Designing a Capstone Course to Simulate the Industrial Environment

Abstract

The creation of a capstone course for an un- dergraduate computer science curriculum mirrors traditional software design. Initially, a high-level goal is created. This is refined into lower-level specifications by conducting interviews with the users. The implementation is based on these specifications. In our case, the capstone course is to simulate (as much as possible) the student experiences after graduation. Lower level specifications are created by approximately 20 hours of interviews with developers, testers and project managers in consulting, development and information technology departments. The results of these interviews are synthesized into a cap