Benchmarking Capstone Projects in UTS Faculty of Engineering

Abstract

UTS Faculty of Engineering capstone projects are undertaken in the final semester(s) of study and provide an opportunity for students to demonstrate a capacity to perform at the levels expected of a professional engineer. In many cases, students undertake projects in their workplace environment affording a rich context to integrate real world problems and solutions with academic rigour. The existing subject requirements have remained relatively unchanged for over 10 years; there is negligible evidence of the impact of its introduction and only anecdotal evidence of its effectiveness as a ‘capstone’ subject. Further, project supervisors have expressed their concern regarding a drop in quality of project work … and its assessment. Some students opt for ‘softer’ project topics, moderation of assessment criteria across faculty staff is problematic, and there is a lack of adequate evaluation (feedback) data from students to inform improvement strategy. As changes to subject requirements are being introduced in Spring 2007, a benchmarking exercise is timely. This paper will present the pertinent outcomes from a detailed evaluation undertaken by 85 capstone project students in Autumn semester 2007. Students were asked to self evaluate on a 0–5 scale the ‘applicability’ and their ‘capacity to demonstrate in their project work’ each of 61 competency indicators chosen from Engineers Australia ‘Stage 1 Competency Standards’. The outcomes will serve as a valuable guide for areas of improvement, as well as a benchmark against which future change can be measured.