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CS Capstone Handbook

For Project Partners

As an industry professional, entrepreneur, and/or faculty or staff member, we thank you for helping our students acquire valuable skills to help them for their next career move.

We also hope that our students will delight you with their work and meet agreed-upon expectations.

Submitting a Project

We are always looking for challenging, fun, and interesting projects for our students. There are several possible projects categories for student to pick from. Each category come with their own evaluation criteria.

If you haven’t submitted a project already, head over here.

Having your project approved and picked by our students won’t cost you anything but some time every week. We recommend that you submit project ideas that are not critical to the success of your organization in the short-term.

Submitting Multiple Projects

If you are representing a company, you’ll be encouraged to join our INSPiRE Industry Affiliates program. In addition to multiple Capstone teams, you can access a number of other perks.

Individual side projects or smaller entities will not be approached for donation.

If you are working for OSU, you can submit multiple projects.

What We Expect From You

As a project partner or mentor, we ask:

  • availability from the beginning of Fall term until the end of Spring term;
  • at least 1 hour of your time each week to meet with students and answer their questions;
  • technical guidance from you or someone in your organization;
  • to set, together with the students, clear expectations about the work to be completed and how you will evaluate it (see rubrics for ideas),
  • to review students’ work and test their prototypes/software when they request it;
  • to validate their work each term based on different facets and their rubrics; check the Academic Calendar for the term dates.

The rubrics are here to help us grade students’ work each term but we understand that they might not fit your specific project. We’re leaving their interpretation to your discretion each term. Align your expectations with the students.

You are welcome to attend the public Engineering Expo in June (website will be updated closer to the event date).

What You Can Expect From Us

As the instruction team, we will:

  • assign students to your project(s) based on a bidding survey in week 0 of Fall term;
  • share your email address with the students so that they contact you by week 2 of Fall term at the latest;
  • help students organize and manage their project by providing relevant assignments throughout the academic year;
  • send over surveys for you to grade your team(s) based on set rubrics;
  • be available if you have questions or concerns about the students or coursework.

Learn more about the Capstone Series.

You can always email us at cs-46x-help@oregonstate.edu.

What You Can Expect From Students

Fall and Winter terms are 3-credit courses, and Spring is 2 credits.

Each credit equals 30 hours of student effort, including in-class and out-of-class work to achieve course outcomes. This means students are expected to spend an average of 9 hours per week on the project in Fall and Winter, though excelling may require additional time.

These 9 hours cover class time (max. 1 hour), meetings, assignments, and project work.

Major Assignments

Assignments in this course reflect common practices in software engineering roles. They aim to help students work in teams, communicate effectively, and deliver a product that meets the project partner’s needs, while also ensuring compliance with school accreditation requirements.

We provide guidance and recommended activities for these assignments, but encourage collaboration with students to tailor deliverables to your project and expectations. Your end-of-term assessment will evaluate the quality of their work, teamwork, and communication with you.

Here are the major assignments:

  • Team Charter/Working Agreement: Due early Fall term, with revisions as needed.
  • Requirements Document: Due early Fall term, with revisions as needed.
  • Design Document: Due mid-Fall term, with revisions as needed.
  • Team Retrospectives: Due at the end of each term.
  • Code Releases: Due at the end of each term.
  • Project Presentations: Due once per term.
  • Project Retrospective: Due at the end of Spring term.

More details are available on this page.

Intellectual Property and Non-Disclosure Agreements

By default, students hold the Intellectual Property (IP) of the work performed during Capstone. Not the university, nor the project partners.

Similarly, by default, students will be graded on their work by both the Capstone instruction team and their project partner(s). In the case of a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA), the instruction team will be limited in their grading capacity, and might require a little more involvement from the project partner. The instruction team cannot sign an NDA.

When submitting a project, you can mention that your project requires either an Intellectual Property Agreement (IPA), a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA), or both.

Students generally like open-source projects because they can showcase those in their portfolio. If you’re interested in making your project open-source, here’s some guides to help you choose an open source license