Thinking, Communicating And Practicing: Development Of A Senior Design Capstone Curriculum In Information Technology

Abstract NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract Thinking, Communicating, and Practicing: Development of a Senior Design Capstone Curriculum In Information Technology Dr. Sam C. Geonetta University of Cincinnati, College of Applied Science 2220 Victory Parkway, Cincinnati, OH 45245 Introduction The University of Cincinnati’s College of Applied Science Information Technology (IT) program, founded as the Information Engineering Technology program in 1998, has a significant hands-on component in its requirements. The IT program offers a Bachelor (BS) and Associate (AS) degree option with both day and evening schedules. Learners choose a primary specialization from one of three “tracks”, including Software Development, Networking, or Web Technologies. BS learners also choose at least one secondary track specialization from one of five tracks, including Software Development, Networking, Web Technologies, Database or Digital Media. Co-op experience is a vital part of the curriculum; all learners work in alternating quarters starting in their second year of study. BS learners co-op five quarters and AS learners two quarters.1 In addition to co-op, learners at the College of Applied Science learn by experience through the integration of intensive, hands-on activities built into the courses and through the Senior Design project completed in the final year of study.2 In the IT program, Senior Design is currently a three 3 quarter credit-hour course sequence comprised of Senior Design I, II and III.3 In this paper I discuss the Senior Design capstone project that requires learners to demonstrate proficiency as IT professionals. I outline the context for the course in the overall education of the learners, as well as in their specific field, and offer details of course requirements and how they are fulfilled. Educational Context The College of Applied Science’s program focuses on IT in its broadest sense encompassing all aspects of computing technology. IT, as an academic discipline, focuses on meeting the needs of users within an organizational and societal context through the selection, creation, application, integration and administration of computing technologies. IT is an academic discipline distinct from computer engineering, computer science and management of information systems. IT encompasses software engineering and development, computer networking and communications, Web technologies, computer security, database management, and digital media technologies. Learners receive a broad education across the IT spectrum as well as technical specialization in the areas of their choice.4 The BS degree totals 181 quarter hours. Core requirements are built around TAC-ABET accreditation standards for engineering technology programs5 and the emerging standards of the Special Interest Group for Information Technology (SIGITE) of the Association for Computing Machinery.6 The degree integrates these requirements to include courses that focus on speaking, writing, project development, humanities and social sciences. Furthermore, several technical classes—for example, in the Digital Media sequence—have activities designed to expose “Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference and Exposition Copyright ©2005, American Society for Engineering Education”