Call for Participation in CS Capstone Project

I cordially invite you to participate in the University of Memphis CS Capstone Course (COMP 4882). Participation mainly invloves two things:

  • Proposing a software project for a student team (roughly 5 members) to implement.
  • Playing the role of customer as the team builds your project.

Participation has many benefits:

  • Opportunity to meet (and potentially recruit) CS undergrads about to graduate.
  • Opportunity to share with students the skills that you believe are particularly important for CS graduates to possess.
  • Opportunity to visit the capstone course to let the students know what your business is about and what opportunities they might find there.
  • Satisfaction of helping and mentoring CS undergrads as they make the leap from students to young professionals.

If you're interested in participating, the first step is to propose a software project. The project will last throughout the Spring semester (January 20th to May 7th), and the deadline for proposals is Friday, January 16, 2015. Detailed instructions follow.

What Playing the Role of Customer Involves

Above all, the capstone project is meant to be an excellent educational experience for our students.

As part of proposing a project, you must be willing to really work with the student team. They "report" to me (Prof. Fleming) as their "supervisor", but you are their "customer", just as if they were in a real work environment. In the same way that you would interact, mentor, coach, and evaluate a contractor doing a job for you, we expect you to interact, mentor, and coach your team. Additionally, you will assist me with assigning grades by providing feedback on your team.

To ensure effective communication between you and your team, you must meet with them regularly (once per month at minimum). In-person meetings are preferred, but some phone meetings (for example, via conference call or Skype) would be acceptable.

How to Propose a Project

To propose a project, please answer the following questions, and send your responses to Scott Fleming (Scott.Fleming@memphis.edu). Use as much or as little text as you'd like, but the more succinct the better.

  1. Project title: What shall we call it?
  2. Project motivation/background: Where did this idea/need come from?
  3. Project objectives/description: What do you hope your team accomplishes?
  4. Project deliverables: What do you expect to be handed to you in May?
  5. Team size: How many students should work on this project? (4–6 students is typical.)
  6. Any additional comments/concerns?

Here are a few things to keep in mind while coming up with your proposal:

  • The software cannot be trivially simple, which usually means that it must have some interesting behavior. For example, web pages that do nothing but present static information (like this page) would not be acceptable, but web applications that accept user input, store data, and compute output (like Amazon.com) would be acceptable.
  • The project need not be extrordinarily challenging technically. For example, even straightforward web applications require sufficient technical prowess to be of interest to most capstone students. The same is true of mobile applications (e.g., Android).
  • Students' time resources to work on the project are less than professional software developers: the semester is only 15 weeks long, and the students likely have other courses that take some of their time each week. Thus, the scope of the software project may need to be somewhat constrained.
  • Once the course ends, the students graduate (typically). Thus, you should not assume that the students will continue to maintain or work on the project after the course is over.
  • Given these constraints, a safe expectation would probably be to get a high-quality prototype out of the project (as opposed to a production system).
  • Here are a couple examples of past project proposals:

Any questions?

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact me. Likewise, if I have any questions about your proposal, I will let you know.

Thank you for your time and consideration. With your help, we can provide our CS graduates an opportunity to bloom as developers and young professionals, and to enter post-graduate life ready to take on the grand challenges that face our changing world!

Sincerely,

Scott Fleming
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science
University of Memphis
375 Dunn Hall
Memphis, TN 38152

Office Phone: 901-678-3142
Dept. Phone: 901-678-5465
Fax: 901-678-1506

Email: Scott.Fleming@memphis.edu
Homepage: http://www.cs.memphis.edu/~sdf/