Istanbul Bilgi University Faculty of Engineering Senior Design Project Policy
Description The Senior Design Project is intended to be a capstone experience that draws on the previous three years of course work in the engineering curriculum. The Senior Design Project should be sufficient in scope and technical content to expose the technical competence of the students developed during their education at the Faculty of Engineering of Istanbul Bilgi University. Projects should also provide an opportunity to organize, manage and bring to completion a product development in its entirety, to consider ethical and intellectual property issues as well as to improve communication, teamwork and presentation skills. The topics of the projects can be selected in any field of engineering that is considered to be relevant by the faculty members. It is expected that a project be carried out by a team of typically 3 senior students under the supervision of a faculty member (or faculty members) and an academic coordinator. The project shall run over two semesters and shall be separately graded at the end of each semester. Agreement Announcements regarding the Senior Design Project topics are made at the beginning of the first semester. Students are responsible for finding a project advisor within the first two weeks of that semester. If the students wish to propose topics for the Senior Design Projects they are encouraged to do so by talking to the faculty members. When agreement is reached for a project, it is highly recommended that it be documented at this early stage with a brief statement within a document that captures the stakeholders’ mutual understanding of the project to be undertaken. The project may be chosen from a wide range of topics that extends from the application of specific methods and techniques to a real life problem up to the study and development of original solutions for a theoretical problem. Contract At the beginning of the first semester, each team fills in and submits to the academic coordinator a Senior Design Project Contract by which all team members certify their understanding of the project to be conducted and their acceptance of the responsibilities incumbent upon them during the execution of the project. The Role of the Advisor The role of the advisor is to advise, guide and direct the students in a properly and timely manner. Students should consult at least weekly with their advisor, well in advance of deadlines, to get advice and feedback about the content and quality of deliverables. The Role of the Coordinator Each Department of the Faculty of Engineering nominates a coordinator and a coordinator assistant. The role of the coordinator is to facilitate the flawless organization and execution of all the projects within his/her department by organizing an initial information meeting for the students and providing throughout the two semesters advice and guidance to the students as well as to the project advisors regarding workflows and deadlines. The coordinator also ensures that synergies between the different projects are managed efficiently.
Project Milestones A Senior Design Project will typically consist of several stages as described below. At the end of each stage, the students shall document their work and hand out the deliverables to their advisor on time for review and feedback. Meetings with the Advisor and Weekly Progress Reports Each team shall meet with their advisor(s) regularly and submit weekly progress reports. These weekly reports shall be written by using the Senior Design Project Weekly Report template and shall provide a status of the project as well as outline the work that the team is planning to do in the following week(s). Background Research This process constitutes the preparatory phase of the project. Here the students prepare an inital formulation of their project in the form of a document that contains the description of the problem, the scenarios in which the problem may occur, and the solution that they envisage for their problem at this early stage. The students are expected to complete a background research in connection with the project, including a survey of the literature and related work conducted in academia and in the industry. It is recommended that the students meet frequently with their advisor(s) for guidance. At the end of this stage, the following objectives must be reached: • The stakeholders (student(s), advisor(s), customers or user if any) agree on the purpose and scope of the project; • A vision of the project solution or output is clearly stated; • A summary of the related studies is provided; • The stakeholders agree on the criteria defining the success of the project. All above objectives must be fully documented. Requirements Specification During this process, the students come up with a plan to solve the problem, provide a high level description of their solution and explain how the solution will enable them to reach the objectives of their project. At the end of this phase, the following issues must be clearly formulated: • Functional and nonfunctional requirements; • Required outcomes and expectations; • Project constraints and limitations; • Proposed methodology. System Design
System design is a process of problem-‐solving and planning leading to a solution for the project. By the end of the system design phase, a detailed low-‐level design of a feasible solution to the problem must be completed. This solution may include: • A rationale for the proposed solution; • A model development; • A contingency plan to eliminate all identified risks. Verification and Validation At the verification and validation (or testing) phase, students are expected to prepare a plan that provides stakeholders with information about the quality of the project’s output or service under test considering the context within which the project it is intended to operate. A primary objective for testing is to detect project failures so that defects may be uncovered and corrective action taken. Implementation At the implementation phase, the students begin to implement the project, showing end-‐to-‐end functionality. At the end of this phase, the following objectives must be reached: • The implementation explicitly shows that the developed model is operational and functional; • All the proposed features or objectives are implemented; • The implementation is robust.
An independent third party must be able to install, verify/test, and use the output of the project. Delivery During this phase, the project team completes and finalizes the documents to be delivered, and participates in the Senior Design Project oral and poster presentations. At the end of this phase, the following objectives must be reached: • A group of a similar team of competent engineers is able to re-‐implement the developed solution using only the provided documentation as guidance; • The criteria of success identified at the project proposal are satisfied. Project Report Format The project report should be written by using the Senior Design Project Final Report template. Poster Presentation Format The project poster presentation shall comply with the guidelines stated in the Senior Design Project Poster Preparation Guidelines document. Submission of the Reports Every team shall submit one wire-‐bound copy of the report, an up to five-‐page summary of the report, and a CD including all materials of their project (report, appendices, presentation, any file containing data tables, models or outputs) to each advisor. One wire-‐bound copy of the report and
the report summary shall also be submitted to each jury member (3 or 5 members) who will evaluate the projects. In addition, all the material submitted should be uploaded to Moodle (Bilgi Online). Oral Presentation Each team must prepare a presentation at the end of each semester, which includes slides, handouts and any other material considered to be relevant for a particular project. There shall be a 15-‐20 minute oral presentation in front of the Examination Committee (Advisor, Coordinator, Jury). The presentation at the end of the 1st semester should include a summary of the literature survey and a description of the motivation for the project; it should as well include the technical details of the work performed, with possibly some of the initial results obtained, and should give an outline of the work to be done during the 2nd semester. The presentation at the end of the 2nd semester should describe the project in its entirety, and in particular discuss how and why each of the critical decisions was made. The presentation should also describe the results achieved, their significance, together with the important functionalities of the project. Attendance to both oral presentations is compulsory. Non-‐attendance to oral presentations will be graded as N (No show). Poster Presentation Each team shall prepare a poster that summarizes the work of both semesters and hand it in together with the final documents. The posters will be evaluated by the instructors and participants, and the best posters will be awarded.
Project Development Schedule The weekly schedule of the Senior Design Projects is given below. 1st semester Weeks 1-‐2: Weeks 3-‐12: Week 13: Week 14:
Project selection and team formation Submission of weekly progress reports Submission of final report, documents, and material Oral presentations
Submission of weekly progress reports Submission of final report, documents, material, and poster Oral presentations Poster exhibitions
2nd semester Weeks 1-‐12: Week 13: Week 14:
Grading Policy At the end of each semester the project shall be given a letter grade in compliance with the following grading policy: 1st semester Desciption 15% Advisor evaluation 20% Weekly progress reports 30% Final document 35% Oral presentation 2nd semester Desciption 15% Advisor evaluation 15% Weekly progress reports 25% Final document 35% Oral presentation 10% Poster
Graded by
Advisor Advisor Examination Committee Examination Committee
Graded by
Advisor Advisor Examination Committee Examination Committee Examination Committee
It is expected that both courses (with course ID numbers 491 and 492) will be offered during both Fall and Spring semesters.
