A capstone project must be an implemented IT solution that solves a significant need or demand by a Company Client. Capstone Project will consist of 3 students barring unforeseen or extraordinary circumstances. Students undergoing capstone project will have 1 Faculty Adviser assigned by the Capstone Project and Research (CPAR) Coordinator.

Students may petition for an additional external field expert as adviser in addition to the faculty adviser assigned by the coordinator.  The approval of such is under sole discretion of the CPAR Coordinator.  Students are expected to seek these field experts on their own.

The acceptance of the entire Capstone Project requires the complete proposal under the discretion of the IT131D professor as entry criteria to IT132DL and the final defense of the Capstone Project in a public forum at the end or during IT141DL.

Barring unforeseen circumstances, the list of panelists assigned to a group will remain the same throughout the duration of the Capstone Project.

Capstone Project and Research (CPAR) Coordinator

The coordinator is the Faculty-in-Charge (FIC) of IT132DL and IT141DL. The coordinator collaborates with the faculty members of the department and the FIC of IT131D on the selection of a possible Faculty Adviser of the students.  Students may suggest a faculty as preference but actual selection is at the sole discretion of the CPAR Coordinator.  Selected faculty adviser may not be changed unless deemed necessary by the CPAR Coordinator and/or the panel and/or the selected Faculty Adviser.

The CPAR Coordinator validate and evaluate expert field advisers suggested by the students. The coordinator also validates, evaluates, and selects the panelists for each group going through capstone project.  Coordination with the panelists are done for scheduling the BSIT defenses of the students.

The CPAR Coordinator sets the deadlines in accordance to the University Calendar. He or she also accepts and validates a fully accomplished Panelist Form for the final artifacts of the Capstone Project for the required signatures and other artifacts.

Panelists

The panelists are selected by the CPAR Coordinator to validate, evaluate, and critique student projects to ensure the project meets the IT industry standards.  They will make recommendations and revisions when necessary to elevate its level to such degree.

The panelists validate, evaluate and deliberate on any extraordinary circumstances of their assigned student groups and make recommendations to the CPAR Coordinator when appropriate.

Faculty Adviser (and External Field Expert) 

Faculty advisers ideally are strongly encouraged to regularly meet with the assigned group with a recommendation of once per week. They are expected to guide the students and track their progress. The advisers, however, are not expected to chase after students. It is the responsibility of the assigned group to reach out and coordinate with the advisers. In the defense, the Faculty Adviser acts as the lead panel.

The adviser is also expected to clarify with the panelists any new and unforeseen issues (e.g. client issues, etc.) regarding a particular capstone project. Students are strongly encouraged to seek their adviser for guidance on relevant issues.

In publication requirements, the Faculty Adviser is expected to guide students in writing the short paper for publication in a conference or a journal. The Faculty Adviser serves as the last co-author of the said paper.

Recommended Activities for IT132DL (Capstone Project and Research 1/L)

Consultations

• Students may consult regarding the system functionalities.

• Students may ask algorithmic nature related questions.

• Students may seek feedback on the system builds.

Pre-Capstone Checks

• The group’s capstone project should have been signed off by the FIC (or a panel) from IT131D.

• There should be a project proposal first, signed and received by the company prior to engaging in the proposed title of the capstone project.

• Determine if the problem and solution pairing of the Capstone is appropriate. Faculty Adviser may seek the counsel of the CPAR Coordinator for additional insights.

Milestone Checkpoints

• Faculty advisers may schedule regular milestone checks with students to show their work.

• Provide feedback on the students’ work.

• Discussion on what can be improved:

  • Students will look back at how the progress went.

  • Analyze issues and difficulties.

  • Faculty Adviser can help resolve issues.

• Planning for next Activities until next Milestone

  • Guide students through scheduling the next tasks for the next milestone.

  • Watch out for tasks that depend on other tickets and make sure the students know this.

• Students should be able to present documents during data gathering.

• Students should present evidence of their visitations/screenshots of virtual meetings and consultations of the company.

End of Semester Presentation

• Students are required to demonstrate a rough estimation of 70% completion of the Capstone Project implementation.

• Adviser needs to vouch for the groups to pass this subject.

• Groups that do not present to their adviser at the end of the semester receive INC.

Optional Code Review when possible. With access to Bitbucket/Github, the Faculty Adviser can see the work of the students. He or she may critique the works of the students. The Faculty Adviser may also get to see who is really doing the work.

Recommended Activities for IT141DL (Capstone Project and Research 2/L)

System Defense

• Faculty Adviser needs to vouch for the students’ work to be ready for defense.

• Students should convince their respective faculty adviser that the system is done based on the functional requirements of the document.

• Faculty Advisers can make changes to the list of functional requirements.

System Revisions

• Post defense system revisions have to be presented to the adviser.

• Adviser signs off on the system revisions.

By submitting the thesis and all associated materials, the student agrees to transfer the ownership of his or her own research work to the university. Conversely, the student asserts that the research is an original work from his or her own creativity and skill.

Clients are allowed to use the produced Capstone of the groups but may not have access to the source code itself as this is the property of the university.

The manuscript writing guidelines can be read on this Google Drive Link: Read here 

By the end of the course, students are expected to:

• Discuss the concepts, frameworks, and components of information systems.

• Identify business problem that will require IT solutions.

• Apply techniques in requirements gathering and Analysis.

• Describe the different phases of the systems life cycle.

• Differentiate the various systems and analysis and design methodologies.

• Identify the process and tools of structured analysis.

• Implement a systems analysis and design project on an approved enterprise/organization

• Prepare a structured specification.

Course Credit: 3 units

Course Prerequisites: None

Introduction to IT Research serves as the proposal stage of the Capstone. With the assistance of the Faculty-in-Charge (FIC), students are expected to form groups of three. They are to seek the company clients and determine the issues that require IT solutions. As the course is based on a Systems Analysis and Design program, students are expected to use the learned strategies and techniques to, in great detail, the ff:

• Discuss all the client business processes including all the inputs and outputs (using flowcharts, BPMN, dataflow diagrams, UML, etc.).

• Identify what the issues are and where they are found in the business processes.

• Discuss the impact of the aforementioned issues.

• Provide a preliminary/tentative solution that will address the problem(s).

• Written Capstone Proposal Manuscript covering Chapters 1, 2 and 3 (refer to the Capstone Manuscript Writing Guidelines). 

The FIC, with the coordination of the CPAR Coordinator, should be able to assign faculty advisers for each of the capstone groups.  The formed group shall remain intact for the duration of the Capstone Program.

Activities for IT131D

• Find a Company Client and perform due diligence on the health of the company. Consult with the FIC for guidance.

• Study the business processes and identify process pain points (via interview, on-site observations, etc.)

• Determine the root cause of the problem(s) and perform Review of Related Literature and Systems to find the appropriate IT solution.

• Identify and design the IT solution to the problem(s).

• Craft the projected roadmap of the Capstone Project.

It is strongly recommended to have a final presentation or defense to properly vet the proposal. This is decided by the FIC of IT131D. Students are highly encouraged to go through the feedback of the faculty members and experts to re-align the proposal according to proper standards.

The course gives an overview of software engineering processes from start to end. Students are expected to produce the documentation of system to be built based on the requirements of the project client.  

The students will be asked to look for software development projects for the course. The process will start from requirements elicitation up to deployment of the application. Object-oriented designs and UML diagrams are used in the documentation. Strict formatting of the document is required on this course.  Groupings are balanced based on the size and complexity of the projects. 

Course Credit: 3 units

Course Prerequisites: IT131D

Capstone Progress

The CPAR Coordinator will meet with the students to determine the faculty advisers for each group should none be assigned. Each student group should have a well-prepared Capstone manuscript from the Proposal prepared and a good foundation on what the client problems are and what the solution is.  Each group is expected to continue and update the manuscript with progress of the project. As this course is a software engineering centric study, capstone groups are expected to apply the software development strategies and techniques (e.g. agile development, waterfall, white box testing, black box testing, etc.) as taught in the course. The major milestones are determined by the CPAR Coordinator/Faculty Adviser. 

By the end of the course, there are several major expectations from the group:

• Preliminary results and evaluation from the client.

• 70% progress of the Capstone software solution (to be determined by the CPAR Coordinator/Faculty Adviser).

• Updated Manuscript covering Chapters 4 and relevant Appendices.

Activities on Capstone

• Capstone groups are tasked with organizing the body of work into a Task Board of tickets.

• Each system function or task is represented as a ticket.

• Development of the system is carried out in a Source Code Management (SCM) software such as git, CVS, or Subversion.

• Give access (or permissions) to the task board and to the SCM to the Faculty Adviser.

• Define and execute the method of software development.

• Define and use the evaluation metrics as explained in the Methodology of the group's respective capstones. (Refer to ISO 25010 and CES).

• Removal of unresolved or uncompleted tickets are strongly prohibited without consultation of the Faculty Adviser.  

The course marks the completion of the implementation and benchmark phase of the student's Capstone Program. A successful defense and all required revisions are required to complete the course and therefore the entire Capstone Program. Capstone groups are strongly advised to proceed in IT141DL only if they can complete the Capstone within the semester.

Course Credit: 3 units

Course Prerequisites: IT132DL

Before Defense

The group should complete the system and ready the manuscript. The adviser serves as the gate towards Final Defense. It is of prime importance that the system addresses the issues that were identified from Introduction to IT Research. Work closely with the Faculty Adviser and make sure all the functional requirements and the objectives of the capstone are satisfactorily accomplished. The manuscript and your system are the bases of panelist's measure of success of the research work, so make sure that all is in order.

Capstone Defense

• Students are required to deliver the completed system and manuscript a week before the projected defense schedule. They shall await the CPAR Coordinator for communication of when the actual defense is. The content of the presentation are as follows:

• Introduction of the Company

• Discussion of the Business Process and the Problem Statement

• Research Objectives and Success Criteria

• System Demonstration

• Results and Conclusion

• Each member of the group is required to be present for the defense. If a member of the group is missing, the panel will automatically pass the verdict Redefense unless there are extraordinary circumstances raised by the adviser.

• Prepare at least two (2) computers for defense, one for the group to use for demonstration while the other for panelists to use in evaluating the system.

• Each member of the group is required to be in formal attire.

• The presentation must be delivered in English.

• The group may not present any gifts to the panelists during the defense. 

• Students are expected to conduct themselves in accordance with the guidelines specified by the Student Handbook.

• The students are expected to handle all technical aspects and requirements of their software demonstration and presentation which includes but is not limited to reservation of University resources, projectors, electronic devices, cables, connectors and the like.

• The group may request that questions by the panel be reserved until the end of the presentation.

• The group must ensure that there is at least 1 hour devoted for Q&A.  The panel may stop the presentation at any point in time should the group consume too much time or the project is already deemed insufficient.

• During Q&A, the group may convene before answering the panel’s queries.

• Students will be asked to leave the venue when the panelists deliberate on the verdict.

• Students are not allowed to appeal or argue with the panelists after the verdict has been delivered.

Online Defense (Remote Learning Setup)

Capstone defense will be delivered in two phases.  In the first phase, student capstone group is required to construct a video presentation recording of their system and a brief background of their capstone. The content of the video should cover:

• Introduction of the Company

• Discussion of the Business Process and the Problem Statement

• Research Objectives and Success Criteria

• System Demonstration

• Results and Conclusion

The capstone group will also include a soft copy of their manuscript for the panelist’s reference. This video presentation will be hosted on YouTube and will be 30 minutes long.  The YouTube video will be unlisted so the only way to access the video is through the link provided.

These links will be circulated to panelists.  There will be two kinds of feedback from the panelists from this video.

1. Comments that will be posted on the video including a video timestamp when appropriate. This can be clarification or simply comments.  When posting comments on the video, write the timestamp and then your question (e.g. 10:15 - "What is the reason behind X?”)  Panelists are  asked to post at least 5 comments in total. Panelists are strongly recommended to post their comments and questions on the video.

2. Probing questions that will be relayed to capstone group in Phase 2. The CPAR Coordinator will arrange a scheduled live session on Google Meet as Phase 2. This will be an hour and a half Q&A where the group will address comments from the video and also perform live demonstrations of the system as necessary. The session will be recorded.

This will also be the venue where the panel gives additional probing questions and will be requesting responses from the group.  This could be further clarification, additional demonstration, and other inquiries regarding the capstone or your design decisions.

Once this phase is done, the panelist will be deliberating the verdict. The verdict and the revisions will then be given to the students. The students are tasked with completing their revisions.

Result of the Defense

The decision of the Panel is final and unappealable.

The verdict of the defense can be:

• Accepted without Revisions - The manuscript and system require no updates.

• Accepted with (Minor/Major) Revisions - The manuscript and system are acceptable but there are revisions to the system’s design, implementation or the manuscript itself.

• Redefense - Criteria for the verdict are as follows:

  • The system and the manuscript are completely or significantly different from each other

  • The system is deemed poor or does not adhere to IT Industry standards

  • The system does not solve the problem stated in the manuscript

  • There is no system produced.

In the event of revisions, suggestions and changes to the system made by the panel will be deemed required for integration by the students unless unforeseen or remarkable circumstances make such modifications irrelevant as determined by the members of the panel. Students are expected to find the panelist and gain approval for the software revisions made. The protocol for the approval of revisions is left to the discretion of the panelists.

If the verdict is accept with (or without) (major or minor) revisions, the group will have passed Capstone provided that all revisions (if there are any) are completed.

The verdict otherwise will be redefense. Make special note of the panel's revision list and have the adviser check and make sure the group is ready for defense. The cycle repeats until the group passes Capstone or the group runs out of time.

Collaborate with the adviser to complete the revisions.

With an accepted verdict, once the revised manuscript and system has been accepted by all members of the panel, the manuscript will be book bound and submitted to the CPAR Coordinator according to the protocol stated below:

• 3 book bound copies of the manuscript will be submitted (1 to the SSE Library and the other to the University’s Library and the National Library)

• Each book bound copy of the manuscript must contain a fully accomplished approval page with the signatures of the panelists and the faculty adviser (refer to the Manuscript Writing Guidelines).

• Letter of acceptance from the Company Client attached in the Appendix section signifying that the student’s work was approved and accepted by the Client.

• Cover of the manuscript will adhere to the color: Blue

• 3 MicroSD cards containing:

  • Soft copy of the manuscript

  • Installation Guide

  • Source Code

  • System Installer

  • Soft Copy of the letter of acceptance of the Company Client

• Google Drive link version of the MicroSD to the CPAR Coordinator

• Each MicroSD should have protective holder or case and should be attached on the inside of the back cover of the manuscript.

• Library Submission of Capstone and fully accomplished library forms (e.g. copyright transfer forms, inquire with the UA&P Library).

• Capstone Deliverables (Manuscript and MicroSD)

• Adviser or Panelists may also request their own personal copy of the manuscript from the students.

• Students are expected to submit the copy of the Final Capstone to the University’s Library.

Grading

Grading of the Capstone is assessed by the panelists during deliberation. The grade will only be issued if and only if the group received an Accepted verdict. The major grading rubrics are:

• Research Problem Definition - Assesses whether the BSIT students show clear understanding of the relevant concepts with respect to the topic.  In addition, the group has a solid grasp of their client's business issues are and are able to drill down to the root causes of the problems. 

• Capstone Project Execution - Assesses whether the designed solution addresses the client issues that were identified.  The system implemented should encompass all relevant features and functions of the selected system.  Lastly, the system embodies favorable attributes of a good software: (functional completeness and appropriateness, usability, reliability, performance, and security)

Faculty Adviser Evaluation

At the end of the Capstone Program, students are requested to evaluate the Faculty Adviser on his or her strengths and provide areas of improvement. Consult with the CPAR Coordinator for further details.

The Incomplete (INC) status is given to the students who fail to complete necessary Capstone-related requirements in the relevant courses. Policy for INC and completion follows the University Student Handbook. The capstone group is strongly advised to seek the counsel of the FIC of the course (IT131D, IT132DL, IT141DL) on how to complete the course.

Capstone groups compositions are maintained as much as possible. However, if there are students within the group who are not eligible to enroll due to INC, they will be removed from the group.

Once the capstone group has gathered sufficient data and results under the discretion of their adviser, students are strongly encouraged to seek publication opportunities from local or international research conferences, local or international journals. An IST colloquium may be arranged as a venue for groups to present their works. Capstone groups are encouraged to seek the assistance of their respective Faculty Advisers and the CPAR Coordinator.

The publication requirement are deemed completed when the group is able to complete the ff:

• A public presentation in a local or international conference with publication in the conference proceedings.

• A journal publication in a local or international journal.

• A public presentation in the IST colloquium with publication in the proceedings (and/or poster presentation as deemed necessary by the CPAR Coordinator). Previous colloquiums can be seen at the IST Student Lab on Digitalization and Technology Innovations.

In writing the paper, the Faculty Adviser serves as the last co-author of the paper. As such, the assigned Faculty Adviser is expected to guide the capstone group in completing the paper. All conference and journal publication fees are expected to be handled by the students themselves. Consult with your Faculty Adviser for any issues related to this.

The University Library has specific documents that need to be signed off by the student.  An archive of the library forms are provided here only for reference as these may be outdated. Students are strongly advised to consult the library for updated procedures.  Please look at the library website as well: https://library.uap.asia/featured/research-support?id=42