Roger C. Ferguson

The use of community-based non-profit organizations in information systems capstone projects

Complaints often expressed about undergraduate computer science or information systems programs,,, is that students graduate with adequate technical skills but often lack an understanding of organizational processes, team project experience, and the ability to integrate information technology in an organizational setting. To address this, educators have historically created service-learning group projects, which leverage local organizations. These types of projects can be very rewarding for students and offer excellent educational opportunities for the students within the group. Educators who have taught service-learning group projects know there are significant problems with using this type of project. These problems include: motivation of students to do their best work, fair individual and overall group assessment, appropriate workload for a semester, and minimizing disruptive outside influences. In addition, the creation of new projects on a continuous semester basis would be very useful for the instructor of a project course. To solve these issues and problems, the following capstone course design was used with success at Grand Valley State University (GVSU). A socially-relevant, community-based assignment with local non-profit organizations provided the basis for the capstone information systems project course described in this paper. This project course produced working applications for actual clients that gave students a unique capstone experience.

Service-learning projects: opportunities and challenges

Service learning is an educational paradigm in which students take part in community service [4]. In service-learning projects, students apply the knowledge and skills they have gained in the classroom to the real-world problems of community-based, nonprofit organizations. The panel members will discuss their experiences with service-learning projects. They will share some of the challenges, seek audience comments for ongoing research studies, and highlight the opportunities service learning provides students.

An update on the use of community-based non-profit organizations in capstone projects

This poster updates a paper [3] presented at ITiCSE 2006 and re-examines a ten-year effort of our institutions use of community-based non-profit organizations (NPOs) in the information systems capstone course. Computer science or information systems majors often have adequate technical skills but lack an understanding of organizational processes, team project experience, and the ability to integrate information technology into an organizational setting. To bridge this gap, we use service-learning group projects that leverage local organizations. We document this effort to provide recommendations for successfully implementing similar courses.