Innovative Education: Operational teamwork produces successful capstone experience

By Karl Reimers and Ellen Jordan

Mount Olive College in North Carolina holds a Student Awards Celebration every spring to honor its graduating students. This spring, as part of the event, Mount Olive’s Presidential Research Project of the Year was awarded to an entire class, CIS 410 (computer information systems), for the development of a Website project called “www.tecteach101.com.”

Under the guidance of Karl Reimers, associate professor of computer information systems, the project updated an existing basic computer applications tutorial for Microsoft Office and created a new tutorial for end-user computer security. The project involved 19 students in CIS 410 who ranged in age from 21 to 50. The Website (www.tecteach101.com) is now used by five local businesses and will be incorporated as a freshman seminar this fall.

College professors organize their classes based on program and specific class goals. The assessment of the program usually includes a capstone course, and in many programs, the capstone project is individually designed and presented. The CIS 410 project, on the other hand, was a team effort involving traditional and nontraditional students and succeeded on many levels thanks to teamwork and team leadership.

Figure 1 describes the process Professor Reimers used to introduce, organize and manage the project with the help of his 19 students.

Figure 1: Flow chart outlines a 12-step process used to organize the CIS 410 capstone project.

As shown in Figure 1, the project was organized around the following 12 steps:

1. Choosing the problem. The problem must be a practical one that benefits a broad audience while motivating the project participants. In many respects, the project must portray a realistic business model where the instructor can be viewed as the “customer.”  In addition, students need to know that the project is a reflection of their expertise and their program, and that it could be used to showcase their achievements to current or prospective employers. Thus the project must highlight skill sets and knowledge obtained by the students throughout their college endeavors. The www.tecteach101.com project was chosen because it met these requirements and focused on teaching and learning – core elements at any institution of higher learning.

2. Preparing and organizing the project. Students were urged to contemplate the project two weeks prior to the start of the course. At this point, a rudimentary outline of the project, including major participation areas (i.e., an IT team, project managers and other specific tasks) and general guidelines goals of the project was given to the students. This allowed all of the participants to review the project theme and overall deliverables, and it provided participants an opportunity to visualize their project role before the actual course starts.  

3. Formally introduce the project. One week prior to the start of class, the project was formally introduced either in person or via an online collaboration environment. Emphasis was placed on students’ roles and the group selection process. Volunteerism and specific resourcing assignments (i.e., instructor selecting the project managers and IT manager) demonstrated that the instructor needed to blend project management approaches (e.g., a top-down planning approach contrasted with a holistic project management 2.0 approach). The course facilitator created weekly forums for each project area, enabling him to monitor the progress of the project and be the “guide on the side” in order to keep the project within its prescribed boundaries. During the forums, project managers required their content experts to post task status and selected completion requirements. All students were given access to every forum.

4. Make assignments. Because the instructor taught prior classes with these same students, he identified the best talent for the IT team and the project manager for the end-user computer security. It was imperative that the instructor assign “leaders” with the disposition and skill set to complete the project successfully.

5. IT team. The instructor assigned the lead IT members.

6. Project managers. The instructor assigned the end-user computer security project manager and requested a volunteer for the upgrade of the MS Office application tutorial.

7. Communication. Communication and subsequent changes are critical to the success of any project. In this case, communication was accomplished via weekly meetings, online e-mails, telephone conversations and postings in online forums. The IT team consulted often with the instructor, the project managers and students assigned to specific tasks. The IT team portrayed the instructor as the “customer.”  

8. Consultation. Project managers had weekly meetings with the instructor to discuss completion status of task requirements. In addition, the instructor consulted with individual students, often making suggestions to improve the final results of the project.

9. Specific tasks. Project managers assigned specific tasks to each student. The allocation and resourcing of students to each project was based on prior instructor experience with similar projects; however, students were allowed to select the group and project. The students were encouraged to make their decision based on their area of expertise. The project managers were highly skilled in managing projects and people. They assigned tasks by allowing students to choose areas of concentration based upon their expertise or particular interest.

10. Microsoft Office applications. Individual students investigated and researched their assigned Microsoft Office application topic. Their task was to gather and be the content expert within their chosen field.  

11. Security topics. Individual students and the project manager were charged with assembling the most important topics concerning end-user computer security. Once the topics were agreed upon, individual students investigated and researched their topic. Their task was to gather and be the content expert within their chosen field.  

12. Liaison. The “chief editor,” appointed by the instructor in the second week of class, was a liaison between the instructor, the students and the project managers. This position helped ensure consistency and more accurate presentation of content. In addition, the chief editor helped facilitate changes made by the course facilitator, which kept the project on track and in agreement with the mission of the project.

Table 1: Class schedule of a five-week accelerated capstone course (selected topics).

The End of Course Expectations

Taking a project management approach and considering the systems development life cycle, the course deliverables included two online tutorials along with an executive summary containing and referencing all documentation, exhibits, flowcharts, graphs, etc. necessary to support and present to the class a 10-slide presentation summarizing the methodology to attack the problem and the solution (tutorial) based on sound research. In addition, each student was responsible for s self/peer review assessment narrative that focused on various aspects of the project (including a log of issues, successes, group dynamics, etc.).  

The group project manager demonstrated the actual tutorial product (e.g., Website). Project leaders gave a final group presentation during Senior Showcase week, which was attended by representatives of the Mount Olive College’s Tillman School of Business and its School of Arts and Sciences. School deans and administration were there to judge the merit of the project, which ultimately won the Presidential Research Project of the Year award.

Table 1 displays a schedule of critical instructional events that led to the success in completing an accelerated capstone project.

In retrospect, the blend of traditional project management components with components of “Project Management 2.0” contributed immensely to the success of the project. Because of the short duration, the framework of the project can be considered “top-down planning” with heavy reliance on an online course supplement learning platform (i.e., Moodle) and the ensuing collaboration. All classes used the Moodle learning platform as a course supplement for assignment collection, attendance, discussion boards, syllabus, grade books and class contacts. Students were able to view the project construction throughout the course by using the online environment. Thanks to student buy-in, instructors knowing their learners and choosing a relatively small project, a holistic approach was employed. 

Karl Reimers (kreimers@moc.edu) is an associate professor of computer information systems and program coordinator at Mount Olive College.

Ellen Jordan (kreimers@moc.edu) is a professor of quantitative studies and vice president for Academic Affairs at Mount Olive College.

Technical References

http://www.intuit.com/website-building-software/
http://www.webhostingfreereviews.com/10-best-website-builders/?k=build%2Byour%2Bown%2Bwebsite&ad=G_build&ty=320
http://www.cert.org/homeusers/HomeComputerSecurity/  
http://www.cert.org/tech_tips/home_networks.html
http://www.microsoft.com/project/en/us/project-server-2010.aspx