Abstract
Senior projects have been an important element of education of engineering students - giving them an opportunity to solve real case study problems, thus to enhance their performance as well as to build links with the industrial world. Capstone design represents an important learning activity since the course entirely reflects all the program outcomes for the US Accreditation Board for Engineering Education (ABET). For these reasons, the trend toward increasing research and inspection about engineering capstone design is compelling. In this regard, we report here results of our work on an indepth study of capstone design using three dimensional (3D) investigation. Initially, we present the fundamental improvements in the senior design program, seeking to overcome deficiencies, and to address expectations of students, faculty, university and ABET, using Root Cause Failure Analysis (RCFA) methodology. Secondly, we assessed performance and established a framework for characterizing the full scope of capstone, in order to develop and evaluate the complex standards of Senior Design (SD) using various rubrics for manual and web based surveys for faculty members on a worldwide scale and the ABET and ABET-like systems. Our Capstone students survey was conducted through Learning Management system D2L. Thirdly, we studied the impact of a chunk mechanism in a real case of capstone design on student skills and capacity. In the light of the 3D investigation results and the prevailing circumstances, as well as the historical context deduced from a literature survey, a capstone design process flow with assessment rules and procedure is proposed.