In an effort to encourage creativity, projects are designed by the professor with a minimal of minute instructions. Some students found this method to be frightening, but they quickly became acclimated to designing a spreadsheet or graph, for example, that functions well and is attractive. Most of the original projects used in 1996 have been totally replaced. Another reason to change and replace projects is to avoid new students copying completed projects from previous semesters. At the end of each semester, students are required for 15 percent of their final grade to design a high-level project that involves a function of the four types of software used in class that had not been demonstrated or used in class or in lab projects.
Students design a project using real data from work or fabricated data.
They manipulate the data in some manner. Most are encouraged to look at the examples that are used in the help section for each function. A grading template is given to the students ahead of time with examples of good projects from past semesters. The best final projects are incorporated into the required lab projects for the subsequent semester. One of the best student-designed projects teaches the value of compound interest while demonstrating the FV, future value, function in Excel.