Nature and Scope of the Senior Project

The Senior Project in RIT's undergraduate Software Engineering curriculum provides a capstone design experience for every graduate of the program. The project's educational value is greatest if the project is for a real customer who needs a software system developed. The Department of Software Engineering actively solicits external industrial and non-profit partners, as well as partners internal to RIT, to sponsor senior projects.

Each team of 4-6 seniors will work for two quarters (about 20 weeks) on the project, where each team member is expected to devote, on average, 10 - 15 hours/week on the project. Project scope should be determined with this level of effort in mind. It is unlikely that the students will have detailed knowledge of the sponsor's domain, and thus they will develop the necessary domain knowledge during the course of the project. The sponsor must provide access to resources necessary for the team to acquire any such knowledge, and time for this must be factored into the project's scope. Overall, we want projects done cooperatively, where both the student team and the sponsor derive benefit.

Each team is ultimately responsible for the completion of its project. The faculty member associated with the project acts primarily as guide, mentor, and coach. In particular, the faculty member will not actively manage the project, nor will he or she assume any technical role other than general consultant.

Sponsor Responsibilities

The sponsor's responsibilities start with the creation of a two to three page proposal that describes the project. During the project, the sponsor is expected to commit the resources, including personnel, documents, standards, etc., needed to ensure the project's success. Specifically, the sponsor will:

1. Prepare an initial project description summary.
2. For hardware and software not currently available at the RIT facilities, provide the equipment, software licenses or remote access so that the team can perform all project work from the RIT facilities. Hardware and software can be a permanent donation to the Department of Software Engineering or loaned only for the project duration.
3. Ensure the accessibility of personnel throughout the project to help the team understand both the domain and the problem being addressed - such accessibility is particularly critical during the initial requirements phase and will require that the sponsor's personnel participate in meetings at RIT, or remotely with the student team.
4. Participate in team, product, and process presentation reviews.
5. Provide information the faculty can use to assess the success of the project.
6. Assess the completed project, document their assessment, and submit it to the Department of Software Engineering.

How do I Get Started With Sponsoring a Project?

The Department begins soliciting projects in the summer time and requests that proposals be submitted by the end of August. The first step is to complete a Senior Project Proposal to provide a description of your project. This is a short 2 to 3 page document that briefly outlines the nature and scope of the project. In collaboration with the project sponsor, the department faculty will edit the proposal for appropriateness, clarity, and scope. Proposals that pass this review are publicized to the seniors in mid-October to facilitate selection of projects and formation of teams before the end of the Fall term (mid-November).

Each student registered for Senior Project ranks up to three projects, and indicates one student he or she would like on their team.  The faculty form the teams and assign the projects.  We have typically received more proposals than we have senior teams so some projects will not be assigned to a team.  The senior team, project sponsor, and faculty coach start the project at a kick-off meeting during the first week of the Winter term in early December.

Work by the senior team then commences and continues in earnest for the next 20+ weeks. The project is brought to a close in the middle of May, just prior to graduation for most of the students. Following the final presentation, both the project sponsor and the student team will hopefully conclude that it was a mutually beneficial experience. This has been the feedback we have gotten to date. You can see the results by looking at information about previous projects.

If you are interested in sponsoring an RIT Software Engineering Senior Project, please do not hesitate to contact the department chair or any software engineering faculty member. Contact information can be found by following the contact or faculty links in the navigation bar on top.

Senior Project Forms

• Senior Project Proposal