Different faculty have different requirements and administrative procedures. That depends on who your client is for the project.
Most independent studies have some real user who wants to use the program.
Some of these involve things we'd like to see done for us, others are things we'd like to see done for the department at large. We often prefer robot projects that you think of yourself. In this case, you have them supervise the independent study directly. This is fine as long as it's a programming project. If it's not, then you should have them supervise it themselves and give you credit in their own department.