Feedback is collected from the industry supervisors of the students who undertake live projects in industry.This feedback helps in calculation of attainment of program outcome.A feedback form is collected from companies which contains questions mapped to the program outcomes as shown below in Table 15.
The feedback questions are mapped to program outcomes and are tabulated to calculate the attainment of PO.Industries are major stakeholders in the program.The outcome of program from feedback is calculated as: Where PO i are the Program outcomes ranging from 1 to 12.
The comparison of percentage of program outcome attained based on feedback from the industry is shown in Figure 5.

Observations
The observations made after completion of final year project course from 2014-15 to 2016-17 are as follows: 1. Continuous evaluation of the course is achieved through phases and rubrics.Rubrics help in effective evaluation of the final year project.
2. Program outcome is evaluated based on course outcome and feedback from the industry and students.The program outcome has increased in 2016-17 and this is because of the observations made in the previous year and actions taken upon them.
3. Industry relationship with the academia is enhanced by taking feedback from the industry and improving on the places of lacuna.Improved program outcome is observed in the academic year 2016-17 based on feedback from industry.Furthermore, the number of industry projects has increased over the years.
4. Student feedback for the year 2016-17 shows that the students are satisfied with the conduction and evaluation of the course with an average of 88% program outcome attained.
5. Continuation of the project work by juniors helps the students and guides to go in-depth of the topic and to create a prototype, which helps the guide to apply for further funding from agencies.

Conclusion
Final year project is a very important course in Computer Science and Engineering undergraduate program.The course tests the student for his readiness to enter the corporate world.It also provides an exposure to, conducting research, effective documentation, project management and planning.The evaluation procedure discussed brings out the importance of rubrics for continuous evaluation and attainment of the course and program outcomes.The program can be improved through observations and actions taken based on attainment of outcomes.Therefore, this paper gives a holistic approach to the learning experience of student through capstone project.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Various steps in evaluation of Major Project

Figure 3 .
Figure 3. Evaluation of the Project by the Committee

Figure 4 .
Figure 4. Course Outcome attained percentage for three years

Figure 5 .
Figure 5. Program Outcome attained percentage based on Industry feedback

Figure 6 .
Figure 6.Program Outcome attained percentage based on Student feedback for the year 2016-17

Table 2 .
Types of Projects with domains

Table 3 .
Rubrics for Phase 1 with CO mapping Phase 3 is the design phase where the students present a high level design and a detailed design of the project with the help of Data Flow Diagrams (DFDs), structure charts, flow charts and module descriptions.The committee evaluates the design and gives a feedback about it.Suggested changes, if any, are incorporated at this stage.Both the guide and the committee evaluate the work presented based on the rubrics.These rubrics are listed in Table5.

Table 7 .
Rubrics for Phase 5 with CO mapping

Table 11 .
Action taken for the academic year 2016-17The CO-PO weightage mapping for the year 2016-17 based on action taken is as given Table12.

Table 12 .
CO-PO weightage mapping for academic year 2016-17 Course outcome and Program outcome calculated from the Table12for the year 2016-17 is given in Table13 and Table 14.

Table 13 .
Course outcome for the year 2016-17

Table 14 .
Program Outcome for the year 2016-17