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Experiences with Capstone Projects in a Master of Engineering Management Program: A Case Study

Year: 2015

Type: conference-paper

Abstract: Experiences with Capstone Projects in a Master of Engineering Management Program: A case study Capstone course is a one-‐semester "putting it all together" course that gives students an opportunity to use their knowledge and skills,collaborate with their peers, practice their presentation and organizational skills and ultimately, showcase what they have learned and achieved during their stay in the master program. In the meantime it gives the faculty the chance to evaluate whether the learning objectives set by the faculty, department and university have been met. The topics covered in an Engineering Management program vary widely and often the decisions are made reference to the program constituencies and the society needs and goals. United Arab Emirates pay particular emphasis on entrepreneurship (personal communication 2014) and as such the capstone project pays particular attention to development of enterprises. Furthermore the composition of the population or demography suggests that the UAE nationals should be able to start and run successful technology-‐based business enterprises to meet the innovation based economy aspirations of the country. The objectives of the capstone course have been developed to cater for this and other academic requirements in a Master program. The projects which provide the learning experience and, being the instruments for the integration of the knowledge and skills acquired through other courses in the program, are chosen with care. The project has to tread through a path that is, on the one hand should be unique to the project catering the intricate details of the project and, covering the fundamental steps necessary in the execution of such a project, on the other. The delivery method is an important part of the learning experience. The students should be able to learn from the project of their own and from the projects executed by their peers. Assessments in the capstone project are designed to be both formative and summative. In the formative parts the students get comprehensive feedbacks with an opportunity to resubmit while the summative assessments are assessed as they are submitted. This paper describes all the above, starting from the description of the program and going through objectives, project selection, typical stages or fundamental considerations, delivery method of the course and assessment. An analysis and evaluation section follows this identifying the achievements and methods to cherish and the lessons to be learned and improvements needed.

Source: ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

DOI: 10.18260/p.24056

Authors: Ali Hilal-Alnaqbi, Sangarappillai Sivaloganathan

Institution: United Arab Emirates University

Language: English

Topic: Engineering Education and Pedagogy

Subfield: Education

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Quality education

Open Access status: bronze

Funder: United Arab Emirates University