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CS Capstone Handbook

Glossary

One word per thing, everywhere on this site. Each entry names the page that owns the rule. A “Not:” list is what the prose check rejects in the handbook, the Canvas files, and the staff runbook.

People

Section titled “People”
  • Project partner: the person or organization the team builds for and who completes the partner evaluations; for a student-proposed project, the assigned mentor or the instructor acting as mentor (Projects and Teams). Not: client, sponsor.
  • Mentor: a professional or faculty member who advises a team; Project Types says which outcome types require one.
  • TA: a Teaching Assistant, written “Teaching Assistant (TA)” at first use on a page and TA after; each TA owns a set of teams and runs their TA check-ins.
  • Instructor: the faculty running the course; the instructors place students on teams (Projects and Teams) and run the resume meetings.
  • The class: every student in the course this year (For Students). Not: cohort.

Rhythm

Section titled “Rhythm”
  • Term and week: how this site tells time, “fall, week 5” (Schedule).
  • Sprint: the fixed development cycle, each ending in a sprint note and a demo. Not: sprint report, progress report.
  • Stand-up: the team’s short recurring sync (Regular Stand-Up Meetings). Not: standup.
  • TA check-in: the standing meeting between a team and its TA in every sprint-note week, where the team demos (Assignments Overview). Not: cohort check-in.
  • Demo day: the all-hands demo session, not assessed; the schedule has the weeks and Sprint Notes the format.
  • Resume meeting: the small-group meeting with an instructor in fall and again in spring (Resume and Intent, Career and Individual Retrospective). Not: cohort meeting.
  • Defense: the once-a-term live session where each student explains work they own (Defense).
  • Expo: the spring showcase where teams present to the public (Expo).

Work and its evidence

Section titled “Work and its evidence”
  • Living docs: the documents the repository must contain, kept current and graded in place (Repo Checkpoints lists them).
  • Repo checkpoint and term gate: the staff review of the repository as it is, each carrying one gate (Repo Checkpoints).
  • Walking skeleton and “hello, production”: the thinnest end-to-end slice of the system, deployed for the fall production gate (Repo Checkpoints).
  • Definition of Shipped and target rung: the winter agreement with the project partner about what “shipped” means for this project, naming the rung of the outcome ladder the team commits to (Definition of Shipped).
  • Outcome ladder: the one spring scale for Verification and Validation, who ran the software (Project Partner Evaluation). Not: V&V ladder, category ladder.
  • Individual contribution modifier: the per-student adjustment on sprint note points when the evidence shows no meaningful contribution (Assignments Overview).
  • Midterm Pulse and Final Evaluation: the two partner surveys each term (Project Partner Evaluation).
  • Peer evaluation: the per-term survey students complete about teammates; CATME is the additional instrument at the end of spring (Peer Evaluations).
  • Inherited-codebase audit: the write-up a team produces when it starts in an existing codebase, checked at the fall week 5 gate (Project Types).

Projects

Section titled “Projects”
  • Project type: any trait on the Project Types page; a project has several at once. Not: project category.
  • Outcome type: FOSS, Research, Consultancy, or New Product or Game, used only to read the outcome ladder and pick the shipping playbook (Project Types). Not: project categories.
  • Existing codebase: a predecessor team’s repository, a partner’s codebase, or an upstream FOSS project; one situation with three origins (Project Types). Not: legacy project.
  • Student-proposed project: a project a student submitted through the portal, with a mentor or partner attached (Projects and Teams). Not: student-driven.
  • Multi-team project: one project with several teams, split negotiated with the project partner in week 1 (Project Types).
  • NDA project: a project whose agreement restricts what staff or the public may see; each affected assignment page carries a short note (IP, NDA, and Licensing). Not: Track A, Track B.

Activities

Section titled “Activities”