Title:
Online Capstone Projects Leveraging Technology for Low Budget Community Establishments

Authors:
Bhaskar Sinha, John Fischer III, Pradip Peter Dey, Mohammad Amin, USA

Abstract:

Two leading paradigm shifts are taking place in teaching-learning today that are expected to have major and long-lasting impacts. The first one is the current environment and restrictions due to COVID-19 has driven academia to evaluate alternatives to traditional education. The leading option being deliberated and studied is a robust and effective online platform with virtual classrooms using modern and powerful Learning Management Systems. The second paradigm shift is due to the rapid advances in technology and related services that are redefining the way business operates. This is instrumental in the effort to understand how these technical developments are reprioritizing functions that are affecting the company financial bottom line. These changes, in turn, are requiring academia to adjust and update their curriculums to meet the new market needs. In academic institutions, a capstone project is a powerful concluding exercise as the last course(s) of the program that effectively strengthens the student proficiencies to apply the knowledge they have learnt in the program to a real-world situation. Every academic program arranges and builds the requirements of its capstone project with its own program specific targets. This research evaluates online capstone projects in the programs and focusses on ways to benefit the community low-budget organizations with these projects using modern state-of-the-art technologies and available online resources. These projects are undertaken with minimal or no budget and with an aggressive schedule – exactly what these establishments need. This study begins with an examination of the traditional practices followed for a capstone project and establishes ways it strengthens the goals of the curriculum identified by the learning outcomes of a program. The analysis further recommends measures and methods to arrange the customer project to try and guarantee meaningful and market relevant learning experience for the leaners. This is expected to be beneficial in their professional careers later. Current conventional practices are assessed and those that yield the target results in a time-restricted format are noted. The results suggest that approaching and creating projects using these best-practices guidelines is a practical way of helping students gain significant hands-on experience with emerging technologies and, at the same time, implementing a valuable project for the benefit of the low-budget establishments in the community.  

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.51505/IJAEMR.2022.7205