Reflections on 17 years of ICT Capstone Project Coordination: Effective Strategies for Managing Clients, Teams and Assessment

Many undergraduate ICT degrees culminate with students completing a team-based capstone project under academic supervision. Capstone projects provided by external clients facilitate authentic experiential learning, but sourcing external projects can be difficult, and there can be issues managing industry clients within an academic setting. Capstone projects also provide an opportunity for professional skill development to increase student employability, though to fully assess generic learning outcomes requires evaluating more than the final product created for the client. Teamwork can have a positive impact on student learning, however it is challenging to determine a process of assessment that enables formative and summative assessment that does not require an academic to immerse themselves within a team to evaluate an individual’s contribution. Team members are often the best source of meaningful information, and self and peer assessment is commonly used as part of an assessment scheme, but to ensure the objectivity and integrity of the final grade it is necessary to correlate data from a variety of sources. This experience report reflects on a team-based capstone project approach that has been offered for 17 years and proposes some effective strategies for coordinating the more challenging aspects of capstone projects.